In the morning, after breakfast, the three were ready for their respective works. Belle would do the laundry, while the two boys would feed their 15 cows and a few more goats, and then, till the land till sunset. This had been their usual routine ever since.
Before Belle could depart to the well in the front yard, Cimmy called her from the doorway.
"About the detail of my suggestion, here is the paper." He handed a sheet of old paper to her.
"Oh, let me see." Belle read it, and then she smiled.
"What's wrong, Big Sis?" He was confused
"I really commend you for being able to write at this level of sentence construction. But, your suggestions are really not feasible. Sorry."
"But—."
"It's fine. You don't have to worry. You're still a kid after all. Well, see you." Belle returned the paper and walked away.
"Brother, do you have another plan?" Vaissien asked.
"No. However, this is just fine." He folded and put it on his pocket. "Vaissien, let's do our best today on the fields, okay?"
"Yeah!"
The two headed out to do their respective jobs. Cimmerian fed the animals, while Vaissien did the cleaning of the waste heap. They had divided the chores properly to avoid both slacking and overworking. Just as they were about to eat their lunch, after a half-day toil, five big carriages can be seen passing through the central road of the village. This road had been meant for passing merchants; this was connected to the main road leading to the next village. In short, these merchants were just passersby.
The main road toward the next Kanto Village is about four and a half kilometers traversing a very thick forest. For that, it could be said that the next village was still far away.
"Oh, it's the group of mmerchant."
"Yeah, brother. Though they're not here for us, but just passing to reach the next village." Vaissien's eyebrows wrinkled a bit.
"You're right about that."
After a few minutes of slow procession, the carriages halted. And then the villagers, who became curious why they ceased their advance, started to flock on them. At the center of the crowd were two muscular men of midst 20s. They were breathing heavily. The other one was wounded by seemed to be a sharp blade. A sign that they were running from something. The one speaking to them was the Chief of this Lambo Village named Bacchus Feldor—an old man of gray hair.
"What's the matter, Mado!!? Alfredo!!? What's happened to you!!?" He anxiously asked.
"Ch-Ch-Chief, it's trouble. We have a problem." Alfredo panicked while pushing a lump of cloth into his bleeding arm to block the blood from flowing out.
"Calm down. What do you mean? You were buying something in the Kanto Village, right? Why are you wounded and beaten up?"
Mado and Alfredo had been known to have just departed to the Kanto Village next to this one. Everyone was wondering why they went home early without bringing any of their supposed items.
"Y-Yes. There's a problem. While we were traversing the forest, a group of bandits attacked us."
"What!!?" Feldor yelped a bit. "Bandits!?? Then, what happened??"
Feldor asked as he properly cladded Alfredo's wounds with a clean cloth to stop the bleeding.
"The bandits have about more than 30 members. They waited for us, then plundered everything we bought including the carriage."
The two were just normal villagers. They weren't talented in physical combat and self-defense. Ultimately, they couldn't go against them with mere brute force. In this world, martial and sword arts existed. It was common that bandits were skilled on them.
"What!!? Seriously? I thought there were no bandits in this region of the kingdom. Tsk." Feldor was angry.
"Yeah. Damn it, we thought so." Alfredo regretfully said while gritting his teeth. "We were so complacent either."
"Yeah—we were thinking of fighting back, but there were just too many of them. We got beaten up badly. So we fled." Mado added while touching his beaten face.
They were talking earnestly in the middle of the road. When the people inside the five carriage heard of this, they joined the circle. The first to come was an old man wearing a dark blue and black doublet queried in a worried countenance. Despite his old age, his vigor of youth was still slightly apparent on him.
"Sir Feldor," he called Feldor in a a bit slurred manner of uttering words, "did I hear it right? There are bandits lurking in the forest?"
"Grandpa, what's happened!!?" A beautiful red-haired teenage girl wearing a pink dress went down as well and ran after the old man. Her shiny long hair, which overlapped below her waist, flapped rear and sideways as she trotted in listening what the commotion was all about.
The village boys who saw her were blushing. Instead of looking at the wounded Mado and Alfredo, they were swayed by her charms that they no longer cared about the impending crisis. Boys in the village had been like this. As the families had always been patriarchal in nature, they weren't allowed to be tied in a relationship if they lacked the financial power to run a family at least in a hand-to-mouth existence. Because of this, some unlucky men, who couldn't get hold of even small-paying jobs or other similar source of income, remained ignorance of romance and of the sort. They could only use their eyes to satisfy their curiosity and longing and nothing beyond.
"Lady Celestine, please return to the carriage. I'll take care of this. You shouldn't just casually stroll around in a place this." The old man said in a swift and high-pitched tone.
"What are you saying? I'm fine, don't be such a worrywart." She just smiled and answer him in a very soft and respectful tone.
Even when she already joined the crowd, the eyes of both malicious and benevolent village boys remained on her.
"Oh, Sir Nicholas, a pleasant day. It seems that two of the villagers who returned from the Kanto Village are attacked by bandits in the forest."
"I-Is that so, Sir Feldor!?" The old man became more worried.
"Tch. Oi. Oi. Oi." A deep and grave voice reverberated on everyone's ears, "is this some kinda joke? Huh? Why do you think you hired us, adventurers, huh? We'll beat those bandits into pulp." A tall black-haired man, about mid 30s based on looks, wearing a shabby armor, and behaving arrogantly, suddenly went down from the second carriage. He yelled at them.
Adventures from the guild were most commonly utilized people when dealing with safeguarding missions such as this. Hence, the man was a bit insulted by the fact that they had to be stopped due to some weak bandits. Mercenaries hadn't been regarded with due infamy In the Styllacus Kingdom. They were even declared illegal by the Royal Parliamentary Court about half a century ago.
"Calm down, Enrald. This might be a bigger problem than what we think it is. Since as far as I know, bandits don't commonly travel in this place." A handsome blonde teenager wearing a tunic attire warned the big guy. His air was that of a deliberate and intelligent young man.
"Huh??? Is that so, Martin? Tsk. Fine. After all, we are partners in this mission."
Enrald quitted his yapping as the young man joined the crowd. The two had been partners on missions. The man named Enrald represented the brute force while Martin served as the brain.
"I agree with Martin. But anyway, pardon me, it's Alfredo, right? So, when did you encounter them?" Old man Nicholas asked.
"Just about an hour ago. There were so many of them. When our carriage was blocked, they beat us while laughing, and when we tried our best to escape, they no longer bothered to tail us. We never bothered retrieving our bought items anymore."
"I-Is that so? That's deplorable!"
"What are you planning now, Grandpa? Aren't we gonna continue traversing the forest?" Celestine asked.
"We'll stop here. It's much too dangerous to encounter them head-on." Nicholas replied with his head hung in disappointment.
"Wait a minute, Sir! Enrald and I would have no problem fending off mere bandits. So, maybe it's fine if we continue." Martin energetically asked Nicholas.
"You're right. But it's still dangerous. We might be overwhelmingly outnumbered. And as a result, the damages may be high. I can't let that happen. Plus, Lady Celestine is with us, we can't expose her to dangers like this."
"But. Sir Nicholas, according to this guild request, the purpose of this was for the birthday banquet of the Marquis' side family member, right? That's 3 days from now. If the compendium of items are not bought today, it would be past the due schedule. So we must traverse the forest today." Martin insisted.
In addition, the purpose why Celestine came here was to look for a certain type of flower that only grew at the Eastern side of the kingdom specifically at the Kanto Village. She looked for opportunities to come here but her two overly protective older brothers always prohibited her from doing so. This was only her chance to complete her long wish to complete her collections.
"Yeah, you're right. However, let us first think everything back to square one. Whatever happens to Lady Celestine, Lord Adrien won't forgive me." Nicholas regretfully said.
"Uncle Nicholas, sorry for bringing you trouble!" Celestine wore a sad face.
"It's fine."
Old man Nicholas and company had temporarily ceased further advances to the forest. They were received at Chief Feldor's house ad interim.