"Finally... i... am here." Said Arcador while taking deep breaths.
"That was... exhausting."
Arcador arrived at the forest that was close to his hometown, the Mellow Forest. Mellow Forest had many tall and dark trees, if one didn't know that it was a peaceful forest, with no dangerous animals living in it, they would have thought that it was cursed.
After Arc rested for a couple of minutes, he then went and found a small cave, where he would stay for the time being.
" Now that i have found a place to store my items and sleep, i should go to a clearing and start practicing." Muttered Arc while taking his sword and leaving his cave.
About 10 minutes later, Arc arrived at an open area.
" Now that i am here i should start practicing my martial arts, but there is a problem, should i focus on my attack, speed, or defense." Muttered Arc and then started thinking for about two minutes.
Arc knew a lot of martial arts, most of them were at the Green level, but of course, he also knew a few at the Purple level.
"First, i should focus on my speed, most of my attacks need me to be very fast." Indeed, Arc is an Agility type warrior.
" Very well then, now that i have decided, let's start" After saying that, Arc took a small breath and started running weirdly like this was the first time he was running in his life. But as time passed, he started running faster and faster, until you weren't even able to see his legs moving. After some more time, his body started to become ethereal, or cloudy until.
*BAAM*
*AHHH*
There was a small Branch that Arc failed to see in time, as a result, he ran at it and hit it with his head.
" DAMMIT, **** that hurt like shit." Said Arc while rubbing his forehead.
" Damn, due to running too fast and my body being too weak, i wasn't able to stop in time."
" What was that scream?" Arc heard some low voices.
" I don't know, let's go check it, be on your guard." Said a different voice.
' Shit, it's time for me to go' Thought Arc while getting up, he cleaned the space where he fell and went to hide in the distance, where he will be able to see and listen to the people that are coming.
After a couple of minutes, he sees two rough-looking men, that didn't have any cultivation.
" That should be the place where the scream was heard." Said one of the two men, while pointing at the place where Arc ran at the branch. When Arc cleared the space there, he didn't pick up the broken branch, he just made sure to hide any evidence about him.
" Hmmm, probably a squirrel was sitting on the branch when it broke." Said the second man.
" But that scream didn't sound like a squirrel." Replied the other person.
" Who cares, there is no person here, so let's just leave, i have better things to do."
" Fine"
And so the two idiots left without even looking around the area.
' Thankfully, these two are dumb, or else i might have been in trouble. But now here comes a question, what are these two doing in the forest. They certainly weren't hunters nor herbalists. They also didn't look like normal people, now that leaves me with only one option, bandits. Thought Arc.
' They probably have built a base in the forest, i should probably follow them, who knows they might have something interesting.'
And so Arc followed the two bandits until the base. Thankfully, Arc's body was only of a five years old, so he was able to easily hide in the bushes and the trees.
About 20 minutes later, the two bandits arrived at their base, with Arc following them.
' Hmmm, their base is inside a cave, they have around 6 bandits guarding the entrance, and none of them have a cultivation.' Thought Arc while looking at the bandit's base.
" Why are the two of you so late?" Asked one of the six bandits, the leader, probably.
" We heard a scream, so we went to check it while patrolling." Said one of the two bandits.
" What scream?"
" A squirrel probably, when we got there we only found a broken branch."
" Hmmm, fine go inside, the boss wants to announce something." Said the leader of the six guards, and then stopped paying attention to them.
After that, the two bandits went inside the base to listen to the announcement of the boss.
' Should i find a way to enter the base?' Thought Arc.' Nah, not now i better train my martial arts more, to be safe, in five days i shall return.'
And so Arc left the base while going back to the open space where he was before, to continue his training.
_____________________________________________
Five days quickly passed and Arc was ready to go at the base of the bandits.
' In these five days, i managed to reach the low-level body transformation realm, truly spiritual bodies are broken, in my past life it took me 10 days to become a low-level stage one. I also learned some of my martial arts, so i should be okay. According to logic and my experiences, only the bandit's leader and maybe their vice-leader should have cultivation, so i should be able to get in without much trouble.'
Arc then picked up his sword along with some rope he got from his home just in case. He then went to the bandit's base and looked around.
' There are 3 guards now in the entrance, and i also haven't seen anyone patrolling, weird did something happen. That guard did mention last time that the boss had an important announcement, it might have something to do with that.' After that, Arc quickly made some traps around the base and then went on top of a tree and waited for the right moment to infiltrate the base.
Around half an hour later the sun started to come down, and the guards were beginning to grow tired and Arc noticed that.' Soon i will attack.'
One hour later, the guards were tired and sleepy. Arc decided that was the best time to attack.' But it's weird though, no one has come in or out of the base for so long.' Thought Arc while getting a little worried.
After that, Arc threw some coins on the ground close to him to make some small sound.
*Ting ting*
" What was that?" Said one of the three guards.
" It sounded like coins falling to the ground, i think." Said another guard.
" Tyler go check it out" Said the third guard.
" What, why me? You go." Said Tyler.
" Go or i am going to make you go" Said the third guard with a threatening voice.
Tyler looked at the third guard for a moment and then backed down.
" Fine"
After that, Tyler went to the place Arc threw the coins and searched around.
" Are this coi-" Before Tyler tried to finish his sentence, a sword went through his neck.
Arc then slowly went to the entrance of the base, where he saw the other two guards.
" Is that a child?" Asked one of the two remaining guards, puzzled.
" Seems like it." Said the other one.
While those two were ready to question Arc, he took out his sword and threw it at one of the guards. The sword hit the guard at his chest and he fell down.
" Wha-" Just before the last remaining guard was able to understand the situation, Arc used his movement skill and almost immediately arrived in front of the stunned guard, and kicked him in his neck
*Cough cough* you piece of" Before the last remaining guard was able to finish his sentence, Arc picked up his sword from the guard he just killed and thrust it at the neck of the last remaining guard.
The guard evaded the strike at the last possible moment, so the sword missed and pierced his shoulder.
" Oh, nice job but it's too late." Said Arc who then used his movement skill to arrive in front of the guard and once again thrust his sword at him, but instead of the neck, he went for the heart this time and successfully hit it.
*Cough* Demon." Said the guard while looking at Arc with fear, who was slowly taking the sword out. After that, he fell to the ground and died.
" Demon? How rude." Said Arc while cleaning the bloody sword on the clothes of the dead guard. After cleaning his sword, he went inside the cave.
The cave had a few torches on its walls and a few crates here and there.
" Where is everyone?" Muttered Arc while slowly going deeper in the cave.
After a couple of minutes, Arc found a huge open area, with a small pond in the middle. There Arc found around 13 bandits, most of them were wounded and only two of them were healthy. He slowly went towards them and started listening to their conversation.
" Dammit, this is so painful." Said one of the bandits, he was missing an arm and his torso was full of bandages.
" Shut it, we all knew what we were doing when we agreed to do that job." Said another wounded bandit.
" Indeed we knew that someone paid us a lot of money to abduct a child, but that someone forgot to mention that the child we were meant to abduct was a member of the FREAKING ROYAL FAMILY." The bandit screamed the last part.
" True, if we knew it we would have never in our life accepted that deal." Said one of the healthy bandits. " But saying the same thing over and over again will not take us anywhere." He said that while glaring at the bandit with the missing arm. after that, he took a breath and said. " I know that all of you are tired and afraid but now we don't have a choice, thanks to that mysterious person and his people we were able to abduct that princess. So we can't do anything right now except wait for the decision our boss will make." After saying that he pauses for a second and then says. " All of you concentrate on healing yourselves and leave the important matters to the boss"
" Fine." Said the bandit with the missing arm. After that silence fell on the cave.
' A princess?' Thought Arc. ' Hmmm, after the empire fell many powers were created, the princess should be one from the kingdom that i am in, what was its name, AH yes Kaezia Kingdom. Now, what should i do, save her or not?' After two minutes of thinking, Arc decided not to save her.
'These bandits definitely didn't abduct the princess, they don't have the power, probably that person who hired them, send some strong cultivators to distract the princess guards and these bastards took the opportunity to kidnap her. After that person gave them the princess since the kingdom will not search for the princess in such a place.
" Are we going to have some fun with her? I always wanted to sleep with a princess." Said the bandit that lost his hand with lust on his voice.
" What the fuck is wrong with you, she's 4 years old." Said another bandit with anger and disgust in his voice.
" So what? Don't act like a saint you piece of shit, you have done worse things than that." Said the bandit with ridicule in his voice.
" I have done worst things but never to a child you piece of trash." Said the Bandit with anger in his voice.
As the bandits were about to fight, Arc after hearing that the princess was nothing but a child fell deep in thought.
' The princess is 4 years old? Well, change of plans, slaughter every single one of these bastards, and save the child.'