After Ikky finished with the explanation of his plan, Josh was dead silent.
"That's your plan? That's not a plan at all, I'm basically a bait!" complained Josh.
"But that's the whole point of the plan, I need a good bait!" said Ikky with a serious face.
Josh thought that this plan sucks! It didn't just involve a bit of luck, it involved tons of luck, and they might fail the quest within the first few seconds.
"Alright, go get to the position!" Ikky wished good luck to his friend and went to his own position, leaving no space for debate.
The plan was simple, they would split the bandits and Josh would be kiting bandits on him until Ikky finish them with his Bow. Simple as that.
Ikky arrived at his position and saw Josh arrive on his. It was time to start, he gave him a short signal to start with the plan. Josh was unwilling, but there was nothing he could do, this was the most critical part of the plan, if they were unlucky then the quest would fail, and both of them would probably die.
Ikky drew his bow and shot at the bandit standing far away from the group.
"Agrh!" a yell pierced the previously quiet forest.
"What was that?!" one bandit asked with concern standing up prepared to call for help.
At that moment a large boulder fell on the tent which was right next to the rocky wall. The chaos began.
"Attack! We are under attack!" yelled one bandit.
Everybody went outside and they all ran to the tent which just got smashed by the boulder. They could see some movement under the tent, confirming that the boulder did not kill people inside, yet they were trapped there for a few moments.
This was the highest risk for the plan, if they hit the tent with the seller's family member inside, then they might have died, failing in the quest. Fortunately, it didn't seem like they were inside that tent, as nobody ran out from the biggest one, it was as Ikky guessed and the biggest tent was probably the one with material and with the prisoners.
What Ikky didn't know, was the fact that he was extremely lucky, the tent they just smashed, trapping bandits inside, was a leader tent. The leader selected this place as the best defensive position since he was sure that nobody would be able to sneak in and attack him from behind where the rocky wall was, yet he didn't consider that somebody would actually push a boulder up to his head.
"I'm here you pig heads!" yelled Josh standing up on the cliff above the tent. Then he turned around and ran to the left, which led down to them.
"This bastard! Follow h..!" yelled one bandit, but he couldn't finish his sentence as he was pierced by an arrow along with four of his comrades.
Ikky just used Multishot with Guided arrow, depleting half of his mana pool, then he started using normal attacks.
"Take a cover! There are several archers!" yelled the previous bandit, but not as loud as before, since he was now wounded.
After a few moments, the bandit noticed that the number of arrows dropping down did not match several people, but rather only one person. The previous hits must be done by one of his skills.
"Get up and go to kill that archer!" he ordered to his comrades, still hiding behind a tent.
At that moment Josh arrived at the edge of the forest, right in front of the flat rocky shore.
"Split and attack them both!" this bandit was trying to make some order within the chaos, but he was not a leader. The leader was still trapped under the destroyed tent with a big boulder above his head.
Bandits split into two groups, 5 running the way from where arrows came and 4 running straight to Josh, almost every bandit had at least one arrow stuck in them.
Josh could see a bandit with 2 arrows stuck in him running towards him, but the injuries actually made him very slow.
Josh yelled and took a fighting position, then he turned and started to run away.
"Stay where you are you, little bastard!"
"Don't run away coward!"
"I will kill you and your family!"
Bandits yelled over each other when they saw the enemy running away from them. One bandit was level 10 and was much faster than others, even faster than his enemy. Distances between him and his enemy were getting shorter every second.
When this bandit was just 2 meters away from the enemy an arrow pierced his leg, he felt a chilling cold going through his body, and his legs felt like they were made of ice. His running speed was slowed drastically.
At this moment Josh took a sharp turn to the right and ran for a few meters, two bandits which were just right behind the one in the lead felt happy since the enemy was now running almost straight at them.
"You are a dead meat!" one of them yelled. But then the enemy disappeared with a long jump.
Josh used his leap skill to attack the bandit that was the slowest and fell behind the rest of his comrades. This created a several meters distance from the two bandits and even more distance from the previously fastest, now slowed, bandit.
Right at that moment, another arrow pierced the same bandit that Josh leaped on and he fell dead on the ground. Josh didn't wait for anything and started running once again.
Five bandits that went to deal with Ikky had difficulty finding where the arrows are shot from. When they finally noticed, they realized that they won't be able to get to him due to the lake and river so they had to run several hundred meters back along the river, until they find a spot where they can ford the river.
Ikky knew he have around two maybe three minutes before they reach him, so he continued to shoot bandits following Josh. His rapid attacks continued as he was depleting both mana and arrows from the inventory.
By the time he heard several yelling voices coming from the right, he already managed to kill 3 bandits following Josh. Leaving only one of the bandit alive.
"You need to deal with him alone!" yelled Ikky to his friend.
Then he ran down from the slope, when he reached the lake he ran next to it toward the five bandits which were getting closer and closer.
"Look he is running toward us, and alone! He is dead!" yelled one bandit.
When they were just about 20 meters from each other, Ikky used his Two-step fly skill.
The bandits saw a weird movement of legs from the enemy and at that time he jumped, but not at them, instead, he jumped across the river.
The river was almost 5 meters wide, and Ikky managed to jump over just barely. If the river would be wider by just a few centimeters, he would end up in the water, but now he was standing on the other side, looking at bandits.
"Hey," said Ikky and used his Multishot skill, but without the Guided arrow since he didn't have enough MP.
Bandits saw him pulling five arrows at once and they panicked, some of them wanted to hide behind trees, but they were too far away. At that moment volley of arrows rained on them and three bandits yelled in the pain.
Ikky didn't take any break and continued to shoot with normal attacks at any bandit he saw, he no longer used Guided arrows, as he didn't have much MP and he wanted to save some in case he would need it.
Some bandits jumped into the river trying to get across, but it was an impossible task. The stream was too strong since it was just too close to the waterfall and they were taken further away along with the river. The rest of the bandits tried to hide behind trees, hiding from the arrows.
Ikky used this opportunity and turned around to help his friend. Josh was fighting with the bandit 3 levels above him, and even though he managed to land some of the attacks, the level difference was just too much for him and he already lost over half of his HP.
One arrow from Ikky fixed the problem as that was exactly what was enough to kill the reminding bandit.
At that moment the tent, with the boulder on it, shook violently.
'Damn, I was hoping to deal with the five bandits before engaging with him.' cursed Ikky, but it was already too late as the leader of the bandits appeared.
***