Zach decided to start the fight weaponless, if needed he would take out his scythe making it look like he pulled it from a spatial ring which was, in fact, a normal ring. He decided to keep the Hell fire secret, he didn't know if it could paint a target on his back but what's was certain was that if someone with such a powerful fire appeared he would attract a lot of attention and for Zach this attetion was unwanted.
Solid on his feet Zach waited the bald man to come but he could swear that he was hesitating to come at him.
Zach didn't wanted this fight to drag so he rushed toward the bald man, the speed at which Zach arrived in front of him took aback the bald man. Luckily for him he got the time to block the kick coming towards his head with both arms.
A thing unexpected to all the men present happened, when Zach leg connected to the bald man arms, everyone heard a crack and the bald man got propeled on the ground 5 meters away.
Zach had won in a single exchange, actually he should not have been able to win in a single exchange, it should have been a tough fight but the bald man wasn't focused and even for an early rank 2 he was at the lowest.
Zach should have won by a small margin but instead he won in such a towering fashion that everyone had their mouth more or less open in surprise at this outcome. "Interesting." The early rank 3 man, a smile on his face, murmured something that no one heard.
"Ha ha ha, it's clear that this boy had what is needed to escort this carriage so I think it's settled and we can depart right now, isn't it Pedro ?" The early rank 3 man said out loudly which awoke everyone from their stupor.
Pedro was the man who was with Kyle at the inn, he responded with a chuckle while tossing a pill to the injurend man. "You are right Oscar, it seems we underestimated this youth, Dan take this healing pill for your arms we are going."
"Boy I will explain to you how the journey will normally unfold, we will depart in about 5 minutes, I hope you have nothing important to take care of. During the travel we will only stop every 3 nights otherwise you will take turn with the others to sleep. Also there will be only one stop in a town, it will be once we are halfway in the city of Gavno which is at Kartelion's border." He paused.
"It should take us about 1 month to get to Delp but we can't take more than 1 month and a half. The whole team is here, as you can see in total we are 15 which may seem insufficient but Oscar is an mid rank 3 as for me and Kyle we are both low rank 3, it should make us pretty safe." Pedro explained everything he estimated important.
"OK, I don't have anyhting to take care so I'm ready." Zach replied. While he was waiting them Zach observed all the men who will go with this carriage. He could feel from almost all of them a huge danger, apart from Dan who was younger, he felt that each of them had great experience on the battlefield and even if he went all out against any of them he would only end in meat paste.
But when he looked at Oscar what he felt was more than intimidation, in addition he felt an intrinsic haughtiness emanating from him. He felt like everyone here had no worth in his eyes, it seemed that all he was seeing here was here to entertain him.
In fact, now that he thought about it, Zach didn't know why this carriage was heading to Delp, Pedro didn't tell him neither did he ask. For now he would not worry about it and just do his job while heading to Delp.
Five minutes later they had reached the south gate and had left Fronos, from then on it was a complete adventure and it could go wrong at any time, so everyone needed to stay on high alert. The first day of the travel went without any problem which was mainly due to the proximity with the capital.
Zach was resting for the second's day start, his rest was perturbed by a bandit attack which woke him up, though before he could do anything he realized that the bandits were already about to be deafeted. The thing that drawn all his attention was Oscar, he was sitting on the carriage and he was cleaning his blade from the blood it was covered in.
'He can't possibly have killed most of the bandits in such a short time so easily and already be resting and cleaning his blade ?' Zach was stunned at the thought of the man mostly taking care of the problem in an instant, he understood that this man was not that simple, he was just too powerful for a task like this one.
It was suspicious, now he needed to be wary of them, he didn't know why this carriage was going to Delp but it could not be simple.
"Pedro, what are we carrying to Delp or why are we going to Delp ?" Zach decided to take a gamble and ask Pedro. "Ha ha, we are carrying something which has a huge worth but only in the hands of Delp" Pedro chuckled and answered not worried about disclosing the value of the thing they were transporting.
Zach found it suspicious, why would he disclosed this information whereas he only met them a few days ago, all of this conforted him in the idea that this travel was not so simple and he may have embarked in a very perilous journey.
A few hours after those events Zach rest time ended, unfortunaly for him he could not use this time to cultivate like some of the others because he needed to kill beings to gather EXP and he didn't have what was needed to continue the Void Body method. While they were advancing Zach observed the landscape around, the sun was high in the sky illuminating the world.
They were on a mountain and he could see the vast and dense green forest, he could see the outline of a town away, it was not the capital, they were already rather far from it, he supposed that it was Twarz the second biggest city in Kartelion.
The travel continued for a few hours before they stopped for the night, making the beasts which were drawing the carriage rest, when he looked at them they reminded him of a mix between a cow and a horse.
The camp they set was crude, there was only a fire and they were all around it eating together. When they finished eating, the ones who had to guard posted themselves not too far from the camp and the ones who weren't on guard duty rested.
Zach was on guard duty, he posted himself in a big tree and hided in it waiting to see if something or someone will trouble their rest. Later in the night Zach still keeping an eye from his tree noticed movements in the bushes on the ground.
He still didn't know if it was a beast or bandits so for the time being he waited to identify what was causing this. He didn't have to wait long before he could see a man in light black clothing with a hood getting out of the bush.
He decided to wait and see what this man would do before alerting the other of an attack, for now it was only a man and by himself he should not be too much of a trouble to handle. The man in black clothes continued to get near the camp and once he could see everyone he stopped, he stayed like that observing them a few moments.
After that he silently went toward Zach, 'He should be a scout and he should be returning to his superior to make report.' Zach knew he wasn't discovered so he decided to follow him to see who was behind the scenes.
'That's a shame I haven't enough soul to buy this stealth skill, I will do my best to not get noticed while I follow him.' Zach was lamenting, when he looked in the skills offered by the system he saw a skill name stealth. Despite this simple name when he read the description he felt that it was a very powerful skill but for now he had to do without it.
Zach was jumping from tree to tree following the fellow on the ground, he was very careful about not making a sound. Unfortunaly when he jumped on another tree CRACK ! he broke a branch 'Shit !' knowing he had made mistake that could cost him his life he hoped that the man would not look too deep in this.
The man on the ground looked behind him toward the origine of the sound, he looked towards it for about 15 seconds. When he was about to go in this tree to see what caused it he saw a big crow taking flight, when he saw the crow he knew it was a low rank beast so he assumed that it was this crow who broke the branch.
Zach breathe out in relief 'What a luck !' He continued to follow the man for another minute when he saw him stop and a few moments after 2 soldiers appeared. "How is the situation ?" The first asked "They are about 20 with some who are pretty powerful and other who are average at best." The scout answered.
"We should be able to take care of them, no need to call reinforcements, we will take the same path you went, apparently it is not well guarded, like this we will benefit from the surprise effect, gather the soldiers we are attacking in 10 minutes." The second soldier decided.
Little did they know that they were currently observed and they won't be able to benefit from the surprise effect. But Zach noticed something which made his blood runs cold, those soldier he knew from where they were, in fact his suspicions about this carriage not being so simple turned out to be true.