Now, this is what you call a template scene from high fantasy. If only there was a beautiful princess here, it would have absolutely fit the scenes from novels but, oh well.
To be fair, there was no reason for someone as important as a princess of a country to roam around in these outer regions without at least a battalion of knights in shining armor and court magicians keeping her company.
I focused my attention back on the scene.
One of the horses was now down. One of the bandits seemed to have shot an arrow at its leg.
Poor guy.
I used Presence Detection III and found about 4 archers hiding on treetops. They were there on the map too but using this skill helped me get a clear image of them from my point of view. It was truly a bizarre skill.
I sneakily approached them and hit them slightly hard on the necks to make them unconscious without making too much noise. It was a half-baked move but I was surprised that it actually worked. Must have been due to one of my abilities or something.
Snap.
Wait, what was that sound? I didn't kill him, right?
I checked the pulse of the last guy whose body seemed to have made a strange sound and it was still beating. I also checked his HP to be double sure and it had dropped down a few points but it didn't seem anything to be worried about. I took twice the damage he had last time when the Giant Viper attacked me but I was fine.
… So my neck chop was not lethal. Probably.
Phew.
I then moved like that around and neutralized the rest of the hidden archers. One of them had an arrow covered with some strange liquid. Appraisal showed it was a type of local poison. It could have been dangerous, so I immediately stored it inside Inventory quickly.
I placed the guys beside a tree stem, took their arrows and quiver, and some other stuff they had on them in my Inventory.
This isn't theft, right?
They were technically thieves so it was probably fine to loot them off their stuff. Right? Yeah. It was probably fine. Probably… Hey, I didn't get a Thief title as they had after keeping their stuff so it was all good!
Now, there were just these 16 guys in the front remaining. Not. Apparently, the
fight broke down and the defensive party took down a few of the bandits. Once
the bandit leader saw his men losing, he came in to fight himself.
I appraised all current actors to find their levels and stats.
The 4 guys on defense had their Levels at 17, 19, 23, and 20 respectively.
The bandits were mostly level 10-15 but the leader was level 28. He could prove difficult with his comically wide longsword.
Now, how do I break in without getting caught up in the middle of their fight?
After giving it some thought, I took out some stones from inside my Inventory that I had stored in random places as a pastime and started throwing them at the bandits at the back. Almost all of them hit around their limbs and stomachs, dealing substantial but not lethal damage. Must have been the result of my Throwing skill that my attacks hit the targets so well. I did avoid damaging their heads and chest which could have been fatal even when I was carefully holding back my strength.
Both parties noticed the abnormality and the bandits started to panic. The guy with the highest level among the defending force urged his teammates to attack the now disordered bandits and they started wiping out the floor with them. In the end, the bandit leader was surrounded and captured. The rest of the bandits alive were also tied down and formed a front line of the carriage.
"Guess I should hand over the rest of these guys as well."
I decided to make my appearance with the 4 unconscious archers. The 4 men defending the carriage quickly pointed their swords at me but I told them I wasn't an enemy and showed them the unconscious archers.
Seeing me without a weapon must have also eased their tension a bit since they soon put their weapons down, though they were still wary of me which I guess was a normal reaction. I was kind of suspicious right now.
"You see, I am a traveler. I was heading to the town ahead of us. I noticed you guys in distress and thought I should help out…"
After their initial wariness had calmed down a bit, they were astonished to see the unconscious men lying in front of them. Apparently, they didn't think there would be more archers hiding around in the forest.
They looked around warily but I had already checked the surroundings and there were no red dots in the area.
"Don't worry. These guys were the last of them. It's all good now."
"Are you an adventurer? Doesn't look like it."
The leader guy of the 4 asked.
"Nah, I'm just a traveler for now but I do plan to register as one. How's the service in that field?"
The question at the end was my way of distracting these guys from the oddity but as it turned out they didn't even bother responding to that.
How rude! Meh, doesn't matter anyway.
I handed down the 4 guys who were woken up with aggressive shaking and kicking and added to the line of shame– I mean, the bandit line.
The party protecting the carriage appeared mostly unharmed. They went to the carriage gate and knocked on it and informed the people inside that it was safe to come out now.
From the carriage, a posh man in his 40s and another younger man who seemed like his secretary came out. They checked the situation around and then asked the carriage driver about the condition of the injured horse.
Where was he hiding all this time?! Did I somehow overlook him?
The existence of a new guy whom I had somehow missed when reading the Map puzzled me.
I mean, it makes sense there will be a carriage driver if there's a carriage... How strange.
The horse's leg was damaged but apparently, the arrow didn't graze the deeper parts and it would be able to walk once its leg was fixed. The horse, even when in pain was trying to stand still. It was bizarre but I could almost feel its persistence.
What a brave horse.
Hang in there, buddy!
The merchant looked at me, who was standing near the line of bandits, and enquired his guards about me. The highest level member of the party informed him that I was a traveler who saw them in trouble and helped by taking down the hidden bandits.
The posh man, who by the way was a merchant by profession, came close and thanked me for my help. From the little bit he information he gave me, they were on their way back to town after selling their goods when they were targeted by these guys.
Whether the bandits knew of their travel or was it a complete coincidence was, however, unknown.
"Um, is it okay to tell me about such sensitive information?"
I was glad to get any kind of information that would help me survive in this world, but the nature of this seemed a tad confidential. Normally, one doesn't tell the inner details of the business to outsiders, let alone strangers.
"Haha. Don't worry about it, young man. I can judge by the look on your face that you're not a bad person."
Really? I mean, I suppose I have a normal face and I am, in fact, a good person.
"I see. Thanks, I guess. By the way, what will happen to these criminals? Would you hand them over to the poli— ahem, knights?"
Ah, crap! I almost used an inappropriate word. There's no way they'll have police in a country with a monarchy.
I had managed to correct myself in mid-sentence but it made me a bit nervous. Fortunately, he didn't pay any heed to it and answered my question normally.
"Hmm, normally you kill them and get any form of identification to the knights or the guild to see if any of them have rewards on their heads. But since most of them are alive, we'll hand them over to the knights. They'll extract all information about their past crimes, hideouts, and other possible associates using torture."
Geh, torture huh? I don't even want to imagine what kind of torture they perform in this medieval era.
Thinking about it made me remember a documentary video I once watched during one of my YouTube rabbit hole sessions. There were all sorts of contraptions made out of wood and metal that would bend, hit, stab, and break the subject's body in the most gruesome manner.
No wait, since this world has magic, maybe they do some mind control stuff to make the criminals blurt out everything? I guess it's less painful than the physical torture that I am imagining, but isn't mind magic scary? One will not be able to resist the user's command even if they tried.
Sure, these people were evil criminals and deserved punishment but the applications of such magic were many, including evil ways.
Well, it's all just my hypothesis. There's no guarantee they'll have such a thing. And it's not like someone will use it on me for no reason, right?
… Right?
"Here, take this."
My imaginary tension was suddenly washed away when the merchant offered me a small pouch made up of leather and some kind of fabric.
"… This is?"
The pouch contained 10 Silver coins when I opened it to look for its contents.
But why? I didn't really do it for money. Though it will definitely help me when I get into the town.
"Too less?"
The merchant arched an eyebrow, while he asked. I could also make out a strange smirk on his face.
Weird.
"No-no! I mean, is it really okay for me to have this? I didn't help you for monetary gains or anything. If anything, I did it for self-defense since they could have attacked my carriage who is not that far away from here next."
I didn't know why I was making up such excuses when I needed the money, but maybe because of my manners from back home, I felt wrong taking money from someone when I intended to simply help them.
The smirk on the merchant's face turned into one of surprise when he heard my words.
"… Guess I really wasn't wrong, huh?"
He mumbled under his breath while looking at me, dumbfounded.
What? Why are you looking at me like that?
"Excuse me?"
While I knew he wasn't saying those words to me, my enhanced hearing — possibly because of status up— could easily make out what he said.
"Ah, nothing. You have earned it fairly. I am not really giving you money out of my goodwill. The bandits that you defeated would earn us about that much when we will hand them over to the knights. So, don't feel troubled."
"Ah, I see. Thank you, then."
Even if he said he wasn't doing it out of his goodwill, he did give me my fair share. It was, in fact, a sign of goodwill. He might be a merchant but he didn't seem the greedy type.
"Master, the horse's injury has been taken care of. We should head out quickly before another trouble comes our way"
The young man, who was his assistant or something, urged him and we bid our farewell.
By the way, how did they fix that horse's injury? I remember the horse being quite injured but now it looked like it was perfectly fine.
Hmm, must have been some healing magic or health potion, right? I can't think of any other way.
I headed to my carriage, wondering how they did that. Things like this still baffled me. I had always thought that a fantasy world would not be able to amaze me much since I already knew of many of its niche tricks but seeing it happen in real life gave off a completely different and strange sensation of mystery. I wanted to know the principles behind the magic of this world. That is if it had any.
While on my way back, I pushed the fallen tree trunk blocking our way to the side. It was a huge tree and normally it wouldn't have been possible to do it single-handedly but with the power of status, I could perform such superhuman feats without even batting an eye.
I entered the carriage and informed the carriage owner uncle that everything was fine now. The bandits had been captured and taken away to the guards by the guards of the carriage. They had horses so it wasn't that hard for them.
"What a blessing! Seems like the gods listened to my pleas."
Uhh… I don't know about the other gods, but great god Rio definitely heard it, lol.
Just kidding.
I wasn't delusional enough to call myself a hero, forget a god, but I still made that joke in my head.
'Great God Rio' sounds like a cool gamer nickname, though…
Or not, it's pretty cringe now that I think about it.
Ugh. Can't believe I felt for a moment that it was "cool". Cringe, bro! Big oof.
While I had my internal babblings, we continued our slow journey towards the town. I took the pouch in my hands and put it in my Inventory after adding to it the two Silver coins given by the village chief.
I'll not be struggling in monetary terms for a while, I suppose.
I still didn't know the local value of money here, but a dozen or so Silver coins were definitely not an unsubstantial fund. At least, it was better than being empty-handed anyway.
***