A heavy silence settled in the cave, all the men were looking towards the platform where Kyser and the decapitated body of their leader lay.
"So.... Who's next?"
When he pronounced these words a shiver of fear crossed the back of all the bandits present in the cave. At that moment, the man who was leading the group of bandits that had attacked them in the forest took a step forward.
"What do you think you...."
SLASH !!!
In a blink of an eye kyser appeared in front of him and cut him in two with a sharp blow. His body fell to the ground in two under the horrified gaze of the others, the farmer did his best not to puke at the sight of this bloodbath.
"You didn't think I forgot about you, did you..." he said, looking at the lifeless body on the ground.
He turned to the rest of the men who instinctively backed away, they knew very well they had no chance against him.
"Anyone wanna try their luck?"
None of them answered clearly holding their lives, seeing that kyser then turned to the farmer who was still on the ground after the blow he had received. He approached him and held out his hand to help him up.
"Come on...we still have to go to town!"
"Yeah....yeah of course!"
The farmer took his hand and stood up then headed towards where his carriage was, followed by kyser. The bandits who were on the way all moved aside to let them pass.
They arrived at the carriage and the farmer got on it ready to leave. When Kyser was about to get into the carriage, a voice sounded behind him.
"Hmmm...what are we doing boss?"
Kyser turned and saw an older man standing a few feet behind him. He was dressed in slightly bluish leather armor with a sword on his back. He had white hair and a mustache and was looking in her direction.
"What did you just say?" Asked kyser while turning around.
The man jumped in fear but came to his senses before speaking again.
"Well....the thing is...since you killed our leader with such ease, the rule that has been in place for quite some time now makes you our new leader...."
"What kind of bullshit is this?"
"That's...that's how we've always acted...and to be honest, I don't think anyone else would have the guts to become the leader of this group after what happened. "
Kyser looked behind the man and could see the rest of the bandits looking at him with desperate looks while others even avoided meeting his gaze in fear.
Kyser looked back at the man in front of him and asked.
"Why did you attack us?"
"To tell the truth, we are sorely lacking in food and we don't have the money to allow us to buy it, moreover we have been rejected even by the men. We have no way of finding work so we do everything to survive even if it means living the life of a bandit!"
Kyser listened intently and could somehow understand his point, but something about what he had just heard called out to him, "we have been rejected even by the men."
what could he mean by that.
Kyser thought for a moment before putting that aside in the back of his mind, telling himself that he would have his answer sooner or later.
"You! What's your name?"
"Me....my name is Rodrick."
He turned to see that the farmer had finished collecting his carriage and was ready to leave.
"I need to do something first, you wait unnoticed otherwise you end up like the other two. You wait for me to come back, understand?"
"Yes boss!"
That being said kyser turned around and got into the back of the carriage and left the cave while the bandits went back to their business.
-----------------
Several minutes had passed and they were now back on the road towards town. The two of them remained silent the whole time and it was the farmer who broke the silence first.
" Can I ask you a question ? "
"Hmmm?"
"Do you really expect to join those bandits? I mean...with your strength you could have fought them off and killed them easily."
kyser took a moment before answering.
"They can be useful, moreover it would be useless to fight them!"
"Why?"
"Because by the time I killed their leader half of them had already lost their will to fight, despite appearances these guys are clearly not fighters, I'm pretty sure none of them have any combat experience. Plus fighting them would be nothing in combat, it would have been just a massacre and that wasn't my goal....I've done enough of that in the past."
The farmer listened carefully without saying a word and decided not to continue the discussion even though the last thing he said sent a shiver of fear down his spine.
Kyser on his side was thinking about how he should proceed for the future. The most important thing was to have information about the world he was in because he won't be able to continue without arousing suspicion and the second thing was to find out how to make money.
he had a place to stay now that he had become the leader of this bandit group but as rodrick said before they were running out of food and money so those two things were a priority.
Suddenly he was pulled out of his thoughts when the farmer asked him a new question.
"Hmmm I was wondering, what are you planning to do in Epsilon City?"
"I need to find some information and money."
"What kind of information?"
"Personal!"
"Well, as for information I don't know, on the other hand for money I recommend the mercenary guild, with your abilities I have no doubt that you can make a lot of money for yourself, after all it can be dangerous at times but it's the fastest way to make money here in the wild lands.
Kyser was lucky to have two pieces of useful information at once. One that will allow him to make money quickly and another that tells him that the place where he was currently was called the wild lands.
The rest of the trip was done in silence until the farmer said something that woke up Kyser who had been dozing.
"Here we are! The city of Epsilon!"
he sat up and saw that they had been out of the forest for a while, he turned around and could see the city in the distance that was emerging on the horizon. It was time for him to find some answer to his questions.