Nataly looked pitiful. She thought she was free of having to manage her spending but only now found out it was the same as before.
Sol patted her on the shoulder, "It's not all bad. With the merit system, we have access to special and unique goods that can't be found on the normal market. When we finish this mission, we will get a lot of merit to spend and get everyone better gear."
Besides Rex and Duncan, who had been knights for a while and had obtained better gear than the standard armor, the rest of them had only received the standard rare rarity armor since joining. A huge reason people try to join the Royal Knights was for access to new spells and gear unobtainable by normal means. The only catch was that it required merit to buy, not gold. This was done to prevent wealthy merchants and nobles from bribing knights to buy those items with gold and then take them for themselves.
Nataly felt a bit better after hearing that and nodded. "I'll try to be less wasteful."
He smiled, "Thank you. But remember, don't hesitate to use them if you think you must. I don't want you to hold back when you truly need to use a potion or some other consumable."
"Mhm!" She nodded with a big smile.
"Yo Cap! We're done piling the bodies!"
Next to the pile of bodies, Aron called out to him. When there was a large number of dead bodies, the way to deal with them to prevent them from becoming undead or attracting other monsters was simply to burn them, but with Sol around there was an even easier option.
But before doing so he had to do his due diligence. They were all gathered in one spot making it much easier to do in one go.
[Learned [Cooking] Lv 2]
[Learned [Basic Ice Magic] Lv 6]
[[Snap Punch] leveled up! (8 -> 9)]
[Learned [Low Kick] Lv 5]
[Learned…]
After tens of messages of new skills or level ups, he took a step back and with a light stomp, the ground beneath the bodies caved in 50 feet deep. The bodies fell, causing a loud thump when they reached the bottom. The ground then filled itself back up, leaving no trace of the bodies.
"Alright, now that we cleared the open area, let's bring out the townsfolk."
The five of them moved towards the large prison first and opened the doors, revealing an almost empty prison except for Rex, who was already inside finishing off five bandits.
As he cut down the remaining bandit, he waved at his allies, "Hey, just finishing up the last of the bandits."
Aron asked, "Were they hiding here?"
Rex nodded, "At first they came to get a hostage, but when they couldn't find any, they chose to hide here instead. Speaking of which, are you here to bring them out?"
Sol nodded as he made his way to the rightmost wall. When he did, he manipulated the ground in front of him to slide open, revealing a stone staircase. The squad walked down the 40 steps until they reached a large room underground.
As they reached the bottom, over a thousand eyes turned to look at them. These were the townsfolk that were captured by the bandits. Before the raid even took place, Sol went ahead and hollowed out a large area beneath this prison and the smaller one in the main building, convincing the people to hide underneath while they fought the bandits. While some were apprehensive, the sight of his knight uniform reassured the majority.
An old man emerged from the crowd; he was Famner, the mayor of Chilton. He looked at the six of them and asked, "Are the bandits finally gone?"
Sol nodded and gave his best confident smile, "The bandits have been dealt with. You can all go home now."
From within the large crowd, chatter could be heard.
"The bandits are really dead? We're safe?" a haggard woman asked.
"We are!" a man cheered with as much energy as his tired body could muster before stumbling over.
While the thousands of people were celebrating, Sol looked at Duncan and silently asked for his help getting everyone out of there.
Duncan understood what was asked of him and stepped forward. "Let's get you all out of here! Please walk in an orderly fashion up the stairs!"
…
An hour later, when the moon was long past its peak, the six of them managed to get everyone outside without any mishaps. This included those trapped under the smaller prison in the main building. They required the help of some of the healthier townsfolk to help carry those severely wounded upstairs and outside, where Nataly and Sol gave them medical attention. There was nothing they could do regarding the lost limbs, but they could at least ease their pain.
While they tended to the wounded, Rex, Lapis, and Aron hunted in the nearby area so they could cook up a meal for everyone. It took them a few trips with their spatial rings full of wild animals, but eventually they had enough to feed them all. Duncan didn't help with hunting as he worked alongside the leaders of Chilton to make some preparations and arrangements, including recruiting over a hundred chefs to cook all the meat they brought.
It was only when the sun could be seen on the horizon that everything that had to be done was done, but there were still other matters they had to discuss. For that reason, the squad regrouped, with the exception of Rex who was given another task, in the main building alongside some of the leadership of the town.
"So with our town in ruins, we should use this fort until we rebuild the homes," the old mayor Famner said.
Duncan agreed but had some reservations. "It would be a good plan if not for the fact that a large group of orcs will soon come with the intention of capturing all of you. We know not their strength or numbers, so it's a risk to stay and fight."
An armless man with a fierce gaze nodded. "Besides you knights, the only fighting force we have are the few hunters and adventurers that weren't here when the bandits attacked."
An elderly woman looked at the armless man worriedly, "Are you sure you don't need to rest, Grahan?"
The armless man, Grahan, scoffed. "Bah! I'll be fine. I may not have any arms, but I'm still the temporary guildmaster of Chilton's Adventurers Guild. More importantly, do we know where the orcs are coming from?"
While he lost his arms, his spirit still raged strong. He was the only B-Ranker in the entire town and was actually stronger than Zayn. The only reason he ended up this way was because he was ganged up on by the B-Rank bandits.
Sol shook his head. "Sadly no, all they knew was that the orcs were using tunnels they found in the mountain. I sent Rex to search through the perimeter of the mountain to see if we can find it so we can collapse it, but so far he hasn't found it."