Annan hadn't gone far when he heard the sound of horse hooves coming from a distance.
The noise was still quite far from him.
Annan slightly narrowed his eyes and slowly halted, concealing himself.
In front of him was a somewhat steep slope, with sparse coniferous plants on both sides. If one were to continue eastward down the slope for about fifteen minutes, they would reach the beach where he first awoke.
Annan deliberately avoided the path devoid of vegetation, instead using the natural environment for cover.
He made full use of his height advantage, climbing towards the top of the slope as silently as possible. This section of the slope near the top was particularly steep, but with John's broken sword serving as a climbing stick, Annan managed to ascend quite smoothly.
He leaned against a crooked tree to stabilize his back and peered down the other side of the slope.
On that side, not far away, was a flat and easy to travel dirt road. It wasn't very wide, but at least it could allow four or five horses to ride abreast.
And there were about a dozen horses speeding from south to north.
Fortunately, Annan's location was not a cliff but a hillside—the terrain on the other side was even lower than where he had started.
Perhaps, because they didn't anticipate someone being on top of the hill before the sun had even risen, none of the riders noticed Annan's presence.
These people... didn't seem like decent folks.
Annan quietly observed them with his ice-blue eyes narrowed, carefully counting their number.
There were fourteen in total. One wore half-body metal armor, while the rest were clad in worn brown leather armor.
They carried long swords at their waists and small wooden shields on their left arms. Three of them had short bows slung on their backs, and the one leading carried a pole weapon resembling a spear with a hook at the front end.
And the two by his side...
Annan's pupils contracted slightly.
He clearly saw that the two had firearms resembling rifled guns on their backs. Several others carried sturdy large shields.
Armed to the teeth like that, where were they headed?
Annan had seen a nautical chart once in the captain's quarters.
Tan Juan's ship had been sailing northward.
Specifically, it sailed from the southeast coast of the mainland, from approximately the five o'clock direction to the two o'clock position.
They were originally supposed to disembark at the main port of Frostwater Harbor, which was the two o'clock location, on the southern side of an indented inner sea... while the location of the Winter Duchy was on the northern side of that inner sea.
So, after seeing that nautical chart, Annan immediately understood the situation between the Winter Duchy and the Kingdom of Noah.
An inner sea divided between two countries, each using one half; even the ports might have doors facing each other.
... It'd be a miracle if they didn't go to war.
The mainland in front of him provided a north-south passage. This likely meant that the road to the north was his intended destination.
The territory newly received by the young master Tan Juan—Frostwater Harbor in the Beihai region.
Those people could even be bandits or highwaymen...
With this thought, Annan lightly jogged down from the slope.
He took a careful look at the road and easily found several clear wheel tracks.
"... Not long ago, a convoy passed through here," Annan concluded, a vague understanding forming within him.
They must have received some information, learning that a merchant caravan was stopping here. They had rushed over in the early morning... Considering the travel time, it was likely they had come overnight upon hearing the news.
With the fundamental principle that what belonged to Tan Juan was his, Annan quickly formed a comprehensive logical chain in his mind:
Frostwater Harbor was his territory, so the property of his people was his property...
Therefore, what those robbers were stealing was his property!
Annan was enraged.
Without thinking for too long, Annan decided to follow them.
"—I've been robbed clean and exiled from my homeland, and now you dare to infiltrate my territory, you're really courting death!"
Annan planned to confront the group of bandits and, finding himself capable of beating them, leap out and shout this at them.
He pondered for a moment and thought that this line was indeed appropriate for the occasion. After all, it was his reality, and it would not be out of place to say it.
Once he made up his mind, he no longer ambled along.
He hid the heavier broken sword in a hollow tree trunk and made a mark, then proceeded to travel light.
It was then that Annan discovered his physical endurance was surprisingly good.
He ran and, after a continuous twenty minutes, was only slightly out of breath. Rather than depleting, the strength within him surged, leaving him in even better condition.
It seemed that this twenty-minute distance was nothing more than a warm-up exercise for him.
For someone his age, this level of physical endurance was incredibly hard to believe.
But the key issue was that his physique was only 7 points.
At that moment, a thought crossed Annan's mind:
Could it be that in this game, the attribute panel does not have ten points as the average?
... Or could it be five points?
No, to be safe, let's assume ten points is average for now.
Perhaps the people in this world are all exceptionally fit...
By this time, Annan could already hear the dispute coming from ahead.
He saw a group of people entangled with each other.
The rooftops of the two closest houses had already caught fire, and beside one of the buildings, there were five or six wagons placed against the wall.
Three of the bandits tried to loop ropes over their horses, while civilian men armed with makeshift weapons and militia who were gradually gathering were confronting the remaining few.
No good, there were too few militiamen.
Annan noticed the problem with just a glance.
Whether due to poverty or hurried assembly, the militiamen who had gathered almost all lacked armor. Even adding the unarmed militiamen to the count, the men with weapons did not outnumber the bandits.
The bandits in the rear rank fired another volley of flaming arrows, setting two more houses ablaze.
It was uncertain how their arrowheads were treated. The wooden houses did not look like they were very flammable, but upon being struck by the arrows, they burst into flames instantly.
The sword and shield-wielding bandits, meanwhile, were orderly as they stood in front of the rest, facing off against the militiamen. The two with rifled guns held their muzzles down, aiming at the three who were stealing the wagons, forcing the others back.
Annan watched this scene from a distance and slowed his pace.
He narrowed his eyes.
Something was off.
How could these bandits be so organized?
They were neither cursing nor inflicting random violence. While their formation was somewhat scattered, at least they did not obstruct each other, and the archers' accuracy was unnervingly high for those large bows, which would be difficult to draw without considerable strength.
In stark contrast to the disciplined bandits, the townspeople had already descended into chaos. The militiamen were unsure whether to extinguish the fires or to stop the theft first.
After a brief moment of pandemonium, they quickly came to a consensus—
—save the fire first.
After all, the merchants with the wagons were not from their town. But the houses were their very own property.
But just then, a rash young man pushed his way to the front, screaming as he tried to strike down one of the horse-thieving bandits with his sword.
Bang—
At that moment, the two men fired their guns!
Their shots almost went off together, the sounds nearly merging. One shot went astray, hitting the wall; the other struck the young man's thigh.
He immediately fell to the ground, and the militiamen, no longer hesitating, closed in.
This was trouble!
Seeing that the situation was dire, Annan quickly rushed forward with a few fast strides—