'You wish for me to have fun, huh?'
I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.
For but a moment, I ignored the fact that I was surrounded by hostiles, men who left evidence of their violent tendencies all over the line of broken carriages. And for this short moment, I delved as deep into the experience of my new body as I could.
The length of its limbs, the weight of its muscles, the deepness of the breath, or the acuteness of its senses.
Whether I were to rate each of those aspects in particular or do them all together, the judgment would be the same. This body was, in every way that I could think of, a complete and utter dogshit.
'I mean, not to be too unfair…' I thought as I opened my eyes and took a quick look at my surroundings and all that I could read from it. 'Given the likely development period of this world, I could say it's just slightly below average?'
This inner judgment was pretty much in line with what I could learn from the snapshots of this body's life that continued to flash in my mind, occupying about as much of my head-space as the voice-mail this bitch-goddess left me with.
My new body was that of a simple, young farmer, who would occasionally venture into the forest to scavenge for herbs or hunt some small game. I could already feel some added burden to my spine, likely from all the time this body spent sowing the fields by hand, a sign the family it came from being too poor to just scatter the seeds around and opting to meticulously plant them one by one, with all the care in the world they could afford.
'That's also in line with the reason those two were in the caravan,' I thought, connecting the dots of the next few snapshots that I managed to register.
Apparently, the patriarch of the family was drafted to some noble skirmish and simply never returned home, with neither the noble bothering to inform them what happened nor the village elder caring enough to answer their questions.
Deprived of the father and husband of the house, my body's biological mother decided to pick her son and seek a better future elsewhere, making use of the fact that only their father was bound by the serf's obligation.
But to the current me, besides explaining the backstory of how my revived body ended up on some random path, in the middle of some random and currently raided caravan, this information couldn't be of less importance.
'At least, now that she finally shut up, I can focus a bit on the world around me rather than playing dead and hoping no one would find out…'
With the voice of that bitch goddess now gone from my head, I blinked my eyes a few times and took a proper look around, registering every tiniest detail I could see and simply storing it in my memory. The time for proper analytics would come later, while for now, I simply filtered out all that was irrelevant and focused on what could actually affect my immediate future.
'A total of seven… No, eleven bandits,' I counted while standing as still as I could, save for the slight swaying of my body I implemented to match the erratic movements of the shadows.
Just like any right angles out in nature would more often than not imply human influence, staying completely still would only make it easier for a trained or even an amateur hunter to spot me.
'The question is, how could a caravan that big,' I thought while looking at a line of at least five broken carriages blocking the narrow pass by the forest's edge, 'fall to so few bandits?'
This clearly wasn't some pass between a huge, bustling city and its neighboring villages that guards would frequent day and night to ensure the flow of goods. As such, a caravan of this size…
Before I could even form a thought, the memories of my formerly dead body came rushing, providing me with a shameful display of the group that this caravan hired to protect from the very threat that led to the caravan's downfall.
A group of eight young adventurers, all suited with proper armor befitting their class and carrying weapons that would cost more than my old family would earn in an entire year. And yet, the moment the bandits came out…
'Wait, is this for real?'
Scanning my most recent memories, I wasn't sure whether to cringe, laugh, or outright cry out in shame.
The bandits didn't even prepare a proper ambush! They simply walked out into the path and confronted the guards who, to give credit where it was due, swiftly rallied up to do their job… And then somehow persuaded those adventurers to just turn tail and run!
"Unbelievable…"
There were limits to shamelessness… No, vicious incompetence that even I would be baffled over, despite seeing it all many times over in my previous life.
"They didn't even try to put up a fight…" I sighed, outright exasperated by my findings.
Step.
The small noise I made when shocked by my findings ended up attracting the attention of one of the bandits who was busy looting one of the broken carriages nearby, pragmatically prioritizing money over whatever poor woman his companions spared to have some disgusting fun with.
"So there's someone left," the man, roughly in the middle of his twenties, muttered offhandedly, without even a single hint of emotion on his face.
For him, this was clearly just a job, a means to make a living. As such, there was no ill or killing intent when he raised his hatchet onto his shoulder as he came closer and closer.
For this man, I was merely a witness to be put down so that their crimes wouldn't get reported.
As the man came closer and closer, though, there was one thing that distracted me from this imminent danger.
[Acute Observation performed!]
[Unlocked New Talent: Inspection!]
[Inspection Talent: Amateur(0)]
[Inspection Talent: +11]
[Inspection Talent evolves!]
[Inspection Talent: Novice (1)]
The bandit drew ever closer while I simply raised my eyebrows.
It wasn't even the notification that appeared before my eyes that got me by surprise, but the voice the disgustingly familiar voice that read it out loud!
'This bitch…' my face darkened as I realized, maybe thanks to my newly discovered talent, what was the likely gift this bitch of a goddess spoke off before tossing me off the mountain's ledge and into the raging inferno of the divine flames.
"Am I really doomed to hear her self-important voice whenever I unlock a new talent?" I was so exasperated by my findings that I ended up voicing out my complaint out loud!
And, to my surprise, this was somehow enough to make the bandit in front of me stop, even if only for a single second.
"What?" the man asked, staring at me as if I turned into some sort of weirdly exotic animal.
"You see, in any other circumstance I would ask you to kill me," I spoke out, only further confusing the poor man before blinking my eyes and properly seizing him up. "But in this particular set of circumstances…"
'I don't really have plans to die yet,' I finished the sentence up in my mind upon realizing that I'd already started to use words that only served to confuse the man even further.
A mere moment later, this simple bandit came to a simple conclusion that whatever fancy words I was using were of absolutely no importance. And, following up on this thought, he raised his hand, ready to swing his hatchet down and bring an end to whatever drivel I was putting into his ears.
My body was absolutely dogshit. It was a far cry from what it would become with just a little bit of disciplined training. It was slow, weak, and uncoordinated.
But the same held true for the man currently dropping his hatchet down at me. His diet was much better than what a poor farmer could ever hope to afford giving him much more muscle… But he wasn't even using it right!
His swing was full of opening, executed with just a slight portion of the man's full strength…and that's assuming this bandit was even capable of unleashing the full might of his own muscles.
'In the end, humans are inherently weak,' I thought, summarizing the solemn findings of my first few lifetimes.
And so, before the bandit's hatchet could reach anywhere near my skin, I moved in, as if to hug the man.
For him, this was akin to putting down an animal that exhausted its use. A simple, unopposed swing. That's why, when I came close enough for an imaginary onlooker to start calling me gay, the banding suddenly found me to be within the minimal range of his swing, my shoulders blocking the path his arm had to take to bring the small axe's blade down to my flesh.
"Eh?" I muttered as if surprised while forcing my knee into the man's scrotum. Then, I simply steeled my position, allowing the momentum of the man's swing to bend him down a little… Only to then decompress my other leg and smash his Adam's apple with the top of my head.
The first attack rendered the man stunned, only able to think about his crotch and the overwhelming pain welling up his spine. The second attack only served to squash his airways, stopping the bandit from screaming out in pain and thus altering the others.
With those two things happening in succession, the poor man could no longer even think about keeping a hold over his weapon, allowing me to casually let go of the hug, walk over to where he dropped it only to then turn back, kneel down on one knee and smash the hatchet's blade right against his throat.
'That's the first one down,' I thought, only glancing at a series of notifications that appeared in the corner of my view while trying my utmost to ignore the annoying voice ringing in my ears.
[Performed a weaponless counter!]
[Unlocked new talent!]
[Talent: Weaponless counter: Amateur(0)>Novice(1)]
[Performed a successful axe attack!]
[Unlocked new talent!]
[Talent: Lumberjack: Amateur(0)>Novice(1)]
[Disarmed a weapon-bearing opponent without a weapon on your own!]
[Unlocked new talent!]
[Talent: Martial Arts: Amateur (0)>Novice(1)]
[Finished off a disarmed opponent with their own weapon!]
[Unlocked new talent!]
[Talent: Executor: Amateur(0)>Novice(1)]
[Unlocked a hint!]
[By unlocking three more weapon talents or two more special move talents, you will be able to combine them into one talent, greatly speeding up the advancement process!]
'Is this how much stuff I will have to read through whenever I do something new?' I thought, gritting my teeth at the mere thought of a new notification window popping out right before my eyes with that bitch-goddess voice ringing in my ears the moment I tried to jerk myself off.
Still, as annoying as it was, there was a high likelihood I could somehow mute all of those… Or maybe put them in a more convenient form? Condense them into a log that I could never look at again? Or maybe…
'Or maybe, stuff like that can wait,' I thought, forcing my attention back to where it should be.
Notifications or not, I've only dealt with one bandit, leaving at least ten more to go. And then, I would still have to run for a bit if I wanted to take revenge on the bastards who were responsible for the death of this body's mother, a sin I wasn't willing to forgive.
"Haaa…" Hearing how the noises of the bandits having fun were only growing louder, I dared to heave a loud sigh.
"One down," I muttered, picking up the hatchet and then jerking it off to the side to cast the drops of blood from the decapitated bandit's neck aside, "ten more to go."