Chapter 16: Hunting Bandits (Patreon)

Despite losing some sleep, the next day started out well for me.

Corie was in a much better mood that morning. While she looked tired, with dark circles under her eyes, she wore a bright expression on her face that rivaled Lorelei’s. With Corie’s looks, it made her look radiant. I wasn’t the only one who noticed. Several people from the other parties that made up the caravan took note of this, men in particular.

Honestly, if I wasn’t hung up on my ex, I might have crushed on her as well.

Many of the female adventurers came by to talk with Corie, giving me suspicious looks the entire time, but she reassured them that nothing untoward had happened last night. Thank the ancestors for that.

The adventurers in the Icefall Adventurers Guild didn’t like me already. The last thing I needed was for them to think that I was a lecherous asshole who took advantage of young women.

Corie had the chance to sink my reputation with them even further, but she hadn’t. Good. While I wouldn’t say that we were friends now, that would take time, we were definitely friendlier with each other.

Lorelei, who liked us both, was ecstatic about this. Leroy and Jeffrey were more ambivalent. Neither of them had appreciated Corie’s previous attitude.

As we traveled that day, Corie took my advice and asked Leroy about what it meant to serve House Sturm. To the man’s credit, he answered each and every question she had. He didn’t look happy about it, but he maintained a professional attitude.

Lorelei decided to join us as well, saying that she didn’t want to remain cooped up inside the carriage all day. Even with Corie’s company, it had been boring. That made me question why the fuck I even bothered with the carriage in the first place, but I digress.

Lorelei continued to carry her comically large backpack, even though she could have left it inside the carriage. When I asked her about it, she said she didn’t want to let it out of her sight.

Other than that, the two of us had a pleasant conversation. She told me a bit about herself and her life in Icefall City, while I told her a bit about my life at Sturm Manor. While we came from differing backgrounds, there were similarities between us. We also shared some amusing stories from our childhood.

Corie gave me the stink eye from time to time during all of this. While she and I were on friendlier terms, and she was my servant now, that didn’t stop her from being protective of Lorelei. Not that Lorelei needed it. From what I saw, she could hold her own.

I also noticed that the spirit inside me was almost awake. It would either wake up some time that day, or later that night. Regardless, I looked forward to it.

Things took a turn, however, when we saw smoke in the sky ahead of us. After some deliberation, Lieutenant Hayden sent some of his guards ahead to investigate. Two of Guildmaster Sinclair’s adventurers did the same. I decided to join them. Leroy wanted to follow me, but I told him to stay behind and keep an eye on Lorelei. We were her bodyguards after all, and we couldn’t leave her unprotected.

Lorelei objected to this, and saying that she didn’t want to be left behind, decided to investigate the smoke herself. Corie, of course, followed along. And that was how our entire party, minus Jeffrey, ended up heading towards the smoke.

What we found was a burned out hamlet. From what I could tell, the hamlet used to be one of the bigger ones, with four or five large families. There had been a cluster of buildings in the center, surrounded by fields.

All of that was gone now.

The buildings were burnt husks, and the fields were nothing more than ash and dust. Nothing remained of the hamlet. It was all gone. No traces remained of the fire that had burnt the place out, though the area still felt warm. It must have gone out not too long ago. Smoke rose from one of the burnt buildings. Its stench lingered in the air, clogging my nostrils. I could even taste it.

Bodies littered the ground, the remains of the people who lived here. There were dozens of them. From what I could tell, they had tried to flee, but their attackers butchered them one and all. None had been spared. Not the elderly, not the children. No one. Everyone was dead.

I took a closer look at the bodies. Or maybe not.

Still, it was obvious what happened here. Bandits. They killed these innocent people and burned their home to the ground. I had been wrong earlier. I thought we would see bandit activity when we started heading west. They must be getting bold if they were active this close to House Icefall’s territory. I wondered how Lord Icefall would respond.

Hmm, perhaps this was another opportunity to get on his good side.

The Icefall guards reacted to the scene before us with anger and rage. The two adventurers looked grim. Lorelei and Corie both looked horrified. Leroy’s face imitated a stone wall, but I could tell that the scene before us bothered him.

I remained unfazed. During my life as Immortal Celestial Thunder, I had participated in battles where millions died. Battles that tore the earth asunder and shattered the sky. Battles where blood saturated the ground, staining the land red. Battles where clouds of crows and other scavengers feasted on the corpses afterward.

A scene like this wasn’t enough to disturb me. That didn’t mean I didn’t care. Oh, I cared. I wasn’t numb to the carnage. The Icefall guards weren’t the only ones who wanted to rage. However, I kept mine in check.

“This is horrible,” Lorelei said, covering her mouth with her hand. “Why would anyone do this?”

I wondered if this was her first time seeing something like this. If so, I mourned the loss of her innocence.

“Greed and cowardice,” Leroy said, his expression grim.

“There are those who would rather take from others than build or earn anything themselves,” I said.

Corie didn’t say anything. She stood there with her fists clenched.

“Spread out and search for survivors,” one of the guards said to his companions.

“Don’t bother,” I called out. “There’s no one left alive here.”

I knew this because of my divine sense. The guard whirled around to face me.

“We have to try,” he said, something bordering on madness gleamed in his eyes.

He needed to do something, anything to vent his rage, or he would go crazy. It was a feeling I was familiar with. From the looks in their eyes, his companions felt the same.

“He’s right,” one of the adventurers said. It was the Fire wizard from yesterday. “There is no one left alive here.”

He must have perceived it through his spirit sense. The guard looked at him in disbelief, as if he wanted to argue, but with two of us saying there weren’t any survivors, he couldn’t.

“However, there might still be survivors,” I said, walking over to the nearest body.

A quick glance around confirmed my suspicions.

“What do you mean?” one of the other guards said.

This one was a young woman not that much older than Lorelei or Corie. Her face was ash gray.

“Most of the bodies belong to the very old or the very young,” I said, surveying the scene before me. “Few belong to able bodied adults.”

Everyone started and looked around, except for Leroy and the two adventurers, who must have already noticed this.

“If they’re not here…” I said, trailing off.

“Then the bandits took them away,” Corie finished. Her expression hardened. “We have to go after them.”

I crouched down next to one of the bodies. It belonged to a child no more than a few years old. The rage inside me flared hotter. I touched the child’s skin, and felt lingering traces of warmth. These bodies were just a few hours old.

However, the fire looked like it had burned out some time ago. That meant that it must have burned hot and fast. A fire like that required accelerants. At least, that would have been the case on Earth. Here on Lumina, there was another answer.

This wasn’t the work of ordinary bandits.

“We can’t,” the Fire wizard said. His lips were set in a flat line.

Corie and the Icefall guards whirled to face him, outraged expressions on their faces.

“Why not?” Corie demanded.

“We weren’t hired to go after bandits,” he said, giving her a flat look. “We were hired to protect the caravan heading to Rosewood City. If we go after these bandits, it would leave the caravan vulnerable.”

“But-…” Corie started to say, but the Fire wizard cut her off.

“But nothing,” he said. “I understand how you feel, I truly do, but we can’t abandon our mission for the sake of vengeance.”

Corie pointed to the bodies.

“What about the people the bandits took? We have to try and save them.”

Points to her for wanting to do the right thing.

“We don’t know how long ago this happened,” the Fire wizard said. “The bandits could be miles from here by now. It would take hours, maybe even days, to track them down. And that’s assuming we could track them down at all.”

From the looks on their faces, the Icefall Guards sided with Corie in this argument, while the other adventurer sided with the Fire wizard. I didn’t know where Leroy or Lorelei stood on this.

“The bodies are still warm,” I said, looking up. “This happened a few hours ago at most. If the bandits are transporting prisoners, then they can’t have gotten far. There is a chance that we can catch up to them.”

The Fire wizard threw me a dirty look. Aha, he must have noticed it as well, but decided to keep quiet about it. I mean, he was a Fire wizard. They knew all about fire and heat.

“Look around you,” he said, addressing me. “This wasn’t the work of normal bandits. Wizards did this, and there is only one bandit group in the area that would dare try something this close to Icefall City.”

The Black Wolf Gang. No one said it, but we all thought it.

“Going after these bandits is a risk we can’t afford to take,” the Fire wizard continued. “Let us return to the caravan and send runners back to Icefall City to report this incident. Let others handle this. We have our own mission to do.”

If we did that, by the time either House Icefall or the Adventurers Guild sent people down here, it would be too late. The bandits would be long gone by then.

And the Fire wizard wasn’t wrong. From the looks on everyone’s faces, they realized this as well. The bandits who did this were wizards. Even if they weren’t from the Black Wolf Gang, they would still be a serious threat. Going after them would be a dangerous endeavor.

I wanted to go after the bandits and rescue the people they took prisoner, but I also had a job to do.

“What do you say, Lorelei?” I asked.

Lorelei seemed surprised by my question.

“You’re asking me?” she asked.

“Yes.” I nodded towards the Icefall guards and the adventurers. “They were hired to escort the caravan. I was hired to escort you. Wherever you go, I go.”

The implications of my words were clear. If she wanted to go after the bandits, I would as well. That meant Leroy and Corie would go along too. Leroy looked like he wanted to object, but kept quiet. Corie turned towards Lorelei, a pleading look in her eyes.

“You can’t,” the Fire wizard said. “You have your own mission to do. You can’t risk that by playing hero.”

Hmm, I wondered how much this guy knew about the real mission. Guildmaster Sinclair told me all about it, so it made sense she would tell the adventurers she sent along as well.

Instead of responding to his words, I held Lorelei’s gaze, letting her know that whatever her decision, I would back her up.

After several seconds, Lorelei’s expression hardened and she nodded.

“We’ll go after them,” she said.

“Yes!” Corie said, a fierce smile on her face.

The Fire wizard stepped forward.

“Lorelei, you can’t-…” he started to say, but Lorelei cut him off.

“I will not stand by while innocent people suffer,” she said. “Not while I can do something about it.”

The Fire wizard looked like he wanted to argue with her further, but I spoke up before he could.

“If we leave now,” I said. “We can catch up with the bandits in a few hours.” I grimaced “The problem will be their prisoners. We can’t bring them with us, and I don’t want to abandon them right after we rescue them.”

“We could bring them to Little Cross,” Corie pointed out. “That way we can make sure they’re okay and meet up with the rest of the caravan again.”

Little Cross was a small town that occupied the crossroads where the road heading south met the road heading west. It would take the caravan about another two days to reach Little Cross at the speed it was going at.

“Perfect!” I said. “We can rescue the prisoners without delaying the caravan too much.”

“Are you people insane?” the Fire wizard said. “Do you not remember why we are out here in the first place?”

“We are going after the bandits,” I said, giving him a flat look. “Unless you plan on trying to stop us, I suggest you head back to the caravan.”

The Fire wizard gave me a hateful look at this, but the other adventurer put a hand on his shoulder and nodded towards Leroy, who looked ready to intervene. If it was just me, Lorelei, and Corie, he might have actually tried to stop us. However, Leroy’s presence changed things.

“Fine,” the Fire wizard spat out, before pointing a finger at me. “However, if anything goes wrong, it’ll be on your head.”

With that, he and his companion turned around and headed back towards the caravan.

“You should go back as well,” I said to the Icefall guards.

“But-…” one of them started to say, but I cut him off with a slash of my hand.

“We have two Air wizards and two Earth wizards. You’ll only slow us down.”

The Icefall guards were regular mortals. There was no way they would be able to keep up with us. Not to mention, if the bandits who did this belonged to the Black Wolf Gang, the Icefall guards would be slaughtered. I didn’t point that out, however. I didn’t need to.

The guard who spoke up looked like he wanted to argue, but decided against it. Instead, he nodded.

“Kill the bastards,” he said.

The Icefall guards soon followed the adventurers, leaving our party alone at the burnt out hamlet.

“Thank you, Lord Gabriel,” Lorelei said. “I wanted to go after the bandits too, but Crispin was right. We do have our own mission to do. It’s just…”

She trailed off.

“You couldn’t stand by and do nothing,” I said with a smile. “I understand. I feel the same way. Don’t worry. We’ll make sure the package is delivered to its intended recipients.”

I would have said more, but Corie was there. As far as I knew, she hadn’t been briefed on the real mission, so I kept things vague. It was better to be safe than sorry.

My smile turned savage.

“Now then. Let’s go hunt some bandits down.”

***

Before we left, Leroy and Lorelei used Earth magic to bury the bodies. This was to prevent wild animals from getting to them, and to prevent any of the hamlet’s former inhabitants from rising as restless spirits. After that, the four of us set out from the hamlet.

It wasn’t that difficult to track the bandits down. Even with magic, it was impossible to hide the passage of that many people. Not only that, but we had two Earth wizards. While Leroy specialized in using internal magic, he wasn’t limited to it. As for Lorelei, she seemed to be more of a generalist when it came to Earth magic.

The two of them worked together to detect traces of the bandits’ passage, which gave us more than enough to work with. Even if they hadn’t been able to, I could have used my divine sense.

While the bandits themselves were out of my range, my divine sense could still pick up their tracks. It wasn’t easy, and wasn’t as accurate as what Leroy and Lorelei picked up, but it was more than enough to give me a general direction.

We traveled for hours, traversing over the rocky hills that made up the majority of the Icefall Region. Small forests were common in this part of the Icefall Region. Like with Gloom Mist Forest, an ever present mist seemed to coat the ground of these forests. Some were small, with just a dozen or so trees, while others rivaled Icefall City in size.

Since we were a smaller and more mobile group, it only took us about half the day to catch up to the bandits, despite their hours long head start. By the time we did, it was mid-afternoon. When I noticed them with my divine sense, I slowed down as we inched forward to take a closer look.

Of course, I made sure Leroy took the credit for this. As a Second Circle wizard, he had, in theory, a more developed spirit sense than me.

It took us a while before we could catch sight of the bandits. The rocky hills kept cutting them off from our sight. That also worked in our favor, since it made it difficult for them to see us. I didn’t know how vigilant these bandits were, but it paid to be careful.

There were about six bandits, all within the First Circle. Three were at the fourth thread, two were at the seventh thread, and one was at the ninth thread. For the Icefall Region, this was a formidable force. It was more than enough to deal with the average hamlet or village. Even some of the smaller towns would be unable to deal with them.

That was bad enough. However, the bandits also had three Inferno Wolves with them. From the way these wolves acted, they were familiars. While this wasn’t definitive proof that these were members of the Black Wolf Gang, it was certainly close enough.

The bandits surrounded a group of a dozen or so men and women. These were the survivors from the hamlet. They walked in a single file line, bound together by a length of rope. The bandits and the Inferno Wolves flanked them on both sides.

Together, the four of us discussed our options. As we talked, we kept pace with the bandits, making sure to remain outside of their spirit sense range.

“How are we going to rescue the prisoners, Lord Gabriel?” Lorelei asked.

“I’m not sure yet,” I said with a frown.

That was our biggest obstacle. If we just had to worry about the bandits and the Inferno Wolves, killing this group wouldn’t be a problem, especially with Leroy by our side.

However, we had to take the prisoners into consideration. Once we began our attack, I had no doubt that the bandits would target the prisoners in order to prevent us from saving them. If nothing else, the bandits might take them hostage. Our priority was to secure the prisoners’ safety.

“What if we waited until the bandits made camp?” Corie suggested. “That way, we can sneak up on them in the dead of night. Some of them will be asleep and we’ll have more time to secure the prisoners.”

“We don’t know if this group is the only group of bandits in the area,” Leroy said. “For all we know, they could be meeting up with an even larger group. I say, the sooner we deal with them the better.”

I nodded in agreement. It was best to deal with the bandits now, when they were still just a small group. I had no intention of taking on the entire Black Wolf Gang just yet.

“I know the Earthen Rampart spell,” Lorelei said. “If I get close enough, I can cast it to protect the prisoners.”

As the name suggested, the Earthen Rampart spell created a wall of earth. While it seemed simple, it was a rare spell that grew in power alongside the caster. The height, thickness, and length of the wall depended on the strength of the wizard casting it. More powerful Earth wizards could create multiple walls at the same time.

Lorelei was a First Circle wizard with five threads who lived in the Icefall Region. How had she learned a spell like Earthen Rampart?

I opened my mouth to ask her, but Leroy spoke up first.

“How many can you create at once?” he asked.

Lorelei hesitated before answering.

“Just one,” she said, sounding defeated. “If I try to make more, they won’t be able to protect the prisoners.”

“What about you, Leroy?” I asked. “Can you cast Earthen Rampart?”

Leroy shook his head.

“I don’t know the spell,” he said. “And my skill with external Earth magic is poor.”

Damn it. If only that wasn’t the case. Saving the prisoners wouldn’t be as big of a problem.

Not that I was complaining about Leroy. Once he reached the bandits, he would be able to slaughter them with ease. However, he wasn’t fast enough to reach them before they could kill the prisoners.

Still, I found it interesting that Lorelei knew an Earth spell that Leroy didn’t, considering the latter was a retainer for a House. Something to ponder later. Right now, we had an immediate problem to take care of.

An idea popped into my head. I just needed to check something out. I hurried to the top of a nearby hill and laid low, to keep the bandits from seeing me. The others follow suit. I looked ahead, to see where that bandits’ path would take them. If they kept going in the same direction, they would go near one of the small forests that dotted this area of the region.

Perfect.

“How close do you need to be in order to cast Earthen Rampart?” I asked Lorelei.

“About half a mile or so.”

Okay, that was less than ideal, but still workable.

“Leroy, do you remember that mist spell I used when we last sparred?”

Leroy looked pained at the reminder.

“Yes, young master.” Understanding flashed across his face. “You mean to use that on the bandits?”

“Yes,” I said, gesturing to the forest that stood along the bandits’ path. “If we hide among those trees, I can use the mist spell to hide our presence. When the bandits get close enough, we can ambush them. Lorelei can cast her Earthen Rampart spell to cover one side of the prisoners, while I rush in to cast my mist spell to cover the other sides. I keep them distracted long enough for everyone else to arrive. With Corie providing covering fire from afar, this is our best chance of saving the prisoners.”

“What is this mist spell you’re talking about, young master?” Corie asked.

I turned and grinned at her.

“It’s a special spell that I know,” I said. Since it was a mystic art from Spirit Earth, that wasn’t a lie. “It can cover the area around me with a mist that confuses and befuddles my enemies. It also blocks spirit sense, as Leroy can attest. It worked against him.”

Lorelei and Corie looked at Leroy, who nodded. In the end, he still won the spar, but my mist spell gave him some trouble.

“Isn’t this mist spell going to confuse and befuddle us, young master?” Corie asked.

“Don’t worry, I already thought of that.” I pulled out a talisman. “Remember the three talismans I gave you yesterday? Two of them were Protective Talismans, while the third was a Clear Eyes Talisman. It lets you see through illusions and enchantments, including mine. You will be able to see through my mist as if it wasn’t even there.” I smirked at Corie. “I would have explained this yesterday, when I gave them to you, but something distracted me.”

Corie blushed at this and looked away. Lorelei, on the other hand, frowned.

“Are you sure you’ll be able to reach the prisoners in time to protect them with your mist spell?” Lorelei asked. “The bandits will pass by that forest, yes, but it is still some distance away from them. I know you’re an Air wizard, but even Air internal magic has limits.”

I just smiled at her. If I was going to rely on Air internal magic, she would have a point. However, internal magic was inferior to just boosting my body overall with mana. Not only that, but I had access to movement techniques. While the one I had in mind would use a considerable amount of my mana, that wasn’t a problem.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’ll be able to reach them in time.”

Lorelei still looked unsure as I said this, but nodded. The four of us finalized the details of the plan before setting out.