We spent five days in the capital, Welno. I stayed quite busy during that time, finalizing the commercial contract with Beere-san and gathering more information. My only regret was not having enough time to leisurely browse the markets. I’d love to visit again once the Albiroda situation is settled.
I never did run into those mohawk adventurers again. It was a little concerning, but as far as Albiroda was concerned, I had a great connection in Beere-san. He apparently has acquaintances there, so we should be able to get whatever information we need through him.
With that in mind, we set out from Welno a few days ago. Our destination: Albiroda, to the west. We’ve been walking for two days now and are already nearing the border. Since there are no formal diplomatic ties between Albiroda and Rebvuer, there isn't even a proper highway out this far.
"Keep your guard up. We’re in bandit territory now," Beere-san warned as he guided us. "Though, with you lot, maybe I don't need to worry."
"I understand. We'll be careful," I replied.
We nodded at his advice.
The scenery had shifted dramatically from the open grasslands we’d traversed earlier; tall trees now crowded our surroundings. Perhaps because the mountains were so close, gentle hills rolled out before us, making for poor visibility. It was the perfect environment for an ambush.
As Beere-san said, repelling ordinary bandits wouldn't be much of a challenge for us. Even so, it’s not like we were looking for a fight. I wanted to avoid standing out or triggering unnecessary encounters.
Of course, if the bandits chose to come to us, we wouldn’t have much of a choice.
Hm. I sense people. Quite a few of them. Over by the trees on that hill, Shiroru’s voice echoed in my head.
The sun was beginning to dip, and just as I was thinking we should pick a campsite, Shiroru detected someone nearby. Beere-san wasn’t included in the Thought Transmission, but he seemed to read the situation from our expressions and stopped alongside us.
"Bandits?" I whispered.
"Most likely," Halfa replied.
Halfa and Spira were whispering quietly. Now that we’d stopped, the group in hiding might have realized we were onto them, but they couldn't be certain yet. There was no reason to give ourselves away, so we kept our voices low.
"They have to be bandits," I noted.
"There aren't many people crazy enough to go for a stroll out here," Lowell added.
"If we Grassfolk were moving through here, we’d sneak in as a small group. A group this size is almost certainly bandits."
Having reached a conclusion, we moved on to the next step.
"What should we do? We’re supposed to be infiltrating, so I'd rather not have all of Albiroda on high alert."
"If they’ve already spotted us, there’s no point in avoiding the fight," Lowell argued. "In fact, it would be better to crush them all right here. That will delay the news from reaching their base."
Lowell was in favor of fighting, and he had a point.
"We should take them down," Halfa agreed. "I mean, they're probably planning to raid somewhere, right?"
"She's right. We can't let them do that," Spira added.
If the people lying in wait were indeed Albiroda bandits, they weren't out here for a picnic. They were likely positioned to raid nearby villages. If we could stop them before that happened, we should.
Shiroru and Garna didn't seem to mind either way. Beere-san also had no objections, provided we could actually suppress them.
And so, it was decided: we were taking the bandits down. However, if we were too flashy about it, any other hidden groups might be alerted. We needed to handle this as quietly as possible.
A faint crackle sounded as another man slumped over, the strength leaving his limbs. This was the result of me striking from behind with Lightning Touch. I was fairly certain they were bandits, but since I hadn't confirmed it, I stuck to non-lethal attacks to neutralize them.
I was operating alone—or rather, together with the Petit Golems—striking from the shadows behind the ambushers. They didn't seem to notice me at all, their eyes glued to the path where Lowell and the others were walking.
Getting behind them was surprisingly easy. First, I sent Allen, one of the Petit Golems, ahead with a Dark Golem attached. Once Allen was in position without being spotted, I used Shadow Leap to teleport to him. Honestly, at this rate, I probably could have just snuck up on them normally using Shadow Hiding. They were completely oblivious.
As each bandit lost consciousness, an Air Golem caught them and ferried them to the rear, where Allen and the others tied them up securely.
There were a little over twenty of them in total. I’d already knocked out half, and it looked like I could finish the rest without any trouble.
"Hey, they're almost here! Get ready, you—wait, what!?"
With only one man left, the final bandit suddenly spun around. He seemed to be the leader-class. Lowell's group had just gotten close enough that he was likely about to give the signal to attack—except all the men he was supposed to be commanding were already out cold.
I moved to knock him out before he could make a scene, but—
"Boom! That's it!"
"Wha—"
Pino had snuck up at some point and whacked the leader-class man with a blunt weapon. The strike successfully took him out... but it left a massive lump on the man's head.
Well, he was about to attack Lowell and the others, so he was definitely a bandit.
If I'm wrong, I’ll just have to apologize with everything I’ve got!