5
It had grown lighter by no more than the weight of one head, but.
The dull *thud* of a sturdy adult man collapsing to the floor was louder than I’d expected.
“…Shit. Fuck!”
It was enough to make the bandits, who had let their guard down for a moment, come to their senses.
“Kill that bastard!”
Whether the fallen man hadn’t exactly been their leader, or if they simply didn’t have a leader to begin with, I didn’t know.
One of the survivors shouted, and at the same time, bowstrings were drawn toward me.
*Twang! Twang!*
Far right. And second from the left.
The arrow flying from the right was weak enough to be blocked by an arcane barrier, so I left it alone.
The arrow coming from the left, I blocked by swinging a piece of firewood from the stacked pile.
It was a shame it wasn’t a sword, but it was large enough to be useful for batting away arrows.
The moment I confirmed the arrow had lodged in the firewood I held, my staff turned toward the second man from the left.
“…Kuk!”
A beam of light shot from the tip of the staff and pierced straight through the man’s heart.
“Hey, fuck! You said he wouldn’t be able to do anything!”
“You didn’t know either, you bastard!”
Amid the confusion caused by their internal dissension, my staff turned immediately toward the second sniper.
“Kahak!”
The beam of light extending from the tip of the staff pierced through the heart of the man standing at the far right.
My remaining light magic: one use.
Remaining enemies: four.
That would probably be more than enough.
“R-run… N-no! It’s a tactical withdrawal!”
If charging in without a plan and relying on numbers counted as a strategy, then yes, it was a strategy.
The loudest of them screamed and tried to flee, but.
*Tuk.*
After I took a step forward to close the distance, a wind blade separated his head from his body, just like the first man.
“If you draw your sword, you should be prepared to die. Did you think you could threaten someone else’s life and then shamelessly walk away?”
“…….”
A shared emotion rose on the faces of the remaining three men who watched their companion die without even putting up a proper fight.
They realized that to survive, they had no choice but to kill me.
The three bandits, equipping their respective weapons, began rushing at me with slight intervals between them.
“Die!”
The first to reach me among the three was the one armed with a longsword.
I swung the chunk of firewood I held at the gray-tinted blade whipping through the air.
Had it been an axe or a war hammer, it would likely have had enough force to shatter the firewood and my skull along with it.
Unfortunately, what he was holding was a sword.
And not a blade sharp enough to split firewood, but just an ordinary sword.
“W-why won’t this…!”
I approached the flustered man whose blade was stuck in the firewood and kicked him with my right foot.
“Kahak!”
He let out a dull groan, lost his grip on the sword, and fell over the campfire.
With the light gone, the surroundings were temporarily plunged into darkness.
It was the moment a mage became more advantageous than a swordsman.
As long as I could read the mana reactions in the darkness, dealing with them wasn’t particularly difficult.
“Gaaah! H-hot…!”
I severed the neck of the man trying to rise after pressing his back into the campfire with a third wind blade.
“You son of a—!”
To the man on the right swinging at me with a buckler strapped to his fist, I plunged the longsword taken from the dead man into his upper body.
I thrust it in so hard that the firewood lodged in the blade went flying; unless he was undead, he was obviously dead.
“W-what?!”
The moment the temporary darkness lifted, what came into view were the corpses of the two remaining men.
It was enough to throw the last surviving man into confusion.
“Damn… Gaaaah!!”
It wasn’t difficult to sever one arm of the man who had let his guard down during battle.
The right arm of the man gripping an arming sword fell from his body along with the blade.
“Urrgh… Aaaaah!!”
He clutched the spot where his arm had been and fell to his knees.
I picked up one of the swords rolling on the floor and brought it to the nape of his neck.
“Eek…!”
He quickly forgot even the pain, paralyzed by the terror before him, and stretched out his neck.
“P-please spare me, my lord!”
“…….”
“W-we failed to recognize your lordship and committed a grave discourtesy! Please, just spare my life, my lord!”
As if the fate of his comrades who had died first meant nothing to him.
The remaining man knelt before me with his one remaining arm and begged.
“Guide me.”
“…What?”
“If you want to live, guide me to your hideout.”
“W-we’re all there is! There really is no one else!”
“If you spew nonsense one more time, I’ll cut off your left arm too.”
At my threat, delivered with the blade pressed against him, the man nodded with a pale, trembling face.
“Th-there is a hideout. B-but really, this is everyone….”
“Guide me.”
“M-my arm….”
“Shall I balance it with the other side?”
“N-no! I’ll guide you!”
After grabbing the nape of the man who was still half-lying and pulling him to his feet.
I picked up the arming sword of suitable length I had taken when threatening him and secured it inside my cloak.
I had already used light magic twice in the battle just now, so I needed to keep at least one backup on hand.
? ? ?
Deep in the forest, guided by him, there was a large house presumed to be the bandits’ hideout.
Judging by its size, which couldn’t be completely concealed even by the tall trees, one might well have called it a mountain villa built for Baron Ormund.
If these bandits possessed the skill to build a hideout of this scale in the mountains while evading the baron’s eyes.
They probably could have made far more money in construction than in banditry.
“Th-this way… H-here is our hideout….”
“Larger than I expected.”
“Y-yes….”
“It’s too large for seven bandits to use. Besides, a brick house in these mountains rather than a wooden one is suspicious.”
“…….”
“And above all, your attempts to hide your presence are clumsy.”
As was typical of bandits without proper training.
They were poor at concealing their presence upon the appearance of a stranger.
Judging by the presence of two agitated humans in the darkness.
It seemed avoiding a battle to seize the hideout would be difficult.
“Kill this bastard here! This guy killed all our—!”
*Srek!*
Realizing there was no way for him to survive, the man began to shout at the top of his lungs, so I silenced him quietly with the arming sword.
*Ting! Ting!*
Soon after, I heard the sound of two arrows flying toward me from the darkness.
I blocked the arrow from the direction it came first by using the body of the man who had just been yelling as a shield.
The arrow that came later, I deflected by swinging the arming sword drawn from inside my cloak.
I immediately shifted my gaze and fired a beam of light in the direction the first arrow had come from.
“Kehuk…!”
The last scene shown by the faint beam of light was that of a bandit archer, his heart pierced by a Radiant Strike.
There were still too many enemies to waste time hesitating.
I whipped up turbulent winds around the arming sword I held, forging a structure ideal for flight.
Then I hurled it with all my might toward the direction the arrow had come from.
*Puk!*
“Kahaak…!”
The dull scream echoing from the darkness made it clear he was dead without needing to lay eyes on him.
“What!”
“What’s all this racket!”
From now on, all I had to do was take down each enemy that appeared before me one by one.
“Why is this bastard….”
“What the hell is this….”
“Damn it all….”
The men bursting out of the house fell all at once, making stupid sounds, struck by my wind blades.
“…….”
After the last three men, no more hostile presence could be felt.
Only the corpses of those who had been human—or perhaps less than human—littered the floor.
“Hah….”
I had merely killed scum worse than beasts. Even if I hadn’t done it, someone would have had to.
Still, the sensation of actually killing people was far from pleasant.
I pushed the corpses blocking the entrance aside and went inside the open building.
There, I found five or six men and women collapsed on the floor, their whole bodies bound.
“…Huh?”
Most of them seemed to have collapsed from pain and exhaustion.
But one person who was awake noticed me and opened her eyes wide.
Having only met bandits dressed like ragpickers, encountering a mage in proper attire must have sparked hope in her mind that I wasn’t with them.
“I, I….”
Of course, she probably still couldn’t be certain whether I was with the bandits or not.
So words of conviction couldn’t easily escape her lips.
“I have eliminated all the bandits. You may rest easy now.”
“Ah!”
Hearing my words, she let out an exclamation and brightened with a hopeful expression.
It was time to finish the rest.
? ? ?
The rescue of the hostages held captive in the bandits’ den proceeded without a hitch.
First, I untied the ropes of the lady who had been awake, then woke the sleeping others one by one and freed them.
Without delay, I descended the mountain with the five or six people directly from the bandit den.
Had I not rescued them today, they likely would have been sold as slaves to foreign lands or distant regions within days.
Perhaps realizing what situation they had been in.
They expressed their gratitude to me repeatedly as soon as we reached a safe place.
“Oh, thank you, my lord! How can I ever repay this kindness…?”
“We are truly in your debt, sir.”
“For a time, I thought I would be sold as a slave without any way out. But it was worth never losing hope until the very end.”
It seemed most of them had been kidnapped while passing through the Ormund territory, or captured while camping behind the manor like I had been.
Normally, one wouldn’t imagine a bandit group living on the mountain behind a noble’s manor.
In fact, many adventurers and merchants had used the area near the lord’s manor as a campsite for similar reasons.
One couldn’t exactly call them complacent for that.
This hadn’t been my main objective, but my actions had saved six people.
Six lives far more valuable than the dozen-plus bandits who had died by my hand.
“I plan to take a carriage to Higarden from here. Is there anyone who would like to accompany me?”
Three of the six men and women raised their hands in agreement.
Among them was the lady who had woken up first and helped me rescue the others.
While collecting information about the bandits’ identities and methods from the three people who were traveling with me toward the Higarden territory.
Before I knew it, the carriage had crossed the border of the Ormund territory and entered the central region of the Higarden territory.
As soon as we entered the outskirts of the city in the Margraviate, two of the four vacated the carriage first.
“You saved us, and even escorted us like this. I don’t know what to do with myself.”
“Be careful next time. Always hire guards when traveling long distances.”
“I will certainly keep that in mind.”
Eventually, only the lady and I remained in the carriage.
She expressed her gratitude once again, meeting my eyes.
“Thank you so much for rescuing us. I will definitely repay this kindness.”
“I merely did what needed to be done; you needn’t concern yourself so much.”
“As someone from a fairly well-known merchant company, I cannot simply let this pass without a word.
We have several stores in the Higarden Margraviate as well. If you, my savior, require anything, please allow us to repay you….”
She introduced herself as the daughter of the Wintermere Merchant Company and began talking about what repayment she could offer right now, but.
The moment I heard she was from the Wintermere Merchant Company, there was only one thing I could ask of her.
“It may sound a bit odd to call it a repayment, but would you be willing to testify?”
Her head nodded up and down easily.
It was the moment an intuition flashed through my mind—that the rest would be easily resolved.