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“I’m going too!”
Just as I was about to head out to deal with the bandits, Grandma (Samantha), appearing from who knows where, suddenly shouted that.
Honestly, I was genuinely surprised. Wasn’t she supposed to be at the inn? I seriously don’t understand how she can slip past mine and Aria’s detection…
It feels like worrying about it is pointless, so never mind that. For now, I should probably make things clear.
“It’s not like anything interesting will happen, you know?”
It’s not like there’d be any bandits interesting enough to kill.
When I said that out of kindness, Grandma scowled at me, the wrinkles on her already wrinkled brow deepening.
“White chit… Why do you think I’ve come all this way?”
“”Mead?””
“That’s not it!!”
When Aria and I said it in unison, Grandma denied it for some reason, even though she was the one who said it first.
“But…”
“Right?”
“Enough, you noisy brats! I’ve already drunk the mead!!”
So she did drink it after all.
“Listen here, brats! The reason I’m accompanying you is because of your body, white chit… yours!!”
“”Ah…””
I’d completely forgotten… Her senility is quite something.
Because Magic Stones of all attributes had been pressing on my heart since I was young, I wasn’t supposed to live to adulthood. To make effective use of my short lifespan, I wished for a Divine Protection (Gift) from the Dungeon’s spirit: ‘to borrow the high-level magic I would have reached and been able to use by the time I became an adult.’
Because of that, my lifespan decreased even further, and even if I had won against Aria in that battle, I was supposed to die upon her corpse.
That was my wish. That was my only hope.
But… Aria crushed that fleeting Dream of mine and forced me to live.
For Aria’s sake, I decided to use this life for her.
But Aria was greedy and wished for me to live even longer.
Really… what a cruel girl.
“…So, what are you going to do?”
To be honest, I hadn’t taken her seriously. Even if she weren’t old and senile, I knew there was a limit to what a human Magician could do.
Even my wonderful father, who is now living in hell with my dear brothers, aimed for such heights that he experimented on his own daughter’s body with generations of research, yet in the end, he gave up on achieving it in his lifetime.
I was diligent but not a genius, so I hadn’t wished to live.
But… if it’s this “genius.”
“Leave it to me. I’ll tinker with you brats’ bodies and make you the strongest. Heh heh heh.”
…Will this be alright?
“Brat! My mead is gone! Where did you put it!?”
“Yes, yes, let’s drink at the inn when this is over.”
Aria handled Grandma with practiced ease, almost as if she were her granddaughter.
Is this really going to be okay…
＊＊＊
The majority of bandits weren’t criminals from the start.
Most of them were originally just villagers.
Even in the Kingdom of Claydale, with its temperate climate making life easy, if the population grew too large, people would seek new lands, developing areas inhabited by Monsters and expanding human settlements.
For such places to become farmland and tax-paying agricultural villages, they had to be patiently cultivated while fending off Monsters and wild animals.
Adults had to balance development and farm work while repelling external threats, and many villages also needed the labor of young children.
More children meant more workers. However, even when children grew up, there wasn’t always enough farmland to support them, and the second or third sons of farmers who had given up on further development often went to work in larger villages or towns.
But for those who were only taught farming and received no proper education, leaving the village alone required “courage.”
If they had courage… or at least strong curiosity, they could have earned a daily wage as laborers or adventurers in town. But those who lacked the courage to tread a new path continued to flee towards what was mentally easier, eventually learning to take from others.
The bandits who appeared in that viscount’s territory were a little different from those who lacked courage and merely hid to attack carriages.
These bandits had “cunning.” They changed their attack locations to avoid being found by guards or soldiers, divided their numbers into groups of several men with appointed leaders, and these small units were further managed by someone higher up who enforced orders.
This was something bandits who only knew village life couldn’t do.
The one who did it was a man, a “former villager.”
The man had ambition and Dreams. He had wished to go to the city, become a successful adventurer, and eventually be called a hero.
He made companions, gathered minimal arms and armor with his daily wages from odd jobs, was thanked for exterminating pests and defeating goblins attacking villages, felt the world expand as he learned to read, and then challenged a Dungeon… and failed.
The man only reached Rank 2. Just a warrior. He wore ill-fitting, second-hand leather armor and wielded only the cheapest club.
One of his companions reached Rank 3 and joined other adventurers to challenge Dungeons, another gave up being an adventurer, studied literacy and arithmetic, and was hired by a shop, while yet another learned farming techniques and returned to his village.
The man couldn’t go anywhere. Having boasted so much, he couldn’t return to his village, and with no particular skills, he just struggled in poverty.
At that time, a former companion, still worried about him, came to visit. He told the man to try again. But the man, seeing his former companion who had succeeded in living a decent life… stole his wallet and ran away.
The man became a “thief.”
The one behind this bandit uproar was this man who had become a thief.
The Thieves’ Guild had originally set its sights on the Dandole Family’s new industry, but because the Dandole Family kept a close watch, it was difficult to interfere with the industry and gain concessions.
However, the man, having heard of this, paid no heed to concessions that required “knowledge” or “connections,” and thought only of taking directly.
What the former villager man came up with was to use bandits.
The Thieves’ Guild, which understood its wrongdoing and didn’t kill, and bandits, who killed for fear of their crimes being exposed, were incompatible. To thieves, bandits were no different from unthinking animals, and they particularly disliked being identified with them.
But the man, with his former villager mindset, did not shy away from this. He gathered young men who were smoldering in various villages and tried to profit by ‘using others,’ a skill he learned in two guilds.
“You lot, today it’s The Valley! Hurry up!”
The man gave orders to the bandits. He had prepared several hideouts and had continuously evaded the guards’ eyes by resting in places far from their attack sites.
He funneled stolen goods through the Thieves’ Guild’s back channels and attacked merchants who came to buy based on information purchased from the guild. As for the supplies needed to maintain the bandits, if he disguised himself as a merchant and bought them in nearby villages and towns, the guards wouldn’t be able to track him down.
The man’s experience of being constantly used from above as an adventurer and a thief proved useful.
The problem wasn’t the lord’s guards or soldiers, but high-rank scouts tracking them in small numbers. However, he figured that famous Rank 4 or 5 adventurers wouldn’t show up for mere bandit trouble.
But…
The man, who had run away from being an adventurer, didn’t know that there were famous adventurers who would do such unprofitable things.
“…Hm?”
In the forest, dark even during the day… one of the bandits, who were moving in squads while erasing their tracks, suddenly collapsed.
As his squad mates, suspicious that he had fallen without a sound, approached him, dust suddenly swirled up, and a White Shadow danced.
“—Gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
Only then was a scream heard, and in an instant, several bandits spurted blood.
“What’s happeni—”
The man couldn’t comprehend the scene before his eyes.
As he could only stare blankly at his underling bandits dying helplessly, he suddenly heard a “woman’s” voice from behind him.
“It’s a fine day to die, isn’t it? Don’t you think so?”
When he turned around, the White Girl stood there, smiling gently at the man with blood-soaked hands.
Samantha: “Brat! It’s a yokai! There’s a Yuki-onna here!”
Aria: “………”
Next time, Samantha’s teachings.