Esdras and company encountered a terrible scene. Carriages flopped over and bodies everywhere, agonizing moaning and savage shouting made the place look like a portrait from hell.
The perpetrators were still here finishing their last evil acts, surprisingly there were very few bandits. Several men and a few women were fighting against the bandits by hiding behind one of the fallen carriages.
However, it was very clear they were just normal civilians. I did not even know how to handle a weapon. The biggest proof of that was the number of dead people around them.
Even if it was an ambush with these numbers they could have dealt with the dozen bandits easily.
"Attack!" The prince was angered by saying such acts in person, and who could blame him? Anyone would have felt rage at seeing such acts.
Calvin and the other knight joined the prince in their charge. Which made easy work of the bandits as the three of them were Vigor knights.
Esdras and Daylen followed the prince to make sure he was protected at all times while the others stayed back. Esdras didn't attack anyone he simply made sure that there were no traps or unexpected accidents.
Fortunately, there was no such thing until the dozen or so bandits were killed.
"Look out!" Esdras suddenly sensed several people coming from afar, "to the west!"
A dozen arrows were shot and about to fall on them like raindrops. Esdras was about to burn them all in mid-flight but he sensed Daylen's mana fluctuating so he stopped.
An omnidirectional half-sphere of water covered all of them, it was continuously rippling despite being so thin. The arrows couldn't penetrate it and slid down harmlessly.
The bandits were stunned at this scene and went pale in fear. Not even in their wildest nightmares did they imagine themselves actually attacking a mage!
Immediately they began to run away in panic but they were already too late. The rest of the apprentices had already blocked off their exit and massacred them all.
Esdras shook his head and approached one of the middle-aged men hiding behind the carriage.
" you can come out now we took care of them."
"T-thank y-you m'lord… I am very grateful but we d-don't have much to compensate you…"
Stammered the man, still hiding behind the carriage. The rest of the survivors were looking at them with even more fear than they were looking at the bandits earlier.
Most of them had never met a mage, all day and you were stories, and most of them were bad stories. Mortals who meet mages were often not heard of again.
Some of the stories were wrong and made up. Some of them were true. And others were exaggerations of events that grew with rumors.
Esdras's smile faded and he stepped back, " just tell me where the closest village is."
They spent five days and nights on the road their supplies were almost finished. They were tired and exhausted the horses need to rest and so did they.
Although the map we had was accurate, it was not very detailed, and it became very hard to track their location after being stranded for several days.
This was another reason they needed to get to the village so that they can get back on track.
Esdras was about to lose his temper with this archaic technology, it was so far from how easy it was on earth. But what did he do?
He had to learn how to use these maps, a skill he may need in the future.
He thought that the prints would be much better, but he was just as lost as the rest of them were. After thinking about it, it made sense.
He was the prince after all. When did he have the time to travel the wilderness? So how could he have a better understanding?
The only two people who seemed to have at least some talent in navigation were Calvin and Daylen.
Seeing that the situation allowed them to learn about a close by village it was not so bad, but he still had to talk to the prince about his reckless charge.
After all their mission was not to interfere in everything they saw on the journey but to escort him to the capital safely.
Of course, I could also argue that if they let these bandits go now, they could be the next target, and then they would have to fight them anyway.
Certainly, that was a possibility. And Esdras didn't mind helping those people and getting rid of bad guys but what bothered him was how reckless it was. However, it dragged the rest of them into trouble too.
The village they rested that was called, Kitgen it was a very simple village. It had less than 50 houses in total. And everyone knew each other and we're somehow related to one another.
Unfortunately, we will not be able to get any supplies here. They did not even have a proper inn. They had to sleep in a barn that night.
It did beat sleeping out in the wild in a tent, that's for sure.
The good news was, they were actually not that far from a town, just two days' journey. Cilios was ruled by Baron Fornhart.
Three days later.
Cilios was indeed in a better shape than small villages, it had some traffic somewhat. This meant that they could rest for a bit and then head back.
In the night, Esdras changed into a black cloak and pulled up the hood to cover his face as he jumped out the window.
In a gloomy dark alley.
"Sir!" "Sir, I came first" "my lord please hear me out first!"
A few hoodlums, upon seeing Esdras's black cloak immediately came over to greet him and beg to speak first.
"How is it? Has there been anything strange happing here lately? What about the war, tell me anything useful and you will get a reward as promised."
When they arrived here yesterday he subdued these thugs and used them to gather information. They should know some things that strangers wouldn't and the war's latest updates were also very important.
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