Cursed Heroine

Chapter 16: Bandit troubles

While we are walking westward the next day, I take the opportunity to interrogate some bandits that attack us. It was basically a one-sided slaughter. The foxy effect allowed me to almost literally dance circles around them as I sliced them up. Sophia was content to stand back and watch what she later described as a beguiling dance of death. My movements were deceptive and difficult to track while being viciously cunning. I gathered up the coin they have and burned up the bodies. From what they told us, I’ve learned that we are indeed on the road I expected and that we are less than a day’s walk from the next town. As evening comes around, the town is finally in view and we stop for the night. We plan to bypass this town the next day to be sure that there is no trail to follow if anybody is trying. There is no need to stop other than for the safe comfort of an inn anyways and neither of us would really feel comfortable in an inn from a small town, nor would we feel safe staying there. The next stop is three days walking distance to the dungeon city, Rork. There are plenty of demi adventurers there, so we will likely not stand out should we enter the city from the west gate. For the next three days, we did very little from our normal routine except kill a lot of bandits. Two pretty women walking down the road seems to attract them like bees to flowers.

“I think we killed more bandits in the last few days than our escorts killed the entire time we were with them.”~Sophia

“It’s to be expected, Mistress. Royal guards tend to send most bandits into hiding, while two pretty women draw out even the most cautious sorts. At least we won’t have a shortage of the local currency. I don’t want to use the coin from Parnam unless I have to, it’s too unusual for a demi to have gold from such a human-centric kingdom.”~me

“We should try to swap it out if such an opportunity occurs.”~Sophia

“We’ve just about reached the city, we’ll circle around to the west gate and have a real bath tonight. Should we buy some horses or a carriage? Although walking with my effects doesn’t tire me at all, you aren’t used to it and the pace is tedious.”~me

“Let’s first see if we can take up a guard job through the adventurer’s guild to act as escorts to the next town. Maybe we can get lucky and the employer will let us ride with them. We can only use our real names, but you should hide a big portion of your status. Pretend to be half catkin and only show your mana skills and one detection type skill.”~Sophia

“Were you always this smart?”~me

“Bad kitty! I’ve always been smart, just hiding it from my father.”~Sophia

We are stopped by the guards to pay the entry toll and required to remove our hoods before entry. The number of times my sense intent go off due to sinister, lust-filled intents is impressive. I don’t think our stay here will be entirely peaceful and let Sophia know about what I sensed.

“Since that’s the case, we will head straight to the guild to register and look for a hire.”~Sophia

We get directions to the guild easily enough and our applications are processed in a very straightforward manner. I held back most of my status and we are both listed as stage two adventurers. There was no cliche bullying of the new girls, although some groups of guys tried to pick us up. I didn’t bother much with them, simply using a force spell to knock them out. We managed to find a merchant task heading out tomorrow morning and signed ourselves up. Staying at a high class inn tonight, we get a room with a bath and bed and spend the night relaxing. When we get up in the morning, we quickly get ready and head to the meeting point near the west gate.

“Are you Mr. Arkin?”~Sophia

“That’s me. You must be the newbies, Sophia and Lilia, who signed up as escorts yesterday. Could you show me your guild papers, it’s always best to be sure.”~Arkin

“Sure, here they are.”~Sophia

“Alright, I’ve verified them. You can take your pick from the carriages that don’t already have any adventurers in them. Just sit wherever you can find space. We will depart as soon as the last groups show up.”~Arkin

We hop into one of the first carriages and start our morning cultivation. I decided last night that I would be focusing on spirit whenever we happen to obtain some spirit crystals. We currently have thirty-one from our dungeon diving in Kellor. Spirit energy can only be increased by using an external source, sp doesn’t work. The spirit stage is increased the same way you would increase any other except it is more difficult to cultivate than the others. I quickly use up half my available spirit and notice that my dragon’s perception has been reduced, confirming my earlier hypothesis that it is dependent on spirit. I also discovered that my usual cultivation speed in other things is also much slower with my spirit in a reduced state. Spirit will be cultivated last from now on. My progress these days has slowed to a crawling daily grind.

The night watch is covered by the merchant’s personal guards. Each of the merchants in our caravan has their own personal guard, sometimes two. One guard is enough to escort them around a town or city but not enough to protect them out here from bandit attacks. Which is why they will hire adventurers as extra muscle. We set our bedroll beneath our carriage and go to sleep after setting up a divine skill called alert ward. It is just something that will ward off most wildlife and alert me if anything crosses the established boundary. It cost almost all my daily income of faith, but is worth it. No one disturbs us during the night and we continue our journey the next day. This day we aren’t so lucky as to avoid bandits and it’s a rather large group of them too. The merchants choose to try to negotiate with them instead of immediately risking a fight.

“We’ve successfully negotiated a price. Let’s go.”~Arkin

“How much did you have to pay?”~Sophia

“Not too much, bandits in this area understand that the merchants would stop coming at all if they try to take too much. There is only one group that is somewhat difficult to deal with. We won’t run into them until the final week, if at all.”~Arkin

“Thanks for the information.”~Sophia

The rest of the day, we only ran into some small groups of bandits that either died or fled. I would go around after every engagement and heal the wounded, gathering a large amount of faith as I did. I quickly started to be known as the mysterious, quiet healer in the group since I always keep my hood up. No one dared to make trouble with Sophia and I after I had started healing people. Insulting or otherwise getting on the bad side of a healer is never a good idea. They are not common and always very much needed. I managed to sneak around during the nights, exchanging my gold with the local kind. We successfully arrive at the next town and the merchants went about their business for a day before we set out again the following morning. These days will repeat themselves for nearly two months before we will finally reach the border trade city, Legrace. Legrace has a toll bridge that crosses over into the Magic Forest, territory of the demi races. The city sitting on the Magic Forest side of the bridge is named Wynfel and is primarily populated by wood elves. Six weeks flash by like a blur and we inevitably ran into that group that Mr. Arkin was worried about. Of course we would run into them with such an obvious flag event. Well, not that I would mind a good fight. Sophia and I have made great progress in our cultivation for the last six weeks, I even activated my regeneration trait…

<Status> +[disguised stats], -[hidden stats]
Name: Lilia | Age: 20 | Sex: Female
+Race: {Vampire(50%)}{Blood demon(25%)}{Dragon(20%)}{Dryad(5%)}
Cultivation Stages: {Body: 3(0%)}{Mind: 3(55%)}{Spirit: 2}{Divine: 2(25%)}{Law: 0}
Energy Reserves: {Qi: 1566/1666}{Mana: 5000/10000}{Spirit: 170/170}{Divine: 700/1000}
Attributes: Str: 1000(50%) | Vit: 1000(50%) | Agi: 3000(50%) | Int: 10000(65%)
Soul Potential: 140
<Skills>
{passive}
[Sense Mana 2], [Sense Presence 2], [Sense Intent 1], [Sense Danger 2]
-[Soul Devourer 1]
{active}
[Mana Control 2], [Mana Shaping 1]
-[Inventory 1], [Shadowmeld 1], [Contract(activate: 19sp)]

<Status>
Name: Sophia | Age: 23 | Sex: Female
Race: {Wood Elf(50%)}{Human(50%)}
Cultivation Stages: {Body: 2}{Mind: 3}{Spirit: 1}{Divine: 0}{Law: 0}
Energy Reserves: {Qi: 900/1000}{Mana: 3500/4000}{Spirit: 100/100}{Divine: 0/0}
Attributes: Str: 1000 | Vit: 1000 | Agi: 1000 | Int: 4000
Soul Potential: 120
<Skills>
{passive}
[Sense Mana 4], [Sense Presence 3], [Sense Danger 3]
{active}
[Mana Control 3], [Mana Shaping 2], [Tamer 1], [Assess 2]

We’re already expecting a battle, even before the negotiators come back to report their failure.

“They want too much, and if that isn’t bad enough, they told us to leave the women behind. I’m not fool enough to believe that anyone here hasn’t received a heal or blessing from our little priestess here. None of us would be so ungrateful as to suggest we adhere to their demands.”~negotiator

“The problem is that they have an elite stage three mage in their midst. We need to have our best fighters target that individual or we will definitely lose.”~Arkin

“You can leave the mage to the two of us. I’ve broken through a number of days back and should be able to at least hold on for a while.”~Sophia

“There’s a big difference between just broken through and an experienced stage three. Plus, it would be irresponsible to put a healer on the front line.”~Arkin

“That won’t be a problem, priestess is only a side job for her. She also recently broke through in body to stage 3. So long as she can get close to the mage, he won’t stand a chance.”~Sophia

“Damn, you little girls are monsters. Having such cultivation at your age is ridiculous. Okay, we’ll arrange things like this. Now the rest of you...”~Arkin

After Mr. Arkin finished arranging everyone's battle plans, we get into position.