Wearing a simple mask over his face, John’s mace didn’t spare the country’s soldiers.

It took very little effort on his part to put down the soldiers who were fighting for their lives. All it took was one swing with all of John’s weight behind it, and they either collapsed or were knocked off their feet from his superior strength. The other bandits took out those knocked down, and in less than five minutes, the soldiers were all dead. As the other bandits were looting the corpses, Pete came over to John.

“This ambush turned out so well because of your strength, brother. We would’ve lost more than the few we had if it wasn’t for you.” Pete patted his shoulder.

“What’s next?” John asked, noticing he received no rewards for this successful bandit ambush by the system.

“We wait for the scouts to come back with information regarding the enemy’s movements. Until then, we loot and then stay out of sight so that we don’t get ambushed.” Pete informed.

John nodded and began to take the belongings from the corpses just like the other bandits. As of now, he had nothing but his strength to his name. During his looting, John carefully made sure to avoid the eyesight of the other bandits as he placed the stolen loot inside his looting bag. Armor, weapons, money, and anything else of value that the soldiers held. Later on, when they were leaving, John heard someone ask who was desperate enough to steal the armor off the soldiers.

“All that shit does is make it harder for you to run and avoid getting hit. Speed is everything in a fight.” A bandit laughed.

John disagreed. He thought that with his now-naturally strong body, armor would be a good addition to that. With Fighting Instincts of a Beast to aid him in combat along with his new-found muscles, the limiting weight of the armor would be minimal. All that protection and good fighting skills would make speed pointless.

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“Impossible...” Commander Han refused to believe his eyes. “I refuse to accept this!” Han swung his blade in a furious frenzy, killing several bandits until he came face-to-face with the number one killer of his men during this capturing expedition.

The Masked Bandit. He was the only bandit to wear a mask during the expedition in which Commander Han was searching for the commoners Lydia Martel and John Martel, who were presumed to have escaped into the mountains. For some unexplainable reasons, these filthy, crazy bandits have been ambushing and killing his men for the past two weeks during their search! Due to the number of losses suffered by the bandits, Commander Han was forced to call for reinforcements to wipe them out to the last man. Otherwise, it was going to be his men who died to these pieces of trash.

“...” John could tell this man was skilled.

Perhaps by defeating him, he could get a reward from the system. He hasn’t received anything from the system ever since he obtained the looting bag. John was no closer to figuring out what actions were worthy enough to the system to gain a reward for. Trying to talk to it out loud or inside his mind wasn’t enough either. Either it didn’t care for his questions, or it didn’t come with that ability. John believed it was the first. If it could make things out of thin air and suddenly give him knowledge, there was no way it couldn’t do other things. Maybe this system thing was a deity, and he was its first believer.

“What gave you pieces of filth, the courage to face us righteous soldiers!?” Commander Han brought down his sword toward John’s head.

“...” John couldn’t answer for the rest of the bandits. He was only doing this to survive.

John raised his mace’s shaft to block the soldier’s subsequent rage-filled slashes. Despite his appearance that said he’s lost his mind to anger, this noble soldier was more than skilled enough to keep John at bay. Once he realized at their first clash that his strength could not match up to John’s, he avoided any direct clashes and avoided all attacks, even at the cost of sacrificing a potential successful slash on John.

Over a dozen moves later, John had several small cuts over his body while the commander was still unharmed. “Why would a man such as yourself waste your talents with rabble like this? If a man like you joined my squad, you could have become known all over the country! A war hero! A man amongst men! Now, even if I wanted to spare you, I wouldn’t be able to without them chopping all four of your limbs off.” Commander Han demanded an answer.

“I have a bad history with nobles. I don’t believe I’d be a good soldier if I had to serve under one.” John shared, seeing no need to go into the real reason why he became a bandit.

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“Then why not work as a bounty hunter for the country?” He asked

“Criminals aren’t allowed to become bounty hunters.” John smiled behind his mask.

“It infuriates me to my bones that I have to kill a talented man like yourself because of the circumstances that you were forced down. However, my blade shall not waver. You and your lot killed too many of my men. If you have any loved ones, tell me now. I swear upon my position as Commander of the Somar nation that I, Han Gregory, will make sure they receive your corpse in whole.” Commander Han spoke with a somber tone as if it was a given that John would die today.

“Our fight isn’t over yet.” John was confused about where Han got his confidence from that he was about to die anytime soon.

“A man should die fighting.” Han nodded in agreement before rushing forward.

Horizontal? Diagonal? No! A piercing blow! The instincts of a wild beast alerted John to the incoming fatal blow. John blocked the blow with the shaft of his mace, and before Commander Han could unleash continuous sword attacks like before, John pushed forward when their weapons collided. Thanks to his superior strength, Commander Han was thrown off his feet from the force of the push. John tossed his mace as he dove toward Han, mounting on top of him.

“What kind of-” John’s fist smashed into his face before he could finish whatever he was about to say.

Punch after punch drilled into Commander Han’s head. Even raising his guard to block his face wasn’t enough to offset the pure power behind John’s blows. After a dozen punches to the head, Commander Han was no longer fully conscious. He spoke in tongues while his eyes were unfocused and glazed. John got up and knocked him out with a kick to the head.

“Commander Han has fallen! Retreat!” A soldier shouted.

“Kill 'em while they’re running!” Pete shouted in joy.

Some bandits took out bows and shot arrows at the fleeing soldiers. John even participated by throwing rocks with his inhuman strength, dropping several soldiers. The bandits killed those who weren’t able to avoid their ranged attacks and got to their favorite part of being a bandit. The looting part! Everyone pillaged the corpses of the soldiers before coming together at Pete's shout.

“Alright, boys, we raised a lot of hell these past two weeks, and I'm sure as hell that we got an army or something damn near one coming to murder us real soon. We’re going to go back to base, pack up our shit, and run to Desmont.” Pete told them.

“What’s at Desmont?” Someone asked.

“Not an army of soldiers coming to kill us for sure. If they chase us all the way to Desmont, we’ll run to Higgory and keep on running until those bastards give up, or we grow strong enough to kill those bastards for chasing us for so long! I don’t know about you fuckers, but I'd rather get strong enough to beat their asses than keep on running for the rest of my life!”

“Fuck the military!”

“Fuck the nobles!”

“We’re going to murder all their asses!”

As the bandits were rallying over Pete’s speech, John received a weapon as a reward from the system. A two-handed metal flail with the swipple having spiked studs embedded in it.

He didn’t take it out, but it looked quite impressive. As they were returning to the hideout, John agreed with Pete’s plan. Run until they get strong enough to repel any attacks by the army. He was curious, though, how was Pete going to train a bunch of wily bandits? John could trust himself to work on his body and skills as he apparently received rewards from the System god for doing so. Maybe if he had the opportunity, he would share a few of his rewards with the bandits if it didn’t fit his wife. After all, he was tied to them now, and there weren’t any other options other than staying on the run in the wild with his wife. That option did not look suitable, considering John had no idea how to live in the wild.

No matter how strong John was, survival took more than a strong body. He was just a farmer who turned into a bandit. All his knowledge was in farming and recently fighting. At the bandit hideout, there was no land to farm. So, whenever they weren’t fighting the military, John was spending time with his wife and strengthening his body, as there was not much else to do. The bandits spent time drinking, playing games, gambling, or indulging in women at the brothel.

When they arrived back at the hideout, John went straight to his home and took off his mask. He smiled when he saw his wife safe and lively. One of John’s conditions said that his wife was off-limits, but that didn’t mean that the bandits would obey if he wasn’t around. He had to cripple and break a few bandits that had thoughts about his wife while he was out ambushing with Pete. Thankfully, Leo proved himself more useful than John thought. Leo lived next door and kept a constant watch on John’s house when he was out because he believed they were brothers now. They should protect each other’s wives! Even if Leo didn’t have a wife or even a girlfriend at the moment. He expected John to do the same for his wife in the future!

“We’re going to be leaving soon, Lydia,” John told her. “If you have anything you need to pack, just point at it for me, and I'll store it.” She knew about his looting bag because he told her about it.

Lydia pinched her nose and pointed to their backyard. John helplessly smiled. Being covered in blood, dirt, sweat, and who knows what else would make him rather stinky. Listening to his wife without complaint, John went out back to wash himself with water. Soon after, Lydia came to help him wash any spots that were rather hard to reach on his own.

After washing all the grime, blood, and more off from his body, Lydia couldn’t help but bite her bottom lip as she looked at her husband in his full glory. It seems that packing their belongings had a wait a bit as Lydia dragged John into their bedroom. A few hours of tumbling and wrestling led to both of them being sweaty and stinky together. As John looked up to the ceiling, he remembered that he didn’t know when they were leaving the village. Just that Pete said they were going to leave. He soon put the worry that they would be left behind in the back of his mind. John doubted Pete would leave without him.