Bonifacius stood outside, before him stood the stall with no more than forty individual cookies.

His two henchmen stood beside him, still wearing the blue aprons they wore while baking.

“Citizens of this lovely town! Come try out wonderful cookies and abandon thy lives of crime!” Bonifacius exclaimed loudly.

“Abandon? Lives of crime?” thought MilkmanTim looking over to Frednutter who shrugged uncertainly.

After building up the courage to ask, Frednutter asked Bonifacius a question.

“Ehh… boss, we… we are a gang, right?” he asked.

Bonifacius turned back to them.

“Of course not! I have come here to abolish such unsavoury organisations,”

“H-hold on… so you’re not going to take over the gang?” MilkmanTim asked.

“No, I simply wish to make this town a safer place to live!” Bonifacius explained.

His two companions removed their aprons throwing them to the ground.

“GOD DAMN IT!”

“I THOUGHT THIS WAS OUR TICKET TO GREATNESS!” Frednutter exclaimed.

Bonifacius looked confused.

“Are thou alright?”

“NO, I’M NOT FUCKING ALRIGHT!” MilkmanTim exclaimed.

“I’VE BEEN MAKING COOKIES WHILE UNDER THE IMPRESSION WE WERE GOING TO OVERTAKE THE GANG!” he added.

Frednutter grasped his head.

“We are so dead!” he cried.

“Accurate assessment,” remarked the figure standing atop one of the buildings, it was a woman clad in leather armour with a hood and mask.

“MORE OF THEM!” both of Bonifacius’ ex-henchmen cried internally.

“Greeting! Would thou care for a cookie?” Bonifacius asked.

She jumped off the roof of one building and landed on Bonifacius’ cookie plate before drawing both of her daggers.

She slashed at Bonifacius with the two daggers, he parried them with his shield in a flash.

The two weapons clashing released sparks as the assassin jumped back, landing a few meters away from Bonifacius.

“If thou wish to fight me, I will be forced to fight back,” Bonifacius warned.

“Thanks for the warning!” the assassin laughed, she threw a blade a Bonifacius’s face, he blocked it with the shield.

The moment he lowered his shield she saw the assassin sprinting at him once more.

Bonifacius activated defensive stance causing neon-blue shields to appear around him, in an instant they moved to his back, as the assassin used shadow-step to appear behind him, her attack was blocked as Bonifacius used shield bash to pushed the aggressor away.

“Quit screwing around and fight!” the assassin demanded.

“Thou have not explained thy motives yet, perhaps we may discuss this? -” Bonifacius began but was forced to block another barrage of attacks.

The two ex-henchmen looked at the battle, almost feeling pity for the good-natured Bonifacius who in their eyes stood no chance against the assassin.

“I’ll get you and the two traitors next!” the assassin laughed shadow-stepping behind Bonifacius.

He jumped forward, spinning around as the dagger slashed at the chainmail located at the joints of his armour, it broke apart allowing the blades to burry into his flesh.

“Thou have no need to attack those two, we are not allies!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

“Yeah, nice try!” the assassin laughed digging the blade further into his arm only for Bonifacius to use the shield bash ability once more.

“Tch! Thou must take me for a fool! I have seen their attempts at my life, even the trap located upon the safety of the couch was intended to end my life!” Bonifacius bluffed.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“What?” MilkmanTim left his weapon on the couch by accident and he was certain Bonifacius knew this.

“E-exactly! We heard he was a high-level and didn’t want to risk letting him roam free!” Frednutter exclaimed.

The assassin jumped back, looking at the two and trying to gauge if they were being honest.

“I don’t know why he’s covering our asses… But I’m not letting this opportunity slip!” Frednutter thought.

The assassin breathed a sigh.

“Next time one of you should report this to the boss, how the hell do you think this looks to us, eh!?” the assassin breathed a sigh as she focused on Bonifacius once more.

“If thou choose to back down, I won’t pursue thee!” Bonifacius offered.

The two now bandits joined the assassin and surrounded Bonifacius.

”You’re surrounded! Surrender!” Frednutter commanded.

“I’m afraid I cannot! I shan’t stand injustice, and I shan’t bow my head to criminals!” he exclaimed.

For the first time since the start of the fight, he drew his blade.

“Thou may choose to back out at any point in the fight,” Bonifacius offered.

“I’ll pass, thanks,” the assassin charged at him.

Her blades were blocked by his shield as from behind, the two bandits attacked Bonifacius.

They battered him with their weapons.

“Colossus Stomp!” Bonifacius cast the ability, stomping on the ground and shattering the path as the assassin jumped to safety and the two bandits were flung backwards.

Bonifacius used shield charge and zoomed towards the assassin, in his other hand was his blade.

For just a second, the assassin lowered their head in defeat.

Bonifacius cancelled his charged and lowered his sword as the assassin’s mask fell off revealing a smug grin.

The assassin charged forward, slashing the dagger at his throat, Bonifacius barely managed to dodge the attack.

He kicked the attacker back causing her to fall to the ground, letting go of her daggers.

Bonifacius breathed a sigh of relief as the assassin disappeared, she shadow-stepped behind him, daggers in hand.

Bonifacius managed to jump forwards and bring out his shield just in time before his head would have been severed.

He was about to slash at the assassin when he saw she turn to run only to slip and fall to the ground.

Instinctively he let his guard down only for the assassin to shadow-step behind Bonifacius, he expected this attack.

The assassin threw a dagger at him before shadow-stepping behind him again and throwing the other dagger.

Unable to dodge an attack from both directions, Bonifacius gambled by using shield-charge to get out of the dagger’s path.

They barely missed him, crashing into each other and appearing back in the assassin’s hands.

The assassin couldn’t hold it back anymore, she burst out into laughter at the sight of Bonifacius.

“How naïve can one person be?!” she demanded.

“Thou may ridicule me, but tis a battle of attrition, and I intend to win it,”

“P-please don’t… if I can’t beat you my entire family will be slain,” the assassin said putting on her best innocent voice.

“T-thou… thou are lying!”

“Are you going to risk killing four innocent people?” she asked smugly.

“Four!?” Bonifacius demanded.

“Thou have three siblings?!” Bonifacius asked.

“That seems quite unlikely!” he added.

“No, no, I have one sibling, the other two are my grandfather and mother,” the assassin explained.

Bonifacius charged forwards, his shield pushing the assassin backwards.

“Thou said thy family will be killed, four members, yet now thou have included thyself in that list! Thus thou are lying!” Bonifacius exclaimed.

The assassin was sent flying through a wooden building, collapsing the wall and covering her in rubble.

Bonifacius stood back, waiting for his opponent to leave the cover of the rubble.

In a flash, he spun around expecting to see the assassin using shadow-step.

To his surprise, there was nobody behind him.

He looked to the rubble once again and saw blood seeping out from under it.

“Tis a trap!”

Even so, he clenched his fists and walked towards the pile of rubble.

As he was about to reach it, his hand was grabbed by MilkmanTim.

“That’s a trap!” he exclaimed.

“Leave me be, bandit, I shall deal with thee afterwards,” Bonifacius said coldly.

“Enough of that bullshit! I know what you did and I appreciate it, and that’s exactly why I can’t let you go die there!” he exclaimed.

Bonifacius gritted his teeth.

“Even so, someone is bleeding there, someone needs my help!” he exclaimed.

MilkmanTim turned to Frednutter who stood there, weapon in hand, he was shaking as he spoke.

“Get away from him, Milkman!” Frednutter commanded.

“Thou should listen to thy ally,” Bonifacius said with a smile as he stepped towards the pile of bloody rubble.

He picked up the large slab of wood under which lay the body of an unfamiliar stranger, badly wounded but alive.

“HOW KIND!” cried the almost ecstatic voice of the assassin as she used shadow-step to appear behind Bonifacius.

She swung her blade down at him.

Bonifacius couldn’t turn around to block the attack without dropping the wood onto the wounded person.

The metal shattered and blood spewed out as MilkmanTim used the mace he wielded to block the attack.

The splintered wood from the handle flew out, cutting his hand.

Bonifacius tried to push the wood back but the entire weight of the roof pushed down on it.

The assassin jumped back, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“What’s gotten into you?” she asked uncertainly.

“I’m fed up with your shit! If you want to kill the boss, you’re going to have to kill me too!” MilkmanTim announced.

“T-thou doesn’t need to force thyself!” Bonifacius exclaimed still trying to push the wood back.

MilkmanTim dropped to the ground, grabbing the apron and holding it out in front of the assassin.

“I’m not sure at what point in the last month I’ve strayed so far from my goal…”

“But meeting the boss opened my eyes! There really are good people out there!”

Several weeks back…

Two low-level players came into the town, dressed in leather armour and with reasonable-looking hair.

“This place is a mess!” Frednutter exclaimed seeing the shattered windows and the piles of trash lying around.

“Yeah, it looks like a war zone!” MilkmanTim remarked.

“Well, that’s why we’re here!” Frednutter exclaimed patting the blade at his hip.

In the centre of the town, a fight broke out, its sound luring the two adventurers in.

Eight people were fighting, bloodied and cut-up, they were battling to the death.

Frednutter and MilkmanTim charged in trying to break-up the fight only to themselves get beaten.

When they woke up, they were tied up along with a dozen others.

A group of familiar, albeit even more bloodied faces appeared.

“As the winners of the great scrap, we are the rightful leaders of this here shithole! For your crimes against me, you shall be burned alive!” the frail-looking spear-user announced.

One by one the dozen captured people were tossed into the fire.

“H-hold on! This is a misunderstanding!” Frednutter exclaimed.

The winning gang’s leader looked at Frednutter.

Frednutter took a deep breath before he spoke up.

“We were here to join you guys! We were trying to help you but we got knocked out!” he added.

MilkmanTim looked at him uncertainly.

“Join us?” the spear user looked to his party members, there were about five of them.

“Eh, sure,” he relented.

“We could use some loyal members!” he laughed.

And so, it continued, from one gang to another the two average fighters were passed down like property, working for the strongest gang.

Their hopes of being adventurers and helping people crumbled as survival instinct took over.

Present time…

Bonifacius was holding up a collapsed wall to protect a stranger as MilkmanTim fended off the high-level assassin with nothing but an apron and a shattered mace handle.

Slashes appeared on his body as the assassin toyed with her prey, making sure all here cuts a shallow.

MilkmanTim turned to see his ally was still afraid.

Frednutter wouldn’t join the fight unless he saw that they had a chance to win.

The assassin kicked the helpless MilkmanTim aside, his skin pale from bloodless.

Bonifacius watched helplessly as the assassin continued her assault.

“Feeling heroic, eh?”

She pulled her foot back and kicked the man up against a wall.

“You really showed me!” she laughed kicking him again.

Seeing the horrific scene, Frednutter tried to strengthen his resolve, he forced himself to grin widely.

“That’s right!”

“He’s the idiot here!” Frednutter thought looking at MilkmanTim spitting out blood as he kept being kicked in the gut over and over again.

Frednutter let out a forced laugh.

“This is what you assholes get for feeling all high and mighty!” he laughed.

“You’re all tough and brave and kind up until shit gets real!”

“And then you either give up or die!”

With his still grinning face he turned to Bonifacius.

Gently, Bonifacius used his foot to push the wounded person out from under himself.

Frednutter’s expression turned from a forced smile to a frown.

He marched right up to Bonifacius, pulling his fist back and punching him in the face.

“STOP IT!” he demanded.

Even so, Bonifacius took the attacks head-on and continued pushing the civilian out of the way.