There was nothing but darkness in at least a ten meter radius. All by himself, surrounded by potential enemies, he started thinking. Where to go? Right into his enemies' grasp? There was no escape from this situation. So he tried to calm down.

"All right, time to think. How do I get out of here? I don't know what I am up against, and there's no way for me to know. No, this is not the time to be pessimistic. There must be a way out."

The crunching of snapping wood could be heard... They were approaching him. He started digging trough the luggage he brought before getting himself... a shoe?

"I guess that should do it. There's nothing else I can use."

His eyes were so glued on the shoes, looking at them from various angles, thinking of their potential uses in the current situation, he failed to notice the looming shadow that increased beside him. At last, he appeared before him... the traitor, as expected. Along with him was a man that stood at a bit over Tailor's height, had a slim figure covered in black clothing and close to no sign of muscles.

"I might be able to pull this trough." Tailor smirked at his thought.

Tailor finally noticed something that stood out about that man: He had an eyepatch that looked very similar to the one he saw on a wanted poster in his village a while ago. The one right above the article about the cult that's been roaming around the city.

"Here, your cut." said the man in a sharp tone. The snake thanked him.

"I will take my wagon after you finish your business. And, as you probably know, I was never here."

Soon, another group of five joined the pair, making this a six or seven to one fight, depending on if the coach driver could be counted as an enemy.

The man took his time and didn't made any sudden moves, he lightly stepped on the ground while his gaze was locked on Tailor.

"What do you want from me? Why are you doing this?" said the boy while clenching his fist, looking him in the eyes.

"You know exactly what we are here for. Don't pretend like you don't." said he nonchalantly. "This... is no matter you can solve with just a shoe, you know?"

He then went to the back of the cart, from where he jumped on it, putting him at a range of around one meter of Tailor. Finally, his chance!

The young fool lunged towards his enemy, with his shoe in his hand. The man's reaction was fast, Tailor didn't even have time to realize that the man just caught his hand. His grip was strong, causing his hand to hurt and him to drop the so-called weapon.

"What is this grip? Is he a gorilla?"

"You really don't like to listen, do you?" he sighed, annoyed by the boy's actions.

Tailor moved his head into his direction, but the only thing he could see was his rapidly approaching fist. It was too late for him to do anything.

His body felt a sudden jolt of pain, like being hit with a brick, but it was very short lived as the feeling of pain dissipated from his body as his brain got sent directly to sleep.

"Toss him on the side of the road, there's no need for him anymore. And here I thought we were getting a new ally..."

As he blacked out, he could feel how he was dragged by his feet. There were four, no, five of them. He stood no chance since the beginning, they were just playing with him.

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After a good while of sleep, Tailor's awareness came back to him. He could hear horses, lots of horses, their neighs and snorts echoing into his ears. And... people?

The sun rays were coming trough a small, open window that was at his head. He opened his eyes to find himself in a bed. A very comfortable one at that.

"Ugh... what the hell happened?" he murmured while trying to assess the situation.

His wounds were tended to, any mark the bandits' attack left on him had disappeared as of now. How long has he slept to make such a recovery?

He found himself having more questions than he could answer, so instead of wasting more time, he decided to start scouting the place.

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

The room was fairly small with boxes sprinkled all over the place. There was not even a single spec of dust on them, pretty peculiar for a storage room. There was no cover on the walls, so the wooden structures from which this room's walls were made of could be seen.

On the opposite side of the room was a wooden desk, on top of which were several items, a simple oil lamp and a notebook. For the sake of the privacy of whoever saved him from the middle of the forest, Tailor did not read its contents.

Finally, after inspecting the place, he noticed the staircase going to the first floor. It was engulfed in darkness, except for its exit which seems to be light up by the light coming from another room. He descended down the stairs and, as soon as he reached the entrance of whatever room was connected to them, he heard:

"Oh, you're finally awake. Those bandits really pulled one on ya', didn't they? We've been waiting for you!" said a goofy sounding voice from the other room.

Tailor stepped inside only to find that he awakened on the second floor of a tavern. It would seem as everyone had already left to carry on with their day, except for one client, who was resting his head on the stone plate of the counter.

The owner of the shop, a man with a ponytail and a bushy beard, all of them snowy-white, was washing the left-over dishes from the previous night. He was wearing a simple, leaf-green apron, under which was his white shirt. Along with his black shoes and pants, this gave him a pretty elegant and refined look, unlike his client, who was a short, probably middle-aged man, that had everything about him brown: his hair, eyes and all of his clothes, except for his gray shirt.

"Even so, this is no reason for you to still keep hanging around here. This is the last time I can let you leave this place without paying. Have you brought what you owe me?" said the owner with a firm tone in his voice, while putting his hand on the counter.

"Yeah, yeah, I got it all right here." responded he, giving away what he found while rummaging trough the pockets of his coat. "There, happy now? Let me sleep."

He gave him one hundred gold, which is a enormous sum in Tailor's eyes. How much did he even drink at this point to owe so much? Then his head fell on his arms and he went asleep sitting in his chair.

"You know you can't sleep here, I have to finish my schedule and go home too."

He then turned towards Tailor who has been watching their discussion.

"Sorry to ask this of you, but can you help me get him outside?"

They grabbed him, one by his right hand and one by his left, and lifted him up his chair. He was brought outside and placed him next to a barrel, sleeping so soundly that none of the sounds made by the people down the road woke him up.

"Well, with that out of the way, I can finally take a break. Sorry kid, but you must stay outside for a while."

"This is pretty late to ask, but who are you? And how did I get here?" asked Tailor.

"It's not really your business. Be glad that I saved you from there, otherwise you might be eaten by the monsters roaming around outside."

Tailor had flashbacks to that night. That's right, he was attacked by the bandits and they took everything. But their leader wanted him to join them, so why did they beat him to a pulp?

"Did you manage to recover anything I came with?"

"What items? All I saw while walking trough the forest was a beat-up kid with a big bulge on his head."

The owner then took his leave, disappearing in the sea of people flowing down the busy streets.

"The bandits must've took all of them. So that means I am, ignoring the clothes on me, butt naked."

He searched trough his pockets and found around fifty gold. That's half of what the drunk dude owed, in his pocket.

"Where did this come from?" he asked himself with a dumbfounded look on his face.

With everything sorted out (or not), Tailor started making his way towards the big city his mother sent him to.