Daniel had to get stronger. He could get stronger by fighting alone, but Daniel felt that individual strength could only go so far. To go beyond that, he needed a group.

He could join the army, but that would be putting his fate in the hands of others. Wars were deadly. Ean had gone to war a year and a half ago and there was no news of him or of others who had gone to war.

No, he would not endure an army without being a troop commander or a lord. As it was, the only way he could access power and wealth was to start a bandit gang.

The problem was this. He thought that by integrating existing bandits he could skip the basic part of gang-building. He was wrong.

The guy Ted, to whom the bandits sold their goods, paid very little. He had to find better connections. Not just better connections. He had to find people in the town to work for him, to spy for him.

It was hard to be outlaws in this area, stealing from the villagers was hard because of the walled villages, and the merchants rarely took the rough roads and trails. So they rarely passed through Daniel's territory.

Daniel should have entered the town, but someone of his size would certainly have attracted attention. And the area was small. The town was about 7,000 people and the average village was 600 to 1,000 people. If you take the average village of 800 and multiply it by 35 villages, you get 28,000 villagers, and if you add the central town of the barony of 7,000 people, the population of the whole barony was 35,000.

Daniel had to go to the town and talk to the people. He had to do this without attracting too much attention.

He should have a suit made for himself. He knew how to sew, but if he wanted to look like a respectable man, he should have a good tailor make his suit.

As he thought about who would make him clothes out of a fabric that was expensive for a peasant without telling anyone, Daniel thought of Alissa. She and her siblings always wore well tailored clothes that were proportionate to their bodies.

Since they lived in a time when there was no ready-made clothing and Hans was a useless brat, Alissa must have sewn the clothes.

Daniel cut a piece of cloth that he felt would be more than enough for his new clothes. He put it in a bag and went to the village.

When he got to the village, he waited for it to get dark. It was dark, everyone retreated to their homes. When everyone had gone home, he knocked on Alissa's door.

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Alissa opened the door, saw Daniel, and her face broke into a smile, followed by an uneasy expression. "Where's Danny? Who are you?" Daniel smiled slyly. Inside he said, 'Danny boy, how lucky you are.

Daniel grinned wickedly "From the moment Danny realized you were using him, he turned his back on life and created me in his head. My name is Daniel, I'm the opposite of Danny, he's kind and stupid. I am evil and smart." Silent tears flowed from her eyes. "I never wanted to use him, I'm not a bastard who plays with the feelings of someone who loves me."

Daniel handed her a bag of fabric and said, "I know your intentions were good. You were desperate, you had a family to support and you had a dog with its tongue out ready to do whatever you wanted, ready to serve you. You used him. And as soon as he came to his senses, he resented it."

Alissa bowed her head, crying silently. Daniel said, "Don't be sad, but if you want to start repaying Danny for all the favors he's ever done for you, you can start by making him a nice suit out of that fabric."

Alissa wiped away her tears. Daniel obviously didn't know much about these affairs of the heart. In his old life he had been ugly. That's why no woman had ever been interested in him. But even he could tell that this girl Alissa had feelings for Danny.

Alissa had asked for a week for the outfit. Daniel decided to use the week to train his new henchmen and show them exactly who was boss.

He made his three henchmen train very hard for a week. Every day the bandits trained like mad, and every day after that, they would devour Daniel's food supply.

It was during the training that Daniel realized why the bandits were starving in a forest full of game and food. The men knew nothing about hunting and trapping.

Frank was a tracker and a good one. But that was because he was a shepherd, a master at finding animals that had escaped from the village. He was not a hunter.

In a week the men had eaten well and exercised so much that their old skeletal appearance was gone, and Brad even managed to get a little belly.

Daniel left his team and headed for the town of Danburg.

His new suit was green and hooded, with a sword in a leather scabbard at his waist. The suit was specially tailored to hide how muscular he was.

Daniel had dyed his hair black with walnut leaf and darkened his skin the same way. Some of the merchants were from further south and were dark-skinned. (to my readers from the west he is not using black face, he is originally darker skinned in his past life and he turned himself tanned not black) This was his way of distancing himself from his true identity.

He took the donkeys and his goods behind him. Even if he sold them for half their normal value, it would be much more profitable than selling them to this man Ted.

The town was surrounded by two-meter stone walls. Inside the town there were stone houses with wooden roofs. The roads in the town were dirt, and a canal, which served as a sewer, flowed open from the road.

A guard in a metal helmet and leather armor greeted Daniel at the entrance to the town. "You cannot bring goods into the city without a license from the merchants' guild." Daniel pulled out a copper plate, the size of a bank card. On it were the physical characteristics of the merchant who owned the plate and the city in which the Guild was registered.

Daniel easily deciphered the alphabet, which was entirely phonetic. He used his firepower to melt and rewrite the sections he needed to replace.

He thought the guard couldn't read and was faking it, but the man could actually read.

He handed him the license plate, which he read with difficulty, and said, "Welcome to the city, Mr. Daniel."

Daniel had always avoided bad habits in his old life. Drugs, drinking, smoking, gambling, none of it. But he loved backgammon with dice and he was very good at it.

He visited a few shops in the city center. Then he went to the building of the merchant guild. This world was not like the grandiose fantasy worlds. The guild building was a simple two-story building. A few wooden tables and a few merchants inside drinking tea and coffee. Daniel said to the merchants inside, "I've brought cloth and copperware, obviously I'm new here and I'm looking for a place to sell my wares." He said.

As soon as he said that, one of them put his hand on his shoulder with a grin. "So you've just started, my friend, I'm Ted, Ted the Merchant."