It was trivial to find boot prints leaving the scene. Whoever murdered the merchants had absconded with the merchandise and that weighed on them, deepening the marks. My father could probably estimate the load based on the depth but such an assessment was still beyond me.
Before I set after the owners of those tracks, I removed my pack and hid it inside a bush a few meters away on the other side of the road.
I moved slowly, wary of any enemies on the lookout for the main group. Given how fresh the merchant's blood was, the bandits couldn't be too far away. Yet, I moved with confidence. If it came to who noticed the other first, I knew I had the advantage.
I kept one arrow nocked and two between my fingers. If push came to shove, I could put all three in the air in just a few seconds.
Soon, I heard boisterous voices celebrating a raid well done. It sickened me. Murderers, all of them. The rage, indignation, and the thrill of the hunt mixed together in my mind, forming a haze that threatened to cloud my judgment.
For ten excruciating minutes I followed them while keeping sight of the rearmost bandit. I counted two opportunities where I could've placed an arrow in the back of his head. Yet, Scout's Oath remained steady in my hands. It was not yet the time for its string to sing the song of death.
I had to first know how many bandits I was about to anger. I had an advantage in the forest but it could vanish against great odds. The footprints were mixed and muddled, making it impossible to tell how many were there. But the broken arrows at the attack site showed that many of them were proficient with a bow. I could only hope they were only as good at shooting as they were fletching.
Soon, everything changed. I heard them talking about women and how the feast tonight would be lavish. Their lecherous tone implied they had females at the camp and I doubted any ladies, I'll repute or not, would willingly service these brigands. Then a slap on flesh and a feminine moan along with desperate grunts tipped the scales away from caution.
The scrap of lacy cloth I so easily dismissed now had a probable owner.
Scout's Oath rose and aligned with the trailing bandit's head. I stilled my breath and focused, not only aiming but also planning my future shots. Then I drew and fired, nocked the next arrow, and fired two more times.
The first arrow was a critical hit. I could see the moment it lost most of its momentum due to the target's high HP pool, then sunk in. It was an almost imperceptible moment where the projectile almost stopped due to the protection granted by HP. A single attack couldn't drain the entire HP pool, though. Everyone had a threshold, a fraction of their HP that could apply to a single attack. Mine was a third. The more combat-focused the Class was, the higher the threshold divider but also the higher the HP pool.
The bandit fell with an arrow stuck to the back of his head, and died.
> For killing level 32 Warrior, you gained 14,188 Exp.
> You gained 2 levels. Excess Experience discarded.
> You earned an achievement.
> Why Did Nobody Tell Me the Experience Cap Was Real?
> Earned by hitting the Exp cap without nobody ever telling you about the achievement's existence and without anyone prompting you to attempt the kill. Do you know how people almost never talk about their Status? Hint, hint, maybe you should NEVER brag about this achievement. People would be really pissed if they got blocked from earning it because you couldn't keep your tongue behind your teeth. Plus, many idiots would kill themselves trying to murder something they had no right or power to. And it might be illegal but they can't publish the law. People tried to slip the knowledge past the System eyes before, and it never ended well for them. So, remember the requirements. No knowledge and no guidance, enticement, or hint at going for a kill one shouldn’t. But you just proved that's not right. Don't try to do it again, it's a one-time thing. Here's the benefits.
> Reward: 10% efficiency to all Attributes.
> I bet you aren't so salty about losing almost 3 levels worth of Experience. Seriously, though, go pick a fight with someone your size.
I froze and gawked at the system message. My first reaction was to ask why nobody ever told me about achievements and this one in particular but the flavor text explained it. Damn. Then my mind snapped back to reality. I was in a combat situation. No other System messages arrived. It meant that the other two weren't fatal shots. I ducked behind a tree and moved away in the direction of some thick bushes.
The bandits shouted in alarm. I heard the sound of crates falling to the ground as survival overcame greed.
"Spread out, find this motherfucker!" Someone shouted.
I drew another three arrows. Didn't fire, though.
> For killing level 21 Bandit, you earned 664 Experience Points.
> For killing level 24 Villager, you earned 913 Experience Points.
These Experience awards were weird. Even accounting for the sudden level up, they were too low. It meant these awards were for an assist, not the whole kill. Probably some brigands settling a score or a mercy killing. If I wanted to go darker, they farmed some Experience points out of dying comrades. There was no honor among thieves, it seemed.
I spent my Attribute points. The kill notifications not only revealed their levels but also the rarity of their classes. One common, Villager, and two Uncommon. The disparity was huge. On a point-by-point comparison, I was stronger than any of the three that had just died.
The shuffling of feet on the forest loam brought my attention fully back to the present. Three arrows left my quiver. Shooting now would tell all the bandits my location. I had to be ready to move. A quick glance to either side and I had my escape route mapped. Instead of moving the way I came, I had to go deeper into the forest at a ninety-degree angle with their trail.
The bandits would expect me to flee back to safety. Instead, they had to come and get me in a dense thicket.
The bandits came around the tree and got an arrow to the stomach. His HP blunted the impact but the attack shattered his threshold. The arrow sunk into him almost to the fletching. I took a step back and fired again, this time at the center-left side of his chest. The arrow veered to the side as it struck a rib but still went in at a downward angle.
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In pain and shock, the bandits only glared at me with hateful eyes. The third arrow went into one of these, putting him out of his misery. He fell backwards.
> For killing level 22 Bandit, you earned 1594 Experience Points.
> You gained 1 level.
Another level, the ninth in my brief career. Level 10 would be big, if I survived this shitshow. I spent the Attributes, checked my Status, and moved on.
Soul Scout (rare) Level 9 Strength 97 Dexterity 46 Endurance 46 Intelligence 71 Wisdom 43 Clarity 11 Charisma 12 Health (HP) 91 Mana (MP) 29 Stamina (SP) 77
"Over there, to the south!" Another bandit shouted.
I reached and grabbed.my arrows, yanking them out of the corpse. I shook them to release those pesky blood droplets that threatened to create a trail. Then, I ran to the thicket, keeping my body low.
"I see him!" Another voice shouted.
Thundering footsteps hurried my way. My heart pumped like crazy, filling my body with adrenalin. More by instinct than planning or reason, I moved in an erratic pattern, trying to…
An arrow slammed into my shoulder, skipping and tearing a gash on the leather cover of my armor. The underlying metal plate kept it from reaching me but the impact still put me off-balance.
I panicked. It was my first real life-or-death confrontation and my overconfidence might be the end of me. I ran straight into the thicket and slammed into the tall bushes. That was it. I was stuck and a sitting duck to the bandit’s archers.
Desperate, I kept pressing on. Twigs, branches, and leaves rustled around me. My legs still pushed my body forward. Another arrow zipped past me. Then a third. I could hear the bandits closing in. I moved as if the reaper was behind me.
"Damn the Gods, where is he?" The gruff bossy voice asked.
"In the bushes, boss," a lanky and raspy voice replied. "You can still hear the rustling."
What? I couldn't process what they were saying.
"You two, circle through the left, you three take the right side. Surround this thicket Boss Bandit ordered.
"What about me, boss?" Lanky asked.
"Get your machete and whack those bushes. If he used a Perk or spell to move through here, we need to find him before he escapes!"
Wait. I forced myself to stop. I had scratches on my face from the bushes. As I forced my mind to become aware of my surroundings, I noticed that I was stuck in the middle of a thick mess of dried branches and twigs.
The tree canopy forced the undergrowth bushes to let this area die since it caught no sun. Moving through this mess was impossible without cutting a path, and that's what Lanky was doing right now.
Except that I somehow moved all the way in here. How? Shielding my face, I tried to walk slowly. The thick tangled thicket tentatively moved away as I passed. It wasn't like they were moving but they disentangled at my passing like the morning knots of a fair maiden loosened up at the passing of her maid's brush.
The reason for this amazing effect was my Skill. It reduced movement penalties in natural terrain by ten percent each rank. What should be a one hundred percent penalty was reduced to eighty percent.
Calming down, I thought about how to use it in my advantage. The thicket was big, several dozen meters across and just as wide. I crouched and drew my short sword. Hacking at the base of some dried bushes, I cleared enough room to move around.
Now, silence. Scanning around, I noted where Lanky was inefficiently hacking at the thicket. Then the probable location of those sent to flank me. Okay. Calm down. I was back in the game.
The problem was that I couldn't shoot through the thicket. The arrow would hit a branch or ten and go off course. What I needed was to exit the thicket without the bandits noticing it.
I took my time to rest and release the tension. Stretch what muscles I could in this crouching position. I did a mental count of the bandits. Four dead, at least seven to go.
I moved slowly, taking advantage of the shadow cast by the trees above. Soon, I saw a lumbering form moving around the edge of the thicket.
"Do you see anything?" He asked.
"No, and you?" His partner replies.
"It's pitch dark!" He complained.
They must not have invested in Intelligence and Wisdom. It was not their fault. With the small amount of Attribute points and the demand for a tough physicality from their former jobs, they had to.
I crept closer. Now, only two meters separated us. I nocked one of the bloody arrows and drew slowly, trying to make the least amount of noise. I held the string at roughly eight tenths of the maximum draw. Once an opening presented itself, I let loose.
After a brief resistance from his HP, the arrow struck right above the left kneecap, scraping his femur, and veering to the right. The bandit fell down, clutching his knee and rolling as he wailed in pain.
I readied another arrow and waited. As tempted I was to finish the bandit, incapacitated was almost as good as dead. His companion soon came rushing in. I drew all the way and shot as I saw his tarnished mail armor through a hole in the leaves. The arrow struck the mail, causing the chain links to rattle and jiggle. The bandit threw himself ahead, falling into a clumsy roll but putting him out of danger.
Shouts came from the other side of the thicket. I identified the bandit boss and then Lanky screamed as the branches poked him. He was probably trying to leave his poorly cut trail through the thicket.
"Beware! He is inside the bushes!" Chainmail shouted an alert.
I shot the third bloody arrow at the kneecap bandit. It went right above the kidney and into the chest cavity. Instead of grunting, he started to gasp and gurgle, a sign of a punctured lung.
"Burn the bushes!" Boss shouted. “Let's see how our archer friend deals with fire.”
That was bad. The dry thicket center would burn like kindling. I felt another panic crisis approaching and clamped down. Rapid movements would spell my doom. The human eye was designed to capture these. Instead, I ailed another arrow at Kneecap and waited. If another bandit approached to help or finish Kneecap, they would get another arrow in them.
And the winner was Chainmail. I let the arrow fly true. It struck him on the side of his coif. For a moment, I thought I had scored a clean kill but the arrow bounced off harmlessly. Chainmail reached and swatted his neck like a mosquito had bitten him.
Bloody hells. He either had an armor proficiency Perk or had enough HP to shrug my attack without hitting his threshold.
Chainmail turned his neck and our eyes met. "Gotcha, kid," he croaked.
I bolted. A hand ax cleaved through the bushes, sending leaves and twigs in all directions. It struck me in the back, making me take an unwilling step ahead. I could feel a burn on my right side. At best, the ax left a divot in my armor, at worst it had broken through the brigandine's plates and carved flesh. With the heat and adrenalin of combat, I couldn't tell which.
But a quick check showed that I was missing a third of my HP. That attack had surpassed my threshold and dealt real damage. The dented armor plate was digging into my back.
I glanced behind me and saw another ax coming my way. I threw myself down and it flew past my helmet, knocking its back with the handle.
Chainmail cackled. "Got our archer pinned here, boss!"
"Good. Don't let him go," the bandit boss shouted back.
From the ground, I drew an arrow. Getting Scout's Oath in position to shoot without snagging on the bushes was impossible, though. I bit on the arrow and shoved my right hand against the ground, pushing up to leap onto a crouching position.
A third hand ax came. I had to raise the bow staff to parry. It caught the ax right under the head. The weapon spun and its head struck the bow string before skidding away into the bushes to my left. While it didn't cut all the way, it damaged the string enough to make the bow useless as a ranged weapon. Until I could replace it for another string at least.
I locked eyes with Chainmail. He slid a finger across his throat and chortled. Without other choices, I slid deeper into the thicket.