While I put another string on my bow, the bandits set fire to the thicket. I was forced to scuttle away, as fast as I could go without standing up and running away. I waddled in a direction away from both the trail Lanky cut and where I met Chainmail. Away from the flames.

I saw the end of the irregular thicket when the System chimed.

> For killing level 26 Bandit, you gained 1912 Experience Points.

The kill notifications for Kneecap came. Full award, meaning he wasn't finished by his comrades. Whether from exsanguination or internal trauma, Kneecap didn't receive any treatment or healing.

The armor kept digging at my back. Only the padding of my gambeson impedes the metal plate from carving my skin and flesh. But it ate my HP at a slow pace.

My priority was to put distance between me and the bandits. Apparently, they were on the other side and missed my egress from the thicket.

Apparently. I had severely underestimated the bandits' intellect and cunning. In all my heroic rush to attack them, one crucial question never crossed my mind. If the merchant murder site was so full of arrows, where were all the archers?

Elsewhere was the answer in the time period between the attack and my thicket adventure. But right then, their location was a known factor. The archers were In a semicircle, surrounding me. I counted them. Twenty-six archers. Their bows were crap and their arrows could've been crafted by the finest troglodyte fletchers in existence. Spoiler alert, there were none.

I raised Scout's Oath. They raised their bows. I drew and nocked an arrow. They drew their bowstrings because they already had arrows ready. See, the problem was that I was a step behind them. I needed to plan my moves carefully. Fortunately, nobody was too eager to start shooting.

"Now, now, kid," one of them said. "Nobody makes a stupid move, and nobody gets hurt."

I looked at the archers, one by one. Their discipline was their only saving grace. There were a lot of arrows pointed my way, crude or not. Even if they were as bad a shot as I thought, the most likely outcome was "Scout pincushion." The odds were not in my favor. I mean, twenty-six to one? They had to be blind to miss me at this distance.

"Fine. You win," I said as I lowered my bow and flicked the arrow away.

Straight up. It was one of Alice's enchanted ones. The arrow went up into the forest canopy and vanished. No special effects, visual or aural, took place. It just vanished behind the late autumn foliage.

Through my Guild badge, I became hyper aware of the arrow's location. What did Alice say? That every Guild officer would know of it in a range depending on the height it reached, but she would know where it was regardless of the distance.

The message I sent was, "bandit group several dozen strong levels twenty and thirty, raiding merchants road Forest's Edge. Destroyed wagon, east old woods." Nineteen words, butchered grammar.

The archers loosened their bows. They moved to circle around me and block my escape. Scout's oath rested parallel to the ground in my left hand. I could see their greed as they gawked at the heirloom weapon.

"Fancy gear you have there, kid…" the bandit archer said as he approached me. His eyes scanned everything I wore or carried. "Guild tabard? What are you? An Adventurer?"

I tried to quell my nerves but failed. "N-no. I am a Guild Officer. If I were you, I would let me go. Nothing good will come from holding me prisoner or worse, killing me here. The Adventurer's Guild will avenge me."

I stuck my chest out, displaying my badge.

The bandit leader laughed. The bandits behind him laughed. I tittered.

Then he punched me in the stomach. I flew off of my feet and crashed on the forest floor, sliding for half a meter until my helmet struck a root. I saw stars swirling underneath the thick canopy. When I came back to my senses, his boot was pressing against my belly.

My HP plummeted to zero. No more cushion to soften attacks.

"That bow of yours, give it to me," he demanded.

There was a trick here. I wanted him to take it but not relinquish Scout's Oath or give it to him. I moved my arm up but kept my grip firm on the heirloom weapon, both mentally and physically.

He put his weight on the foot over my belly and frowned. "I said give it to me!" The bandit forcefully pried the weapon off my fingers.

His Strength score must be over three hundred. No way I would win that contest. Scout's Oath left my hand despite my struggles. The runes carved in the wood flared with blue light.

"I knew it!" The bandit archer leader clamored. "A kid like you are not worthy of a magical weapon!"

Idiot.

I waited and watched carefully, keeping my schadenfreude away from my face. Imperceptible to him, the skin around his hand darkened into a deep brown as it acquired a rugged texture. The transmutation ran down his arm, deadening nerves while he laughed.

After all, a tree had no feeling in its branches.

Heirloom items all carried a curse to keep them from being stolen. In the case of Scout's Oath, it was the Curse of Sylvification. It turned the thief into a tree on the spot in a dozen or so seconds. The only way to take possession of the item and not fall prey to the curse was to genuinely believe one was just transporting the item back to its owner and act on it.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

That's how it came back to my hands after my father's defeat at the hands of Liliane Fade. The Time Witch boxed the bow together with my father's corpse. It was the only item of value retrieved from the party assembled to the ill-fated assassination attempt. Everything else was looted by the Witch.

"What? My arm?!? Aaaaa!" The bandit screamed as his torso turned into wood.

I shoved his foot off of me and rolled away. In seconds, the arborization curse reached his feet. Roots burst out of his boots and dug deep into the ground.

The remaining archers gasped and gawked in horror. I scanned them for any signs of recognition and found none.

To my side, the bandit's transformation kept going. His neck and head had thickened to the same girth as his torso. The trunk grew up, sending branches in all directions, which sprouted emerald leaves. His pants ripped as the legs joined forming a sturdy base. The arms remained at the same height as two low branches.

"Who's the next idiot that will try their luck?" I asked as I stood up and pried my weapon off the gnarled twigs that were once a human hand.

Despite being ubiquitous in high circles, magic was something far away from the grasp of the common folk. Being able to cast spells elevated a Class's rarity by one or two steps, compared with the mundane similar.

One example was my own Class. An ordinary Scout was an Uncommon Class. Soul Scout, on the other hand, was Rare. Not that I had much to do with my tiny MP pool yet.

The bandits were scared. They probably knew they could win if they all attacked me but what would be the cost of that? Who among them was bold enough to go first?

I checked on the ongoing forest fire. The thicket burned bright, hidden under a cloud of dark smoke. But it stayed there for some reason.

The woods were damp enough that the thicket fire would most likely stay contained. Otherwise, it would have spread further away already.

I had no idea why that patch of dead bushes was so dry but it was. Some magical anomaly or other bullshit. Maybe it was a graveyard but I had no idea.

The archers remained in their positions. They eyed me with caution but I knew the moment I tried to run they would stop me.

The impasse lasted only until the porter slash arsonist group came out of the smoke curtain and reached us. Behind them, the thicket crackled and burned, raising even more heavy plumes of smoke.

"Damned Gods," Chainmail cursed. "Why is a tree wearing Percy's clothes?"

My predicament was still bad.

"The boy used magic to turn Percy into a tree!" One of the archers tattled.

"Fucking hell," Chainmail rambled as he approached me. "Is that true?"

I remained silent and didn't move.

"Your level is low as fuck, kid. Do you know what you are? Some idiot who got daddy's bow and armor and thought himself a mighty adventurer. No way you used such magic. Tell me what–."

That insult got under my skin faster than flesh-burrowing grubs. My vision went red. "I am a Scout at the service of the Adventurer's Guild! You will wash your mouth before you speak about my father! If you don't want to be wip–"

My vision spun as Chainmail slapped me silly. I was once more launched off my feet, this time sideways. But without HP, only my Endurance score kept my bones from breaking. The side of my face was on fire. I couldn't even think straight through all the pain.

Someone grabbed my leg and dragged me over the ground. Then a strong hand seized my neck and lifted me, slamming my back against a tree. The dented armor poked me, sending a new flash of pain. Yet, my hand kept clutched to Scout's Oath.

"You bloody motherfucker," the bandit leader, the one giving orders at the thicket, roared. "Do you think this is a game?"

I wouldn't speak even if I could. My jaw was dislocated and flaring with the worst toothache ever.

"Just kill him and loot the body. We've wasted too much time already," Chainmail half-suggested, half-demanded.

I was in too much pain to fear for my life. No smart stratagems to same my ass.

"Think he will sell for a good price, though. Young, some customers will pay good coin on a boy his age."

"Whatever. I just want to go home."

"Take his weapons," Boss ordered.

Chainmail removed my short sword, daggers, and knives. Then he took Scout's Oath from my hand.

"Watch out, DROP THAT!" Leader warned.

Too late. I didn't smile as mail links popped and split, sending metal shrapnel everywhere. One cut my brow. Blood blinded me.

"Heirloom weapon!" The leader recognized, shocked. Then he turned my way. "What are you? Some noble's brat?"

I spat blood. Couldn't see if it got him. The bandit shuffled around my potion pouch and retrieved something. I heard the clinking of glass and a stopper popping free. I tasted healing potion and sobbed as the pain subsumed. It even restored some HP.

"That's the good stuff," he said and knocked on my chest armor. "Brigandine, masterwork. Fuck, kid. Your gear is worth more than the lives of my men. Who are you?"

I waited for the potion to run its course. Then I wiped the blood off of my eyes.

"A Guild Scout," I replied, staring straight at his eyes. "And I wasn't bluffing when I said that killing me can be the worst mistake of your life."

I glanced sideways. A tree held Scout's Oath, a shattered suit of mail armor around its roots, some broken links embedded in its bark.

"I think I'll take my chances." He bluffed. If he wanted me dead, he would have killed me with my own dagger.

"You must suck at poker," I replied with a vicious grin. "Seriously, there's a solution to our dilemma that satisfies everyone. Give me my gear back, vanish into the woods. We go on our merry ways and never see each one again."

"Bullshit," he said. But I could see the indecision in his eyes.

"No, I'm saying the truth. I can even exclude these woods from my route. Your band can keep murdering merchants and kidnapping fair maidens. No Adventurer's will come this way, at least not because of any information I brought back to town with me."

"You will just send the Guard."

"I swear on my father's grave that no words about your band's location, activities, or composition will leave these lips."

"The same can be guaranteed by slicing your throat."

"Go ahead. If you believe the Guild won't learn of my death or know the location of my bow. Do you have anything to hide the magic?"

These brigands wouldn't keep something that valuable. It would be a temptation to steal from the group and it was worth enough to support the band for years.

He glanced at the bow, then back at me.

"If I die, the inheritor of the bow will know where it is."

"I know that!" He roared but he wasn't mad at me, more like mad at the situation. The bandit leader believed I had backing, maybe that I was a noble. This altercation would bring a slew of troubles his way. "Fuck. Can I believe in you?"

"I am nothing without my honor. I can stay with you until we can even visit a priest to officialize it."

Come on, Alice. I was sorely in need of some help from the sylvan cavalry here.

"What's your level?" He asked.

"Higher than at sunrise. Look, before we knew each other, it's just numbers on the Status sheet. After we introduced ourselves, I don't feel like hurting you guys anymore."

Should've put more points into Charisma.

"We haven't introduced ourselves."

"George, a Scout officer at the service of the Adventurer's Guild. Pleased to make your acquaintance."

Doubt seeped into the bandit leader's face. "You lie," he said.

"I don't have to. Now, if I were you, I would take that bow from the tree branch and hand it back to me."

He glanced at Scout's Oath and back at me. Heirloom item curses came in all shapes and forms.

"If you take it with the intent of returning it to its rightful owner as soon as possible, the curse doesn't activate."

"Phil!" The bandit shouted. "Come here, get the bow and give it to this kid immediately!"

Lanky, or Phil, came straight away. He didn't hesitate as he took Scout's Oath off the branch that once was Chainmail's hand and gave it to me.

"See? No curse," I said.

"Strap the bow to your quiver," he ordered.

I did. Just as my arms went back to a resting position someone struck the back of my neck with a cudgel and I blanked out.