Chapter 26: Bandits
Garfield survived the night unbitten. In the morning, he dismissed the house and joined the rest of the caravan for breakfast. When they were ready to depart, he dismissed the dogs as well. They proceeded for several hours, on schedule. Suddenly, Garfield noticed a fluctuation on his minimap.
“Yttria, there’s trouble up ahead.”
“You’re sure? Do you have any more information?”
“Not yet. Given our party, we should probably just walk right into the trap and then deal with it.”
“Uh, you know I can hear you, right?” the driver pointed out.
“Everything’s fine, we’ll keep the caravan moving.”
The driver backed down. “Uh, okay…”
Garfield’s party got ready for combat, not that there was much to do. Sure enough, the caravan came to a halt a few minutes later. Everyone stepped out from the carriages to find the road immediately ahead blockaded with well over a dozen armed men and women standing there.
“Drop your weapons and then step back,” the bandit leader demanded. “If you turn over the carriages without making a fuss, we’ll let you walk back to Bretten unharmed.”
It wasn’t actually clear who was in charge at the moment, but everyone turned to look at Garfield.
“Me?”
Yttria leaned in to whisper in Garfield’s ear. “Aren’t you going to do that thing where you talk to them and confuse the heck out of them before utterly defeating them?”
“You know me too well, however, I want to use this opportunity for another purpose.” Garfield stepped forward as the representative of the group.
“Y-Yes, we’ll do as you ask. However, we have some very dangerous cargo today. I strongly recommend that you allow us to at least return to the capital with one carriage.”
“Oh, what is this dangerous cargo?”
“…A vampire,” Garfield answered.
“What!?”
The Baron whispered to Yttria. “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know, but this is normal for him.”
“Stop your whispering! There haven’t been any vampires in over 100 years! You’re obviously lying to me. My offer to let you live only applies if you immediately surrender. Lying to me means you’re prepared to die.” Some of the other bandits raised their weapons, getting ready for the order to attack.
“Fine!” Garfield shouted in resignation. “You can take responsibility for the vampire as well! The rest of us will drop our weapons and leave.”
Some of Razorflash actually dropped their weapons, unsure of how serious Garfield was being. That played into Garfield’s show, so it was fine. Yttria even dropped one of her two swords. Garfield turned to Hannah and lowered his voice.
“Go to them. Demonstrate your new ability.” Garfield winked. Hannah smiled and then started walking towards the Bandit Leader.
“What? You’re giving us the girl? Hah, we’ll take good care of her. The rest of you lot, get out of here!”
Hannah addressed the bandit leader. “Do you want to beat up your friends?”
“Huh? Yes, I do.” The Bandit Leader turned towards the nearest ally and punched him square in the face, putting him down for the count. Hannah turned towards another bandit.
“Do you want to beat up your friends?”
“Of course.”
The bandits were too distracted to figure out how to save themselves from this predicament as Hannah continued using her control ability. When there was only one bandit left standing, Hannah grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him over to Garfield.
“What a terrifying little girl…” Baron Fisher muttered under his breath.
“Sir Garfield, that was a bit much…” said Yttria.
Garfield slightly enhanced his strength with magic, grabbed the hypnotized bandit by the breastplate, and lifted him into the air with one hand.
“Hannah, can you release the effect?”
Hannah nodded, and the bandit returned to his senses.
“What?”
“Now that the rest of your little bandit group is defeated, you will answer some of our questions.”
The bandit looked at the pile of unconscious bodies nearby and decided to cooperate. He explained that they were a combination of failed adventurers and former farmers who were making their living with a side-gig of occasionally robbing merchant caravans. They generally avoided injuring anyone, if it could be believed.
“Let’s see how long the effect lasts. Order him to count upwards from one and then return to one each time he reaches the highest number he can count to.”
Hannah nodded and gave the poor bandit the order. The bandit started dutifully counting. They tied up all the bandits and squeezed them into the carriages.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“How high can you count?” Hannah asked Garfield, curious.
“Hm? Let me see… 999 novemdecillion, 999 octodecillion, 999 septendecillion, 999—“
“Sir Garfield,” Yttria interrupted, “there’s really no need for you to continue… We get the idea. I do wonder though… For what possible reason could you have needed to learn to count that high?”
“As I recall, I once completed an exercise to determine how many years it would take for some very improbable event to occur, and it ended up being over 1 novemdecillion years. Another time, I was playing a game where you pretend to bake as many cookies as possible, and I think the most I ever saw was around 1 novemdecillion.”
“I’m… sorry I asked.”
“That’s a lot of cookies,” Hannah noted.
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That evening, everyone got tired of the bandit counting so Hannah released the control. Garfield told her not to use her new ability without his permission.
Aside from the complication of transporting so many bandits, the party arrived the next day at Lorenzo without issue. As the bandits were being turned over to the city guard, their leader was yelling out claims about how they were being wrongfully accused. Baron Fisher pointed out that the bandits had threatened a Duke, causing all the blood to drain from the Bandit Leader’s face. Well, it wasn’t Garfield’s problem anymore.
The Baron thanked both adventuring parties as the caravan split up. The adventurers proceeded to the guild branch and reported completion. Garfield’s group glanced at the request board but didn’t notice anything interesting. Razorflash were also perusing the board.
“We’re heading back to Bretten. Would you like to go with us?” Garfield offered to Razorflash.
“Oh, after all the time it took to get here, we thought we may as well complete a request or two before making the journey back.”
“Suit yourself. «Teleport».”
As the party of three disappeared, Razorflash was left there, just blinking. After a few seconds of silence, one warrior spoke up.
“We should have said we were interested in going with them…”
“Yes…”
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The next day, Garfield brought his bears to the royal palace. He was ushered into a room where a formal commission had been assembled to select names for the bears. The King said a few opening remarks and then turned over the event to the head of the commission, First Princess Charlotte, and departed.
Charlotte: “Thank you everyone for coming and for offering to help with the honorable task of naming the two wonderful bears in Duke Garfield’s possession. These bears already have a reputation in Bretten for being as friendly as they are cute. Duke, is there anything else we should know about these bears before we begin?”
“They’re soft. Also, they like to snuggle up against people while they sleep.”
Several members of the commission, which was mostly female, ‘awed’ at the cute description.
“Am I correct that one bear is male and the other is female?”
“Yes,” Garfield confirmed.
“Let us start with an open forum before we proceed to selecting names for each of the bears! Anyone with any thoughts, please speak up.”
“We should give them names that somehow match,” Baroness Findlay proposed. “Perhaps the male and female version of the same name?”
“Can we not assign them names based on their personality?” asked the daughter of Viscount Merlot. “Does one bear behave differently from the other?”
Charlotte looked to Garfield, who shook his head.
“I suggest we give them names similar to combat roles in the military,” said Count Polonio.
“Count Polonio!?” Garfield cried out, noticing the Count was present.
“What? Don’t look at me like that. I want to name the bears too.”
“Yes… I too was surprised when the Count threw his name into the hat…” the princess acknowledged. “Anyway, let’s explore Baroness Findlay’s idea. All in favor of discussing male and female versions of the same name, raise your hand.”
A majority of hands were raised.
“Although it’s a good idea, we should avoid names that sound so similar they could be confused for one another. Does anyone have any suggestions?”
“How about Joseph/Josephina?” the daughter of Marquis Grosso suggested.
Garfield was surprised to see even a family member of that unsupportive Marquis seriously participating.
Several other names were suggested, including Robert/Roberta, Stephan/Stephanie, Brian/Brianna, Felix/Felicia, Alexander/Alexandra, Eric/Erica, Andrew/Andrea, Carl/Carla, and Philip/Philippa. A few were ruled out because they were deemed too similar. Someone suggested Charles/Charlotte, which the princess was surprisingly keen on, but it was ultimately dismissed.
The group seemed to be settling on Stephan/Stephanie. The first syllable sounded fairly different, so it wasn’t hard to tell them apart. Also, those names weren’t already occupied, so to speak. After holding a vote, Garfield accepted the recommendation of the commission. Following the vote, everyone stayed behind to pet Stephan and Stephanie for a while. Garfield decided to make colored collars for them so he could tell them apart…
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That afternoon, Garfield watched as Hannah practiced attack magic in the backyard. None of it was as powerful as «Cosmic Slash», but her top spells could tear through just about any type of enemy they would normally encounter. Now that they had successfully tested Hannah’s latest ability, Garfield thought it was time for the next step.
“«Summon Creature of the Plains, a Human, Backdoor Innkeeper». Hannah, this summoned human shouldn’t be any different than Kay, in theory. Let’s see if anything new happens if you drink a small amount of blood.”
“Why not summon a different species of person or animal? I think I’ll get a benefit from that…”
“If we do that,” Garfield explained, “we won’t know if the effect you receive is because it was a different species or specifically a summoned creature. It’s better to vary only one thing at a time.”
“I see…”
With Garfield’s lecture about basic scientific exploration out of the way, Hannah helped herself to a small bit of blood from the Backdoor Innkeeper. She closed her eyes but did not struggle or otherwise react.
“How is it?”
“I do feel something… I think I gained another ability.”
Garfield used his sensing magic. Hannah’s blood storage was nearly full. The list of blood types now included ‘plains human’, completely distinct from ‘human’. She also had a new ability.
“Woah.”
“I feel like it will be easier for me to move around.”
“Yes… yes it will,” Garfield agreed. “Try moving over to that tree as quickly as possible.”
“Okay.”
Hannah disappeared into a thick puff of black smoke. She was already standing next to the tree. She came jogging back over to Garfield.
“How far do you feel like you can teleport?” he asked her.
“Probably not as far as you can.”
“Try teleporting to Yttria’s home.”
Hannah nodded and then started concentrating.
“It feels like it’s just a little too far away.”
“Try teleporting about halfway there, and then back.”
Hannah disappeared in another thick puff of black smoke. She returned, a few moments later.
“It worked. I also scared some poor maid.”
“Based on the results of my sensing magic, it looks like you receive distinct credit for each type of human that you draw blood from. The same is likely true for each type of fox-person, each type of dog-person, each type of bear, etc…”
“…Meaning?”
“If we wanted to, I could probably provide you with hundreds, if not thousands of different types of summoned blood right now. I’m not sure if their benefit to you will be the same as if we traveled around finding different species of people and animals in this land, though. Judging from the ability you just gained, summoned creatures still have the potential to be very valuable.”
“Wow…”
“We need to proceed carefully, though. Most likely, a vampire has never had access to as much support in their development as you do right now. If you become too powerful, that could actually be a problem.”
“I could never become more powerful than you, though.”
“Who knows? Hopefully, it’s never necessary for you to become that powerful. Hopefully, it’s never necessary for me to try to use my full power, either.”
“Mayhap, it’s necessary right now,” a female voice suggested from nearby.