Merlin didn’t mind them attacking as a group, he actually preferred that to them attacking one by one, because it would be faster to deal with the bandits as a group. Furthermore, the only ones who had an environmental advantage over Merlin were the three magi. Having dealt with them, the rest of the bandits didn’t pose any threat to Merlin.

After taking the three magi out, Merlin’s only concerns were to limit the damage the fight could bring to the tents of his group, and to make sure none of the bodies of the bandits fell on the fire and spread it around. It wouldn’t be funny that the tents or the forest were set ablaze by accident.

Still, it only took Merlin two minutes to finish off the rest of the bandits. However, after searching some of the bodies, he discovered that those bandits had a viper’s head tattooed on their chests, and hurriedly searched for any survivors and cut off their heads. Will and Camille were astonished by Merlin’s actions, because they didn’t understand why he was acting that way.

Will: “Hmm, Merlin?”

Merlin: “Yes. What is it, Will? Whatever you have to say, say it fast. I’m in a hurry right now!”

Despite his words, Merlin didn’t slow his pace in the slightest, he went from body to body checking their vitals and cutting the string of life of those who had been previously spared, or had been lucky enough to escape from certain death.

Will: “Why are you being so vicious? Do you really need to be so bloody? Look at my sister!”

Merlin looked at Camille, and saw her pushing the trunk of a tree with her left hand, while vomiting the dinner from the previous night. Merlin couldn’t help but feel sorry for her, he hadn’t wanted her to see such a sorry spectacle, but after knowing the identities of their attackers, he didn’t have a choice. Having killed one, he had to kill the rest, he couldn’t leave any witnesses.

Merlin: “I feel sorry for her, but I didn’t have a choice. If you knew who they really were, you would be thanking me instead of scorning me for my actions.”

Will: “Wh-what do you mean?”

Merlin: “Ok. All dead, now the only thing left is searching the bodies for anything of value and then disposing of them. What do I mean? Will, look at their chests and tell me what you see…”

Will: “They have a viper’s head tattooed on their chests. So, what? What does it mean? Why would you kill them all just because of a drawing in their chests?”

Merlin: “They are members of the Dushe Consortium.”

Will: “Members of the Dushe Consortium… Wait a second! The Dushe Consortium?! As in the Dushe Consortium that is a bandit association and is spread through the whole continent? THAT DUSHE CONSORTIUM?!”

Merlin: “There is no need to shout, but yes, that is exactly the Dushe Consortium I was talking about. You don’t need to panic though, I’m going to take care of the bodies. No bodies, no murder. No murder of their members, no reason for the Dushe Consortium to come after us!”

As a criminal organization active for centuries in the continent, the Dushe Consortium had earned quite the frightening reputation. Only the troops of a kingdom or an empire were qualified to fight against them without repercussion. Whenever a noble decided to take action against them without a direct order from the king, the noble’s household had been erased from existence.

It had occurred on many occasions, and the people of the continent ended up learning the lesson: if you touch someone from the consortium prepare to forfeit your own life and those of the people around you. However, unlike other bandit groups, the Dushe Consortium worked in a similar way to mercenaries. They didn’t kill, rape, and kidnap indiscriminately, they did so under contract.

They also had a peculiar “protection fee” system. If a noble didn’t want the consortium to work in his territory, paying a high enough fee to the consortium was the way to go. There were also different fees, according to the amount of gold paid, a noble could restrict the actions of the consortium members inside his territory in different ways, or make them go away altogether.

Merlin’s territory didn’t need to pay yet, because the consortium always waited a decade before starting to ask fees from a newly stablished territory. The reason for that was very simple, when a territory was bestowed by a king to a newly ascended noble, the situation of the said territory was usually a mess, and it took about a decade to put things in order. 

Another reason was that if the noble didn’t have any descendant, the territory would go back to the kingdom were the noble to die. A span of 10 years was enough for a noble to have a kid or two. After al, the consortium had existed for centuries, so waiting 10 years meant nothing to them. 

Having finished pillaging the bodies, Merlin stored them inside his ring. He would have cremated them in situ, but he didn’t want to take the risk of setting the forest ablaze, so he decided to store the bodies away and cremate them at a later time, when they had gone out of the forest.

Will and Camille were pale, they were still afraid that members of the Dushe Consortium would come after them. Merlin, on the other hand, was pretty confident they wouldn’t come. There were several oddities with the presumed consortium members Merlin had eliminated, and he couldn’t take them out of his head.

First, their tattoos. Merlin didn’t know how the tattoo arts worked on that world, but if they worked in a similar way as they did back on Earth, the tattoos on the bodies of the dead bandits were too new. It was widely known that the new members of the consortium would be trained by senior members, for at least two whole years, before going out in the field. However, in Merlin’s opinion, the tattoos on the chests of the bandits he had killed were four months old at most.

The other oddity Merlin had noticed was their strength. They were too weak. Usually, the weakest members dispatched by the Dushe Consortium would have the strength of a B Rank adventurer. However, if that had actually been the case, they wouldn’t have fell like flies once Merlin had disabled the three magi. 

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With his current strength, it would have taken Merlin twice the time to deal with the bandits, were they to have the strength of B Rank adventurers. All those clues pointed to two possibilities: either they had gone rogue after joining the consortium, or they were just posers. Either way, the consortium wouldn’t come looking for trouble with Merlin, they would thank him instead.

There was still a third possibility, which was the main reason why Merlin didn’t want to leave any evidence of their fight with the bandits. The bandits could be new recruits of the consortium who were in the middle of a field exercise, and after finding Merlin and the siblings by chance, they had decided to profit from the situation, but they ended up annihilated.

Although Merlin’s money wasn’t on the third option, it couldn’t hurt to be cautious, just in case. As it being unlikely didn’t mean it being impossible, Merlin had decided to store the bodies away and cremate them after they were several miles away from that forest, for he still couldn’t afford to offend such a mighty foe. 

Merlin’s mischievous side appeared, and he didn’t tell the siblings about his suspicions. However, Merlin’s mischievousness had an unexpected effect on the siblings, and he ended up regretting his decision. By not telling them, their fear grew bigger by the second and that wore them out. 

They were unable to sleep nor rest for several days, and Merlin couldn’t bring himself to tell them the truth after that much time, lest he would to be blamed for their situation. Knowing that they couldn’t continue like that, Merlin decided to put them at ease as soon as they went out of the forest. What happened next, was really out of his expectations.

Merlin: “Hmm, guys, you don’t have to be so tense…”

Camille: “But Merlin, what if they come for us when we let our guards down?”

Will: “Camille is right, we must be alert! We don’t know when they will come for us!”

Merlin: “What I mean when I say that you don’t have to be so tense, is that if they really were coming after us, they would have done so before we left the forest. It would have been more advantageous for an enemy to attack there. Since we haven’t been attacked there, it means no one in coming for our lives!”

*flop* *flop*

*I’ll be damned!* thought Merlin.

As soon as they relaxed from hearing Merlin’s words, both Camille and Will fell unconscious on the ground. With little to no rest due to the lack of sleep, and mentally wore down from expecting an enemy attack, which didn’t happen, the siblings had been at their limits for several days. 

Now that the state of permanent tension that had allowed them to hold on for several days was gone, they fell unconscious instantaneously. Merlin cursed himself for his actions the previous days. A single moment of mischievousness had resulted in that situation, and now that both siblings were unconscious, it would be difficult to deal with it, if a dangerous situation in which they were attacked were to arise.

Not wanting to remain in that location even a second more than necessary, Merlin took the matters into his own hands, and made sure they would be able to depart before midday. He took Camille and put her on her horse, then, taking a rope out of his ring, Merlin tied her to the horse so that she wouldn’t fall from it. 

Will was next, Merlin tied him to his horse too and grabbed the bridles of both horses to guide them. Unfortunately, that meant their travel speed was going to fall a lot, but it was still better than waiting like sitting ducks, where the siblings had fallen unconscious. Despite Merlin’s money not being on that third possibility, he didn’t want to take that gamble and chose to flee, just in case.

*****************************************************

Shephiran Kingdom, Shephiria, Royal Chambers…

A woman who seemed to be in her thirties was impatiently walking around her room. She had a crown on her head, and she had started to bit her nails. Looking at her actions and the ugly face she was making in that moment, nobody would have thought that she was, in fact, the Queen. 

*knock**knock*

Queen: “Enter!”

A maid opened the door and gave an envelope to the Queen. She kept the head down at all times, and didn’t dare to look her in the eye. She hurriedly went back out of the room and let out a sigh of relief after closing the door. The maid didn’t know what it was that was making the Queen so irascible during the last weeks, but she was afraid for her life. The fact that the Queen had another maid whipped to death three weeks prior, didn’t exactly calm her heart.

The Queen opened the envelope so fast that she cut her finger, but she paid no attention to it and read the contents of the letter. Below the mark of a viper's head, there were only six words: “Currently unable to locate the target.”

Cursing through her teeth, the Queen shredded the letter and the envelope in a fit of rage. Forcefully calming herself, she recovered the bits from the floor and threw them to the heath in the room. 

Queen: “Where are you, little whore? Just where are you hiding that even they are unable to find you?”

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