{Arthur's POV}

Arthur flew through the sky, looking below at the forest. These bandits consisted of mostly humans if the scrolls info was correct. Humans were easy to deal with, the best outcome would be the bandits immediately surrendering. He could just walk them to Graycott. His eyes scanned the forest, looking for any sign of human activity.

After a few minutes of flying around and failing to spot anything, he decided this wasn't working. He stopped in the air and lowered himself to the forest. Parting through the trees, more than one branch breaking, he landed onto the forest floor. Once down he took in all the scents around him, not catching anything too peculiar. This would be a lot like when Arthur had to find the spiders. He would just have to walk around and rely on his eyes and nose. Snout? Muzzle? He shrugged internally and plowed through the forest at a quick pace, searching.

The wildlife didn't take to Arthur much. Everywhere he went, dead silence followed as all wildlife in the vicinity ran. Arthur even spotted an owlbear, which upon seeing him growled. He approached, unafraid, and the owlbear stopped growling and retreated into the woods.

Arthur sighed, a deep and whooshing sound. It's been five minutes and still no sign of these bandits. He was expecting his senses to find something by now, but Arthur hadn't picked up anything yet.

He looked around him. Trees, bushes, more trees. He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, searching. His brain filtered out any non-organic scents as he scented out all the living creatures. He caught a peculiar scent, living but at the same time smelling of flowers and leaves. He opened his eyes and followed that scent. He had a suspicion about what this creature might be, but he had to find them first.

His confidence returning now that he had a clear goal, Arthur stomped through the forest, leaving slight destruction behind him. It's not like he was trying to break every branch and bush that got in his way, it's just that he was too big to avoid any of it. He gave up trying the first time he walked through the forest because trying to avoid every high branch in the trees that scraped his head and neck was simply impossible. He didn't feel any of it, so he shrugged and pushed through the forest.

After two minutes of walking, occasionally stopping to make sure he was going the right way towards the flower-smelling creature, he saw it. Around sixty feet away, Arthur caught sight of a feminine figure silently flitting through the trees. The woman had the build of an elf, light green skin, and covered in green leaves. A dryad, he realized. He caught sight of her for a second before the dryad seemed to meld into the tree in front of her, disappearing.

So, he was tracking a dryad. Perhaps she could tell him where these damn bandits are camping? He strode forward, picking up speed and looking around him. He spotted the dryad again, who was melding into another tree. He sped forward and saw the dryad stepping from behind another tree. The dryad has obviously spotted him and gazed at him for a moment before turning on her heel and taking off in the opposite direction. Arthur followed, stomping through the forest as he sped up to them. She took winding and confusing turns and occasionally melded into a tree and emerged from another, but his eyes followed her without difficulty. Arthur was slowly gaining, brute-forcing through every obstacle and knocking down smaller trees. The dryad was taking winding pathways, and Arthur was going in a straight line.

Stomping through another thorny bush, his claws flattening it in the process, he rumbled out in common, "Stop, dryad! I only want to know of the bandits in this forest! Tell me, and I'll-" He was interrupted by plants erupting underneath his front limbs, entangling his claws. He looked up to the dryad, who had stopped in place and had turned to him with a dainty hand raised. She shouted out in common,

"Beast! You chase me to kill me, do not lie! Your kind destroys with cursed fire, for entertainment! Why should I believe a word you say?!" He was surprised for a moment. From his knowledge, dryads were usually shy and reclusive, but this particular dryad seemed to be brimming with indignant anger. Surprising again, considering she was staring down a gargantuan red dragon. Arthur met her stare and replied,

"I am different than my kind. I do not kill for pleasure or steal because of my greed. I'm here to kill the bandits that live in this forest, nothing more." The dryad seemed to calm down slightly, considering his words.

"I don't detect any lies or malice coming from you, dragon. And I suspect you would have attacked me with fire by now if you were trying to kill me." The vines and weeds that were entangling Arthur's front claws receded into the ground. Not that they were actually impeding him in any way, he had been making sure he didn't break them out of politeness. He nodded to the dryad, rumbling,

"I appreciate it, dryad. I intend no harm. If you can tell me where the bandits are camped, you will likely never see me again." The dryad melded into a tree, appearing atop it, eye level with Arthur. She sat on a thick branch, legs dangling, and said,

"There is a group of humans directly that way," She pointed to the right of her, "I believe that is the group your searching for." Arthur understood her tone, not wanting him here. He felt indignity flare-up in his mind but he calmed himself. He had gotten good at controlling his emotions, anger almost always boiling beneath the surface of his mind. Uncontrollable emotions would sometimes flare up, but he always stamped it out. He rumbled to the dryad,

"I will head there, then, and leave you be." The dryad melded into the tree, reappearing to the ground. He nodded to her and set off in the direction she indicated.

"Please don't set my forest on fire. You are the most peculiar dragon I've ever met." He turned to her to say something, but the dryad had already melded into the tree, disappearing behind another. Well, if they wanted to leave that was fine. He turned and started to walk in the direction the dryad pointed.

While he walked, his thoughts turned towards his plans for the immediate future. After expanding his lair, he simply wanted to grow his hoard. He didn't have any big plans, Arthur wasn't that kind of person. He would be content with helping Mirfield with quests and having feasts with his minions. Perhaps there's some sort of evil conspiracy going on that he could help with? Maybe a big bad evil guy he could slay? Now that he thought about it, traveling the world did sound fun. And learning as much magic as he can also sound good. Maybe his future wouldn't be as simple as he first thought...

Five minutes had passed, his long strides eating up the distance. Arthur was semi-alert, looking around and mostly just trying to catch a scent of anything as he moved in one direction. After another twenty seconds, he finally caught the scent of them, faint body odor and the humans themselves being the thing that caught his attention. Stomping forward with renewed vigor through the forest, he followed the scent trail.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Arthur was close, he could tell. He could hear faint voices with his hearing, and a strong smell of human was wafting in front of him. He cast invisibility on himself and tried to quiet it down as he stalked forward. Reaching a small clearing, he spotted the bandit camp. It was impressive for what he was expecting, with eight-foot wooden spiked walls surrounding half the clearing and four wooden guard towers at each corner, each one looking rickety. Easily looking over the walls, he saw a compact-looking camp, with pitched tents, fire pits with piles of firewood next to them, racks of animal meat, and one big blue tent in the middle. He saw one cloaked human atop each of the four towers, obviously standing guard. Other similarly dressed humans were milling about in the camp, some chopping wood and the like, others sitting and chatting over food.

Alright, now that he got the lay of the land, he pondered on his next move. Simply busting down their wooden gate could work, kill everyone there. But he wanted to make use of his invisibility, and he was getting tired of just walking in and killing everything. Arthur decided. He would eavesdrop.

He took each step with care, gently placing each of his claws on the ground before taking another step. He had sucked in a breath before moving, and he was having no trouble at all holding it. Sneaking to the wall with minimal noise, the guards on the towers not noticing and looking bored, sitting in chairs and looking out at the forest. He leaned his long neck down to a nearby group that was sitting in the grass, chewing on dried jerky and drinking from wineskins.

"-And when the old man woke up and saw me with his medal, he tried to swing at me! Hit the old bastard right back, put him back to sleep!" Light laughter came from the other two bandits. One of the others said,

"We doing good, profits wise. Boss says we made five G's this week. With those elves we caught yesterday, we might double that!" They all grew cheerful, clapping each other on the back. Smoke came out of his nose unbidden as anger spiked in his mind. He stopped it, covering his nose but smoke went up into the air, which thankfully went unnoticed, the tower guards looking out into the forest and none of the bandits looking in his direction.

They went on about robbing villages and occasionally hostaging lone travelers for rewards, and their conversation turned to more mundane things. Well then. All this accomplished was making him angry. But at least he knew some of their crimes now. The bandits mentioned a boss, which he suspected to be in that blue tent. All of the others weren't needed.

Arthur prepared himself to cast fireball on the group, but a tiny part of himself hesitated. These were humans, not orcs or demon spiders. Thoughts of suffering people, families, elves stripped of free will for gold filled his mind. These were bandits and would be dealt like it. They chose this life, here are the consequences.

He muttered the magical words, revealing his full form. A bright, loud explosion of fire erupted around the three bandits, dissipating just as quickly and revealing three charred, smoking corpses. Arthur roared, the sound reverberating in the radius and the guards clutching their ears. Before they could react, he grabbed the left guard tower with both hands, chucking it into the second with the guard still inside, who let out a scream before they were thrown. The towers crashed into each other, falling apart in the process. The two humans were buried in the rubble, nowhere to be seen.

The bandits in the camp reacted, yelling out to each other and some scrambling to the tents. A few of the cowardly bandits yelled out in fear and ran to the back of the camp, away from Arthur. Most reached for weapons on their backs. Arthur was shot by multiple arrows, each one simply breaking when they slammed into his scales. In response he mumbled out magical words, doubling in size and towering over the entire camp. He swiped at the small wooden walls that were in front of him, toppling the sharpened logs like stacked playing cards. He stomped inside the camp, flattening bandits, feeling their bodies break and explode in gore, and also destroying a lot of tents in the process.

The blue tent entrance was thrown open, revealing a young man clad in black robes. Upon seeing him, Arthur let out a booming and satisfied, "AH. THERE YOU ARE." and grabbed the man before he could react. He screamed and struggled and kicked, but it was pointless. Arthur had gotten the boss. He decided to incapacitate the remaining bandits, which were meager at this point. The bandits couldn't really dodge his incoming blows in such a tight space, and he had made sure none escaped behind him.

Arthur sent out his presence magic, making the already grim and dread-filled bandits fall to their knees in fear. Let's see, counting the rest up there were about seven bandits left. He had killed at least fifteen, but he wasn't really counting when he was too busy stomping. He boomed out with his louder than normal voice,

"YOU ARE ALL AT MY MERCY. PILE UP ALL THE VALUABLES HERE AND I MAY SPARE YOUR WRETCHED LIVES." Arthur had gotten into it at the end, delighting in the feeling of power he had right now. His thoughts turned to how smoothly that went, while the bandits stood in shock for a moment before he snarled slightly, making them leap into action. These dirty humans really stood no chance, did they? He was honestly giving them a gift by merely being in their presence without murdering them. Now that he thought about it, Mirfield and Graycott should really give him all of their riches, these stupid creatures didn't really deserve any of- Arthur caught himself. Arrogance was practically overflowing in his mind without him noticing, and he felt horror fill him at what he was thinking of doing to Mirfield. He savagely shoved down all his emotions. He would ponder on this later, for now, he had to deal with the bandits. Focus, Arthur.

The bandits were doing as he said while he was stuck in his own mind for the few seconds there, shakily searching through the wreckage that he had wrought, bringing out bags of gold from the blue tent and a few chests as well. He had shrunk to normal size, dumping the bandit leader onto the ground none too gently.

"Go help them." He growled lightly to the leader, staring menacingly at them. The bandit leader swallowed, looking up at him for a moment before scrambling to his feet and helping a nearby bandit heave up a chest onto another in front of Arthur. He had an idea, and he rumbled out,

"Whoever brings me the most magical item here, will be spared. The rest, I cannot promise the same..." The bandit who was helped by the leader punched the leader in the face at his words and ripped a seemingly normal notebook out of the pocket of his robe. He ran to Arthur, and he yelled out desperately,

"ThisIsASpellBookPleaseTakeItAndSpareMe!" The bandit slid to his knees and held out the book up at Arthur, almost tearing up in the process. The leader seemed shocked, watching the bandit but making no moves towards him. He took it from the bandit's shaky hands and ripped open a chest that was filled with gold. He tossed it in and shut it. He rumbled out,

"All of you, come here. Is this all of your gold and valuables?" Five of them nodded mutely, not meeting his eyes. The bandit on his knees in front of him got up and said, "Yes, there's no more!" and gave a forced smile. The leader seemed to be lost in his thoughts, looking at the ground with a glazy expression. A spellbook, robes, this guy was probably a wizard. He grabbed them, waking them from their thoughts and saying,

"Do you know of a spell that can move all of this?" The wizard looked to the pile of all the valuables he had stolen. He turned back to Arthur and nodded, saying meekly, "Yes. I can float it all with a disk." Ah, tenser's floating disk? Arthur had always thought that was a useless spell. But it would certainly come in handy for him because he always found himself without a way to carry all of his plunder. He noted to himself to learn it later and moved on. Dropping the leader again in the process, Arthur rumbled out,

"Good. We are heading to Graycott. Cast the spell and the rest of you pile my gold onto the disk." The bandits nodded, less shaky now that they were getting over the shock of all of their friends dying in front of them and somewhat sure they wouldn't die in the next minute.

Hmm, that went well. A lot of gold and best of all, an entire book filled with magic. This is turning out to be a very valuable day.