Simon quickly arrived in the center of the village. Behind him, Kuro's frantic shout could be heard directing the villagers towards the mess hall. Apparently, in times of crisis, the mess hall serves as a gathering point and shelter. Simon briefly ponders the viability of using such an easily burnable structure as a shelter before shaking his head.

Not like they have any other options.

Off in the distance, a large number of men carrying torches and swords could be seen rapidly approaching from the horizon. Upon closer inspection, they seemed to be riding an animal similar in stature to a horse. Simon took a moment to examine his body while the group continued galloping towards the small village.

He was no longer clad solely in the off-white tablecloth, much to the disappointment of several of the elderly women in the village. It seemed that they had taken a liking to seeing his bare muscular figure pacing stoically around the village in between study sessions. Oddly enough, Kayae, the young girl Simon had performed surgery on earlier, appeared to share the same sentiment and apparently complained loudly after hearing the news.

Instead, Simon was wearing a set of armor collected from the bandits' remains and repaired by the villagers. Unfortunately, much of the equipment recovered was far too damaged to be feasibly repaired, so Simon's equipment was an unsightly mixture of light, medium, and heavy armor.

The boots he was currently fastening consisted of a hard black metallic shell covering the outside, while a thick leather soal resided underneath, ending with what appeared to be a solid lump of the same black material covering the rest of the boot. During his previous inspection, he had noticed that a thick metal plate had been inserted beneath the padding, most likely to stop any stray fragments of metal from piercing into the wearer's foot.

Satisfied that the boots were sufficiently fastened, He moved on towards the next piece of equipment, a pair of thick leather pants that rode uncomfortably high in the crotch area. When he first put the pants on and noticed the prominent bulge, Simon's unamused expression caused several of the elderly women present to shriek with delight. In contrast, the elderly men present sent him varying degrees of death glares.

For some reason, Kayae had also been present and was sneaking peeks between her fingers covering her eyes. She was quickly shooed out by the cold glare Kuro had given her from the corner of the room. The pants themselves had pieces of the same black metal woven within in a diamond shape pattern. An aftermarket addition that was added by Kirssa, the woman he had borrowed a needle from prior.

Giving the riding pants a quick tug down with a sigh Simon focused his attention on the breastplate-long coat hybrid. The armored chest portion consisted of a large-shaped metallic plate on the front and the back, while the sides were made up of the same metallic and leather pattern as his pants. Additionally, the overcoat was apparently made from the skin of a giant monster that lived within the northern mountains. A rare and quite powerful monster at that.

None of the villagers could explain what an item like that was doing this far south, but they decided against looking a gift horse in the mouth. In addition to being highly resistant to slashing and puncturing attacks, the material was apparently highly resistant to fire while also insulating from the cold and impervious to the rain. All in all, it was his favorite piece of the set. The only downside was the smell it shared with the rest of the armor.

Apparently, the leather and cloth portions of the armor had been initially light in color, but during the previous confrontation, they had been stained with so much blood that the villagers in charge of cleaning it had decided that it would be better to submerge the entire thing in blood to at least give the pieces a unified color instead of trying to remove the stains.

Originally they had tried to hide this grizzly fact, but unfortunately for them, no matter how hard they tried to fragrance the items, they never would have been able to cover up that unmistakable odor from Simon's augmented sense of smell.

At first, He had tried to respectfully turn down the villagers' offer and instead tried to request a decent set of clothes to wear, after having previously discovered that none of the bandit's weapons were even able to scratch his skin.

Unfortunately, the set of clothes that was presented to him as a replacement was in even worse shape than the set of armor, having apparently been shat in, multiple times at that.

Undoubtedly the villagers had presented the worst set of clothes they could find in hopes that he would instead choose to accept the set of armor out of a misplaced sense of worry for his safety. Left with no other real choice Simon was forced to accept the blood-soaked suit of armor.

"Simon!"

A small voice cried out behind him as he turned around.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Kayae, what are you doing out here? Go to the mess hall with the rest of the villagers."

"I will, but you forgot these!"

Simon's expression momentarily shifted to one of disgust, much to Kayae's delight as she presented the set of black metallic gauntlets.

"I didn't forget them." He muttered to himself before regretfully accepting the gauntlets and sending Kayae on her way.

The gauntlets themselves weren't in bad shape. In fact, they were in perfect condition aside from the odor. Its exterior was covered entirely by smooth interlocking plates. Each of the fingers were individually articulated and didn't impede the wear's range of motion. The tip of each finger was capped with a thin sharp blade, no longer than a fingernail. It was most likely added to serve as an emergency backup weapon or to handle small objects without removing the masterly crafted gauntlets.

Outwardly they appeared to be a set of mundane but masterfully crafted gauntlets. However, he knew something that no one else in the village did. Simon had discovered the secret the morning after receiving these gauntlets when he had analyzed them before Kuro arrived to teach him writing. The interior lining of the gloves was indeed made of leather. However, it was the source of the leather that was the problem. It was beastmen leather.

Unable to contain his disgust Simon spat on the dirt while fastening the gauntlets and quickly shifted his thoughts.

The first time Kuro had seen Simon wearing the complete set, he could not suppress his smile. When Simon eventually asked what was so funny, Kuro quietly replied that even though he knew Simon wasn't a bandit, that outfit certainly made arguing that point...difficult to say the least. Kuro quickly left after the temperature in the room dropped several degrees from the cold stare that Simon had given him for the comment.

Incidentally, none of the weapons the villagers had managed to salvage could withstand Simon's immense strength, so instead, he was forced to improvise for the time being.

By this point in time, the bandits appeared to be roughly two hundred meters away from the center of the village. Simon quietly walked over towards one of the nearby barrels filled with rotten potatoes and casually hoisted it over his shoulder. By his estimation, the barrel weighed roughly fifty kilos. He gave the barrel a couple of tosses overhead before growing accustomed to its weight and hurling it towards the approaching bandits.

The effect was immediate.

The horse directly hit with the barrel had its chest explode on impact, killing it and the rider instantly. Fragments of the barrel spread outwards and managed to embed themselves in the surrounding bandits and horses. By the time Simon had grabbed a second barrel, half of the bandits had already collapsed on the ground while the remainder of them were frantically trying to calm their now frightened horses.

Not being one to give the enemy a chance to gather themselves, Simon continued hurling potato-filled barrels down on the enemy until none of the bandits remained standing.

Throughout the battle (If you could even call such a one-sided affair a battle), he had tossed seven barrels. The bandits hadn't even managed to reach the first line of houses within the village proper.

During the brief exchange, Kuro and Kayae had exited the mess hall to find out what the source of the explosions was. They were consequently stunned by the sight of Simon hurling the barrels over a hundred meters into the enemy's line.

Seemingly unconcerned with the stunned duo, Simon casually walked down the road and eventually reached the bandit group's remains.

His first thought upon arriving was not how many of the bandits had survived. Instead, it was about how awful the stench surrounding them was. Apparently, the mixture of rotten potatoes, blood, and the internal organs of those who had taken the impact of the barrel head-on had mixed into an apocalyptically foul concoction that would have made even Grandfather Nurgle proud.

The stench was of such a high magnitude that several of the surviving bandits had slit their own throats rather than be forced to smell it any longer.

{Disable Olfactory Senses}

[WARNING: Power Level: CRITICAL. Command Impossible]

"Shit."

Out of the corner of his eye, Simon could see Kuro and Kayae running towards him and quickly beckoned for them to stay far, far, away. Unfortunately, Kayae apparently hadn't seen his warning in time and fell to the ground convulsing and vomiting wildly. Kuro barely managed to pull her away from the affected area before heaving himself. The surviving horses had already long since relocated upwind from the battlefield and were currently grazing on the sparse vegetation near the village's entrance, far far away from his current location.

Unwilling to stay near this stench for even a moment longer than required, Simon quickly collected the bandit's bodies. He mercifully ended the pitiful wretches that were still breathing before piling them high into two separate piles. One to burn, and one to collect. Those that had been spared the concoctions' touch would be brought back to the cool cellar for later use, while the others would burn here. With any luck, the fire will destroy the stench.

With that task out the way, Simon headed over towards the grazing horses. He quickly rounded them up and returned to the village, his path backlit by the burning pile of smelling corpses.

Tales of this night would be passed down for generations to come, not of a hero's triumph over evil, or one man's defense of a village, but of an inescapable smell so horrible that the villagers were forced to sleep with urine-soaked rags over their noses.