When they returned to Pharia, the guards who saw them coming stopped them, after identifying them by their Tokens, they let them in.

“Oh, also. Sergeant Sarah wanted you to visit her in the barracks, she got something to tell you.”

The plans for the attack on the bandit hideout seemed to be progressing. Without looking at the visibly almost dead Donny, trudging along next to him he went directly to the barracks.

Announcing his purpose to the guard watching the entrance, he was let in. After following the path to Sarah’s office he looked around, there were a couple of doors open, some dormitories right next to the entrance, everywhere guards were rushing about, completing tasks, readying for patrols, and reporting to superiors. It was much more lively than the last time he was there.

On the way, guards stopped him three times asking for his purpose in being there.

One of them looked especially distinct, slim, and short, his whole face was covered in scars, and he was missing an eye, but Mark could tell that he was probably the strongest person he has met since arriving in this world, he was enveloped with an invisible murderous aura.

Mark has seen it in only one person since he was born, his assassin teacher.

The man was a psycho, capable only of killing, he was wired to think how to kill a particular person the moment he laid eyes on them. This guy was the same, his voice a little raspy, probably due to the injury to his neck, now only a distinct scar on his throat.

"Hey, what ya doin here lad? That ain't a place for civilians to be fucking about. You better have some business for the Guard" His singular eye glared at Mark trying to see through him.

"I was told to visit Sergeant Sarah about the impending invasion on the Stranglers invasion" Mark wasn't at all intimidated, he had too much experience dealing with such stares.

When the scarface heard that, his eyes glazed over his lips forming a dangerous smile, he seemed much happier suddenly, and let Mark go on his way, while he changed directions and raced deeper into the building.

He didn't even check if what Mark said was true or not, he just sped off.

Finally, he managed to arrive at the doors to Sarah’s office, he knocked and the same bored voice of the woman once again invited him inside.

Walking in, he could instantly see the difference in the air, it was much more fierce. While before she looked like a guardswoman, doing the boring everyday tasks such a small town has for their policing force, now she looked like a warrior. Ready to destroy anything in her path.

“Good, you’re here. Sit. We have some things to go over. I know you already explained the layout last time, but the Lieutenant had some questions during an earlier meeting. We need to go over that, as for now the attack is scheduled to happen in three days. I promised to invite you to the attack, but before you are allowed to come, the lieutenant will have some questions for you.

Tomorrow you will have a meeting with him in the evening, don’t get too intimidated, he likes to test people. He just wants to get to know you and make sure of a couple of issues, but that’s all.”

Mark was honestly kinda relieved. If they just let him come without checking his background, that would be just strange. He had to get ready too, he came out of nowhere, no one knew him, and he just appeared in the town, only to soon after claim to have found the notorious villain’s hideout. He would probably first start torturing the guy and asking questions later back in his old job.

Of course, he has long ago created a fitting backstory as to his being here, you always had to know the answers to questions about your past and create a whole life, but never reveal everything to anyone. No one does that. When you ask a random passerby what they were doing when they were traveling to the other town, he would probably not tell you, even if it was nothing criminal or suspicious.

It is ingrained in human nature, contrary, people who spilled their secrets too easily, were treated with suspicion. People thought they were lying, exaggerating, and all sorts of reasons to not believe them.

With the meeting with Sarah done, Mark finally let Donny go to sleep, the kid barely stumbled his way to his room. Mark was not done for today, he decided to train a little more, he was getting somewhere with his Stamina Control, and fusing Forest Stride and Stealth.

He went into the evening town, the sky was almost completely dark, and the mist coming up from the river made it a little hard to see. Even then, a few people were still running the last couple of errands for the day.

He went into Stealth and left town from the top of the palisade, the guard looking out couldn’t tell a thing, his eyes glazed over, certainly not thinking of guarding the town. Mark could only sigh at the discipline level of the local military.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

He found himself in the forest again, it was about time he estimated the bandits would be going back for that collect call, maybe he could catch a couple of them on their way back.

Mark stalked along the shadows, heading on his way to a spot between the bandit’s base and the road connecting Pharia to the rest of the Kingdom, a little closer to the hideout. It would be easier for the bandits to run to safety, and alert the rest of their people, but he didn’t intend for that to happen. It would also be much easier to find them, they would assemble closer together near that point.

Arriving at the location in his mind he started using Forest Stride, connecting to the Forest, trying to glean some more information, the ability was truly amazing, and finding living creatures was much easier with this.

Soon he felt a couple of masses of energy denser than anything around him a little to his left, and a moment later he found another thing, a faint almost negligible gathering of stamina following behind them. Normally he would have just ignored that, but there was another thing. The energy was wrapped up in a dense shadow, something he was very familiar with.

It was the product of Stealth, after Stamina traveled in the Skill’s path, it produced a faint shadow covering not only the user's body but as he found just today, also your energy.

With that, he could assume this was the energy signature of the Rogue following behind the party. Normally he would be a little concerned with the skill, if it could find you so easily, even through an obstruction, the skill was much better than any thermal imaging equipment he had seen.

Fortunately, he has ascertained with Donny that it is not what the Skill is supposed to be doing, he found that skills in this world were very literal, almost always doing exactly what they said they are. It was also the reason why people tended not to experiment much.

He could only assume that it had something to do with his Stamina Control, but that also meant he wasn’t the only one who could find people in this way. He already saw an example of a Unique skill, if that meant what he thought it did, his control skill wasn’t exclusive to him, some people could potentially see through his Stealth.

It was a great reminder that Skills weren’t everything, it was still better to follow his learned habits. It would make finding him much harder in the future, and who knew, with a high enough level of Stealth, maybe you could completely hide from people's senses.

Seeing the bandits come closer, he circled them a little until he was behind who he assumed was the Rogue, it was a truly bizarre experience, looking at the shadow she was hiding in and only seeing the cloud of Stamina in that place.

He didn’t think he could stalk up on her in this situation, she was already on guard, making sure they weren’t followed. He decided to shoot her instead and then play a little with the party.

Taking out two arrows, he aimed at her body, he couldn't see her so he decided to use Double Tap. He aimed so that one would hit her in the head, and the other one in the heart.

The arrows flew, and a moment later the shadow dissipated, revealing a small female body falling to the ground. An arrow’s shaft sticking from the back of her skull, with the eyeball hanging from the arrowhead. Mark was a little disappointed, he missed her heart a little, the arrow sticking out a little to the right. Anyway, it was a good shot anyways, she didn’t even make a sound, leaving the party oblivious.

He slung his bow and moved behind the party’s dedicated rogue, this one was visibly garbage compared. There was a clear distinction between Vesthia’s Elite force and the rabble. He approached within five meters and still went undetected, he almost clicked his tongue on the man’s sloppiness.

He decided to use another trick he found. Normally Quick Step moved him in a chosen direction by about two meters, but he found that he could now overcharge the skill to travel a larger distance.

With a blur, he appeared behind the rogue, one dagger stabbing him in the liver from the side, another penetrating his throat.

Not wasting another second he appeared behind the tank with the shield, both daggers crisscrossing, stabbing down in the armor’s gap on the man’s nape.

Another second, he dashed out of the party, who had just now realized they had been attacked, the archer who stood next to the rogue screamed as the latter's body fell towards him. Seconds after the rambling of the armored man sounded out as he too collapsed.

There were only two archers, and a single warrior left. They started looking around frantically, searching for the assailant. The only warrior left screamed.

“Who the fuck are you. Do you know who you are messing with? You can’t bear the consequences, come out here right now, or we will destroy you, we will find your family and kill them too. Son of a bitch. Come out and we will kill you quickly, you hear me!!?”

It would be maybe even threatening to some farmers or nobodies, but the effect was ruined by the constant cracks in the guy’s voice, and the trembling legs. With every second of silence that followed, he was more and more frantic, the trembling increasing.

Soon after an arrow flew from the right lodging itself in one archer’s throat, leaving him gargling and clawing at his throat as he fell to his knees, crying as he desperately tried to take a breath.

The other archer turned towards the place the arrow arrived from and loosed one of his own. Mark was surprised. Of course not by the arrow, he was long gone from that place, he was surprised because he caught a glimpse of the man’s eyes at that moment, they were glowing with a slight green tint, with that he could confirm the existence of sight skills.

Not waiting any longer he released another arrow, hitting the guy in the chest, he fell on the ground screaming in pain.

The only one left now was the warrior, he has already stopped screaming coherent words, only screaming random sounds as he was spinning, trying to look everywhere all at once. Suddenly he felt a dagger slide effortlessly into his back.

“How are you going to kill me now, huh?”

“Please…”

“Hmm, no”

Stabbing the guy in the throat, Mark finished the party. He searched their body for money and then approached the Rogue’s body. She was wearing a thin coat made from some strange leather. Looking at it now, he could see that the arrow in her body penetrated barely an inch. It would not be fatal, he was lucky the shot in the head dealt with her. Searching further, he saw a couple of daggers on her body, some of much better make than his.

Taking that he also found a little pouch with some herbs and a single vial with purple liquid inside. He was intrigued, and he decided to take all that and later find what it could do.

The screaming may have garnered some attention, so he would linger around to see if he could take another party out when they came to find out what happened.