From my experience, bandits tend to come in two main varieties.

The first type is also the most common, consisting of the roving bands of raping, pillaging monsters that tend to come to mind whenever anyone brings up the subject of banditry.

These are the fuckers who swarm from place to place like a plague of rats, ruining everything they come across and leaving only destruction in their wake.

As for the second type, these are the assholes who'll claim an area as belonging to them and then proceed to exact a toll from anyone who's either brave or dumb enough to pass through their territory.

Unlike their more plentiful brethren, these guys can almost be halfway respectable in an "organized crime" type of way. They tend to actually not be outright murderous rapists, can generally be negotiated with and their presence also serves to keep the more actively malicious elements away.

But with that said, a "halfway respectable" bandit is still a bandit and I despise them all universally. It's just that while violence is a necessity with the former group, with the latter it's only optional.

"And today looks like a "mandatory violence" day..."

"Eh?" Nils turns to me with a look of abject horror. "Violence!?"

"Well just look at them."

I tilt my head towards the tree line about a third of a mile or so away, where the bandits are just now starting to emerge from.

"They're not flying any flags, so it's a fairly safe bet that we're not dealing with a simple toll here."

His eyes continue to widen as he lets out an audible gulp.

"Oh- oh no oh no oh noo..." he whimpers. "Silver-rank Class B or not, there's still only the two of you and God only knows how many bandits we'll be dealing with oh no oh n-"

snap

"!!!"

All I did was snap my fingers in his face, but he reacts like I just slapped him.

"Calm down, I have this."

"B- but-"

Ignoring him, I glance to my left.

"Yahanaseara?"

"Yes?"

In stark contrast to the whimpering middle-aged man to my right, the Elemental Spirit to my left is displaying a completely neural expression.

"I need to concentrate on something for a minute, so could you watch out in case they decide to shoot any more arrows at me?" I ask her.

"...if they dare to make another attempt on your life-"

"Thanks."

Alas, I don't have any time to waste on goofing around with her either.

Gripping my staff, I turn back around to the caravan for some quick mental calculations.

The distance between the caravan itself and where we're standing right now, the total area that it's taking up at the moment, how high the tallest carts and beasts of burden are, how much leeway I have...

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...yeah, I can do this just fine.

"Alright," I exhale. "Nils."

Of course he flinches at the mere mention of his own name.

"I mentioned before that you'll be taking part in the negotiations," I say. "By which I meant that you'll be doing all the actual talking."

"What do I even-"

"Just say whatever to try and make them leave," I say. "It probably won't be successful, but that doesn't really matter."

"Then why-"

"Because you're bait."

"Wha-"

Another exaggeratedly stunned reaction that I'm in too much of a hurry to get annoyed at.

"But you'll be the safest one here as long as you don't cross this line," I say, taking the end of my staff and digging a shallow line in the dirt in front of us.

"I never agreed to-"

"Too late," I cut him off. "Sanctuary."

And with that single word, I invoke what's without a doubt the most famous spell out of everything that my father spent all those weeks engraving onto my staff.

Sanctuary.

The ultimate defensive spell, which creates a protective field that completely blocks anything and everything that would harm the target from entering it.

Aside from its near-impossibility to cast normally due to its nature as a Mantra-based spell of the Church, its only real flaw is that you can't cast it on yourself.

Which is why the presence of Nils here is essential.

...and from the look of horrified wonder on his face right now, he's fully aware of this fact.

"Sanct- You actually know-" the middle-aged man gasps. "And you cast it on me!?"

"Yeah, so the entire caravan's safety hinges on you staying behind this line until this is all done with," I reply.

"I- I understand," he nods.

Ten...

Twelve...

Seventeen...

Twenty-nine...

...yeah, that looks like the last of them.

Twenty-nine bandits.

It's a fairly small group when compared to some bandit encounters I've had, but still plenty big enough to utterly decimate this caravan that I'm being paid to defend.

...it's also a prime number, not that it matters to anything other than my pattern-obsessed brain.

Now if my mother was here, she'd already be charging right into their ranks and swinging her sword until there wasn't anything left to swing at.

And if my father was here, he'd probably...

...you know what, I honestly don't know what he'd do. He never was interested for the "thrill of the battle" or anything like that, so I've never actually seen him fight anyone seriously.

I'm sure it'd still be awesome, though.

But while I might have inherited my father's dashing good looks, I'm still not him.

And while I might have inherited my mother's deep-seated hatred of bandits, I'm not her either.

All I am is me.

Brigitte.

As such, all I can do is what Brigittes do.

By which I mean that I assume as imposing a front as I can while internally running a thousand panicked battle scenarios in my broken, neurotic brain as I wait for these disgusting bastards to finally reach the border of the safe zone that I put up.

And when they finally do get here, I'm actually a little bit disappointed.

Because they look like a bunch of extras from a cheap play.

Brandishing all sorts of cheap, garbage weapons.

Smelling worse than the filthiest slum of the most disgusting big city.

Eyeing the three of us like a pack of hungry wolves who spotted an easy meal.

...wait, no.

While they're definitely eyeing Nils like an easy meal, the looks that some of them are giving me have a bit more of something else to them. Like they see me as a different type of prey.

...and then I notice that they're leering at Yahanaseara with even more lust in their filthy fucking eyes and it takes everything I have to keep from flying out there and stabbing the fu-

...no, no. Stop.

It's not time for that yet.

Even these morons seem to agree, considering that instead of charging in to attack right away, they all come to a halt a couple yards away from us.

Just outside a spear's stabby range.

"Er- ah- hello..."

Despite his obvious terror at the current situation, Nils does exactly as I asked him to and greets our uninvited guests.

And after a bit more panicked stammering, the middle-aged man proceeds to do his damnedest to request them to maybe go away peacefully and leave us alone in exchange for a marginal "please fuck off" fee.

...or something like that, I kind of stopped paying attention after the first few sentences.

Instead, I'm more focused on gauging the overall strength of the bastards up front. Even something as basic as one's posture can give away a lot of information, especially-

"W- wait, what are you-"

Nils's panicked voice signals the breakdown of these futile negotiations, as the bandit he was just talking to sneers and starts to ready his weapon.

And so...

"Silhouette Orchestra."

With the utterance of a single phrase and a flick of my wrist, the ground beneath the bandits erupts into a forest of shadow stalagmites.