As it was almost sunset, I realised I had travelled so much further towards west than the distance between the mansion and the village. Despite how far I've travelled, I thought about how the body of the shade wolf I aquired didn't feel like it required rest as I could keep running forward.

It wasn't too long after my thoughts that I saw something else than the usual scenary. A cliff faced my direction slowly appraoched my view before I had to stop and go around. It was too steep and dangerous while suspecious vines grew down the edges. Each strand were patterned with razor sharp blades of green, seemingly capable of inflicting deep wounds to any creature holding onto it. I didn't want to take any risks and I wasn't able to climb the cliff with the shade wolf's body anyway, so around the mountain I went.

Yet, before I was able to travel around a good distance, I saw a group of humans dragging a cart of items and females in chains and cages through an opening into the mountain.

The group was obviously malicious; bandits, I presumed them to be. Their handling of other humans were cruel and barbaric while the items they transported were gold and other luxurious products that member each eyed with greed. I was too disgusted to look at them properly, only what they had on themselves: swords, axes, a couple even had bows. Their clothing were in natural colours that camoufluges them among the greeneries. If not for their smell and their showy cart of items and prisoners, I wouldn't notice their presence at all when I was moving towards what seems to be their base of operations.

I stopped to hide and spy on their moments the second I discovered their arrival.

The group of bandits were cheering and laughing all the way, horribly teasing their female captives as they pulled them along with chains attached to metal collors around their necks. The leader of the bandits seemed to be the strongest looking man leading in front - tall, muscles exposed, and a gigantic axe behind his back. The captives were dirtied with mud on their tattered clothes and bodies. One of the girls was wearing soft fabric clothing than light armour.

The other knight-like woman behind the girl saw my gaze and widen her eyes in fear. I sensed a pattern in this.

They all went inside the cave with the exception of the last two man who had to stand outside to keep a watch out. The two couldn't refuse the leader's order as they unhappily stood their grounds.

I decided to invite myself inside.

The sun was about to set, and so I enacted my plan at night.

When darkness fell, the two guarding bandits were mostly relaxed as they believed no one would discover them in the night, and if someone is trying to find them, they will see torchlight. Unfortunitely for them, my shade wolf body was about to see in the night very well; a slight natural nightvision property granted to most canine and many other species. They never saw me coming.

I lept at the first bandit, biting his throat by surprise. He was immediately subdued by me without even a single sound. The other only realised his friend was dead when he turned around as I jump on him. He too was instantly killed off.

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I didn't feel anything when I killed them; nothing like the feelings I had when I met Cleft or the discomfort I had when I saw the bandits bullying the girls. I felt strangly empty.

While I didn't know, or remember much about what I should do to corpses, I still dragged their bodies deep within the forest just in case some other beasts block the entrance to the cave when I come out. It took longer than expected, but in the end, I strolled into the cave.

The cave was straightforward enough with a single room from the entrance, spliting into four different routes. Half of the amount of bandits from the arriving group I saw gathered in the room, sitting in chairs, eating food that were most probably looted. It took seconds before someone saw me wandering into the room. After all, I was pitch black and blatantly obvious when in a room lit with torches.

The closest bandit jumped back as the ones behind him took out weapons. All of them had expressions of fear and none of them wanted to attack first. I continued to stare at them until one of them cracked under pressure and aimed at me. I dodged the swing of his axe and picked him up by his waist, biting into his flesh. He was throw into the crowd and several of them was knocked down with my strength. A couple of them threw down their weapons and ran deeper inside and the rest tried to cooperate with each other to take me out. It was an easy victory as I lept out of their encirclement and ripped them to pieces one-by-one.

Leaving the room in a bloody mess, I chased after the ones who ran away. The first route led to their treasury and storage. Piles of gold and expensive-looking items where littered everywhere throughout the room. I hunted the bandits who was hiding and went back after checking every corner.

The second route was where the captives were held. There were some new bandits who were 'disciplining' some of the captives who froze in fear with the rest of the people in the room as I entered their little prison. I immediately eliminated the bandits. Worst comes to worst, the captives would be traumatised by my appearance, but honestly, some of them are already too late to be saved when I confirmed their lifeless eyes. I left the prison after I bit the chains and collors from their neck. What will they do then was up to themselves, if they could still move and hope.

When I moved back to the entrance room, the leader of the group also entered from the third route at the same moment. His large axe which was on his back was firmly in his grip as he stood in an attacking stance. He took the initiative to charge and roar at me. His moves were much faster than the other simple bandits, but I could still dodge it to a certain margin and counterattack. Soon he was like the other bandits, dead.

The third and fourth route was relatively simple was it was just the leader's room and barracks for the rest of the bandits respectively.

During my search, the more strong-minded girls had already walked out into the entrance room. They were still slightly fearful of me as expected, but only slightly. When I glanced their way, all of them stiffened up, but the knight girl that saw me previously relaxed when she assessed that I emitted no hostility towards them and told the rest.

I walked outside into the darkness of the night. I could only hold onto my belief that I did the right thing. It wasn't certain that I could bring all of the girls with me, much less if they reject me. Unlike the situation with Cleft, every person being a captive of the late bandits should've a different place to go, and I wasn't sure if I could bring them home. Being a group, I believed that they could survive together now that the bandits are dead.

Before I had gone away, I decided to leave a sign or something similar directing them towards east where Cleft's village was. It was the least I could do.

I then headed towards west again.