Sam held the two swords and examined them from all angles. They were slightly curved with razor sharp blades.

He had Anna and Nina in his mind while he had ordered these weapons, intending on giving them to the twins as gifts.

Lance searched through his shelves and took out two shields. A round one and a Roman looking shield. They were simple steel equipment but still very well made.

" You are the king, I will give you one of them for free but from here on you will have to pay like all the other customers, I need money like everyone else needs it!"

Sam nodded in understanding. He checked the two shields which had nearly the same stats and chose the Roman looking one because it protected a much bigger surface.

Lance informed him that he would need at least three more days to finish the scale armor, before Sam left the smithy.

Sam returned to the parade ground in front of the keep. Around 15 people were already present, checking their equipment while talking to each other. Sam looked at the four knights, four warriors, four archers, Kain and the twins.

Servants saddled 12 horses, preparing them for the journey.

Sam approched the twins and kissed them on the cheeks.

" Great to have you two here! I have a surprise for the both of you."

Sam opened his backpack and took out the sheathed shortswords handing them to the sisters with a big smile.

Anna and Nina jumped in surprise and hugged Sam to thank him. Their eyes got even wider after checking the crazy stats of the weapons. They exchanged their plain metal shortswords with the new ones, Sam had gifted them and started to do some practice swings.

Kain approached Sam afterwards.

" Nissa will join us too, she left to get another three archers, with them our group will be complete. It is very important for her to protect Woodchester and the people living there!"

" That's good! Please make sure everyone is ready to depart. We have 12 horses, therefore we need eight pairs to share a horse. "

Sam also told him that the twins and he couldn't ride horses and needed to be paired with people who were able to.

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Nissa arrived five minutes later. She brought three archers and a few more quivers filled with arrows, as she approached Sam.

" Hey Sam, we are ready to go!"

" Ok! Everybody get on your horses, we leave right now! Our destination is Woodchester."

All of the members mounted their horses and left the city through the north gate.

Fortunately, they arrived in time and safely entered Woodchester. Rudolph came out of his house and welcomed Sam and his group.

" Hello Sam, what are you doing here, with a group like this? I wrote you that we are doing fine, not that we need reinforcements."

" We don't have much time, tell the villagers to retreat inside their houses! Bandits are approaching our position! "

Rudolph became agitated and immediately ordered the surrounding people to alarm the other villagers and convey these orders. He also told the soldiers stationed in the village to gather in front of the gate and wait for Sam's orders.

Five minutes later, exactly 36 men and women, armed with bows and melee weapons, stood in front of the gate. Sam stepped in front of them and explained the situation.

" Woodchester is in great danger, a big group of mounted bandits is approaching us and we don't know what they plan on doing! What we know right now is, that they attacked one of our messengers without a reason and nearly killed him. Thanks to him we know that the bandits are approaching Woodchester and were able to send reinforcements in time."

The Woodchester soldiers had panicked expressions on their faces. Most of them were only Level 5 to Level 7, without much experience in life or death battles.

Sam and Nissa organized the soldiers on top of the wall and gate, as well as a group of knights and warriors directly behind the gate.

Sam took a spot on top of the gate and waited for the bandits to appear. About ten minutes later the first bandits riding their camels exited the forest and took formation around 100 meters away from the village walls.

The bandits mostly wore white coats, as well as white clothes around their heads. Some others wore short leather armor which exposed their brown skin. They wielded curved sabres and short bows while a few held quivers filled with javelins.

Finally, more than 40 riders stood in front of Woodchester, staring at the defenders.

One particular person stepped forward. He was the only enemy wearing steel armor, even though it was only a breastplate. Excluding this piece of armor, he only wore simple clothes. This person, who seemed to be the leader also wielded a strange looking spear. The handle was made of simple steel but the tip curved and somehow looked like the sting of a scorpion. His other hand held a round shield with the picture of a scorpion carved into it.

" I will give you filthy peasants one chance to open the door and give us everything useful you have inside your village. Otherwise, we won't spare a single one of you, it doesn't matter if they are children, women or seniors, everyone of you will pay the price of offending us, the Red Scorpion Tribe! "

Sam could see that some of the soldiers were trembling after seeing the enemies but he ignored them and answered the enemy leader.

" I don't know who you are or why you are attacking us but I will make it clear now, fuck off or I will make sure that not one of your men will return to their homes!"

" Hahahahaha, it has been a long time since someone talked to me like this, actually I killed everyone who dared to disrespect me like this! I will give you five more minutes before we will start to erase this piece of trash you are calling village!"

The leader turned around and walked back to his comrades.