152 What Are These Guys Doing Here

"So you were shot by this arrow while in the forest?" Instructor Henry asked, looking at the arrow we presented to him with a critical eye.

"That's right! And I know who did it too!" Odeta huffed.

Instructor Henry raised an eyebrow at her, "You do? Who?"

"It's one of those boys who think he's better than I am!"

The Instructor shook his head, "I can understand why you would think that way but I can assure you that none of your classmates are responsible for this. Putting aside the fact that none of them brought any bows with them for this lesson, I am familiar with this type of arrow."

I stepped forward, "What do you mean by that?"

He held up the broken arrowhead that had barbed ends, "This is used by a rather infamous bandit group around here, they've been wanted for quite some time now and they are experts in giving Mercenaries and Knights the slip. I just didn't expect them to come this close to the city… We'll need to get all the students back here before they get caught by them."

Well… I already had a feeling it wasn't that boy but it seems like the truth is more dangerous than I expected.

But as though fate was mocking us, four students came running out of the forest towards us in a panic.

"Instructor! Instructor!! Bandits! Bandits!"

"Eugene! He… He got captured by the bandits!"

"You have to save him, Instructor!"

"He got captured to buy us time to escape!"

Oh wow, he may be a Mahun supremacist but I suppose he would still step up for his friends in their time of need.

Instructor Henry cursed under his breath, "Where were they?"

"At the lake! There's a lake inside the forest! A few of them were waiting to ambush us there!"

The Instructor then took out a tube and pointed it at the sky, shooting out some kind of light into the air like a flare.

That was the signal for everyone to return from wherever they were immediately.

A few of the Mercenaries rushed out of the forest towards him, all of them looking quite concerned.

"What's wrong, Instructor? Is there a dangerous monster about?" One of them asked.

Instructor Henry shook his head, "It's the Runner Bandits, they're inside the forest and they may have already started capturing several of the students. Search for them before they escape."

The Mercenaries nodded and dispersed into the forest quickly.

Unexpectedly, Odeta stepped towards the Instructor, "Instructor! Let me help too!"

He raised an eyebrow at her, "Are you sure you're up for it?"

The Amrap took out her Guild card, "Of course! I'm already an E rank Mercenary! I've fought against bandits before!"

Since she already volunteered, I decided I would join her as well so I took out my own Guild card, "Let me help too! I'm an E rank Dungeoneer!"

The Instructor hesitated for a moment before sighing, "Fine… But if you find any signs of those bandits, send a signal to us before doing anything on your own, are we clear?"

Both of us nodded.

Andrew also came forward, "Could I… Could I help too?"

Instructor Henry narrowed his eyes, "Are you registered with The Guild?"

"Err… No?"

"Then no. Stay here with the rest."

Whoops, sorry Andrew. You might have the stats to hold your own against some bandits but there's no way the Instructor would be able to tell that.

And to be honest… I don't think you can keep up.

Odeta and I then rushed back into the forest, heading back to the place where we last saw Eugene to retrace his steps.

On the way, I decided to ask Odeta, "Why did you volunteer to help? Don't you despise him for being an ass?"

"That doesn't matter, does it? He's weak so he got himself captured by those bandits. But since we're strong and are capable of saving him, we should. That's what sister Ardi would tell me~"

At least it wasn't the usual great power and great responsibility stuff.

Still, it's nice to know that even at such a young age, Odeta knows how to put aside her personal feelings to save someone. If it were up to me, I might not have volunteered as eagerly as she did.

We reached the place quickly enough and we followed their tracks to reach the lake his group members had mentioned before. With Odeta's tracking skills, she quickly found more tracks on one side of the lake that indicated some kind of scuffle had occurred.

It seems like Eugene had indeed put up a fight with those bandits to help his friends escape.

There were rocks embedded into tree trunks and parts of the earth seemed to have been gouged out, probably from his Geomancy magic.

"This way," Odeta pointed towards the part of the forest where the undergrowth looked disturbed.

I followed behind her as she led the way deeper into the forest, the Amrap showing no hesitation in her advance as she followed the trail that only she could see.

Just in case, I decided to call out a few of my Shadow Summons to spread out around us in the event of an ambush.

That turned out to be the correct decision since an arrow was shot out from the bushes towards Odeta barely a few moments later.

Since she wasn't as distracted as the last time, Odeta managed to avoid the projectile easily before leaping in the direction of her attacker.

There was a cry of pain as she shoulder charged the bandit hiding in the bush onto the ground, his bow flying out of his hands.

I had my Shadow Summons also look around the area to check if there were any other bandits lying in wait and it turns out there were four more up ahead that were setting up some kind of trap.

All of them were quickly subdued by my summons while I turned my attention back to Odeta.

The bandit tried to roll on his feet to run away but Odeta quickly kicked him in the knee, breaking it with a loud 'crack' thanks to her superior strength.

She then pulled him up by his collar and shook him violently, "Where are they?!"

The bandit tried to spit at her but she shifted her head to the side to avoid the spittle before headbutting him and breaking his nose.

"I said, where are they?!!"

"Fu… Fuck you…"

Odeta slammed the bandit on the ground a few times, hard enough to cause the ground to crack before pulling him back up again.

"Where are they?!!"

"Ugghh… Fu… Fuck… You…"

Looks like he won't be willing to talk and we don't have time to torture it out of him since the longer we take, the higher chance the bandits have in escaping from us.

Odeta also realised that as she proceeded to break the rest of the bandit's limbs before tossing him aside for the Mercenaries to find.

Ah… Maybe I shouldn't have killed those four bandits and just incapacitated them… Oh well, too late.

We then continued on the trail once more to look for the bandits that took Eugene.

The trail led us out of the forest and onto a dirt path where several bandits were guarding two wagons, one of which had a metal cage with a few students locked up inside.

Doing a quick scan with my [Screen], I realised the average stats of the bandits were sitting around the fifties range so we should be able to handle them on our own.

Even then, I remembered Instructor Henry's warning and sent a ball of light into the sky as a signal to the others.

Odeta let out a warcry and barrelled straight into the bandits, knocking a number of them away and onto their backs before she started to rampage around their ranks.

I kept my distance and focused on using my magic to pick off the bandits individually, throwing a [Static Bolt] here and maybe even a [Laser] there.

With the two of us working together, the bandits didn't even stand a chance and a few of them even tried to run away when they knew they could not beat us.

Unfortunately for them, neither Odeta nor I allowed them to escape and we made sure all of the bandits were incapacitated.

Soon enough, all of the bandits were beaten which left us with rescuing the students from the wagon.

That was easy…

There was an iron padlock on the cage but that was useless against Odeta who simply smashed it into pieces with her bare fist before she tore the cage doors from its hinges, freeing the students who were staring at us with slack jawed awe.

Eugene gulped, "Wh… Why did you save us?"

Odeta tilted her head, "You're weak, I'm strong. Do I need another reason?"

I feel like that sounded more like an insult to him but for some reason, that made the boy blush? What the heck? Maybe it's the suspension bridge effect or something.

Right then, Mercenaries rushed out from the forest only to stop in their tracks when they saw the carnage around us, most of them looking confused as to what they were looking at.

Thankfully, Viera was amongst them and she quickly guessed what had happened.

"As expected of Miss Aster! You took down those bandits with Miss Odeta, didn't you?"

I scratched my head, "Err… Yeah, there's also another bandit that we left behind back there, could someone go grab him as well?"

"Of course, Miss Aster, let us escort you all back to the Instructor, please."

It kind of felt like she was pleading with me at the last part, probably because she's afraid Mother might blame them if I got hurt or something.

Seriously though, I think Odeta is already overprotective enough and she's right here.

Don't tell her I said that though…