Chapter 11: Chapter 11: Bandits and demons

We are now wandering around a place known as the 'blue mountains', probably named that because it's a mountainous area made of grayish-blue rocks and because someone didn't want to think too hard about the name.

Unlike before when we were just wandering across a forest, this time we're walking on an actual road, after all, it's not like we're going to run into anyone, this place might be technically part of the kingdom but nobody ever comes here, since there's nothing of interest around and the monsters are considered to be moderately dangerous.

There's not a lot of vegetation around here, and the road is full of loose rocks that make it difficult to walk, I'm glad that I got these new boots, we are also getting attacked by monsters every couple of hours, there's a lot of them here, but nothing dangerous, the strongest so far was only level 44... my sense of what counts as a 'dangerous monster' has become warped ever since I found out about my level...

On that topic, I pointed the appraisal stone to Arana and found out that she's level 60, it's not extraordinarily high but it's higher than what a non-combatant like her should be, after all, the level of a normal soldier is around 50...

"At this pace, we should make it out of Granbel in only a few more days"

"Out of where?"

"Out of the Granbel kingdom, you know, the place we're currently trying to leave"

"The kingdom has a name?"

Arana stops walking and turns around to look at me, her eyes are wide open.

"Haven't you been living here your entire life?"

"Well yeah... but everyone kept calling it just 'the kingdom' so I didn't learn the name..."

Well, I most likely heard it a few times, but I have a very bad memory for stuff that does not interest me.

"Somehow, after all this time, I still continue to underestimate you..."

Was that supposed to be praise? It didn't sound like praise...

"Nevermind, Luna, use your mana sensor on the area ahead of us"

"It's called mana sense... What am I looking for?"

"Just do it"

Alright, let's take a look... uh? There are people over there.

"Six men are hiding on each side of the road, twelve in total... Ara! Are they bandits?!"

"Seems likely"

Oh! This is my first time encountering bandits! What do I do? Do I attack them first or pretend that I didn't see them and wait for them to come out? After they went to the trouble of preparing an ambush I should let them make the first move, that way anything I do will be self-defense.

Alright, pretend to not notice and keep walking, and walking, and walking and... didn't we already get past them?

"Huh, Ara... they didn't attack us"

"Nope, they didn't"

"But we're two small girls walking alone and helpless, there's no way that bandits would not attack us"

"Small?" Arana looks up at my face, tilting her head backward with an exaggerated motion.

"We're two frail-looking girls walking alone and helpless, there's no way that bandits would not attack us"

I don't think that a bunch of random bandits would know about that whole 'queen of darkness' business, and we're not even carrying any visible weapons, so why didn't they come out, am I not good enough to rob?

"These are bandits we're talking about! Bandits! These are the guys who will attack anyone, it does not matter if it's a powerful hero or a group of armed adventurers so why didn't they attack us?"

Could it be that they're not bandits after all? Everyone knows that it's the duty of a bandit to make the protagonist look good, and they will uphold that duty even at the cost of their own wellbeing.

"Well I don't know, why don't you ask them?

"You know what... I think I will!"

As soon as they see me approach they try to run away, but I won't let them.

"Shadow bind"

"Ah! What's this!? I can't move!"

Alright, now they are all immobilized, let's ask them.

"Are you guys bandits?"

"No, we're not!"

Let's see, a group of men hiding on the side of the road all armed with axes, all of them are dirty, wear rags and have scars on their faces, they could not be more obviously bandits if they tried.

"We're..." One of them starts talking and looks at the axe on his hand "Lumberjacks!"

I take a look at the only tree in 50 meters around us, it's soo thin and weak-looking I don't think you could even make toothpicks out of it.

"Well, maybe we are bandits..."

I approach a bandit larger than the others.

"So, are you the leader?"

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"Uh, no... the leader is me," Says one of the shortest ones.

What? But the biggest bandit is the one who's supposed to be the leader... could it be that these guys just don't know how to bandit? Is that why they didn't attack?

The bandits on the other side are running away, do they not care about their friends? Or maybe they do, they suddenly stopped.

"So what are you doing here anyway?" Now Arana is joining us.

"Nobody ever comes around here, this doesn't seem like a good spot for banditry"

Oh, she makes a good point, you can't rob people in a place with no people to rob.

"No reason..." Seems like they don't want to tell us.

"Really? Keep in mind that if your reason is interesting enough, I may be able to convince my friend to not kill you"

Kill them!? Why is she saying something so crazy all of a sudden? And why do the bandits look like they actually believe her?

"I was not going to kill them! I just want to capture them!"

"Capture them? How?" Arana asks a weird question.

"How? By tying them up, taking them to the nearest town and handing them over to the guards... oooh"

There's no way they would let me do that and not check my identity, is there?

"See? You should just kill them"

"No, wait! I'll talk"

The bandit leader seems to be willing to speak now, is it really so easy to believe that I'll kill them? They should not judge people only on appearances.

"There are two tribes of demons living around this area, since they are not in contact with the rest of the kingdom, we can rob them and when we go back to a human town nobody will have heard about what we did, that way we can sell everything more easily and not have to worry about being identified"

Really? There are demons here? That's interesting.

"So that's why you didn't try to rob us? Because we're not demons?"

"No, we didn't rob you because you look like you would have killed us in a rather gruesome way if we had tried"

"..."

Am I really so scary that even bandits don't dare to attack me? I guess at least I still have the monsters...

"Well then, I guess we can hand them over to one of those tribes of demons, let's make the bandits guide us to their village"

Well, I am curious about demons, it would be nice to meet one.

We capture the other group as well, turns out that the reason why they didn't escape is that they got trapped on a large spider web, is there a spider monster around here?

In any case, now that we are all together let's go meet some demons.

---

 

The different species of intelligent animals are known as the 'enlightened races', this includes humans, elves, beastkin, and many others, however, there's an even greater variety of races of monsters that are also intelligent, these are collectively known as 'demons'.

A long time ago they used to be known as the 'manaborn', but during the great war 2000 years ago, the enlightened races started to refer to them as demons in an attempt to... demonize them, and somehow, that new name ended up spreading even among the demons themselves.

It's been a long time since the war, now the idea that demons are naturally evil is basically dead and the relationship between them and the enlightened races has become a lot better, however, they still live separated from us, I, for example, have never met a demon before, but that might be in part because I've not met a lot of people in general...

"Hey, Luna! Look over there"

It seems that I won't have to wait until reaching their village to meet them, up ahead I can see a girl that seems to be a cross between a human and a pig, I believe she's an ork, she's being harassed by four young men that look like green-skinned humans with prominent tusks, if I'm not mistaken, they belong to a race of demons known as orcs.

Orks and orcs don't usually get along with each other, the fact that their names are so similar can get confusing and they both want the others to be the ones to change theirs.

"Those two races of demons always appear together, don't they?"

"That's because the mana they're made of is similar, orks are 80.5% earth, 12.3% fire and 7.2% dark, while orcs are 80.6% earth, 10% fire and 9.4% dark"

A place with mana that can create one of them is also likely to be able to create the other, so they usually live in the same areas.

"You know the exact numbers?" Arana seems surprised.

Well, I read about them once and I have a very good memory for stuff that interests me.

At any rate, since I'm a good person I should help that girl, but as I was thinking of a way to chase the orcs away, they finally see me and start running in fear, that was easier than I expected...

"Are you alright?"

Then the ork girl sees me too and starts running away as well...

I thought that the demons were supposed to be the scary ones.