[...]
As th first night falls, the caravan then came into a halt as they decided to camp out and gave a break for their numerous coachman. Since there were a lot of people that joined the caravan this time from both the original members of the caravan, to the passengers and hired guards, about 4 camps were made with the carriage spun around them to form like some sort of walls.
Just like that Shun and Sephiria were assigned to join the rest of the adventurers on the last carriage to join their campfire. Once the group was assigned, they all then begun setting up camp and lighting a fire to warm themselves throughout the night.
Alongside it since there were not near any body of water nor any edible animals could be seen in the area, they then used the stash they have brought just to survive in this travel.
"So what did you guys brought? Our group got a horned rabbit in our storage, even though we haven't processed it yet, but once we cleaned this up and sliced it up I believe all of us can get a piece of its meat"
The moment the leader of the 4 man party had spoken up, another adventurer who was traveling alone spoke up and said.
"Let me handle procuring the meat! I know how to clean and botcher monster meat, after all I was once a scout during my earlier adventuring days"
"Sure thing!"
Hearing that voluntary assistance being offered, the swordsman then handed the horned rabbit to the ex-scout adventurer and had him prepare the meat.
As for the rest they begun showing up their cards on how thy could help the group. Some offered to cook the monster meat, some shared some vegetables they brought before hand, while some helped by sharing seasonings. All in all it was quite a merry atmosphere.
In fact the Lone swordsman who had tensed the atmosphere earlier this day had offered to keep the first watch for this night and apologized for his earlier behavior. Of course none of them took it to heart and simply laughed it off. After all in being an adventurer, conflict was always present especially for people who have stories.
Speaking of stories once the food was cooked and some time has passed, the adventurer in the group begun sharing their stories one after another. Aside from Shun and Sephiria who spent their time in the academy for a long time, the rest has pretty eventful life.
One of the adventurers even had an assignment to get and head towards the archipelago islands in the north and visit the beastman kingdom. Upon hearing his story a lot of the group were surprised as they never expected to hear the term 'Beastman'. After all almost none of them had encountered such one and that particular race almost end up as folktales if not for a few people who testimonies for their existence.
In fact even Shun was surprised as he realized that he had never once encountered a beast man before.
In the end that particular adventurer did not question the others confusion, after all he shared an information towards them on why they haven't encountered any beastman at all.
According to him beastman really do exist and mixed within their society, and the reason why they haven't seen one was because that race has morphed themselves to look like humans. The only way they can differentiate beastman from humans were from their morphed animal ears that turned to human ears.
In comparison to humans who have banquets and celebrations to mark their children as adults, the beastmen have their own tradition and that was through trials of combat against monsters. As long as they could kill a monster above D-Rank they would be marked as adults and the proof of that are their ears being clipped.
So when they morphed into their human form they will only recognize each other through their clipped ears.
Hearing such information, a lot of them including Sephiria begun taking notes as they believe that this will become helpful down the line of adventuring.
Additionally they were told that upon reaching the archipelago that was ruled by the beastman, they would be able to see different types of beastman. Some have human features with ears and tails of an animal, some would have half human and half animal feature, some would have animal head, while others would simply have a full animal features but walk to two legs.
One particular examples who have full animal feature but have human behavior were the catfolk and dogfolk, after all the majority of their kind have this kind of trait for themselves.
Hearing that information, another wave of awe could be heard as everyone got amazed by such info.
In that moment an alert disrupted the peace in the camp as the people who kept watch can see a huge group of people charging towards them in horses at the dead of the night. Hearing those terms there are only one type of people who would do that. Bandits.
Once they all realized that, they then quickly took up arms and confronted the bandits group without any talk happening. After all for this particular group of people, talking was useless.
All they care was plunder the goods, kill the men, capture and rape the women, before selling them off to a faraway place as a slave.
With such type of people, mercy was thrown out of the window. In just a matter of few seconds the sound of battle echoes as the adventurers and guards confronted the bandits in a heated battle. In fact even Sephiria joined the battle while holding herself back. After all her spells are like a double edged sword. They may be powerful, but they are also destructive to the point that she could injure her allies, so she sticks to basic spells when fighting the bandits.
As for Shun he simply stayed calm and drank his soup. After all upon experiencing numerous thrilling battles against truly powerful individuals, this trivial battle against bandits almost looked like child's play. They were not as intense as he remembered them to be. In fact even the monster wave could barely move him.
Because of his attitude some of the bandits targeted him, only for Shun to pull out
Seeing him effortlessly kill three bandits, the others then hesitated for a bit, before the more experienced once attacked Shun. However this time Shun finally moved and killed them in one blitz.
After that Shun then finally targeted the leader of the group and used
Upon seeing their leader being easily killed, the rest of the bandits begun to feel fear as they quickly decided to ran away. However with Shun's speed, none of the bandits had escaped as they were all wiped out by Shun.