She’s got it under control

When we get back out of the forest, we see the fighting is already over. Dozens of bandits lie dead around Merlara. Just one of them is still left alive and he is on the ground, unarmed and with Merlara’s foot on his chest.

“Tell me how many more of you there are, or I will make your worst fear come to life.” Merlara tells her prisoner.

The guy is scared of her, but still refuses to talk. Bad move. If Merlara says she’ll make your worst fear come to life, that means she’s ready to cast her [Nightmare] spell on you. Which of course, she does.

The guy under her foot suddenly starts screaming and tries to get away. No surprise. [Nightmare] makes you see an illusion of your phobia coming to life. But Merlara keeps him in place.

“How many more are there?!” Merlara yells at her victim.

“Just a few more!” The prisoner cries out desperately. “They are back at the camp! Please, no more!”

“And where are the monsters?! The ones that attack the caravans?!”

“There aren’t any! It was all us! We just pretended it was monsters so they wouldn’t send any A ranks! Please, make it stop!”

Merlara then puts her hand on the guy’s forehead and suddenly he becomes a lot calmer. Looks like she canceled the [Nightmare] spell. Merlara then turns back to the lead cart and yells, “Mimizu! How are they?!”

Mimizu comes out of the cart and I am shocked. Her hands are covered in blood with also some on her clothes.

“Leonora has just a flesh wound in her arm.” Mimizu says. “Craig is stable, but he’ll need time to heal.”

Merlara then turns to the caravan leader.

“The bandits have been defeated, that means you and yours will be safe on the rest of your journey. I need a cart to take Craig back to Riledo. Make it happen.”

“But what about the other bandits? What if they attack again?” The caravan leader asks.

“By the time he has warned his friends and they come back, you should already be long gone.” Merlara explains. “We instead have a friend who is gravely wounded and we need to warn some A ranks about the bandit activity here.”

“Better do it man.” Roland tells him. “You’ve seen what she did to these bandits. Don’t make her do it to you.”

Merlara then gets her foot off the bandit.

“Tell your friends to prepare, a team of A ranks will be here soon.”

The guy then ran off into the forest and disappeared.

As soon as he has left, Roland turns to the caravan leader and calmly says, “Thank you for helping her lie to him. He and his friends will be so afraid of the coming A ranks that they will pack their stuff and leave. We won’t be returning to Riledo. The village you are traveling to is much closer anyways, so we’ll stick with you.”

Roland then looks over to Merlara, who nods at him.

So, that’s her game. She wanted to convince the rest of the bandits to give up on raiding this trade route. I guess that’s one way of taking care of the problem. Personally, I would have followed him to his lair to take out the rest of them. But I guess, with both our trackers out of commission, that would be rather difficult.

Before the caravan continues, Merlara tells Roland and me to check the bodies of the defeated bandits. See if they have cash or other valuables on them. There aren’t many things that I agree on with Merlara, but this is one of those.

As I loot some copper coins from the bandits, I notice my hands are still shaking. Odd, it wasn’t this this cold in the morning. The temperature must have really dropped while I took a nap.

Eventually, I get back to the archer that nearly killed me. Bastard. He almost took my future from me. But as I look at him, I start to wonder what kind of future I took from him. It makes me feel cold all over my body and I start breathing faster. I quickly check his belongings for loot. The faster I’m done here, the better.

By the time I get back to Merlara, I can hand her 3 silver and 47 copper. Roland has 1 silver and 56 copper coins. Merlara has 124 copper. Looks like a decent enough haul. Too bad we have to split it amongst the 6 of us.

The caravan then continues to move again. Except this time, Mimizu stays with Merlara on the lead cart while Roland and I go back to the last one. Yet, even though I take my seat, my hands are still shaking.

“Hey, you alright?” Roland asks when he sits down next to me.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“That archer was about to shoot you in the head. People have felt on edge for less.”

I smile at Roland. It’s so nice of him to worry about me. So much like Darx.

“Don’t worry, I’m fine.” I tell him.

I decide to lighten the mood with a joke and said, “After all, I had a big strong knight to keep me safe.”

“All part of the job, Ma’m. Haha.” Roland jokes in return. “I would hardly be a worthy knight if I was unable to save a maiden in distress.”

Thanks to Roland’s humor, I was able to put the unease of nearly dying behind me. It looks like it got a little warmer too, because my hands finally stopped shaking.

It takes a few hours, but eventually we reach a small village. Not the caravan’s end destination, but it’s a good place for us to unload Craig and Leonora. They are going to need some time of bedrest. Mimizu has been giving Craig a few heals during the trip, but she only has a small mana reserve so can offer just a few heals. She has even used up nearly all her healing and mana potions to keep Craig alive. All of a sudden, her possessiveness over her potions and taking Roland’s previous joke much to serious doesn’t seem that silly any more.

Once Craig and Leonora have received a room at the local inn, our party spends some time talking to the local adventurers. All of them are retired, on the older side and D or E ranks. They are quick to bring up some local monsters they have been having difficulties with. Damn, I never knew my village was so lucky to have a B rank like Ilene around.

At the end of the conversation, we found ourselves with 2 new quests. One is to take down some giant frogs. The other to kill a nest of dragon-beetles.

The frogs are a recent danger and are big enough to swallow a human. So far everyone has been smart enough to run away whenever they show up, but several sheep have already been lost.

The dragon-beetles are about half the size of a human, and not quite that dangerous in small groups. But these have been left alone for too long and were able to breed. Now the local adventurers need to regularly visit their nest to clean out one or two. When they have the chance, they take the bodies with them to feed to the frogs. That way they don’t lose any cattle. But in the end both problems persist.

If we can take down both groups of monsters for them, the lives of these villagers will become a lot safer. I’m sure there will be quite a reward in it for us.

Merlara suggests we take both quests. She can take on one of them, Roland and I can take on the other.