Oh yes... And a good amount of them...

"Everyone got their containers of water?" Kazuma asked as they reached the graveyard.

"Yeah, but why are we lugging around water to begin with?" Cremea asked.

"Well, we're not actually going to be defeating the zombies, seeing as Wiz will be controlling them, we're just going to knock them down and dump water on them," Kazuma replied. "Just in case they have anyone actually watching at any point, we gotta put on a decent enough act."

"Yeah, I was talking about how we were going to get holy water in the guild hall, so basically, once we douse the zombies with regular water, Wiz will have them play possum until the bandits show up," Fio said. "Then the zombies will actually be helping us."

"Wiz is hiding around here, she went ahead of us... And no sneaking off to try and purify her without us knowing Aqua!" Kazuma snapped.

"Fine!" Aqua puffed her cheeks out. They soon reached the fresh graves, which were now empty, and about forty zombies were milling about.

Thirty minutes, and a good amount of fake fighting later, the party was panting, faking exhaustion. "...I'm not picking up anything with my Detect Enemy Skill," Fio said in an undertone.

"Me neither... Perhaps this was just a waste of time..." Kazuma grunted. Before he and Fio both stiffened as their Detect Enemy Skills suddenly flared up. "Uh-oh..."

"What?" Cremea asked.

"There's a little over thirty that just appeared near us!" Fio whispered, looking both excited and nervous. "They must have used some kind of spell or skill to hide themselves from Detect Enemy until they were close enough!"

"We should have seen that coming!" Kazuma cursed. With large parties, the odds of not having a thief were low, but the bandits had to have gotten the drop on said parties somehow.

Kazuma then looked up in time to see multiple arrows flying at them.