Satisfied with his practice, Kent stopped and looked up to find everyone staring at him.
He instinctively checked his clothes, making sure nothing was exposed, then rubbed the bridge of his nose and walked over.
Tori and Chuck instinctively stepped back and bowed slightly—having fully recognized Kent as a legitimate mage, they viewed waiting on him as only natural.
But Kent’s soul, originating from an egalitarian modern world, found the stark social hierarchy both inwardly grating and a stark reminder of the fate he must constantly strive to avoid.
Delis and Alice offered polite, formal bows using aristocratic etiquette.
As Delis bent forward, the snow-white expanse of her chest and a deep, enticing cleavage swayed right in front of Kent.
He quickly averted his eyes.
Delis caught his flustered reaction and let out a knowing, mischievous smile; operating a tavern meant she had seen all sorts of men, and compared to her worldly experience, Kent was still just a greenhorn.
“Captain Tori, step inside with us for a moment,” Kent said, heading back toward the cavern with the two women and Niu Niu.
He had been mulling over the bandit situation and wanted to get the full picture from Tori.
Seeing the once-haughty Tori standing before him now looking thoroughly subdued and nervous brought a smirk to Kent’s face, though a wave of pride washed over him as well.
Dropping the formalities, he cut straight to the point: “Captain Tori, why did those bandits attack the town in the first place?
What were they actually after?”
Tori stood stiffly, nervously rubbing his hands.
Hearing the question, he quickly replied, “Well, rumors of that sort usually involve outlaws targeting major commercial trade routes strictly for wealth rather than bloodshed.
But this…
I honestly couldn’t figure out why they hit our town.
The annual tax revenue of the whole settlement doesn’t even hit a hundred gold coins.
At first, I thought they were after food supplies, but the moment they gave chase to us on the trail, I knew their target had to be our lord or the young mistress.”
“Right.
If they only wanted grain, they wouldn’t have chased you across the mountains.
Their sole objective was clearly one of you,” Kent reasoned.
“Though it still doesn’t make much sense why anyone would target Alice out here.”
Kent suddenly recalled the old man he had encountered in the forest a few days prior.
He turned to Tori, asking, “Tori, is there another way up the mountain besides this path?
I ran into an elderly man in the woods ahead a little while ago.
Is that far from here?”
“About ten li away on the mountain, but down at the base it’s over a hundred li,” Tori answered thoughtfully.
“There are a few lawless, unmonitored small villages down that way.
If the bandits came from that direction, they wouldn’t have been able to bring a large force—the trails there are just as treacherous in the snow.
But they could easily have sent an elite scouting squad.”
Kent stood up abruptly, making up his mind.
“Tori, get ready.
We’re heading down the mountain this afternoon and making for Harry City.
Can we bring the horses with us?”
Noticing the urgency in Kent’s voice, Tori suddenly realized the gravity of the situation.
If the bandits were dead-set on capturing their targets, they would inevitably search for alternative routes—and they might even be equipped with bows or heavy crossbows.
Breaking out in a cold sweat, Tori nodded hastily.
“Yes, descending with the horses shouldn’t be a problem!”
“Good!
Tori, keep a sharp eye on the mountain path and the forest line.
We’ll head down this afternoon and push through to the city by nightfall.
With the magic wolf with us, we don’t have to fear much, but reaching the safety of the city walls early is our best bet,” Kent said, realizing that the longer they delayed, the riskier their position became.
Swift action meant absolute safety.
Returning to the inner cave, Kent briefed the two women, who immediately grew anxious.
He resolved to spend the remaining afternoon hours using the demon ape hide to craft a proper set of leather armor—facing the freezing wilderness in a single tunic was far too dangerous.
“This should work.” Kent picked up the treated demon ape hide.
It was soft, remarkably tough, and had cured into a deep earthy-yellow hue.
His only dilemma was that he had never made armor before.
“Kent, let me handle it.” Seeing Kent staring blankly at the hide, Delis offered a reassuring smile and stepped forward.
Kent gratefully handed the materials over.
“Thanks.
Just use a piece of charcoal to mark where we need to cut, and I’ll handle the blade work.
Sound good?” Knowing the hide’s immense toughness—especially enhanced by the earth-attribute beast’s blood—conventional knives would struggle to make a dent.
Kent had already tossed the scraps from the ape’s paws into an iron pot of water to boil down into a makeshift adhesive.
The hide around the lower legs and claws hadn’t been soaked in blood, meaning it boiled down into a strong glue meant for sealing seams rather than stitching, saving them days of tedious manual labor.
Though the ape had been massive, its hide yielded enough material for three half-plate leather armor sets.
Armed with the marked hide, Kent stepped outside and concentrated.
A flicker of blue-green light materialized along the edge of his palm—a wind blade spell.
Carefully following Delis’s charcoal lines, he sliced through the material with effortless precision.
While he knew Little Qing made their group virtually untouchable, Kent understood that relying strictly on external force was a fool’s errand; true security came from personal growth.
Besides, he knew the bandits wouldn’t strike until they had absolute certainty—and when they did, it would be a devastating thunderbolt.
Even a mid-rank magic wolf had its limits.
It took Kent very little time to cut out the armor pieces.
Bringing them back inside, Delis watched in fascination as he began assembling them.
“Does this actually work?” she asked, wide-eyed, watching him brush the thick, blackened liquid over the seams.
“Definitely.
It makes the armor completely waterproof and reinforced like steel,” Kent replied, working with brisk efficiency.
Within half an hour, a fitted upper-body cuirass and a matching set of sturdy boots were complete.
Kent even stuffed some dry hay inside the boots for extra insulation.
“Help!”
Just as Kent finished buckling on his new armor and lacing up his boots, Tori burst into the cavern, shouting in sheer panic.
“What is it?
Calm down and explain,” Kent said, maintaining a cool, steady composure.
“Kent, following your advice, I had Chuck watch the lower trail while I scouted deeper into the woods.
About ten li out, tucked away in a wind-sheltered ravine, I found a camp of over twenty bandits!
They’re all wearing leather armor, carrying bows, and looking like they just arrived.
I watched them eat and rest—they’re clearly planning a night raid on us!” Tori gasped, completely out of breath.
“Good work, Tori.
Alright, here’s the plan: Tori, you carry the young mistress; I’ll look after Delis; and Chuck handles the horses.
We leave immediately, or it’ll be too late.”
Truthfully, Kent could easily have had Niu Niu send Little Qing to wipe out the entire bandit camp—a stealthy ambush by a wind wolf would slaughter them to the last man.
But Kent wanted to temper his own mettle.
He knew full well that if he genuinely faced mortal peril, Niu Niu wouldn’t just stand by.
With that safety net in place, handling the threat on his own terms carried minimal risk.
“Chuck, take the horses and lead the way.
Tori, you’re second.
Delis and I will bring up the rear.
Chuck, remember—once we hit the flat terrain at the base of the mountain, hold your position.
We’re going to give those bandits a nice little surprise.”
Before leaving, Kent ordered a large stack of firewood ignited in the stable to burn for a few hours as a decoy.
Alice and Delis wrapped themselves tightly in heavy layers of cloth.
Chuck led the lead horse down the treacherous path, his task the most perilous as the horses’ hooves risked slipping on the icy incline.
To counter this, Chuck had wrapped the mounts’ hooves in tattered cloth strips.
The wind wolf followed closely behind, carrying two large, rope-lashed packs on its back—one containing Kent’s magical texts and the other holding their remaining rations and valuable demon ape meat, which Alice estimated was worth several gold coins per pound.
“Lean on me, Delis.
We’re falling behind the others.” True to Kent’s expectations, the bandits would never dream that their quarry would choose to break out through the treacherous mountain snowstorm.
The enemy scouts, assuming the target was pinned down, were likely keeping their distance and relying on the smoke from the stable as a visual marker.
With the descent path growing increasingly steep, everyone moved at a crawl, the horses picking their way gingerly down the icy slope.
“Alright,” Delis sighed, glancing up at Kent and then forward at Tori, who was carrying Alice on his back.
She relented and accepted his support.
Deep within the forest ravine several miles away, a scarred bandit leader addressed a short, squat man with an oversized nose.
“Big Nose, are those targets still up there?”
“Boss, I checked it out earlier.
There’s just a stable and a wooden fence.
Smoke is rising from the stable, and you can practically smell the roast meat from here,” replied Big Nose, whose exceptional sense of smell made him an elite scout.
The scarred leader grinned maliciously.
Earlier that week, he had accepted a thousand-gold-coin contract to attack a knight’s estate and capture a sixteen-year-old aristocratic girl.
To his annoyance, the target hadn’t been inside the main manor, allowing the prey to slip away.
While he could have sent out mass search parties, doing so in a populated region risked blowing their cover.
Deciding to force the issue, he had mobilized his entire hundred-man crew, figuring twenty guards would be easy pickings.
To his absolute shock, the target had bolted into the mountains, only for his men to encounter an armed mage—a terrifying revelation that risked the wrath of the continental Mage Guild.
Enraged and panicked, the leader had confronted the client that very night.
Terrified of the guild’s vengeance, the anonymous client had hastily forked over ten military-grade crossbows and an additional thousand gold coins to silence the witnesses, restoring the bandit leader’s ruthless confidence.
“Heh…
a mage.
Tonight, I’m going to ventilate you with ten military crossbows and butcher a noble spellcaster with my own bare hands…” The mere thought sent a surge of adrenaline through the leader.
Imagining creeping up to the stables, picking off the guards one by one, and claiming the two stunning beauties—especially the noble girl—made him sneer with anticipation.
He turned to his subordinates, a wicked glint in his eye.
“Listen up, boys!
The weather is finally on our side with this heavy snow.
Tonight, once we storm the stables, slaughter every single man!
Leave the women alive—we’ll have ourselves a grand feast.
Whoever breaks through the door first gets first pick of the noble girl!
But mark my words: if any bastard kills one of the beauties instead of saving her for us, I’ll skin him alive.
Understand?!”
“Hell yeah, Boss!
Nobody better try to snake my prize!” roared a massive, brutish thug named Big Bear, brandishing a heavy battle-axe.
“P Pfft, Big Bear, you couldn’t handle a real woman if she bit you!
Go find yourself a seven-year-old brat—you might actually stand a chance!” teased a lean, sinister bandit nicknamed Rabbit.
“You want your backside tickled, Rabbit?
There’s plenty of stray branches outside if you’re itching for a beating!” Big Bear roared back.
“Ha, ha, ha!”
“Go ahead, scrap!
One less mouth to feed when we split the loot!” the surrounding cutthroats jeered loudly.
“Shut your traps!
Do you want the whole mountain to hear us?!” the leader barked, glaring fiercely at his men.
The outlaws immediately quieted down, returning to sharpening their blades, whispering crude fantasies, or gnawing on rations.
The leader leaned back against a stack of furs, closing his eyes to plot his next move.
Meanwhile, Kent was amazed by his own stamina.
Carrying Delis on his back through the deep snow felt remarkably effortless.
Every time he felt her golden hair brush softly against his neck, his heart skipped a beat, bringing vivid flashes of her bathing in the wooden tub back to his mind.
The sky grew steadily darker as the blizzard intensified.
A thick blanket of powdery snow covered the group and the horses alike, reducing visibility to under two hundred meters.Kent felt a deep sense of relief—they had successfully cleared the most treacherous, narrow stretch of the descent without losing a single horse.
If they had delayed even a few hours, the ice would have made the trail impassable.
Though he knew the bandits on the mountain would never dare descend in a blinding snowstorm to pursue them, Kent remained vigilant.
During the most perilous, steep turns of the descent, he had surreptitiously cast several water spells to glaze the path with a thick sheet of ice.
Given that nearly twenty horses had already trampled the snow into a hard crust, anyone rushing down the slope in the dark would find themselves facing an absolute skating rink.
Remembering his own clumsy first attempts at ice skating—minus any safety railings—Kent couldn’t help smiling at the trap he was leaving behind.
“Kent, the town is just ahead.
What’s our next move?” Tori called back over his shoulder, his demeanor deferential.
The entire group had tacitly accepted the young boy as their de facto leader.
“Tori, we can’t rest here.
Stopping in the snow is a surefire way to catch a fever.
Chuck, keep the horses steady.
Tori, come with me to check out the lower town.
Niu Niu, stay with Delis and Alice,” Kent instructed decisively.
He knew the outlaws had suffered casualties during their initial raid on the town and lost another dozen men during the mountain pursuit, leaving only a fraction stationed above.
With nighttime settling in, visibility would cripple the bandits’ ranged advantage, making it the ideal window to strike.
“Tori, do you have the stomach to clear out the remaining scumbags with me?” Kent asked calmly.
Tori squared his shoulders, his eyes flashing with grim determination.
“Lead the way, Kent.
I’ve crawled out of enough piles of corpses to handle this.”
“Good.
Let’s move.” Kent glanced back at the two women before striding forward alongside Tori toward the silent, snow-choked settlement below.