On the flat trade route from Lucerne to Tinietz, a green mule slowly pulled a four-wheeled cart laden with grain, creaking as it went.
A rider, armored and sword-belted, rode ahead on horseback, while two sturdy attendants walked behind.
"Odo, did you really take down several people by yourself yesterday?" Ron Brothers had been pestering Odo all along the way to tell him about the fight at the construction site yesterday.
"Yes, really, those guys who always bully others, I can take down a whole group of them by myself.
If the Monastery guards hadn't arrived in time, that goatee guy would have been beaten to death by me.
That guy, relying on being from the Laborers' Guild, always bullies us foreign vagrants."
"If I had been there, I would have rushed up to help you beat those lackeys severely." Ron Brothers regretted missing that exciting brawl yesterday.
"Ron Brothers, a brawl is no joke.
If you really get bloodthirsty, you won't hold back, and you might just send someone to meet God with one blow.
Alas, if I hadn't been bullied to the point of being unbearable, I really wouldn't want to take my men to fight those Bastards head-on.
If our legs or feet were broken and we had no money for treatment, a life would just be lost like that."
Odo was clearly still worried about the injured men lying in the hay in the shantytown, wondering if that half-god, half-shaman Medical Officer could heal their wounds.
"God bless!" Odo murmured in his heart.
Ron Brothers sensed Odo's worry and patted him on the shoulder, comforting him: "Brother Odo, you don't have to worry.
The Medical Officer has already treated them, and we also brought them some grain yesterday.
They will definitely make it through."
Yesterday, after Odo and a few others decided to join Art's Patrol Team, this young Patrol Officer showed his generosity and kindness.
He advanced three men thirty fenny each as salary, allowing them to settle their southward affairs, and also gave Odo fifty pounds of grain to take to his injured brothers in the shantytown.
After obtaining Art's permission, Odo had Baz accompany Kazak back to their village to bring his disabled father to live in the shantytown in Lucerne.
Odo gave his own shanty to Kazak for his father to live in and recover, and Odo also gave Kazak ten fenny from his advanced salary to buy more grain for his father.
The remaining twenty fenny he gave to Albe's family, who was severely injured, hoping that this money would last until Albe recovered and could work.
After agreeing with Kazak and Baz to meet in Tinietz as soon as possible, Odo returned to his shanty, wrapped himself in a worn coarse linen short jacket, rolled a deep copper pot into a tattered animal skin blanket, tied it to his shoulder, picked up an oak club from the hay, closed the wooden door, bid farewell to the laborers, and went south alone with Art.
Ron Brothers greatly admired Odo's loyalty and straightforwardness, and the two quickly became friends.
"By the way, Odo, can you teach me how to fight?" Ron Brothers looked at Odo with pleading eyes.
Odo turned and smiled at Ron Brothers, saying, "What's there to learn about fighting? It's just picking up a stick and swinging it wildly at their head."
Odo thought for a moment and then said, "But it seems there are some techniques..."
...
The journey south was much slower due to carrying the grain cart and the slippery, snowy roads.
It wasn't until the evening of the seventh day after leaving Lucerne that the three arrived at a forest about half a day's journey from Tinietz County.
With Ron Brothers and Odo by his side, Art no longer had to personally attend to trivial matters like feeding the mules and horses or gathering firewood.
He was sitting on a dry stone stool, peeling a wild rabbit with a dagger.
To return to Tinietz earlier, Art did not stop to rest in Leitersre or Engelsberg.
After several days of continuous travel, the few of them ate and slept in the open, daily gnawing on rye bread and drinking wheat paste.
Ron Brothers and Odo were quite used to it, but Art could not tolerate the blandness in his mouth.
At noon, he left the group and went into the woods beside the road, and soon returned with a plump wild rabbit.
Ron Brothers had already started the fire.
Art skewered the skinned and gutted rabbit with a tree branch and placed it by the fire to roast.
Soon, a fragrant, smoky smell wafted out.
Art rotated the roasted rabbit in his hand and said to Ron Brothers, who was stirring wheat paste in a copper pot with a wooden spoon: "Ron Brothers, where's Odo? Go call him over to eat some rabbit meat."
Ron Brothers brought his mouth to the wooden spoon, tasted a bit, smacked his lips, and replied, "Odo went to gather firewood.
He said it's cold tonight, and a bigger fire would be warmer."
Art glanced into the woods, then turned his gaze back to the roasted rabbit.
Thump!
Art's heart tightened...
Odo, holding a large bundle of dry branches, approached Art and Ron Brothers from the woods.
He slowly came closer to the fire, went around Ron Brothers, gently placed the dry branches and firewood beside Art, and then leaned in and whispered in Art's ear: "Sir, there are people in the woods following us.
They are watching us~" With that, he casually stood up and brushed off the bits of leaves and dry grass from his chest.
"Ron Brothers, there are people in the woods~ Don't turn your head to look!"
Art tore a piece of meat from the roasted rabbit and put it into Ron Brothers's hand.
Then he slowly stood up, scooped a spoonful of wheat porridge from the copper pot, brought it to his mouth, took a sip, and said loudly: "Ron Brothers! This wheat paste has no taste at all.
Go get some salt."
Art made a bow-drawing gesture towards Ron Brothers.
Ron Brothers stretched, stood up, and swayed towards the cart.
On the other side of the forest, Scarface, with long hair draped over his shoulders, was hiding behind a fallen dead tree, with two men holding pointed wooden spears crouching behind him.
Scarface's gaze shifted to behind a mound on the left, and he nodded to a man holding a broad axe, indicating that everything was normal.
There were six people ambushed in the forest in total: four refugees who had fled north, one habitual bandit from the border, and five men led by a deserter from Provence named Scarface Houth.
Months ago, Hus had been burning, killing, and looting in the southern border region.
His team had once grown to over twenty people, but later, while fighting over a village with about ten families against a group of fierce bandits composed of deserters, seven or eight of his men were killed on the spot, and Hus retreated into the wilderness.
Misfortunes never come singly.
After wandering in the wilderness for more than ten days, Hus decided to take his remaining companions to raid a small village called Lane.
Unexpectedly, this small village, which usually only had two or three manor guards, surprisingly had a bearded knight in iron armor leading several armored, long-spear-wielding riders charge out.
Hus's team was almost completely wiped out; only Hus, who had a knife cut on his face, and one of his habitual bandits escaped.
The two dared not continue to be bandits in the south, so they coerced four northern refugees into their group and operated in the area north of Tinietz.
From noon today until now, Scarface had been following this small grain transport team for most of the day.
Intimidated by the opponents' longswords and short bows, they had not made a move until the three entered the forest, and only then did Scarface feel the time was right.
Seeing one of the men opposite walking towards the cart, Scarface feared a change in the situation, so he waved his hand forward, and the bandits ambushed on both sides rushed out with shouts.
Less than three to five steps from the cart, Ron Brothers saw the unfavorable situation and rushed to the cart, throwing the quiver to Art with his left hand and gripping the sword hilt to draw his sword with his right hand.
Art turned and caught the bow Ron Brothers threw with one hand, haphazardly pulling out a light arrow from the quiver.
From the corner of his eye, he saw a burly man with a battle axe about to charge at him.
Art didn't bother to aim, raised his hand and released the string.
The flat-headed light arrow grazed the strong man's shoulder and pierced into the left arm of a Scarface behind him.
The huge impact caused Scarface to stumble and fall to the ground.
In that instant, the strong man had already raised his broad axe to strike Art's head.
Art, with no time to pull out a second arrow, threw the bow in his hand, rolled to the side towards the strong man, and drew the dagger from his waist.
The strong man, who had parried the flying bow, had not yet reacted when a chilling, sharp pain shot through his upper thigh, causing him to instantly go limp.
Art pushed off the ground with his right leg, stopped rolling, and lunged at the strong man on the ground.
The strong man instinctively shifted to the left, and Art missed.
The strong man rolled over and pinned Art down, his right hand gripping Art's neck, his left hand reaching for the dagger in Art's hand.
In a desperate moment, Art freed his left hand, scooped up a handful of dirt, and threw it into the strong man's eyes.
The strong man pulled back his left hand to wipe the dirt from his eyes, and Art fiercely swung his right hand holding the dagger.
With a crisp sound of blade piercing bone, the dagger entered the strong man's skull from his left ear.
On the other side, Ron Brothers was surrounded by two men holding pointed wooden spears.
He gripped his sword with both hands, lowered his body, and swept forcefully at the lower bodies of his two opponents.
The two men were so frightened that they retreated several steps.
Ron Brothers seized the opportunity to swing his longsword horizontally, rushing towards one of them, shouting as he chopped.
His opponent blocked with a wooden spear, which was cut in half by the longsword.
The man was so scared he collapsed to the ground.
Just as Ron Brothers was about to retract his sword to stab, a wooden spear from the side pierced Ron Brothers's thigh.
Seeing Ron Brothers fall, the bandit's wooden spear once again lunged towards his waist and abdomen.
Ron Brothers's life hung by a thread.
Art, no longer bothering with the Scarface who had fallen to the ground from the arrow wound not far away, quickly pulled the dagger from the strong man's head and threw it at the man holding the spear by Ron Brothers's side.
With a cry of "Ah!", the intense pain and spasm made the spear-wielding bandit drop the wooden spear in his hand, trying to turn around and reach back to pull the dagger from his back, but he fell to the ground in pain.
Compared to Art's peril and Ron Brothers's crisis, Odo's situation was much more relaxed.
The two men in front of him, holding wooden pitchforks, were more like honest farmers with farm tools than bandits.
Odo casually picked up a burning stick from the campfire and charged forward fearlessly, parrying left and right, continuously swinging at his opponents.
The firewood stick struck flesh repeatedly, causing sparks to fly from their bodies, leaving them utterly defenseless.
In no time, the two men dropped their wooden pitchforks and fled into the forest, covering their heads as if flying.
The tide had turned.
Scarface quickly dropped the long knife in his hand, clutched his bleeding, arrow-wounded shoulder, struggled to his feet, and took off running.
The guy who had collapsed on the ground also scurried away on all fours, pissing himself in fear, following him.
Odo ran over, picked up the broad axe next to the strong man, and started to give chase.
Art shouted for him to stop, signaling not to pursue, then rushed over to help Ron Brothers, who was crying out in pain.
After a careful examination, fortunately, the wooden spear was not sharp enough and only pierced the flesh without injuring the bone.
He handed Ron Brothers over to Odo to bandage and treat the wound.
Art then turned, picked up the longsword from the ground, gripped the hilt, raised it high overhead, and brought it down heavily, pinning the man who had been stabbed in the back by the dagger to the ground, utterly dead.
An anti-ambush battle ended in less than the time it takes to drink a cup of wine.
With calculation against no calculation, Art and his two companions decisively counterattacked when caught off guard, killing two of the opponents at the cost of one person's minor injury, and repelling all four others.
"Ah~ It hurts so much.
Brother Odo, am I going to die?" Ron Brothers rolled on the ground, clutching his right leg in pain.
"Alright, it's just a little skin wound, you won't die that easily.
Stop yelling, with that much courage, you want to help me beat people up?"
Odo tore off a piece of cloth from his trouser leg and roughly tied it around Ron Brothers's right leg, barely stopping the bleeding.
Art had already surveyed the surroundings, confirming that the bandits had fled far away.
"How is Ron Brothers? Is he alright?"
"Sir, he is fine."
"Good, Odo, quickly pack up.
It's not safe here, we should leave as soon as possible."
Odo got up to gather the scattered weapons and stripped the two men on the ground of their clothes and personal belongings.
Art hitched the cart and led the horse, placing Ron Brothers onto the cart.
Before leaving, he turned back, picked up the broad axe, and chopped off the heads of the two bandits on the ground, throwing them onto the cart.
Art's sudden action startled both Ron Brothers and Odo quite a bit.
"Sir~ What are you doing~" Ron Brothers dared not look directly at the two bloody, open-mouthed, wide-eyed heads placed beside him.
"Ron Brothers, sometimes dead men are more useful than living ones..."