Hayden and the other two didn't really give the adventurers time to answer, and had headed straight for the group of bandits - followed by Jessy and her men, who ran headlong after them.
"Seriously? If they were planning to attack the group head-on from the outset, then we could have saved ourselves the trouble of carefully sneaking up on them," I muttered irritably, but at that moment I realised that Cáit and the two twins were suddenly out of sight. Only the four adventurers were still running towards the bandits, who reacted less surprisingly quickly and fired some arrows towards the group. "Wait a minute. Did the three of them really just let the adventurers run out into the open?" I muttered in disbelief - but then I noticed the subtlety in Jacky's choice of words: First we save the little boy, then we all go after the bandits. There was never any mention of the adventurers getting involved at that point already - but it wasn't worded in such a way that you could see the subtext immediately. I didn't really know what the three of them were up to either, but I suspected that Cáit was supposed to create a distraction with a well-aimed grenade while the other two tried to free the boy.
As feared, the three low rank adventurers were no real challenge for the group of bandits. Two of them didn't even make it halfway before they were hit by some of the arrows and simply fell over. I watched the event from a safe distance and was shocked at how easily the bandits had dealt with them. The third had made it to the group of bandits, but was having trouble defending himself, even though the bandits were only half-heartedly hitting him as if they were trying not to waste too much energy. The only one of the group of adventurers who was actually able to put up a bit of a fight was Jessy, who was able to take at least one of the bandits out of action. "Just kill them all," shouted the man called Abe, "No one will get in our way without any consequences."
The only good thing was that the bandits were so distracted that none of them noticed that the boy was no longer lying on the ground in front of them. Although I watched really closely, I only noticed it because Jacky suddenly appeared beside me and asked me to "look after the little one."
Then she carelessly threw him at me and said, "Shut up. Don't make any noise. I have to make sure that not all of these useless idiots die today."
You could really hear how angry and annoyed Jacky was. The little boy was terrified, so I smiled at him and said, "I'm Em. Don't worry about it. We'll manage somehow." I took a closer look at the little boy and, for someone who had obviously been travelling with the bandits for some time, he didn't look malnourished. They must have taken good care of him. Of course, he was dirty - but that was probably just part of life on the streets.
What I didn't understand was why Jacky hadn't sent me outside with the boy. Or at least on a different level. My theory was that she didn't want to risk one of the bandits following us as we would be screwed, when we have to pick up a fight. And after seeing how ruthlessly the bandits had treated the adventurers, keeping us close was probably the better decision. Let’s face it - I wouldn't stand a chance against any of the men, and it would just weaken the group, when they have to send someone away because of me.
"I'm Noah," he said quietly, "Did you defeat the men at the door?"
"You mean the four farmers standing guard outside? Yes. They hadn't done anything to anyone, so we questioned them and let them go," I explained.
"I hope you're right," Noah said, "Because I think one of the guards travelled with the group the whole time." Unfortunately, in retrospect that made sense. Why would a bunch of bandits who had just ruthlessly slaughtered a group of adventurers rely only on simple peasants to guard them?
"Can you cut my shackles?" Noah asked as there was a sudden explosion in front of us. Three of the bandits were thrown through the air in a high arc and were dead before they hit the ground. Hayden made short work of them - at incredible speed - while Jacky somehow managed to save the remaining low-rank adventurer at the last moment. I got the feeling she didn't really know how she'd done it herself, but she slipped between the adventurer and the bandits at the last moment and, almost instinctively, raised the shotgun and pulled the trigger at head height. She caught two of the bandits - one was killed instantly, the other seemed to have been hit at least slightly in the shoulder. Jessy seized the opportunity and simply slit the man's throat.
"Make yourself useful somehow and get our injured comrades to safety," Jessy shouted at her own people. She herself seemed shocked at how useless her own companions were. The man nodded and grabbed one of them to carry him in my direction. "Total waste of time," I muttered, finally managing to answer Noah's question, "I'm not carrying a knife. Sorry."
"But he has one," said the adventurer who had somehow made it to us, "Just take it. I'll be right back."
"Give it a rest," I muttered, "You're not going to risk your life for someone who's already dead. They were just trying to get you out of danger. You'd better look after the boy with me and make sure we don't get caught from behind."
The adventurer seemed to realise this at that moment.
"Jacky called you a dead weight for a reason. She was trying to save your life and keep you out of this," I said, unintentionally grim. I felt really bad, but someone had to tell him the truth.
Meanwhile, I took a cheap-looking knife from the dead adventurer's pocket and cut the bonds.
"Stay calm though," I said and Noah nodded, "You're risking your life for me. I won't do anything stupid. Promised."
"Actually, I'm here on a gathering quest," I muttered, "That we're rescuing you is more of a coincidence."
I tried to keep an eye on what was going on around my comrades, but had to focus on the adventurer next to me, who looked like a miserable heap of misery. After all, I now had two children to look after. That's why I decided to do the only sensible thing I could think of at that moment - I put the knife in Noah's hand.
"Use it only in an extreme emergency," I said sternly, but I didn't feel that the adventurer would be of any use in his current state. Noah took the knife and stored it in his sleeve.
Cáit had just detonated the next grenade - probably to give our group time to gather.
"So you're our real opponents," Abe said, "Before we start beating each other's heads in - do you want to tell me what you wanted with those weaklings over there? Did you really underestimate us?"
"Believe me, I have asked the same question several times," Jacky replied with extreme annoyance, "We are not from the same guild."
"I see," Abe replied before adding, "It should never have happened like this. We just wanted to look for a treasure in peace."
"Heavily armed?" Jacky looked at the men, "In a dungeon that's open around the clock anyway? And which you could have just walked into?"
That was the point that still didn't make sense to me.
"So that we have to share the treasure with someone in the end?" Abe asked surprised, "Until you interfered, we managed the whole thing without any casualties."
"Except for the little boy's parents," said Hayden, and at that moment the bandits who were still alive seemed to realise that Noah was gone.
"Only collateral damage," Abe replied before shouting angrily, "Where did the little rat go?"
"I put him in a safe place some time ago," Jacky giggled.
Suddenly, the adventurer next to me collapsed and someone pulled me up and held a knife to my throat, “Put your hands in your pockets and keep them there.”
The same thing happened to Noah. My shillelagh was thrown carelessly beside the dead adventurers.
"You didn't hide the child very well," a familiar voice said, "I brought reinforcements, boss. And I also took care of the peasants who were supposed to stand guard for us. They are all dead now."
I recognised the voice. It was the guy Cáit had kicked in the balls earlier - and he had five other bandits in tow.
I didn't know what to do at that moment, so I just mumbled "Start Puppetry" and, like last time, all the bright points disappeared and I could see a lot of green spots not far away.
"I suggest you put down your weapons and surrender. Otherwise I'll have to slit your little friend's throat," the man threatened. My companions didn't know how to react at that moment, but Jessy must have realised that the last member of her group had just been eliminated, because she immediately dropped her weapon and collapsed sobbing.
"Are you seriously a C-rank? You're really not cut out for this job," Jacky cursed, and to my surprise Abe seemed to have had enough of Jessy as well, because he wanted to silence her with his hammer. I didn't want her to die, so I decided to intervene, "If you don’t kill her, I'll tell you where the switch for your treasure is.”
Abe suddenly had a broad smile on his face and instead of killing Jessy in front of us, he instructed one of his subordinates to tie her up and gag her - the gag being particularly important to him because he didn't want to hear her stuttering and sobbing. "I could just kill her and squeeze the information out of you, but that's actually too much trouble for me."
"Very good decision," I said seriously, "Because I have no problem taking the location with me to my grave. And by the time you would have found it without me, our reinforcements would have arrived.”
Abe grinned at me and said, "If you lie to me, I'll kill you right in front of them."
“I couldn’t care less,” I replied with a weary smile.
Jacky and Hayden, who usually had something crazy in their eyes, looked at me in shock. Understandably, since I had lied to them earlier and hadn't told them about the switch.
"I know you would have won the fight easily if I had been more careful," I said, "But he was suddenly behind me. I'm sorry. I let you down."
"You really don't have to worry about that. It's not your fault," the man holding the knife to my throat said to my surprise, "I can move almost silently. You would never have heard me coming."
Meanwhile, my comrades had been robbed of their weapons and tied up as well.
"There - under the pile of rubbish," I pointed, "But I can't promise that the switch still works."
Abe gave me a suspicious look and asked, "Now I'd really like to know where you got that information from."
"The boy has been lying to you all along. He told me when we were alone," I said and I could hear Noel give a short gasp, " Okay. That's not quite the truth. He even hinted that the switch might be under a pile of rubbish. He just didn't tell you which one. You should have just listened to him."
Noel seemed to realise I was putting on a show and suddenly said, "That's right. There's no point in leading you around by the nose anymore.”
"You could have made it so much easier for all of us," Abe said.
"So you'd end up killing me like you did my parents?" the boy almost shouted, "At least that way I could cheat myself out of a few more weeks."
"I've told you several times that we could use your skills elsewhere," the man said, "But of course I can understand why you wouldn't believe the man who killed your parents."
I was here to play a game of chance. My knowledge of this world was not extensive, but I remembered what Cáit had said when we first met: The dungeon had been full of spiders some time ago.
Since my ability only showed me objects I could move with my current level, and the place was crawling with green points, I theorised that the third floor was a graveyard for these clockwork spiders.
Out of boredom, I did a little research on the monsters in this dungeon and found out that these spiders spray a corrosive gas.
"Control puppet," I whispered as quietly as I could, and the momentary loss of ether was enough for me to realise that I had taken control of something. Fortunately, the man with the knife at my throat didn't notice. And the other newly arrived were busy carrying the pile of rubbish.
"Guys. Could you do me a favour and put five large steel plates to one side?" I suddenly said cheekily, "That's actually why I'm here."
"You don't really think you're going to leave the dungeon as a free man, do you?" Abe asked, but I didn't really care. But somehow I felt the urge to answer, so I said, "Really? My breasts may not be big, but they're definitely there and you can see them, if you look closely”
I had the feeling that Abe didn’t really know how to react, so I simply continued, “I will probably not leave the dungeon a free man. But as a free woman."
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cáit biting her lower lip to keep from laughing out loud. I just wanted to make sure nobody noticed the little spider I had just sent on its way to Hayden. Since I had been injured half the time, I had taken the opportunity to practise my puppetry skills, and was now at least practised enough to move my puppets in the right direction. I was also able to add little extra movements when necessary and possible. While the bandits were still busy dismantling the huge pile, Noah and I had actually been moved closer to the others by order, which played into my hands as it gave me a view of my comrades' shackles. This allowed me to slowly etch away Hayden's with the spider's acid. Luckily, I'd caught one that wasn't completely damaged.
"Are you going slow?" Abe shouted impatiently to his subordinates, but they only replied, "We're going as fast as we can. It would make more sense if we just blew up the whole place."
"Not a good idea," I said, "You'll end up breaking the switch. And maybe my steel plates too."
"Nobody cares about your stupid steel plates," Abe said angrily, and - although I had no idea what was going on with me at that moment - I replied, "Fine. My name is nobody. Can you stop talking about me like that?"
"Your parents really hated you - didn't they?" asked Abe, who of course didn't get the joke. Neither did anyone else - but I suddenly started laughing, which caused even more confusion among those present.
"Have you gone completely mad now?" the man holding the knife to my throat asked me, and I just replied, "Maybe?" before saying a little louder, "Cáit. Will you be angry with me if you have to patch me up again tonight?"
"Didn't we promise each other something?" she asked incredulously and I just smiled weary at her, "There are times when you can't keep a promise. And there are times when you have to take extreme measures."
