"Now, let's talk a bit." A Ranger wearing an armband with a green bear logo on it stepped forward. I can describe his physical appearance: Ginger, almost tall as me, but the most remarkable thing he has is the mustache that probably took him hours to shape like that.

He put his hand on my shoulder in a friendly manner.

"I believe you are a hunter by looking at all the gear you wear and that fancy sword, also you can use magic too. What is your rank in the guild, C- maybe C?"

I don't know anything about the system he is talking about, but I should explain the gear I wear.

"Not a hunter, but I am someone who's pursuing a quest, and it is a dangerous one."

Well, that's not a lie. I am on a holy crusade (of a sort), probably against the things he believes, but long as I don't give details, it should be good.

"And what kind of quest are you pursuing? Revenge of a loved one, or maybe you are after a treasure and don't want to give any of it to the guild. Well, that's not important. Long as you have good stories to tell, I can finish interrogating you in a tavern with a warm meal."

He is a little talkative, but I don't sense any lies behind his friendly words and smiling face. It could be the temptation of warm food, but I will give him a shot.

"Now, my friend, where is your destiny?" Now, he is talking in a way I want.

"To the closest town, and if possible, I want to go there the fastest I can."

He laughed and patted my back.

"Then that means we are going to the same location. Come on, my friend! Let's begin to move, and we can eat warm food in our town's famous tavern."

He is acting too joyful than he should be, but he probably got used to killing bandits around here.

I looked at the other rangers. They were trying to calm the passengers and examine the corpses.

It isn't a pleasant job to do. I did it myself a couple of times, seeing the empty eyes of a corpse, the blood, and flesh flowing out from their wounds.

It is disturbing, and even at war, not many people can handle that.

I moved towards the young man, who tried to fend off bandits. He was only staring at a corpse with blank eyes, his hands were still shaking, and I could see the droplets of sweet on his face. Bandits scared the poor kid too much.

"Was he a loved one?" I tried to start a conversation.

"No, he was only riding our cart." I saw the terror in his eyes from closer, much worse than I thought.

"You have done your best. You kept bandits away until help came. Not many people are brave enough to do that." I patted his back and smiled at him in a friendly manner.

"Sir, thank you for trying to comfort me, but you also saw how weak I was. They played with me like a predator playing with its prey, and if you didn't show up, they probably feed my corpse to animals and do unthinkable things to my sister and that lady."

What the hell?

"I..." what will I even say now. I don't have words to say, like, fuck what that kid saw.

"Sir, I appreciate you for trying to increase my morale, but please leave me by myself."

Something's wrong with this young man. I doubt what damaged his psychology that much is this single bandit encounter. Some bad shit happened, and I don't want to know what that is.

I left the poor young man alone and began to move towards the other two passengers. I should ask what they were doing.

I began to move towards the woman and child. Two rangers were waiting next to them, asking if they had any wounds or needed anything.

"Relax, Miss Veronica. Bandits died. You are safe now."

Miss Veronica doesn't look good. She is still in shock. At least I can't say the same for the child. She is jumping around, acting like someone didn't threaten her life minutes before.

She was pretty happy to see the rangers.

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"You see that tree." Ruckus (Leader of the rangers) pointed it with his finger. "That means we are only one hour's worth of walking distance away from the town."

The road was shorter than I expected, and because I travel with a group of 6 armed people (five rangers and me). Possible threats I detected decided not to mess with our group.

Well, until a wolf jumped on the road.

Horses suddenly stopped, and the child inside the cart screamed.
Every armed person pulled out their weapons, but after a second, I figured out who that wolf was.

It is the wolf I tamed, and rather than coming right to me after the fight. I see he decided to move around and follow us.

I touched the shoulder of Ruckus. "Wait, hold your weapons." I began to move next to the wolf, and when I got near him, I began to pet the wolf's head, and he reacted with a playful "Woof" and started to move around me.

Rangers put their weapons back to their places. From their faces, I can see they are relaxed. Ruckus said on the road, wolves only come around the town if something serious happens.

The little girl jumped out of the cart and came near the wolf because he acted like a dog. She must see him as a pet.

His brother tried to stop him by shouting "Maria come back here, it could be dangerous. Maria!" but she didn't listen to him.

Thankfully, the wolf didn't do anything while the little girl petted his head and played with his ears.

"What is his name. Could you tell me please," Maria asked while rubbing the wolf's belly.

Looking at how playful he is currently, he deserves a soft name.

"Fluffy, his name is Fluffy." Wolf looked at me with a glance with a thousand swears behind it. I hardly stopped myself from laughing.

"What a cute name for a scary animal like you." Maria stopped playing with Fluffy and got back to the cart, but before she entered inside, she turned to Fluffy and shouted, "Let's play again when we reach the town."

"If the playtime is over, let's go back on our way and keep that dog away from horses. He's scaring them," Ruckus shouted.

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We reached the town at the time of sunset.

The town was way bigger than I thought. It looks big as a medieval city, at least from a distance.

Six heavily armed knights greeted us at the door. The first thing they did was check the three passengers.

They were pretty kind against the passengers. They asked if nothing happened on the road, what happened to the guards assigned, were their trip was good, etc.

But, their attitude wasn't the same towards me.

One of them grabbed me from my shoulders and tried to push me towards a wall, but he failed at doing, so he swore and pointed his sword towards my neck.

"What's your name, why are you here, where do you come from, what happened to the fourth passenger."

Ruckus came right next to us and put his hand on the shoulder of the knight.

"Go easy on our friend here, and try to ask your questions a little slower."
Knight turned his sword from me to Ruckus.

"Captain said four passengers are going to come here, but I only find three and one-armed stranger. Now Ruckus, before I beat the shit out of you, get the fuck out of here and let me do my job."

Ruckus grabbed knight from his shoulder and pulled him close.

"So, you go far as threatening me. You began to forget your place. Maybe I should help you to remember it!" There was no sign of his kind attitude in these words.

"Both of you, get away from each other! I don't want to see this kind of behavior near our guests."

These words come from a guy wearing shiny silver armor with his helmet in his hand. He is long as me, and just from looking at him, you can see he is different from the douchebag knight who greeted me.

His movements, his use of language, even the way he stands show that he is superior (rank wise) to every other armed person from that town.

Both Ruckus and knight got away from each other and took a stance after hearing words from the silver knight.

"Now, who will be going to tell me what is happening here."

"I can explain it, uncle Arthur!" Maria left side of his brother and came next to the silver knight.

Arthur kneeled towards Maria and smiled.

"Oh, I didn't see you, little lady. Could you tell me what happened on the way because these uncles lack the ability to talk with each other without fighting? Right?"

Both Ruckus and knight began looking to the ground like a child got scolded by its parents.

Kids are too pure to know how to lie, and it is easy to learn the truth from them.

"First, we were going inside a forest route, nothing wrong happened for a while, but later bad guys killed the uncle riding the cart with an arrow."

"I am listening. Keep going." Arthur encouraged the little girl.

"Then they circled our cart and started to rob our items and forcefully pulled us out from the cart. My brother tried to hold them off while they said bad things."

She looked at my face and pointed his finger at me.

"First I was scared, but this uncle come out of the forest said a cool line that I forgot, but later he defeated all the bad guys with his shiny sword, sadly Aunt Veronica closed my eyes didn't allow me to watch any of it."

Arthur nodded his head towards the little girl and turned towards me.

He bowed his head and began to shake my hand. "Thank you for saving these people. They are important for me, and I don't know what I will do if anything happens to them."

"I only did what I needed to do. I wouldn't be able to peacefully sleep if I let those bandits do even a single thing they said."

"Please, you don't need to be humble. Please be my guest for today." He put his hand into my shoulder and began to pull me towards inside.