Bandits. Folks who appear out of nowhere while you’re on the road and threaten to take your stuff. People who are on the road often know to hire escorts to protect them from bandits. New adventurers are advised to ask veteran adventurer’s to go along with them if they’re going to a different town for a quest, just in case of a bandit attack. This made me think. Why is it just me, Bee and Estelle? No wonder the bandits targeted us. Just a little golem, a little bee, and a little witch. Easy pickings.

Three bandits are threatening us. The leader, who is in the middle, is relatively short compared to his two lackeys. Not a dwarf, though. You can tell by the tiny animal ears on his head. Hmm… mouse? Probably not. He’s wielding an abnormally large sword that’s resting on the floor. Clearly, he can’t use it and is mainly there for the intimidation factor. Where did he get it, though? The other two are… not as interesting. Just bog-standard humans with somewhat scary faces. How did this guy manage to find two similar looking people?

“Oi, witch. If ya want to live, put your stuff on the ground and scram!” Estelle doesn’t even register his threat. She is busy nibbling on some cheese. Why is she always eating? The bandit is clearly getting a bit frustrated at being ignored and throws his only dagger at her feet. Did… did he just waste his only usable weapon?

“I said, put your stuff on the ground and scram! Do you not know who I am?!” Nope. I doubt Estelle and Bee know either. Speaking of Bee, she’s meditating, as always. I’m starting to think that everyone I know has one-note thinking.  

“I AM BANDITO THE BANDIT KING!!!” Okay, I still have no idea. The fellow on the bandit leader’s left is trying his best to keep in a laugh. Huh… that says a lot. I wonder why they’re following him. Anyways, even though we look like the easy pickings, in reality, the bandits are. For reference, let me show their strongest, the small fellow claiming to be the bandit king, and Bee, who is weaker than Estelle and me.

As you can tell, Bee could beat him in a fight. Actually, she’d probably beat all three in a fight, and that’s without Hive: Mammoth, that massive cheat Skill. The bandits do pose a slight problem, however. They’re not getting out of the way, and none of us wants to deal with them. Estelle is too busy eating cheese, Bee is too busy meditating, and I’m too busy appraising random things on the side of the road because I’m curious about them. Do you think if I pray hard enough, the Gods will take care of the bandits for us? 

“WHY ARE YOU IGNORING ME?!” Oh yeah… he was still talking. Speaking of him, Weaselkin, huh. With a name like Bandito and a race like that, no wonder he ended up like this. Poor fellow, but I don’t care enough. Hmm… since this is digging into time that could be used for the operation to put me in my new body, maybe I’ll take care of them.

Before deciding how to deal with the bandits, someone popped out from the shadow cast by Estelle’s brim of her witch hat. She wore a simple rag, had shadow black hair that ran down to her knees, and a mask with a smile on it. Hmm… must be linked to the Mask of Insanity. Interesting. I really want to learn more about the Masks. Damn you Goddess, why do you interfere?!

“W-who are yo-” At that moment, she teleported in front of the Weaselkin, a knife stabbed into his stomach. He looked at her in fear, before screaming loudly in pain as she dragged the knife upwards through her chest, before poking him lightly with a single finger, his body thumping onto the ground. 

His two lackeys were extremely terrified. One brought out his sword and pointed it towards the figure, his hands shaking, while the other stared at the body of his fallen leader. The girl snapped her finger, and the two were killed. The one staring at the body had his face penetrated by a crystallised blood spike, while the other had his neck snapped by the dead bandit’s intestines that wrapped around like a snake. A gruesome scene. I looked to Estelle, and she was still listlessly eating. At first, I thought she was just weird… but maybe she is insane in some way. I really want to know more about the Mask of Insanity, but first, I need to appraise the girl.

I looked back at the corpses, only to see she had disappeared. Well then… guess I won’t find out. Argh, that really sucks. Welp, guess we’ll continue on this adventure. Which reminds me, I haven’t gone into detail about that. Long story short, me, Bee, and Estelle are going to the Mountain of the Ancient Dragon so I can be transferred into the body the Dungeon master gifted me. Ivest offered to come, but Estelle said only Bee and me. I’m guessing because this is a Mask related thing, but why is Bee allowed to come? Well, I can ask that question in two days, when I get Telepathy.

Jarkon

Guess this means I have to put the Gore warning. I am now tempted to just go full extreme with Mask of Insanity now. Wasn't planned, but then again, nothing in this story was.