It was pretty much night when I left the community hall. The ruined village had a quiet ambience that made the crippling sound of the cindering houses all the made unsettling. People lived here before, they were happy, and their lives were probably going well until these bandits attacked them and destroyed everything they owned.

By the villagers we rescued and the bandit’s policies about capturing, it was clear that they wanted to sell all the people they deemed valuable in the village. But something was off. Why now, of all the time? As far as I know, this village existed for a long time and never added any real profitable venture that could have made it valuable to ruffians. The only thing that separated it from other everyday villages was its closeness to the dungeon entrance, but even adventurers didn’t think much of this place when they went to the dungeon.

Dawnriver wasn’t very far and was much bigger than a simple village living off its crops. To raid this village and still stay here after capturing most of the villagers, they must be in search of something, or someone. Whatever they were after, our priority was the safety of the villagers. Properly kicking these bastards' asses, could wait for later, when the guild would be here to help.

Following the directions given to me, I stuck to the shadows and moved toward the outskirts of the village. I sneaked past multiple patrols made up of at least five bandits each, as fighting all of them wouldn’t have been smart. If I could avoid combat, then it was what I would try to do.

A few agile, silent rushes and close calls later, I reached a point where the houses were getting too far away from each other to avoid the direct road. When I was sure there was nothing on the left or right, I ran across the street. As I reached the other side, I heard people talking and reflexively dived into some bushes that had been spared from the fire.

With me crawling on the ground, the bushes were just tall enough to hide me completely. I searched who was talking, until a group of two lancers and an archer came out of a burned house, kicking it rubble along the way.

“Shit, still nothing!” The big man said, destroying the last pillar supporting the house just behind them. The house, which barely held up until now, crumbled under its own weight.

“Calm down. She must be nearby.” Another man said. “She can’t hide forever, and she was carrying someone injured, there is no way she took her chance in the forest with an arrow in the stomach and knee!”

“That's strange, the report said she was in a group of five, but she looked alone, except for the woman she was carrying. I wonder what happened in that dungeon.” The archer added.

“They probably died, our contact said there’s a strong monster in there. Must be why she left sooner than expected. Dammit, if we had been just a few minutes late, we would have missed her entirely. We can’t let that big of a fish escape us.”

“We got good hits in, just keep looking and we will find her, eventually. Just try not to die. It’s already hard to look at your sorry face, if the healer needs to fix you, I don’t think you’re gonna get prettier.”

At the remark, the bulky guy touched the wound on his face, painting his fingers with his own blood. “That healer better do her job, otherwise I pound her until she can’t walk anymore!” His tongue licked his lips, tasting his own blood in the process. The smile he had was not something I wanted to ever see again.

“Don’t forget the boss order. Don’t touch the healer if you want to keep your head. She’s much more valuable than a scrub like you. It’s already strange enough that the boss was able to buy her obedience back then. That she stuck with us for years is a miracle. Her healing magic saved everyone’s ass more time than I can count.”

I was still hidden in the bush, when the patrol left, leaving me unable to hear more of their conversation, but what I had heard was already a lot. The woman they talked about was probably the guild master. Sophia told me that the guild master and her group were the last ones to have permission to enter the dungeon, so it was clear that it was her the bandits talked about.

That explains why they attacked the village. She must have run here searching for safety and as Dawnriver was a couple of hours away, this village was the closest option. Putting an entire village at risk for her potential survival was questionable, but in the same situation, I could understand valuing my own life over the one of others. They said she was injured and carrying someone. I didn’t think slavery and being “exploited” by scrubs was something I would want for myself or my friends, so who am I to judge her decision?

Hell, if Reylia, Phyralia and I weren’t confident in our ability, we would totally have abandoned this place and got to the guild instead of trying to help directly ourselves.

As for what they said about having a healer, the little information they unwillingly shared was plenty to make a guess, but that could wait until later. If the guild master was hiding somewhere, that added her as someone in need of help. They weren’t the first patrol I saw in the area, meaning they probably hadn’t finished checking around yet. I better find her and other villagers before they do, otherwise, too many lives would be sacrificed for no reason.

Continuing my search, I doubled my caution as I sought any isolated house that could hide those I was searching for.

At that point, the ground and houses weren’t in fire anymore, just ransacked to the point of looking deserted. With the grass and ground being healthy again, I got my root detection ability back online and was able to scout the area much faster. I still had to inspect the inside of the houses myself, but at least I knew where the patrols in the area were in real time. Any dwelling that was ransacked made it pretty clear that it had already been searched, so I focused on those that were still intact.

I found it pretty strange that I didn’t find any villagers in my search. The only explanation I could think of was that most of them had been gathered near the village centre when the attack happened, leaving only some stranglers here and there. It was also possible that some of them tried their chance through the forest, but they weren’t my focus. Trying to find them, even with my detection roots, was near impossible, the area to cover was just too big. It would have been worse than trying to find an assassin in a haystack, impossible and suicidal. Who knows what horrible and disgusting monster could be roaming the forest at this hour of the night?

“Just how many of these bastards did they bring here!” I whispered to myself. If I counted all the groups and patrols I encountered up to that point, their number was at the very least one hundred. Sophia told me that the guild master and her group were all A-rank. They really didn’t underestimate her, that much I could say, to my disappointment. Things would have been so much easier if they had been just a fraction of them. Instead, they probably were closer to two hundred, as I haven’t checked all the village yet.

As I looked around, I noticed a cabin more isolated than the other. Smaller than the other house, my mind became confused each time I tried to look at the hut. As if my eyes couldn’t bear to watch the unsettling dwelling. When I tried to focus on the cabin, it disappeared from my sign entirely. It was still there, the weight I sensed with my roots was indicating that the hut was there, but my eyes were blind to it.

Approaching the cabin, it wasn’t until I was right in front of the door that I was able to see the property properly. Gently opening the door, I entered the hut with careful steps.

The single-room hut was illuminated by a single lantern hanging on the wall. For a normal human, this would have been pretty dark, but I wasn’t normal, let alone human.

Lying on two beds were two women, looking more unconscious than asleep. From where I was, I could see that they had difficulty breathing, and needed medical attention. Leaning on one of the bed frames, a third woman was looking at me fiercely. Her breathing was ragged, and she had multiple bandages covering her wounds, blood was leaking from some of the patchwork. Despite all of that, she was ready for a fight.

Before I could say anything, Tenta sent me a warning, and before I could react, a tentacle blocked an axe swing aiming straight for my head. With a swift motion, Tenta enrolled the axe and disarmed the one wielding it. I put my sword against the man's neck as he put his hand in the air as a sign of surrender.

The man was not a bandit, he was dressed as any hunter or local farmer would in his early twenties, a simple green shirt with brown pants. “Please, I surrender.” He wasn’t afraid, but at the very least, he knew when to give up. Without his weapon, there wasn’t much he could do other than die trying.

Clearly not a threat anymore, I sheathed Flashbang in its scabbard hanging at my hips. “I’m an adventurer. I’m not here to hurt you.” I said. The man sighed in relief.

At my word, the injured guild master's attitude softened too, and she clenched her stomach wound. She was not in a good enough state to fight.

I approached her and took a look at her injuries. “Are you alright?”

“I will live, for now.” Her voice was clearly in pain. Lifting her shirt, the wound on her stomach had half of the arrow still lodged in her, but at least it was covered by a bandage. As long as it was there, I couldn’t perform basic treatment. Her knee was also in bad shape with a hole in the side, but a bandage was stopping too much blood from leaking. Bad enough that it would need more than just my limited healing knowledge, but nothing a professional healer couldn’t do.

“I can perform basic healing spells. Hey, give her something to bite!” I signalled the man. He rushed to a cabinet and took out a piece of woof meant for such an occasion. When he offered it to her, she bit into it.

For now, I started with her stomach wound. Putting away the bloody cloth, I grabbed what was left of the arrow and took it out in one go. She muffled in the pain, as the wound had gotten a little worse than before. Trowing the arrow away, I immediately began casting both light and fire cauterization to close the gaping hole. She clenched the wood between her teeth during the time that the fire did it is work.

When I finished, I switched to her knee, taking out the bandage. This time there wasn’t any object to take out, so I performed the healing immediately. The skin closed as the spell did its work and the hole disappeared. I only healed the outside, so she couldn’t walk, but she could worry about that later when the risk of dying would be much lower. There was also a risk of infection, but again, that could wait for now.

“Thank you,” She said with difficulty. “What's your name?”

“Emery, and you?”

“I’m Fany. So you’re the new girl in town, with the dragons. Sophia, keep telling me about how you’re gonna be a great adventurer in the future. Can’t believe I get to experience it firsthand. Are you alone, or with a party?”

“I got my two friends holding the community house. As soon as the villagers we rescued are in a state to walk, they are gonna try to leave. If they can’t, they just hole up until help arrives.”

“The community house! Do you know if my kid is there? He was playing with my niece.”

“He’s safe and with your brother.”

“Do the guild know… about what happened here?” Fany asked.

“Not why, but they are on the way. Should be here in an hour, two at the most. We just need to last until then.”

“We need to rejoin with your friend. My light spell is already gone, so this place isn’t hidden anymore. They have more people in the forest, to make sure nobody escapes through the wood.”

“They truly want you, don’t they? Can you move?”

She put a hand on her knee and cast a spell. Her mana transformed into a stony material and covered all her legs in a stone-like legging. “Think of it as a temporary prosthetic. Can’t run, but I can walk.”

“And what about these two?” I pointed at the two women lying in bed.

“The other one is my friend. She lost consciousness when she was wounded. It’s fine for now, but she needs better care.”

“My wife,” The man said. “She is sick, and can’t leave her bed, but I can carry her.”

The woman looked pale, extremely pale, with blue veins appearing all over her body. Sensing my plague affinity fire up, I let it circulate and looked at the man's wife with my new senses.

My plague affinity detected traces of a disease inside her, and although I didn’t know what the infection's name was, its effect was far from pretty. Most of her body was infected with something, paralyzing the body's internal mana circulation. If this wasn’t cured, her organs would get damaged over time by the surplus of mana until her body broke entirely.

Following my instinct, I put my hand on the woman's head and began absorbing the disease.

“What are you doing?” The man asked, unsure. I ignored him. If I somehow messed this up, the entire process would fail, and she would die on the spot. Fany looked at the procedure with curious eyes.

After a long minute, the disease was eradicated from her body, and my plague affinity absorbed the excess mana for good measure. “She’s cured, but her body still needs rest.”

“Are… you serious?”

I nodded.

“I can’t thank you enough. I’m afraid I don’t have the money to pay, but I can do it later. How much does it cost?” He looked relieved, but also afraid of what I was about to say. I could guess why. A plague affinity was rare, more than that, I was the only one in the whole country who had it. That is what the guild told me. A competent healer or medic could maybe could have done something for the woman, but the rarity of a service says his price. In no world, such treatment could be afforded by normal people, not even back on Earth.

“It's on me, so don’t worry about it.”

He bowed respectfully. “Thank you!”

When he finally stopped thanking me, I felt something in the palm of my hand. There I notice a green and purple crystal the size of a mouse. The mana indicated it was made of plague magic crystallized from the disease I absorbed. Thinking it could be useful later, I slid it into a pouch on my belt.

Ready to leave the cabin, the man took his wife in his arms, princess carry style, and Fany did the same with her friend. As the only one who could fight, I opened the door in search of bandits. Seeing nobody, I lead the group toward the centre of the village, slowly but surely. The second we would be found, dozens of enemies would be swarming us, letting that happen was out of the question. Fany said she couldn’t cast any spell, as she already used most of her mana to keep them safe until I showed up. It was up to me to protect them.

The moon was shining high in the sky. The night would have been beautiful if it wasn’t for the burned and cindering house appearing as we moved closer to the plaza. The man looked pained by the sight of the few corpses lying around but did his best to ignore them. He needed to concentrate on the living, not the dead.

A few minutes away from the community hall, I had to double my vigilance. My root detection was back offline, the ground too burned to allow it to function.

As we moved silently, a loud silence suddenly settled on us. Everything was too calm. There was no crippling, no wind, no bug, only the small whistle of an arrow coming for me.

Reacting for me, Tenta padded the point of impact, using all its body mass to cover my shoulder. I felt nothing as the projectile fell to the ground, unable to pierce Tenta's thickest protection.

Behind us, a group of five bandits were rushing at us while a few more rained arrows on me. I also noticed one of them running away, probably to get more reinforcement.

“Go, I handle!” I yelled at Fany.

When the first enemy entered melee range, I cast a glow on the tip of Flashbang, blinding him. During the 2 seconds, it took his eyes to adjust to the shift in light, I stabbed him in the stomach. The man fell to the ground, alive, but not for long without help.

The second bandit used his spear to keep me on my edge, as the third swung its sword, aiming to disarm me. A few more arrows came, but Tenta blocked them all, so I could concentrate on the enemy in front of me.

After backstepping a swing, the two last bandits joined the front line, and I was about to get overwhelmed. Opening the two flasks on my belt, I controlled my water and acid and shaped them into a snake-like form. The undulating and unpredictability of the liquids allowed me to cover them in cuts and injuries. Throwing some acid at their swords, they were now left without any weapon to defend themselves. Still, they pressed the offensive, aiming to fight with their fists.

To put them out of the fight for good, I used more acid and aimed it at their pants, the least protected part of their low-quality armour. When they saw the hungry liquid eating at their armour and clothes, they tried to unfasten their belt and buckle as fast as possible. Only one of them was able to do it in time, while the other fell to the ground in pain. They desperately grabbed their crotch with their hand, hoping the pain would dissipate to spare their manhood, something I absolutely didn’t care about. Bandits were bandits, if they wanted to keep their manhood then they should have acted like real men, not bastards.

A knight in shiny armour would have been useful at the moment with all the enemy reinforcement on the way.

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