TBE Chapter 78

TBE Chapter 78

Ezekiel observed the bandits who were celebrating their victory over the family they killed. He hated them for having no pity and for the way they violated the women in that family. Those poor women made him extremely melancholy and angry at the same time which was a peculiar mix of emotions that he had encountered for the first time.

He waited for a bit until all of the bandits were inebriated before commanding the ten butcher knives that were awakened by the Tiny Servant spell and the Shadowspawn to attack the bandits.

The ten butcher knives and the Shadowspawn attacked the bandits who were consuming alcohol and food that Ezekiel assumed they had taken from the carriage or maybe they were the food and alcohol they saved for such occasions. The fact that it took a while for them to notice that they were being attacked because all of them were drunk led to their demise.

When some of them noticed the moving knives and the shadowy monster, they were too intoxicated by alcohol to do anything about it and Ezekiel didn’t have to cast any other spell to kill all of them since the knives and the Shadowspawn monster killed all ten of the bandits.

Ezekiel knew that he wouldn’t have any problem handling the bandits because, at the end of the day, they were regular people. That meant that he, being a level 3 Wizard was already extremely overpowered in this area. He wasn’t sure about any other place in the world though that’s why he knew that he would still need to lie low about the fact that he could do magic.

When the last of the bandits were dead, he commanded Yuki Onna to check the area for any other living being nearby so his Familiar flew up and started circling the location. Ezekiel commanded the ten butcher knives to hurry back to where his brothers were staying so the knives could protect them just in case. The Shadowspawn remained there to protect him if there was anything that threatened his presence.

He began examining the bandits and the dead family one by one and was surprised to gather a fairly large amount of coins. Ezekiel was feeling icky about touching the corpses so he used the Mage Hand spell to rummage through the belongings of everyone there. He managed to gather a total of 16 gold, 43 silver, and 20 copper coins. Even though Ezekiel received a large amount of coins, he wasn’t happy. He would be glad to let go of all the coins if even some of the family members of the murdered family survived.

Ezekiel then looked at the carriage that the bandits commandeered from the family. There were chests at the top of the carriage and they contained the family’s clothes and some other necessities like food and water. There was also a chest filled with some weapons and armor pieces. He then started rummaging inside the carriage and maybe because he was starting to know wood, he discovered the hidden compartment in the floor of the carriage. Inside the compartment, there were two boxes and when he opened them, one was filled with pieces of jewelry and Ezekiel thought that maybe they were the accessories of the mother and daughter pair. The second box was filled with coins and that startled Ezekiel since he thought that the coins that the bandits were holding were the coins that they had gotten from the family.

The box only contained gold coins and there were 50 of them. Ezekiel pondered for a bit and thought of the possibility that the man of the family that was captured by the bandits offered the coins they had on themselves thinking that if the bandits let them go, they would still have the box that contained their gold coins. He knew that whatever the man did, it wouldn’t change anything and it would still result in their demise.

Ezekiel transferred the coins to the box that he was using for his coins in his 4th tab space and his total general coins separated from his woodworking funds climbed to 76 Gold 53 Silver and 55 Copper Coins. Their little family was now extremely wealthy and sadly, it was exchanged for the lives of a family, and that stopped him from having any sort of celebratory feeling.

Even though the carriage was serviceable, Ezekiel did not have the intention of using it since it might be traced by some other people. He also didn’t intend to take anything else like the pieces of jewelry, clothes, weapons, and armor pieces that were stored inside the chest located at the top of the carriage or the weapons or armor pieces the bandits were carrying.

He also didn’t intend to bury the bandits or the family that they murdered and would allow the forest to handle them. Ezekiel didn’t know if he was being disrespectful and even though he told himself that the animals in the forest needed to eat too, he couldn’t deny that the main reason was he didn’t want to handle the corpses of anyone in the area anymore.

Suddenly, Ezekiel heard a moan and he readied himself to cast a spell. The Shadowspawn expired several minutes ago and he didn’t cast it again since it was taking some concentration from him to maintain the spell.

He wasn’t too worried though since he was fully capable of defending himself and Yuki Onna, having returned from patrolling the area, was already watching over him.

Ezekiel then saw that the moan came from the man who previously ran away from the bandits before and was captured again and then received a blow in the head from bandits. He was surprised that the man was still alive even though the wound on his head was bleeding profusely.

He decided to heal the man since based on the actions that happened before, he was probably part of the family that was captured by the bandits, maybe some sort of servant by the looks of him. Ezekiel cast the Healing Elixir spell and then splashed the liquid on the man’s head causing the wound to heal visibly fast. Then he cast the Healing Elixir spell again and shoved the bottle into the man’s mouth making him choke and splutter but that made the man wake up.

The man suddenly sat up and looked around. When he saw the dead bandits in the area and Ezekiel looking at him, the man asked him a question.

“Who are you? What happened to the bandit gang?” The man asked.

“Who are you and what is your relationship with the dead family that was captured by the bandits?” Ezekiel asked back He was startled when the man suddenly started crying.

“My name is Simon and joined this bandit gang. I was a runaway serf but I knew Ms. Anna and her family. She was very kind to me back in Erathon. They are a minor noble and when I heard that they planned to kill Ms. Anna’s father and brother and violate her and her mother, I protested. They tried to kill me so I ran away. I plan to reach Erathon so I can ask for help there but they captured me,” Simon said then he looked around.

When Simon noticed the corpses of the family that were captured by the bandits and the state of the mother and daughter’s clothing, the man cried again. The man’s reaction, which was extreme puzzled Ezekiel. It was a reaction of someone younger than what Simon looked like so he asked the man his age.

“I’m seventeen this year. My parents died last year and the nobles that I’m serving were extremely cruel so I ran away. When I joined this bandit group, I didn’t know that they were so cruel as well,” Simon said while crying.

Ezekiel was flabbergasted since Simon looked like he was in his late twenties instead of a 17-year-old boy. He knew that what the boy had said about experiencing a cruel life was true because of the way he looked.

“When you say your masters were cruel what do you mean by that?” Ezekiel asked when Simon calmed down a bit.

“They kept using the whip even on simple mistakes,” Simon said then he briefly showed his back to Ezekiel which was filled with the most horrible scars that he had ever seen outside of movies.

Ezekiel realized that even though he and his brothers lived a hard life, it was a charmed life compared to what maybe some of the other people of this world were experiencing.

“Who killed the bandits?” Simon asked again.

Ezekiel thought of what he would do with Simon next. He remembered that they still needed someone to act as the adult in the group so that other people would respect them while they traveled and Simon looked the part. He would need to train the man though on how to act amongst other people. That also meant that if he took Simon in, they would need to bypass the Erathon town that Simon had said where he and the family that was murdered by the bandits came from.

The best part about Simon was his young age and that meant that Ezekiel could intimidate the man by using his magic to obey him and not betray him. Of course, he would still give the man compensation if he chose to join them.