Chapter 47

47 Bandits.

When Quies saw the signs made by the child beside him, he was surprised, because they did not know how many bandits they might be facing. The old man said, “I know that you are eager to gain experience, but there are too many things that we do not know. Such as the number of bandits and what they are capable of.”

Valerian nodded and replied, ‘I understand what you mean, Sir Quies. Let us do this, you can come along with me and communicate with the bandits. I can use magic to check if they have mages among them. I will only act when I am sure of everything.’

Quies hesitated but then he recalled how this child had defeated the guards in the morning and nodded. They both got down from the coachman seat and came to inform the Princess about the arrangement.

Consano and Conixia were surprised by the fact that this Old warrior will be taking Valerian with him. They had no idea of Valerian’s strength. Azula thought for a bit and said, “Quies, Valerian, I want both of you to prioritize your own safety first. Do not engage in reckless battle.”

The two people nodded. Azula said, “Valerian, do you have any weapon on your person?”

The boy shook his head. Azula gazed at Priscilla who nodded and from a concealed scabbard she took out a curved knife. She flipped the knife and held its blade while extending the hilt to Valerian. She said, “This is a magic weapon, works well with fire, wind, and shadow attributes. Just try to circulate the mana through this.”

Valerian nodded and took the blade. He flicked the knife a few times to familiarize himself. Quies said, “Your highness, we will be back soon.”

Azula nodded and said, “Be careful.”

The two people, one young and one old bowed and walked away from the convoy. Four guards patrolled and four guards stood guard around the carriage while the Guard Captain climbed over the carriage to keep vigil around them.

.....

Inside the carriage, Conixia asked, “Your Highness, I beg your pardon, but will that boy not make things difficult for Sir Quies when they faced the bandits?”

Azula thought Conixia was not familiar with Valerian and thus she had doubts. She smiled and shook her head. She said, “Just this morning when he came back from the forest, he was tested by the whole guard squad. He passed the test, so I think he will be fine.”

Consano asked with a slight surprise, “Your Highness, did he only return today?”

When the princess nodded, Consano said, “That means he survived inside that forest for two months.”

Priscilla nodded and said, “This kid even hunted down a War Bear. Can you imagine how risky that is?”

Conixia and her elder sister were shocked. When they met Valerian, they thought he was a savage, however, when he left, Meta told them that the armor donned by the child was not a simple thing, it belonged to a magical beast.

They thought the armor was gifted to him by his guardians, but that was not the case. However, driven by curiosity, Conixia asked, “Your highness, did you also help him with supplies when he was training in the woods.”

Azula shook her head and with a sigh, she said, “This kid left the palace in the dead of the night. He carried with him, nothing but a water bottle. We did not help him at all.”

She had no reason to lie. However, Conixia was almost about to cry, she was scared of Valerian’s cold stare even now.

...

While the ladies were mingling, Valerian and Quies had walked closer to the ambush. The young one was able to hear the birds and other small animals and was also narrating stuff to Quies with single-hand signs.

They came to stand in a spot and the old man said, “Could you please show yourself. We do not wish to fight with you needlessly.”

Suddenly, the woods were rattled with cold laughter, followed by a series of footsteps. A man wearing a gray tunic came out from behind the trees in a distance, and then he was followed by a whole mob.

Valerian counted quickly and could tell that there were a total of twenty-nine people, and five among this mob were mages. However, they all wore gray robes. He did not know their attributes.

The man in the gray robe said, “Well, Old Gentleman, you seem like an understanding person. How about you leave the valuables and a few maids for me and my brothers and then I will let you and your convoy leave.”

Quies raised his eyebrow and asked, “What do you think about letting us go and I will drop this insolence of yours right here and now?”

The man in the gray robe was surprised but then he laughed and this was followed by his group. The man calmed down after a few seconds and then said, “Old man, I know that if your convoy can afford those magical beasts, then your identity must not be simple. However, your attitude just now has offended me a great deal. I will keep you all here.”

Quies sighed and said, “Valerian, you can deal with them.”

This sentence of his made the bandits cast a gaze at the boy beside him. They wanted to laugh but Valerian was not in the mood to accommodate these guys. He stepped forward and vanished from his spot.

He directly charged ahead at full speed. The reason was simple, just like he did not know about the enemy, the enemy also did not know about his strengths and weaknesses. He intended to use this element of surprise to his benefit.

Before charging ahead, he had taken out the magical knife from the pocket inside of his coat. He circulated the knife with wind attribute mana and slashed at the neck of the warrior standing at the front of the mob. Flushed with the wind attribute, the knife had become a short sword, with a sharp edge and almost no weight.

With a puff, blood spewed out like a fountain. The dull thud of the corpse woke the bandits from their stupor. The gray-robed mage said, “Kill this bastard, use your spells.”

However, was Valerian going to sit down for them to catch him? He has faced the wolves in the wild, these guys were nowhere close to the speed and ferocity of the beasts. He moved through the trees and his knife reaped lives whenever he got close to a target.

Valerian used his weapons and simple combat actions to thin out the crowd, and then when the mages were getting closer to hitting him with a spell. He changed his strategy.

The boy had just stabbed a bandit through his heart when a mage found a clear view of his back and cast a fire attack spell. Valerian looked at this and charged directly in the mage’s direction.

The mage smirked as he completed the spell, he was thinking that this kid was a fool. He was charging straight at an incineration spell. The bandits had yet to take note of the wind blade attached to the front of the knife.

Valerian did not care about any of it, he ran towards the cloud of fire coming at him, but just as the fire cloud was about to swallow him, he cast a spell, ‘Ventus Scutum.’

He was surrounded by a shield of wind, and he was still charging ahead. The mage was happy, he said, “Hahahaha, I got h..”

Before he could complete his words, a figure emerged from the cloud, the mage could sense a strong gust revolving around Valerian, but before he could alert his people, he froze, and light gradually left his eyes.

Valerian had slashed his face from under the chin to the top of his head. He stood there watching the bandit mage fall to the ground with no life in him.

He cast a gaze around and found twelve people left, all of them staring at him with slight fear and strong disbelief. After all, this kid took down more than half of the mob and was unscratched. This was a monster in human skin.

Valerian decided to get over with it. He cast a low-level spell, ‘Mens Laqueo.’

The impact was a strong wave of mana that left all the bandits in a daze. Then he cast a fire spell, ‘Serpens Flammarum.’

A palm-sized snake appeared and moved ahead to set the three people on the right side on fire. He cast a gaze to the left and cast, ‘Lutum Hastae.’

Four people on the left were suddenly skewered with earth spears. They did not even know when they died. Then Valerian walked over to the five in front of him and cast, ‘Mors Vitis.’

Valerian directly killed the four people in front of him, while the small snake had turned the other four to ashes. This left only one guy, the mage in a gray robe. Valerian jumped up and delivered a kick to the side of this person, making him fly out and land near Quies.

The kick had shattered his jaws and at the same time, woke him up from the stupor of the mind snare spell. He looked at the silver-haired boy in a daze. He did not expect Valerian to be so strong.

If he had known that this child was a battlemage, he would have knelt and served him with all he’s worth. But now, it seemed to be too late. Quies looked at Valerian who was cleaning the knife and said, “Let us take this guy back for Her Highness.”

Valerian shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘It is fine as long as I do not have to carry him.’

Quies looked down and frowned, the bandit leader had soiled himself from fear.