The five adventurers split in two. The party of two and the party of three. They fought rather well initially.
They managed to kill three bandits and they thought that the rest would be easy. They didn't know how wrong they were.
Those three bandits were just testers to see how powerful the adventurers are. Probably the lowest of the low even among bandits. And they have finally estimated the strength of the adventurers.
One of the bandits who should be the leader then gives a command. Multiple bandits move forward to fight the five adventurers.
While the adventurers are confident, the bandits already know how to handle those adventurers. And in a short time, the bandits subjugated the adventurers. The five adventurers were defeated and they're begging to be spared.
"Well, that was quick," I say without a hint of panic.
"You're so calm. Do you have any experience in this situation?" Hal asks me curiously.
"No. I'm just good at hiding my panic. And today could be the first day I kill another human being. They're coming. Can you handle those who fall?" I ask Hal.
"Those who fall? So you're going to use your slip magic. I don't know how many I can kill though," he says.
"I don't know if it works but don't just rely on everything you learned. You have talent in fire magic so figure out how to use fire magic in a way that only you can do. How about you create one fireball that you can move around at will? If it works maybe you don't need to waste so much mana to repeatedly cast magic," I suggest Hal to do something. It's something I thought of if I have talent in fire magic or any other magic that I can use for ranged attack.
"Trying something out in a real situation? I guess I can do that," Hal says.
Then I grabbed a cigarette and put it in my mouth. I'm about to grab a matchstick but Hal light it up instead. And with it in my mouth, I step forward while Hal climbs the carriage to get a better view.
I look around. There are about twenty bandits left. Thankfully I can use slip magic that many times with some mana left. It's thanks to the red grass cigarette. And that's why even as I was about to fight I still put one in my mouth.
The bandits laugh seeing I walk alone. They don't even bother to put up their guard after hearing one of the adventurers who surrendered called me a rookie.
The truth is I'm afraid. I'm naturally a coward. But I have to step forward if I want to live. Maybe I will still live if the bandits simply steal the carriage from the merchant. But I know that in the future there will be times when I can't just choose to surrender.
This is just me training myself not to gather my courage. But to move forward even if I'm afraid. Those two are different. One means you are brave and the other means that you are still a coward. I know I'm a coward so I don't need to gain any confidence as a brave man.
"Rookie, stop right there. If you take another—"
Before the bandit could finish speaking, I swing my sword to kill him. My first time killing another human being but I can't stop because there are others.
If I don't need to use magic, I don't have to. My swordsmanship is good enough to defeat weak opponents.
"Kill him," the leader says calmly.
And so I swing my sword again. I can't really call myself a swordsman but I still killed two more before finally I have to use my magic.
I make three people near me slip and fall. Then I stab their hearts one by one.
"Everyone, kill him!"
The leader shouts loudly. He now knows how dangerous I am. But I continue using magic to make them slip.
Those who are too far from me got hit by a Fire Ball from Hal. The ball of fire is moving after hitting someone but it gets extinguished soon after. Hal tries to control the magic. It works but he needs more training.
It's a weird situation where I kill without fighting. The bandits who seem to be strong now look ridiculous.
It's slip magic after all. It's not the best in fighting but it's the best for humiliation. And it gives me a chance to kill my enemies.
It took a while for me and Hal to kill everyone except for the leader. And the leader is still alive because I'm using him for my experiment. Now that he has been exposed to my slip magic a few times, he should have gained resistance to it. But he still fails to get a grip on his footing at all.
"You're using a bandit leader as a test subject. That's interesting," Hal says as he has finished killing those who tried to run away and stands next to me.
"You also used those bandits to train. Isn't it good? Even after all this time, you don't know to what extent your talent can bring you," I say.
"It is great. I think I will need a lot of training after this mission. Let me kill the leader. I want to try making a small flame but it's the hottest flame that can melt even flesh quickly. I want to see if it can work," Hal says excited of what else he can do.
"Does he have a bounty? If so, do we need to bring his head?" I ask Hal who is the senior in adventuring.
"He's smart and used tactics to defeat five adventurers. He should be well-known enough. Unless we're actually his first victims so his fame hasn't been spread yet. I don't think I have seen his picture on the wanted posters."
The ones responsible for drawing the wanted posters are people with talent related to drawing so every painted picture of wanted people look as real as the wanted people themselves. If the bandit leader is there, I should know because I checked those pictures many times to find familiar faces from the game.
"I have never seen his face on the wanted posters. Maybe there's no bounty for him. Well, you can try killing him since it seems like he slowly gained his footing. His resistance to slip magic has increased to the point that I, someone with slip magic talent can't make him slip. I guess this is my limit for now. Do it fast before he runs away," I say.
And it's disgusting. Hal creates a small fire and throw it at the bandit leader who keeps screaming for his life. He begs for his life to be spared but in just a few seconds, the fire that hits his chest doesn't spread. Instead it keeps digging into his body and melts everything on its way until it hits the ground. Before the fire hits the ground though, the bandit leader already died.
"That's disgusting. Amazing but disgusting," I say.
"Thanks to you I have the inspiration to do that. The me before would have just shoot normal fire," Hal says.
Finally, all of them died. My heart that kept beating so fast before because of the fear starts slowing down.
The feeling of killing human beings for the first time is not as bad as I thought. Maybe because I have prepared for it. Maybe because that's how it is in this world. Killing bandits is something normal.
Whatever the case, I don't feel any guilt from taking someone's life. Maybe it's weird but it's not something bad at all. Especially since they're criminals.
The five adventurers who looked down on me and Hal are afraid of us now. They looked down on us because we're solo adventurers. Especially since I'm just a rookie.
But that night, we got the first shift. We no longer get the middle shift anymore. And it's great because our sleeping time is not being disturbed.
"So, anything else you can tell about fire?" Hal asks me while we're gathering red grass again near the camp on our shift.
"Many. But I'm already thinking of ways to use slip magic. I feel like I can do them all but they will probably need a lot of mana to use. So maybe I will focus on increasing my mana capacity first before testing them. Well, I'll try them out in a safer environment. Trying them out in a real situation is not always a good idea. If something went wrong, I would die. I hope I don't have to do it again. You can think for yourself how you should use your magic."
I want to slide from one place to another. A long distance travel. But to use slip magic for so long, I will need a lot of mana. So I will smoke more cigarettes.
Well, there are other ways to increase my max mana. And that's why I'm traveling now. I'm going to various places and some of them will help me with it.
There are places that I don't think I need to go there to be stronger. But they have items that will be useful maybe for someone else. I hope they will be my party members. So I need to go there first before someone else takes the items.
The next few days I'm allowed to fight monsters we encountered on the way. But I told the five adventurers that they can get rid of them all if they want. I say that because two of them are swordsmen and even if I don't have the talent in swordsmanship I can still learn something from watching them.
Finally, we arrived at our destination. At the border. I'm going to another country soon.