As Eren and Shion were finishing breakfast, one of the guards rushes inside, makes a formal salute, and interrupts the conversation.
"Eren, we got information out of the prisoner, captain sent me to find you" The guard doesn't sugar coat things up, just gives the information as commanded, salutes back and waits for an answer.
Eren is annoyed, and sighs heavily before replying "My shift just ended, do I really have to?"
The guard doesn't reply at all, just stands there with the salute still on "Fine. I'm sorry miss Shion, I guess we will have to talk later"
Eren gets up, and starts turning before the guard speaks again "I was also sent to find miss Shion, she has to accompany us to see the captain" He says in the same monotone tone that guards tend to use when they're just saying things that were ordered to say rather than using their own ideas.
Shion is a bit surprised and rises her brows a bit, but should have been expected, given she started all of this with the job she accepted from the Association.
"All right, I'm coming with you it seems" Shion replies to Eren, setting a few coins on the table to pay for the meals "Lead the way" and walks outside with Eren and the guard.
Once they get to the entrance of the town, the captain has about 15 guards gathered at the gate, one of them carries Eren's armor.
"I apologize for interrupting your time off, Eren," he said, then turned his gaze to Shion. "And you as well, young lady. We need every blade we can get."
"The prisoner suggests there is a cave near the river's fork where the other bandits that worked with him, or rather, he worked for, gather every few days, and it happens that one of those few days is today. If we can apprehend them, we will be making Trivale safer for our people"
He says with a solemn voice, it is clear that the captain is working for the people, and not to be famous in town or become some sort of hero.
Eren starts to put on her armor, as she doesn't need to take off her clothing, just snapping the pieces on top, as the captain is briefing the mission, she gets ready to get going.
Within minutes, the group starts marching towards the cave the prisoner said was being used, as they got closer, evident sings of people being around start to show: Footprints on the mud, broken branches, remnants of fire camps, even a forgotten coat on a log.
Always the tracks seem to be deep into the forest, just like the bandits made their own camp the night prior, so guards and adventurers can't find them easily, and it worked so far.
Closer to the river fork, the group starts looking for the cave, on the clearer sides near the river there was nothing, until a guard yells from inside the trees.
"Over here!", everyone starts grouping again, and sure enough, a cave, long enough for the light to be unable to show what's inside, probably is deeper into the mountain than anyone would like.
"Everyone get ready, we will get inside as a group, and will take care of one another during the fight. Do not chase them if they try to escape, we will leave 3 men outside in case that happens; let's hope there is not a second exit inside this cave" The captain assesses the situation while giving their men instruction, not all that clear, not all that tactical, but should be good enough for them to make a decent job.
3 men are appointed to stay outside, and instructs the rest to make a simple "V" formation to go inside, he also instructs Shion to stay inside the formation, behind his men, doesn't want a mercenary that was not formally hired to be injured on his watch.
The captain takes a torch, and lights it on with a bit of fire magic, nothing fancy, just a standard spell that even kids start learning with, and he signals the group to start moving inside. All the guards are holding their swords with both hands, which bothers Shion a bit, since most of those swords are single handed, but probably that makes it steadier and quicker to swing.
Some other guards have lances, and a couple have a battle axe, looks like the guards of Tivale have whatever weapon they can get to work with, or probably is whatever they're more comfortable with?
At any rate, the darkness makes it more difficult for Shion to see -and judge others- so they all focus on the floor to be able to see where they are taking their next step, the flame of the torch barely enough to see the rocks and dirt under their feet.
Couple minutes on, they see another source of light inside, after a turn ahead of them.
The captain stops, and extends one of his arms with the torch to stop his men, risky, could have burnt someone.
He quickly turns his torch off to not drag the attention and lose the element of surprise they have.
The captain walks ahead, slowly, trying to muffle the sound of the iron of his boots, looks around the corner to see how many bandits are inside. Just a couple.
They're not moving much, just seem to be there sitting by the fire and talking.
He signals his men to prepare their weapons, and they start walking, confident that by outnumbering the enemy they will surrender.
"Hold!" The captain commands "You are under arrest by the laws of his royal majesty, you are instructed to surrender and drop any weapon you may have!"
The bandits look surprised, but not scared, they look each other like trying to make sense of an odd joke.
The first one stands up "Arrest? Why would we be under arrest? We're not criminals" His voice makes it evident that they're confused about this situation.
The second man continues "We're travelers, some gentleman on the road told us we could rest here for the day, we took the offer, and everything you see other than our own belongings was already here"
Both men show their hands to prove they're not armed, they do not pose a threat to the guards that keep their weapons pointing at them.
The captain signals one of his own to check on them, looking for any weapon: Swords, daggers, throw axes, explosives.
They found nothing on them. Another guard check the backpacks near the fire, but all they have is some water and dried food, a simple linen sleeping bag, some cookware, regular traveling stuff.
One by one, the guards scatter around to inspect as much of the cave as they can.
"You found some stranger on the road and accepted to stay here, in a cave, why?" The captain starts questioning them, it is odd indeed to take such a risky offer so lightly.
"We were a couple kilometers from here, we were robbed, our wagon, our coins, even the horses, they took everything but the backpacks, they said nothing valuable was in there, not even the cloth they were made with was good enough to carry their loot" They recall, a bit afraid.
"Never in our years of traveling around we were so disrespected; robbed? Sure enough, any merchant will be robbed sometime on this line of job, specially without a guard, mercenary or some kind of protection. But disrespected like that? These backpacks were made in the eastern continent, out of the most fine fabric we could afford, I'll admit is not worth of the royal family, but is not some simple cheap cloth like we didn't know our own job!"
The man is clearly upset, his pride hurt like someone insulted his very own mother, but that makes their story all that more credible.
Robbed around the area, valuables stolen, but they left what they deemed as unworthy of their time.
Checks out with the M.O. so far.
"The man that told you to shelter here, how was he?" Shion asks to the merchant, trying to get some valuable information of out him.
"Tall, strong, bald, a strange tattoo on his head, had a scar running from his ear down to his neck" The merchant recalls.
The second one interrupts "Polite, but not all that well spoken if you ask me, was dressed like a warrior with leather boots and pants"
Might have been one of the bandits, just sending a decoy to make the guards lose the trail they had, but how do they know the guards were coming?.
As they were thinking about all of this, a loud sound comes from the outside, if it reached the inside of the cave, probably was something big.
The captain turns their head to Eren, that nods back, before both of them running outside the cave.
Eren takes a log from the fire, and turns the captain's torch back on, both of them run outside the cave, followed by their men, and Shion that couldn't hold her curiosity.
There is a large cage outside, open, broken, something was being held here.
One of the guards yell in fear, about ten meters to their left, there is a troll kneading his head.
Trolls aren't known for their brains, they're know for their strength, and if the hit from whatever happened made it angry, everyone around will be in trouble.