Adrian changed his mind the very next morning. Marching straight into unknown danger was stupid. He told the driver to turn the carriage around and head back to Viscount Alexander’s estate.

They stopped at a local weapons shop in the Viscount’s town. Adrian walked in and dumped a heavy leather bag of silver right on the wooden counter. He walked out with twenty two standard crossbows and two hundred steel tipped bolts.

He tossed the weapons to his group and every single mercenary got one, including Claire and himself.

Then he handed out exactly one bolt to each person. After all, switching to your sword was better than reloading your crossbow.

"Listen up," Adrian yelled. He waited for the mercenaries to shut up and look at him. "The next time we hit a bandit group, I don’t want you charging in with your swords like idiots."

The mercenary captain frowned. "Then how do we fight them, Lord Adrian?"

"You lift these crossbows and pull the trigger," Adrian said. "Shoot them first. Do as much damage as you can from a distance. Let them bleed and panic. Then you draw your swords and wipe them out."

He pointed at the dirt road leading into the forest.

"Drop their numbers before the actual clash begins and you win. We aren’t going to fight fair when our enemies aren’t and if they try to ambush us, we hit them first."

The mercenaries smirked.

They loved the sound of that. They loaded their new weapons and the convoy finally hit the main road.

The bandits showed up a few hours later.

Adrian sat in his carriage and watched them pour out from the tree line. He wasn’t surprised. He figured they’d try a second ambush. Forty bandits blocked the dirt road. Most of them were covered in dirty bandages from yesterday’s fight. It looked like they wanted revenge.

But things were different this time.

The mercenaries didn’t wait for Adrian to give an order. They didn’t scream or charge. They just raised their crossbows and pulled the triggers. The divine sound of the crossbows shooting reached Adrian’s ears.

The click of the trigger and the thwack as the bolts shot forward.

Twenty crossbow bolts ripped through the air. The bandit front line collapsed in a bloody mess. One bolt slammed straight through a guy’s eye and dropped him dead instantly. Another buried itself deep into a bandit’s chest.

The other eighteen bolts hit arms, kneecaps and shoulders. Bandits screamed and dropped their weapons. Their entire formation broke into pure chaos.

"Swords!" the mercenary captain yelled.

The guards dropped their empty crossbows and pulled their blades. They charged at the bleeding bandits and it was an absolute, one sided slaughter. The mercenaries easily held their ground against the bleeding enemies. The crossbow volley had done exactly what Adrian had wanted.

Claire didn’t hold back this time. She ignored the weak bandits and rushed the back lines. Her eyes were locked on the enemy mage.

The mage tried to run. His two E rank knight guards stepped up to block Claire, turning it into a three against one fight.

But Claire was a D rank knight., completely outclassing both of them.

She slipped past the two guards and slashed at the mage. The guy had to cancel his spell and dive out of the way. He desperately tried to make some distance to cast his magic circles. But every time he raised his hands, a high speed stone smashed into his magical barrier.

Adrian was standing by his carriage. He casually tossed small rocks into the air. He caught them with Telekinesis and fired them off with concentrated Gust spells.

He timed it perfectly. Whenever Claire parried the two knights, Adrian fired a rock. The mage couldn’t do a damn thing. He was stuck between Claire’s sword and Adrian’s annoying rocks.

The E rank knights tried to push Claire back but they were too weak. She knocked their strikes aside and kicked them into the mud.

When Adrian had a free second, he stopped aiming at the mage and shot rocks at the regular bandits. The sudden hits gave his mercenaries easy openings for a kill.

Fifteen minutes was all it took.

The forest went completely quiet as thirty seven bandits lay dead in the dirt.

The mage and his two bodyguards were the only ones left alive. The mercenaries surrounded them and the three men dropped their weapons and got on their knees.

Claire stood a few feet away. She was breathing a little heavy but her armor didn’t have a single scratch.

Adrian walked over to the kneeling men.

"I don’t hold a grudge against you," Adrian said. "I know how this world works. You need money to eat and this is how you get it."

The mage looked up, looking desperate.

"I’ll let you live," Adrian said. "But you have to hand over every single knight manual and spell book you own right now."

The mage swallowed hard. "I’m a mage from a neighboring country... these knights are my guards. I’m the bastard son of a king and my family was assassinated in a coup. I had to run away and do this disgusting job just to..."

"Shut up," Adrian waved his hand. "I literally don’t care about your tragic backstory. Do you have the books or not?"

The mage looked absolutely stunned. He slowly reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small cloth pouch. He dug through some coins and pulled out a silver earring.

"This is a spatial artifact," the mage said nervously. "The space inside is really small, so it only holds a few items. All my prized possessions are inside."

Adrian took the earring. He felt the faint traces of spatial magic inside the silver. He tried to mentally open it but nothing happened.

He frowned as he looked at the guy, "How do I open this?"

"You have to transfer ownership," the mage explained. "One drop of blood from me and then, one drop of blood from you."