"Lynx is really helpful, now I know the use of a marksman, he had killed 14 of them," Alex said as the three of them ran forward.
"14...you have killed 3, so that means they are still 13 of them left" Max mumbled.
"I killed 3 of them with my fireball, so 10 of them," Gabriel said.
"We have to be careful cause we don't actually know where the bandits are, and if we...shit one of them spotted us" Max sighed as he stopped.
"You bastards," the bandit shouted as he ran towards them.
"You guys go I'll handle this, I took the strength potion after all" Max muttered as he drew out his sword from his inventory.
"Are you sure?"
"You guys shouldn't worry about me, I can totally take this guy, I'll him the results of my training" Max spoke as he turned around.
Alex and Gabriel were already far ahead not minding what would happen to Max.
"Huh!! they actually left me, it's just one of them so I can win even if his level is higher"
"You made a huge mistake" the bandit spoke.
"I don't think so," Max said as he held his sword tightly and took a battle stance, if the bandit wouldn't come to him then he would go to the bandit.
"You guys are here, I found one of them" the bandit in front of Max shouted.
"Huh!! wait there are others" Max mumbled as three other bandits joined the first one making a total of four.
"Four bandits, I took the strength potion so I can take you all...I can take you all...shit, I can't take you all...I made a huge mistake" Max mumbled the last parts as the bandits walked towards him.
Instead of charging towards him, they were spreading themselves so they could surround him before attacking, but Max was one step ahead, before any of the bandits could go behind him he brandish his sword and dashed towards the first one.
Max quickly swung his sword as soon as he was in position but the bandit reacted quickly and stretched the club in his hands to block the attack.
[Heavy Hit]
Max swung his sword with all his strength and the weapon glowed slightly as it collided with the bandit's club, the strength behind the swing was so heavy the bandit was sent flying.
*BOOM!! CRACK!!*
The bandit crashed into a tree with his back and a cracking sound was made, all four of their eyes widened including Max who executed the move, the glow on his weapon died down and he turned towards the rest of them.
[You have killed Bandit!]
[You've earned 140 XP!]
"Damn, he's dead...I think his spinal cord broke" Max spoke out loud as he stood in front of the other three.
After what happened, the three of them stood there stunned, they were reluctant to attack Max as they weren't sure what other powers he had up his sleeves, in the world of Nova Online they were sword arts and skills, and after the power Max displayed, they were sure he had mastered a sword art.
The power Max displayed was the first skill he got when he leveled up to 10, [Heavy Hit] gives the player's weapon enough power to break a large sturdy tree in one hit, but the power depends on the weapon the player is wielding, the skill has a cool down time of 2 hours and the power of the skill increased because of the strength potion he took earlier.
Even though he couldn't use the skill for another two hours, Max had put up a display that made the rest of the bandits afraid of attacking him.
"You bastard, how old are you?" one of the bandits shouted.
"I'm 18" Max replied as he held his sword with stylishly with one hand.
"You're 18, who taught you that sword art technique, arts like this take years to master"
"Is that really a question you should be asking me, we were traveling in peace and you guys stopped our carriage, took our friends, and tried to kill us, I'll tell your dead bodies who taught me this art" Max shouted and took a step forward.
Immediately all three bandits turned around and dashed away, Max stood there with a sly smile on his face.
"Those guys have no mental strength, afraid after a little display" Max mumbled as he turned around, the tree which the first bandit crashed into had a large dent in it.
"Damn, I'm also afraid, this skill would be dope without the cool-down time, but there's no time to stand around," Max said as he moved forward.
...
"Stop...three of them ahead" Alex whispered as he and Gabriel came to a stop.
Three bandits were in front of them on the lookout for the group, Alex and Gabriel hid behind a tree quite far from them.
They had ran passed the initial location where their carriage was destroyed so they were in the other part of the forest chasing after Zen and the girls.
"The gunshots had stopped meaning Lynx is either dead or none of the bandits are close to him or we are far out and we can't hear the sounds anymore" Gabriel whispered.
"I'm sure he's smart enough to know when to run, we should think of a way to distract them, fighting them would take more time, we shouldn't have allowed the girls to be taken in the first place" Alex mumbled.
"Our focus is Rebecca, once we find her we leave, I don't care about those NPCs girls," Gabriel said.
"If they are together, we'll save all of them but if we find only Rebecca, then we'll leave, since you are telling me this I'll take it you have a plan?" Alex asked.
"They are together, I'll trap them, and finish them off," Gabriel said.
"Your mud trap Isn't strong enough to hold the three of them in place so you can finish them off, I'll try to silently move behind them"
"Watch..." Gabriel spoke as crawled out of the tree they were hiding behind, the bandits still haven't spotted him and he moved towards them slowly.
Gabriel got in range before any of the bandits could spot him and since he was already on the ground he cast his spell.
[Mud Trap]
Instead of the usual mud trap that was easy to climb out of this time, the ground turned soft and the legs of the bandits were getting dragged in and they struggled to escape the trap.
[Magic Control]
Gabriel mumbled and the mud reverted to its hard solid state completely trapping the three bandits, the bandits' legs were trapped in the ground and no amount of struggle was going to enable them to escape.
"Woah Gabriel, what is this?" Alex asked as he saw what happened.
"Magic Control... it's my first skill, it's pretty cool but the cool down time and the amount of Mana it consumes is off the charts but I still chose it" Gabriel spoke.
"Magic Control, so the skill allows you to control magic, I thought you could already do that?"
"I couldn't revert the mud back to normal before, and I couldn't control the direction of my fireball but the magic control does all the work, now to finish them off"
[Hey Reaper, I met with your swordsman, where are you?]
[We're heading toward the bandit leader, we still don't have his location though]
[We'll wait for you at the roadside, tell us when you are done]
[Huh! you won't come to help us, we are going against the bandit leader]
[Unlike you guys using swords and daggers, my bullets are limited, now that the carriage is gone it'll take us at least a day to reach our location so we'll surely encounter beasts, I'm saving it for the rest of the trip, try to defeat the leader, I'm sure he'll give you a lot of XP]
[Okay, we'll meet you guys soon]
"Lynx and Max are together, we should finish this quickly and join...fuck shit" Alex muttered as both of them came to a stop.
"Holy moly...then the group we took out was just their advance troop, I can count more than a hundred men from up here" Gabriel spoke.
Both of them were currently standing at the edge of a forest hill, from the top they could see a small settlement of mostly men who tied red headbands on their heads, the few women who were there were just workers.
A notification popped up in front of both of them.
[Quest triggered]