Felix, Roven, Eric and Steve.
The four boys stood rooted on their spots in their combat stances as the bandits surrounded them on horses.
A man wearing a headband who was leading the bunch of bandits pointed his sword at them with a dark smile.
"Haha to think our plan would so easily work out. I don't care which guild you're from, but it's time for you to taste death."
The four boys couldn't do anything as they could feel the unrestrained strength of the bandits surrounding them.
There were about 15 of them, with each one being at Mid and Late 1st Rank, and the man leading them was at Early 2nd Rank.
Such a force was too much for the four of them to handle.
If it was only a Rank 2, then they could've held him back with the four of them together, but there were 14 others too who were as strong as they were.
"Shit! There's no point in standing still, I say we fight them!", Steve muttered while gritting his teeth.
He didn't like the fact that they were surrounded by the bandits in clear daylight and that they were on the weaker side.
"No, we cannot do that. It'll be our loss if we choose to fight.", Roven stopped Steve and muttered in a low voice.
"Then what are we going to do? Let them kill us?", Steve asked in anger.
Roven looked at his three teammates and assured them.
"Wait here, let me talk with him."
Before the others could stop him, Roven walked forward and stood just before the sword pointed by the man.
"Let us meet your leader, I have a proposal that he may be interested in."
The man wearing the headband raised his brows in surprise and let out a wide smile.
"Oh, so you don't want a quick death? But that's too bad, I don't find any reason to do as you say."
The man raised his sword towards the sky, ready to cut off the boy's neck.
"Stop!"
"Wait-!"
"Roven!!"
The man twisted his lips in amusement, hearing the scared shouts of the other boys.
Just as he was about to bring down his sword and sever the boy's neck, Roven's next words stopped him.
"Money. You'll obtain a large amount of money if you take us to your leader."
The man looked down at the boy who had a determined look on his face, and a greedy light twinkled in his eyes as he kept aside his sword.
Not only he, but the rest of the bandits too showed an interested look on their faces.
As bandits, the only thing they wanted and were ready to sacrifice their lives for was money.
"Attack!!"
Before the bandits could react, the fireballs hit their horses making them jump around and throw their riders.
The scene was chaotic as the horses kicked up a lot of dust and sand when their bodies got burned by the fireballs.
The bandits on the other hand protected themselves from getting hit by their horses after falling on the ground.
"Run now!!", Roven quickly grabbed Eric's hand and pulled him away from there.
Taking the chance, the boys ran past the fallen bandits and dashed away into a dark alleyway.
"Fuck! How dare they trick us!! Chase them down and bring them back!!", the man with the headband bellowed as his face twisted in anger.
Most of the bandits who had fallen off jumped back onto their feet leaving their horses at his orders, and ran behind the boys while taking their weapons out.
The man himself got his horse to stand back and climbed it to go after the boys.
Meanwhile, the four of them had entered a random alley and weren't slowing down, instead, they were running deeper, to get as far as possible from the bandits.
"What do we do now, Roven? The whole town is under the bandit's control. Should we leave the town and run out into the forest?", Felix spoke under rapid breaths as they ran.
"Yeah Roven, we should get out of here as soon as we can.", Eric seconded the idea.
Steve remained silent this time as he still didn't like what they were doing, running away from their enemies and not helping the people who were suffering.
He knew that they were on the weaker side but that didn't stop him from thinking about saving the Town's people from the bandits.
Roven gave a forced smile and shook his head as they continued to run in the shadows of the buildings.
"As much as I want to run away from this place, leaving the town wouldn't favour us. The guard must have been the one who ratted on us to the bandits, so we can't escape through the gates without alerting the bandits. Even if we run into the forest, the bandits know the terrain better than us, so they'll catch us easily once we're in their sight."
His words brought a dark look on their faces as they realized that they were trapped in the town, and leaving it would only end them sooner.
"What do we then?", Eric asked hopelessly as they could hear the shouts of the bandits from behind them.
Steve suddenly stopped and gave them a determined smile as he responded while clenching his sword.
"We fight!"
Roven was quick to pull back the boy into running as he scolded lightly.
"No Steve, that's stupid. Even if we do fight, it's not going to be a direct fight as that would put us at a disadvantage."
Steve who was back to running along with them had his eyes lit up as he replied excitedly.
"No direct fight? Wait Roven, you have a plan right? Tell us, or else I'm going to fight them now."
Roven sighed while taking a glance behind them, to check whether the bandits had caught up before telling them his plan.
"Alright listen, my plan is simple."
With his eyes narrowed, Roven revealed them the plan that made the two battle maniacs grin widely.
"We divide and conquer them."