Roven was running towards the inn while carrying Steve on his back, all the while cautiously glancing around the streets of the town for any signs of the bandits.
'It seems that there's not a big number of bandits in total. This is good for us, but I hope Felix and Eric remain safe there....', Roven worried as he crossed the empty and deserted alleys.
Before escaping with Steve from the scene, he had tried asking Felix some questions, but the boy had refused to answer any of them as they had to rescue Eric and leave this town before anything else.
'Whatever secrets you have Felix,.....I just hope they won't bring trouble to you.', he pondered as he remembered the mysterious abilities of the boy.
*****
At the corner of a dark street in the middle of Wuller Town.
A silver-haired boy carefully peeked at the heavily guarded building, resembling a noble manor while sneaking in the shadows of the alleyways.
He had found his way to the bandit's hideout by using flashbacks on the Rank 2 bandit and the several other bandit's corpses he met along the way.
'That building looks too good to be some bandit's hideout.....', he mused while keeping guard of his surroundings.
The building was of three levels, with the ground level being surrounded by many bandits who were lurking around randomly.
The upper levels had tightly closed-off windows, showing the strict security maintained by the bandit for their hideout.
'Should I take out the bandits one by one? Or should I just sneak into the building from underground?'
Felix contemplated his next course of action, taking into account his strength and Eric's safety being a hostage.
As he stayed in the shadows thinking of a suitable way, a sudden commotion in front of the building caught his attention.
"You thieves! Give me back my horse! You can not just steal everything you want!!"
An old man with a long beard shouted tiredly while pointing his finger at the building.
"Khekeke you old geezer, of course we can steal anything we want. Why do you think we're called bandits then?", a thin bandit laughed as he walked to the old man with his weapon.
"It seems we're being a bit lazy at our jobs, now that even an old man can mock us so openly.", another bandit with a scar muttered as he quickly passed by the thin bandit and approached the old man.
"Hey wait, I was about to deal with him! Why don't you patrol somewhere else?!", argued the thin bandit holding the other bandit's shoulder.
"Huh!? Shut up you punk! Let me kill this old man for making a scene."
"No! I'll be the one to kill him..."
"Get away dude..."
The two bandits quarrelled while throwing their spit on each other's faces.
Meanwhile, the old man started sweating buckets as he heard them casually decide his execution.
He approached the boy and made sure that there were no injuries or any problems with him before he started pondering.
'I have to take him out from here...but how?'
Felix had no idea how he would be able to take Eric along with him and escape from the bandit's hideout.
If he was alone then there would've been no problem with his Earth Swimming skill to escape, but he couldn't use the same on Eric.
But before that, Felix decided to deal with the situation as there were still some problems there.
There were four bandits standing guard in this underground prison, whom he had passed by from within the ground.
Two guards were near the door, while the other two were patrolling around the prison.
'It's only four of them, there wouldn't be any trouble taking them out....'
Felix sneaked behind one of the bandits who was patrolling the prison and when they reached a dark corner, he swiftly emerged out and used his Singular Slash technique on the man's neck.
"Sqwelchh!"
The man's body and head separated, but Felix quickly caught both of them with a disgusted face and laid them in a dark corner.
[You have killed a being higher than your own rank.]
[You have gained 10 skill points.]
He did the same with the other bandit, who was a second away from realising his partner's disappearance and alerting the other, but unfortunately, he too died the same way with his body separated into two parts.
[You have killed a being higher than your own rank.]
[You have gained 10 skill points.]
'Now for the last two.....'
Felix slowly moved towards the two bandits who were standing near the door and chatting.
Suddenly, the door of the underground prison opened up from outside and another four bandit came in as one of them stated.
"Alright, it's time to shift."
The two bandits guarding the door grinned and nodded as they called out.
"Came back you two, it's time for lunch."
They waited for some seconds, but no one came or replied back to them, except for a silver-haired boy beneath the underground who released a sigh.
'Well, another four it is then.....'