136 Siege of the Bandit Fortress: Intro

A few minutes earlier, Kirou and the others were heading deeper into the tunnel when he heard some voices. Since he was in his Lycan form at the moment, his hearing was much sharper than the rest of the players present. Still, it was only slightly better than the two elves in the group as they noticed these sounds a few seconds after.

Kirou stopped the group and gave each of them a glance, informing the two clueless players about the dangers ahead. After a quick nod on their part, two shadow clones immediately formed beside Kirou as the rest prepared for battle.

Less than thirty seconds later, a few persons entered the area that Kirou and his party were in. It only took him a second to confirm his suspicions about their identities, following which, he sprung into actions.

Seeing Kirou make a move, the rest of the party didn't hesitate, as they too joined in on the action. The other side was completely caught off guard as they never expected to run into any enemies.

The short skirmish lasted only two minutes, coming to an end due to Kirou giving everyone the order to half their attacks. While the rest backed off, Kirou got to work in binding the weakened bodies of all those on the floor.

It was at this point that the rest of the group had the time to confirm just who it was that they aided Kirou in taking down. When they took a closer look at their captives, being displayed in bright red was the name 'Fortress Bandits'.

Seeing the names made Moon Lily look in Kirou's direction and asked, "Aren't these guys...?"

Instead of answering her, Kirou gave her a casual smile before going over to the bodies of the captives. The players watched as Kirou executed his <Pickpocket> skill on the captives, removing a few pouches from their bodies.

After doing this a few times, Kirou realized that he couldn't take anything else from their bodies, so he could only cease his actions. He then took out one of those pouches from his inventory and tried to open it, only to realize that they were currently locked by the system.

This made Kirou furrow his brows slightly, before straightening them out a few seconds later as he sensed Jackson and his men approaching. With that, he regained his composure and handed the captives over to Jackson before leading the players deeper into the mine.

*******

It was around half an hour later that Kirou's stopped moving. While he would have liked to continue harvesting materials, he was there on proper business. As something he personally went through, one's business must always be settled before he moves on to pleasure.

With a sigh, Kirou stood up and turned to face Warrior Jackson and the rest of his squad. With just a single glance, he could tell that all of them have settled their emotions and are now ready to be put to work.

There was a lazy smile on Kirou's face as he asked, "How was the interrogation? Did you find out anything important?"

Jackson was the one to step forward and respond, "Master Kirou, we found out that those traitors were making use of the resources found in this cave to build and expand their fortress. This is just one of the few resource harvesting areas that they have been making use of to obtain materials."

Those words caused Kirou to raise an eyebrow. To think, due to his own issues at the time, he had overlooked such peculiarities of the area. He inwardly started to reassess the importance of this area while pacing around the room. The others watched in silence as he did this.

A few seconds later, Jackson heard Kirou's voice, "Did you discover anything else? Anything that can be used to our advantage?"

"We did, Master Kirou," replied another member of the group. This person was a man of average height with a relatively slim build. He was the person that had shouted in response back when Kirou had initially asked Warrior Jackson if his men were ready for a siege battle.

Kirou glanced at the man and signaled for him to continue. Seeing this, he spoke up, "According to them, the fortress is a few days away from being completed and that they were tasked with retrieving materials from a nearby resource point, which ended up being here."

Those words put a crafty smile on Kirou's face as a strange idea formed in his twisted mind. The rest of the people present saw this smile, but each had their own interpretation of what it meant.

For Navi and Reya, when they saw the smile, they could already picture Kirou doing something crazy, as he usually does. Mistaken Fox had a wry smile on his face as he started whispering a prayer for those soon to be dead bandits. Moon Lily, as the newest member of the group, has yet to see Kirou's evil smile or understand the implications behind it so she was clueless as to what to expect. As for the group made up of Jackson and his men, they collectively felt a chill travel down their spines as they saw his expression.

With each having their own thoughts in mind, Kirou decided to share his plan with them, "So here is what we'll be doing..."

*******

An hour later, Warrior Jackson and his men were now hiding in the nameless forest situated between the Bandit Fortress and the cave system that they were in earlier. Each person had a complicated expression on their face as they lay hidden, scattered all around the main pathways to the fortress.

For now, they were split into two groups: one to provide cover fire when the siege started and the other was to lay in wait and ambush all the bandits that will be fleeing the fortress later on. That's right, fleeing the fortress. Kirou's crazy plan, if successful, will result in those bandits fleeing the beloved fortress that they've managed to hole themselves up in.

While they were in charge of watching over the pathways, the players of the group had another job to do.

Those that could take advantage of the skill <Stealth> were tasked with getting as close to the fortress as possible and planting some items in those incomplete or ignored areas before getting out of the danger zones. Considering the size of the fortress and the number of bandits that should be inside, you would think that they would put some precautions in place but neither Navi nor Mistaken Fox had any issue sneaking up to those areas and planting the necessary items.

As for the remaining two archers, both Reya and Moon Lily were asked to set up a sniper nest in the forest to pick off any stray bandits or finish off those that escape Warrior Jackson's group. They were also told to aid in the cover fire later on when the siege officially started, but to do so at their own discretion.

As for Kirou himself, he was playing two roles in this siege. He would be the infiltrator that snuck behind enemy lines to deal with a few key targets and he would also be responsible for starting the siege battle itself. Or rather, his clones will start the siege while he slips in unnoticed.

As for where Kirou will sneaking into the fortress from or how he plans to do so, none of those working with him have any idea. All they can be sure of is that the moment the siege battle starts, he would have already made his way inside the fortress.

It took the various groups another half an hour to get everything ready. Right now, all they could do was wait. While doing so, a few were growing impatient but they knew that as long as they managed to wait just a bit longer, their patience would be rewarded.

Seconds turned into minutes and those minutes stretched for another half an hour. At this point, even Jackson was starting to lose his cool. As for the players, their eyes remained focused on the fortress as they knew that something big was about to happen.

Just as Jackson and his men were about to lose the last bit of patience they had, everyone heard a whistling sound in the air. At first, it was faint and people had to struggle to find its source. A few seconds later, even those bandits on the fortress walls heard the sound and grew suspicious.

Peering in the direction where the sound originated, all those bandits could see was an object flying towards them. It was flying too fast for them to identify what it was but they could tell that the object was heading towards the fortress. Before these bandits could even raise an alarm, the object crashed into the fortress, giving everyone there a nice surprise.

*BOOOOOM!!!*

The object landed on the fortress wall and blew up, sending all the bandits nearby the impact zone flying off the walls and further back into the fortress.

Those that were lucky or far enough away from the impact zone only flew off of the wall. As for those that weren't so lucky, their bodies were now on fire. The strange thing about it was that a few of these bandits on fire had landed in the moat surrounding the fortress, yet the fire was still going strong.

The explosion alerted everyone in the area about what was going on. Those on the outside realized that this was their signal. As for those inside the fortress, the explosion alerted them of the attack and they started pouring out, armed to the teeth.

Within this crowd of bandits, there was one, in particular, that was equipped with gear that stood out amongst them. While everyone was just wearing leather armor, his armor was obviously of a higher quality than the rest, and on his back was a large black battle-axe.

If Jackson was present to see this, he would recognize this person as Cain, the target of his revenge. As for the weapon on Cain's back, he would recognize it anywhere, as it was his own weapon that was pilfered by Cain when he and the rest of the bandits abandoned his squad that day.

The bandits scattered over the fortress, looking to save those that could be saved while others were assessing what kind of force was attacking them. Cain was amongst those now standing on the walls of the fortress.

From where he stood, he couldn't see any force leading an attack on his fortress, yet the hole in the wall and his burning men told him otherwise. Before he could figure out what was going on, a whistling sound attracted his attention. All it took was a quick glance before Cain visibly paled. He didn't even bother trying to warn those around him before he dived off of the fortress wall.

As if to answer the unasked question of those that saw him do this, another explosion went off when the object crashed into the part of the wall where Cain previously stood. Unlike before, the majority of the fortress occupants saw what took place this time.

After escaping the dangerous situation, Cain stood up with a gloomy expression on his face and shouted, "Everyone, get into battle positions."

This prompted all those bandits to scramble to their positions. Just as Cain was about to issue another order, he was greeted by the sight of a rain of arrows targeting the men along the walls. Besides this, explosions were going off at various points in the fortress.

This made Cain's gloomy expression even worse as he thought to himself, 'Just what is going on today with all these explosions?'

*******

A little before the first explosion on the fortress wall.

Standing on the cliff that oversees the Bandit Stronghold, Kirou had been waiting patiently as he watched the various bandits start to slack off with the fortress's defense. It was only when he saw that most of the bandits had gone indoors, leaving the fortress walls with minimal defense, that he finally decided to make his move.

As he stood at the very edge of the cliff, Kirou spoke underneath his breath, "Let the games begin."

Following this, Kirou jumped off the cliff and a few seconds later, an explosion rocked the walls of the Bandit Fortress.