Might as Well

Sam spent half an hour tracking the two bandits as they followed the trails in the forest to their hideout, while also making sure to pay attention to his surroundings, in case he had to flee rapidly.

Lucky was thankfully staying silent. Apparently, the instinct of the hunt was enough to prevent them from being discovered through any stray noise he would make.

Sam drew the cloak closer on his body and slowed down his steps as he saw the trees clearing out and the almost total absence of underbrush. Then, as he began hearing more voices, not just the two idiots discussing, of all things, the proper applications of high-proof alcohol on wounds, he stopped and crouched down. Sam was happy to see that Lucky followed along, laying down on the ground, and softly sniffing the air.

Then he slowly began half crawling, half waddling forward to see what he was dealing with.

Upon reaching the edge of the clearing, which was clearly man-made, he beheld the entrance to the bandits’ hideout. Surprisingly, there were not many fortifications visible from his hiding place. He could see the wooden door that was added to the cave entrance, but other than that, everything was left as it was. There wasn’t even a watch tower. Seemingly, they believed in security through obscurity.

‘Then why cut down the trees?’ he wondered, but then his eyes landed on the only thing that was not a guard snoozing, rock or tree stump.

It was a thick wooden pole carved with all sorts of runes.

And to Sam’s barely developing senses, it was blasting the area with mana.

While Sam had no idea what it was, his inherited memories, thankfully, were ready to share their knowledge with him. It was a very basic ward anchor, probably for the silencing ward. Made from wood, it wouldn’t last long, as the mana flowing through the enchantments would slowly erode the wood, so it would need to be replaced pretty frequently.

‘Which explains the trees…’

Instead of moving forward, as the guard was seemingly asleep, Sam instead took out a small notebook he bought with a small pencil and began etching the runes he could see on the anchor.

Truthfully, the other Sam had memorized all the other runes, and Sam had them all written down in a well-hidden notebook in his apartment, but the game’s anti-cheating system would instantly flag him if he were to use runes he had never seen inside the game. So, for now, he would have to slowly acquire all the runes and proceed from there.

The moment he finished writing down the last rune, and closed the notebook to put it away, a screen appeared in front of him. It was so sudden that he almost jumped in fright.

Sam spent a moment to calm his racing heart, then check out the guard, who seemed to be still sleeping, then began reading the notification.

[Congratulations, you have correctly recorded an entire Rune scheme!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Cycle!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Mana!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Sound!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Boundary!]

[You’ve learned the Rune of Silence!]

[You’ve learned the rune scheme of the Silencing ward!

[Thanks to your practice you’ve learned the skill Mana Sense!]

[Mana Sense: Level 0/25 (0%) (Active/Passive) A skill that allows you to sense the mana in your surroundings and to make sense of any enchantment that you come across. It also allows you passively to detect magic that affects you.]

[Thanks to your observational skills, you’ve gained +1 PER]

The moment he read the last sentence, Sam felt the cloud of mana in front of him, that he used to make sure he didn’t run into anything else magical to disperse, and in its place, a very solid ring of mana began to pulse around him.

The surrounding mana immediately felt different. Hell, he could pinpoint the center of the silencing ward, while also sensing his connection with Lucky.

However, despite his wonder, he decided to shut off his skill, as with the upgrade came a very steep mana cost.

Frowning a little, Sam made sure that nothing else changed on his status screen, then looked over to the sleeping guard, and began planning.

In the end, in the absence of any better idea about what to do in the situation, Sam went with a very simple plan. He would slowly go up to the guard and open the door even more slowly and slip in. But to be sure, he circled around the clearing, making sure to approach his goal from the guard’s back, so, in case they woke up, he would be in a prime spot to attack them.

He readied his sword, patted Lucky’s head (the wolf responded by extreme tail wagging) for luck, then began creeping towards the door and the sleeping bandit guarding said door.

Honestly, Sam felt that there should be a silly cartoon playing in the background as he slowly shuffled slash tiptoed forward. While he was being careful, he wasn’t that worried.

This was a bandit hideout in the tutorial area. There would be no random returning group of bandits, stronger bandits attacking, or even random demon attacks. If he was careful and used his low-level skills carefully, he would be fine.

A few seconds later, Sam was standing behind the guard, next to the door with Lucky following him closely. He stepped up to the wooden door that was added to the cave entrance, surrounded by a hastily and sloppily put-together brick wall.

Then he turned on his Mana sense skill, to make sure there was nothing on the door, and when it came back negative, he placed his ear on the door and listened.

After not hearing anything, just a few distant clanks, and something that may have been laughter, Sam raised his hand and began slowly pushing the door in.

Then, when that didn’t work, he began pulling it.

Slowly, the door began to open, with Sam pausing after every second to make sure nobody heard it, and the guard was still asleep.

Opening the door until it had space for him to shimmy in, he stopped and entered the hideout.

After making sure nobody saw his graceful entry, he closed the door behind him with the same speed and care.

Sam had no need for anyone to wonder why the door was open.

Then he turned around and found himself in a pretty straight corridor with the walls showing signs of work done on it, and illuminated badly by a few burning torches.

‘Here we go…’

Sam swallowed, then motioned for Lucky to follow him, and began walking deeper.

The bandit cavern was fascinating. The first room he found was a guard station, unsurprisingly empty of anybody. Not that Sam expected any professionalism from bandits when the only guard of the hideout was fast asleep and nobody cared.

Taking a cursory glance around the station, he pocketed a few daggers left behind (embedded into a crude drawing of somebody’s face), but otherwise, he left the room as he found it.

He walked near the wall, ready to duck and hide, but it was so dark that, thanks to his cloak, he was able to perfectly blend in. And well, Lucky was a wolf, with dark gray fur that somehow blended in better than his black cloak. Sam suspected magic shenanigans…

After half an hour of unimpeded wandering, Sam found several rooms empty of people, among them several crude toilets, a few sleeping rooms, one trashed training room, and one with an altar. Thankfully, it wasn’t a creepy, covered with blood and dripping candles alter, just one simply dedicated to a local god. Trun, the god of wealth and acquisitions. Patron of merchants and opportunistic bandits. Which explained why the altar was simply a big stone slab with the picture of a gold coin carved into it.

On the altar were several stone bowls, each filled with gold, silver, and bronze coins respectively.

Upon seeing this, Sam couldn’t help but smirk.

‘It seems I’m lucky today…’

Because the moment he laid his eyes on the altar, his inherited memories brought up the name of the god, and the details of one of the practices of the people who prayed to the god, Trun.

Stepping closer, Sam silently began to count the coins, while bidding Lucky to stay as a lookout.

Believers of Trun or people hoping for wealth would cast their money into the bowls on the altar as seeds, then a year later (or when they really needed it) they would retrieve it and spend it, believing that using money that spent time under the eyes of the god would be lucky and bring in profits. And of course, every person in a group (family, merchant group, clan) would leave one coin. Leaving more would awaken the god’s anger, as it would seem crazy, and not leaving one would bring upon them the curse of the god as they seemingly wanted to profit without risking their own money.

‘Sounds like some kind of pyramid scheme…’ Sam mused as he carefully counted the coins.

‘Twenty-seven coins in each bowl. That means twenty-seven bandits…’ He calculated. ‘One is out as a guard. That means I have to deal with twenty-six bandits. Great….’

Sighing, Sam turned around and left the room. While he would have loved to take the money in the bowls, the gods in Magic Unbound were real, and well, he was planning for financial success, and a curse from the god of wealth would make that somewhat hard.

Stealthily moving through the corridors of the cavern system, Sam kept his eyes out for any patrolling bandits, but to his surprise and confusion, he met nobody.

Then, as the sounds kept growing louder and louder, and he could definitely make out laughter, and the clinking of glasses (which explained where the bandits were), his eyes found something that he really hoped he would find.

A simple wooden sign on it crudely drawn with chalk of a cylinder with a simple line coming out of it in an s shape, and the line ending with a small star.

Explosives.

As Sam approached the room, his smile was rather vicious.

After all, when in doubt, explosives solved most of life’s problems.

The room, as all the rooms he had come across, was unguarded and without a lock. Though at least this one had a proper door, which was left open. Marginally better, but from a security viewpoint, atrocious.

Opening the door, he was met with a small corridor that opened into an enormous hall, dominated by crates upon crates, racks after racks of different weapons, armors, other implements, and a few boxes clearly marked as explosives, though nothing worth much at first glance. A treasury, it was not.

But Sam still had to make sure.

He softly closed the door, and once again bid Lucky to guard it, which the adorable, and no longer tiny wolf acknowledged with a quiet wuff. Then Sam rubbed his hand together in anticipation and began his search.

He first looked at the weapons, hoping to find something better than his simple steel sword. Ultimately, his goal was to find an enchanted sword, but thanks to his newest skill, the search was rather short. Nothing in the room was enchanted.

Apparently, when it came to sorting their loot, the bandits weren’t as lax as they were with their security.

Undeterred, Sam still spent almost half an hour looking through the displayed weapons for a few pieces that he could take with himself, netting three new swords, just in case, a dozen or so daggers, a very nice ax, a warhammer, a steel-capped staff, and for some unfathomable reason a steel cutlery set. But seeing it, factory fresh in a gift box, Sam just shrugged and pocketed the item.

Then he went over the armors and just chose a few backup pieces, as wearing metal armor wasn’t really his thing (and it didn’t really help with stealth) and without enchantments, his current armor was acceptable.

Sadly, Magic Unbound didn’t really give much information about any item without relevant identification skills. After all, why would a lay person know about the properties of leather armor without any education?

Sam also spent a few minutes checking the crates, but most of them were full of simple everyday clothing, or other items that the bandits didn’t care for. Though he made sure to liberate a set of noble-looking clothing for the future.

Then came the most important part of the armory: the explosives.

He almost skipped over to them. Though he made sure to be careful when handling them.

Upon opening the first box marked as containing an explosive, the previous vicious smile was nothing compared to the one that appeared on his face as Sam used his inherited memories to identify the piece of equipment he was seeing.

A remote-controlled detonator.

‘If I wasn’t trying to be stealthy, I would totally laugh out loud right now…’ Sam thought, as he used inhuman strength to strangle his urge to do an evil laugh.

Keeping an eye out for the merry-making bandits, he spent the next hour planting explosives packages along the main corridor and inside the containers for the explosives he hadn’t used.

He wanted to make sure that he was prepared for everything.

Then, when he was ready, and Lucky looked rather bored, he took one last glance around the armory, lamenting the fact, that no inventory space was infinite. Pocketing a few more pieces to sell, he left the armory, and now much better armed, headed towards where the bandit party was being held.

He wanted to see them in action, to decide what his next step should be.

Standing behind the corner of the door leading directly towards another enormous hall, this one fully illuminated by several giant fires and torches on the wall, he leaned out slightly and took in the entire room with a glance.

There were several rough giant wooden tables, surrounded by bandits that were making merry, playing games, but mostly just drinking. From glasses, from mugs, from jugs, or even directly from the bottles and barrels.

Apparently, fantasy keg stand was a thing.

And at the far end of the room was a simple throne hewn from stone. Upon on it, sitting the person who was undoubtedly the leader of this band of security geniuses.

Though, to Sam’s genre-savvy instinct, something seemed off.

The bandits were wild, loud and without restraint. The man sitting on the throne was calm, collected, and was almost elegantly sipping from a wineglass.

‘Sooo, I bet that’s not a simple bandit. Maybe infiltrator from another country…’ he wondered while his eyes sought out other details of the hall.

There were several corridors leading deeper into the cavern system, as well as a giant door that, from his vantage point, seemed to lead to the kitchen. Though it helped with the conclusion that he saw several people enter through the open doors and return with something edible or, more than likely, something alcoholic.

He was about to retreat to think up a plan when one of the bandits, sitting rather close to the man on the throne, stood up, mug in his hands.

“Friends!” he exclaimed in a booming, but slightly inebriated, voice. “Enjoy the feast! You’ll need tha energy!”

There were several ‘hear-hears’ from those who were still cognizant.

Another man, laughing, began yelling too.

“Indeed! You will need the energy if you want to do more than my group!”

The first man snorted, then took a drink of his mug, half of it splashing on the ground.

“Shut up! We always do more on the raids than you slimy sneaks!”

The second man just laughed, raised their own mug, and smugly exclaimed.

“We shall see tomorrow night!”

This was greeted by an enormous cheer from the surrounding bandits.

““TO RAIDIN’!””

Sam began slowly backing up, as the fight transitioned from using words to blows. Though from the laughter, the bandits seemed to be enjoying it.

‘They are going on a raid tomorrow night, that means they will probably drink until they’re out.’ he thought, as he began moving back to the armory. ‘That’s my chance…’