The villagers who had been saved were now standing far away from where Aizel was beating the bandit like a madman.
Meanwhile, Leah and others began to free those who had been imprisoned. Except for the one who died, every villager was rescued one by one.
Leah approached Aizel, who stopped beating them after noticing her.
"What about the other bandits?" Aizel inquired.
"All are dead; there is no sign of mages, it appears they have gone somewhere," Leah responded while noticing the bruises, swelling, and whip marks all over the four bandits' bodies.
"Damn, he is really ruthless." She thought.
"You....your name is Leah Rosewell right?" While in pain, one of the bandits spoke.
"Please save us from this monster; we will tell you everything, including our boss's name and the reason we are here." He began crawling towards her. His nose was running, and tears were streaming down his cheeks.
"Aizel?" Leah looked towards Aizel, who looked dissatisfied but still nodded. He knew right now that information about the mastermind was important.
Aizel approached the children, who were hiding behind their parents. Some were crying, some appeared to be sleeping, and some even fainted.
He took the healing potions from his ring and gave them to Harry to use on the kids. He noticed that there were now only five healing potions left, along with some rage and mana potions.
The most important potion, however, was the mind potion, of which he only had ten bottles.
"Larisa must be extremely fortunate to possess such a rare potion. I'm curious about where she got it, and there must be different grades as well. I had never paid attention until now, but I should learn more about the potion when I have some free time." Aizel thought while staring at the children who were getting treated one by one by Harry and Alisha.
Meanwhile, the bandits told Leah everything because they were afraid of being beaten again by the monster.
"So you're saying that this was all planned by the Paul family and that your boss went to Chester town to meet them?" Leah asked, while the bandits quickly nodded.
"Aizel, it seems like we have the answer."
Aizel walked towards her while Leah started explaining the situation.
"I had my doubts, but now I have proof. It appears that I can finally ask my family for assistance." She said.
"What will they do then?" Aizel inquired.
"I'm not sure; it depends on my mother. It appears that the boss who left will not be returning anytime soon. We should get moving."
"What about the villagers?" Lucas asked, they have now completed their mission. But still, the safety of the villagers was still there. They can't leave them just like that.
"How about we take them with us back and ask your family to handle the village situation? We even have these four bandits as proof." Alisha suggested.
"It's not bad, let's do it that way. We will take them with us back and let my family handle the situation from there." Leah spoke while everyone nodded in agreement.
"I don't know, but why am I feeling that something is wrong with this whole situation? It shouldn't be that easy." Aizel kept his thoughts in mind while everyone started traveling back to the town.
Everyone had to walk back until they reach the town, as there was only one carriage available in which the most severely ill villagers and children were traveling. Aizel and their group helped everyone with the food and water that were stored inside their storage rings.
They marched back to town as the entire night passed. They arrived in town the next morning without a hitch. There were no monster attacks or traps set up for them.
Surprisingly, they returned from the same area where Aizel and Leah had fought the monkey king and his monkey herd, which caused Aizel to reconsider the situation.
"Am I overthinking things? This must be a coincidence, right? I should talk with Daisy about this," he thought as he was walking in the last to make sure the safety of the villagers throughout the trip.
As they approached the town gate. The guards noticed and rushed towards them.
"Miss Leah, good morning; could you please tell us why there are so many people with you?" One of the guards asked.
"Family matters. Move." Leah spoke with a commanding voice. The guards quickly moved aside while letting all of them pass. The crowd stared at them and started gossiping about the situation.
"I will first discuss the situation with my family, and after everything gets sorted out, I will personally visit you guys to give you the reward. Good work, guys; now rest well. See you later." Leah said this while bidding them goodbye and taking the rest of the villagers and the captive bandits with her toward her house.
"We should also get moving because the goblin raid is the day after tomorrow. We should take a break." Alisha said with a yawn. She was tired and wanted nothing more than a good sleep.
"I guess you are right. Goodbye, guys." Aizel said while bidding his goodbyes and heading toward Daisy's house.
He didn't expect he would be that late. He went out to practice teamwork but ended up saving the village.
He reached towards the fruit shop only to see the kids playing with some rubber balls together.
They noticed Aizel, as Emma ran as fast as she could and hugged him tightly, while some tears started rolling down her cheeks.
"You, what happened? Why are you crying?" Aizel asked thinking that something might have happened here when he was not there.
"It's because of you; you said that you would return soon." Emma thought you ran away, just like her parents did." Ruth explained the situation to Aizel.
"Sorry, Emma, there was some kind of problem with a mission that made me late. Don't worry; I will never leave you. Let's go inside and have some mangrove fruit shall we?" Aizel said while patting her hair.
