Chapter 75 Sadic

Aion knew that he could trust his mother, but his ability to detect things or trace them was practically nonexistent. He trained for many years to win a tournament, not to find vestiges of people and monsters in the open, after all. Regardless, it didn't take long for Aion to see them opening an entrance on a hill… they were using a man-made cavern.

"When it is open, it is that easy to notice the fake grass…" Aion thought and then sighed before he climbed the hill to check things around. "It would be awesome if I could use Meditation and Furtivity at the same time, but I can't right now…"

Artemisia tried to teach Aion how to recover his mana, even though he already could do that. So, he assumed that he could use that in other classes as well. It was true, he could, but now when skills like Furtivity were active since his mana was being used to repel most of the light around him, that also worked against mana.

"The question is: is this place their hideout or other bandits' hideout?" Aion thought. "I can't leave my mother alone for too long, but there is a chance that I can use this to track all the bandits at once."

The plan to look for a monster or animal to tame them and use their ability to trace scents seemed more and more unreliable. Aion didn't find a single animal, and he assumed that the cause was the bandits; they had hunted everything around the area in the last three years. Since invasions happened often, they were hunted regularly…

Aion had planned to think for a while, but then he saw the bandits leaving the place again. He used Furtivity to disappear and confirmed that they had freed themselves without making much noise, and they also equipped some rapid-fire crossbows. They knew that they couldn't leave Aion alone in the area, so they had to kill him.

"Hehehe, they have treasure in there…" Aion smiled like a villain. "Well, they didn't learn their lesson, so it is time to break some of their bones now."

A broken arm and leg will do the job. They will have a hard time walking and thinking of grabbing weapons. That will weaken their willpower to try to pull something like that ever again. Regardless, when they showed their backs to him, Aion changed to the berserker class and then dashed toward them. When the enemies heard his footsteps, it was already too late. He had already smashed the knees of two of those guys with his hand axes.

The others pointed their crossbows at him, but Aion stopped them from moving by using Roar. While their ears were ringing, the bandits' eyes began to roll, and Aion, in the blink of an eye, finished the job. When they recovered, they have handcuffed again while lying on the ground, and their left arms and legs were hurting like hell.

"Hello again, did you miss me?" Aion asked. "This time, I will let you escape without using any tricks. While I investigate your hideouts, you will have all the time in the world to run away."

Aion entered the cave and noticed that they had some crystals illuminating the tunnel that was going downwards in a spiral… they sure had a lot of time to dig that much without being noticed. Regardless, it wasn't that deep. Once Aion reached the base of the hideout, he found some gold coins, a lot of silver coins, food, wine, weapons, armor, clothes, and accessories… they sure had a lot in stock.

Their variety was great, but Aion couldn't understand why they weren't selling most of the things. Aion recalled that they probably couldn't smuggle things out of the kingdom since a lot of people in the Rosberg state were crazy due to Caellis influence. They also couldn't sell in the kingdom without making themselves look suspicious.

Regardless, Aion began to process the shitty items and stored the others when the processing and absorption processes were full. Returning those things to their previous owners was almost impossible, so Aion would confiscate them and redistribute them… or not.

In any case, when Aion left the hideout, he saw the bandits trying to smash the handcuffs against a boulder, but he made those extra hard this time. Moreover, he made them heavier, so they would slowly kill the bandits with their weight. Their broken bones and the weight were making them sweat cold.

"I think I am starting to become quite the sadist…" Aion rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Regardless, Aion made the bandits head north next to the area on the map where he could find possible new hideouts. However, before they could reach it, the sun began to set, and they were forced to camp. Sleeping with those guys around would be too much, but they needed to stop to rest since they were exhausted.

"The one who speaks first will have some soup and a big cup of wine," Aion said after he finished lighting the campfire.

Aion could see the eyes of the bandits rolling around while considering his proposal. One day walking without water and food while they have broken bones was quite a tough day, after all. Regardless, they didn't break yet, so they didn't say anything. After finishing eating, Aion decided to train a bit. When he got tired of that, he wondered if he should bury them to the neck in order to take a nap.

"Ah, I need to test that…" Aion said and then changed his class to Bard and then summoned his instrument.

The class was back to one, but Aion wondered if he could make it level up faster by making more people receive the buff of the skills…

Congratulations! The class Bard has leveled up.

Aion's guess was correct…