Death Mage with an SS-Rank Talent-Chapter 208

Red Mountains...

"Finally", the trio muttered as they found the base of the Red Mountain bandits.

Since they had almost no information regarding these bandits, except for the fact that they are based somewhere East in the Red Mountains, they went to sleep early the previous night.

In the morning, they freshened up before picking some rations from the chief and left for the mountains to find the actual base of these bandits. Only this way can they probably get an idea about how many bandits are present in the area.

Since the trio didn’t want any bandits to survive, they needed the number count to make sure that when they returned to the academy, no Red Mountain bandits were alive.

The trio started to look for their base and started with the Eastern Part of the mountains.

These mountains are spread across a vast area. So, having a direction to choose was better than nothing.

They checked every mountain peak, whether it was tall or not, and they checked every one thoroughly.

After more than six hours of searching, they finally stumbled onto the base. Not exactly the base, but what they found was an exit tunnel that those bandits made to escape in case they were ever found and couldn’t kill the intruders.

These extra tunnels would help them escape. To make sure that the intruders wouldn’t find them, when the base was built, multiple tunnels would be made. This is to confuse the intruders.

If there are fewer intruders than the number of tunnels, those intruders would have to depend on their luck to find the escaping bandits, and if there are too many intruders, they still have to split in order to cover all exits.

This would lessen the burden on the escaping bandits. They could injure or kill the intruders if their number is reduced while fighting in the tunnels, and that is, if they were able to catch up with them.

This was an excellent plan, and as said before, the bandits don’t act the same as before. They adapted with time, making it difficult for the authorities to find and eliminate them.

---

"It looks like the tunnel leads to the base of those bandits, but we still need to find the remaining tunnels, which they can use to escape. Let’s continue the search", Aaron said, and the other two nodded.

It was the best course at the moment. Acting early might give a chance for some of the bandits to escape, defeating their very purpose of being here. No matter what, they wanted to clear all the bandits before they returned to the academy.

The trio started to search the nearby area, inch by inch.

It was dark before they were able to map the entire region and get all possible exit tunnels. They even entered one of those tunnels, with Aaron’s high perception, he easily found out everything that is there to know about the base.

There are two hundred and fifty bandits, but almost two hundred felt like they were around level ten or about. Two were in the Rank-2 region, and the remainder were below level 50, maybe around level 30 or so.

He even found that there are some villagers whom these bandits kidnapped. They were bound and were kept deep inside the base, near the leader’s location.

If there were any rescuers, it wouldn’t be easy for them to rescue, as the leader might kill the prisoners out of anger or maybe as a payback because those rescuers killed his men or as a distraction to give him enough time to escape.

Rescuing them would not be easy if the leader finds out that there are intruders in his den.

Aaron also found a room that appeared to be filled with a lot of resources, probably their treasury, where the bandits kept their spoils.

Though his perception is high, unless he sees them, he can’t tell what it is. With his perception, he can only feel the shape of things, nothing more.

This is why he felt Viren and his gang following him, but didn’t know who the gang was, not until Erika went to check.

To see what exactly was in the "treasury", he needed to check it first.

After getting the details they needed, the trio grouped outside, where Aaron described everything that he perceived.

The girls are a bit surprised, but not too much, when they heard those details. They had already labelled him as an anomaly, given how he was progressing.

---

"Now that we have the location of their base, their number count, more or less, and their possible escape routes, we should leave", Aaron said.

"Wait, shouldn’t we act now? They have no idea that we infiltrated their base and know about their secret tunnels. We can easily kill them one by one and return to the academy early", Diana asked.

"We can act, but how sure are you that these are all the bandits. So, we will come tomorrow and the day after tomorrow to make sure the number is the same. Also, we need to be in our peak stage in order to defeat them, and we need a proper plan, not just attack without thinking", Aaron said.

If it were just Aaron, he could defeat the bandits easily with his high skills and attributes in addition to the large undead army, but he has two teammates, and there are many bound villagers, that the bandits can make use of or kill them if there was no way out for them to escape.

Diana nodded in acknowledgement, "What you said is true, but what if they send away those villagers to slavers in the night? Even though our mission was just to eliminate the bandits, saving those poor villagers should also be a part of our mission".

Erika also took Diana’s side on that. If they leave, there is no guarantee that the villagers will still be here the next morning. So, it’s best to attack the bandits now if they want to save the villagers.

Aaron sighed.

What they said was right, but that might leave a bandit or two, who might be away and survive, could return to take revenge for the deaths of their comrades, especially if those escaped ones are the leader or vice-leaders.

If it were just a low-level bandit, they might run away to another region to settle down calmly or join another bandit group, which is not good for anyone. If he joins another bandit group, that means more deaths in areas where they shouldn’t have happened.

Every action has a consequence.

So, before taking action, one has to make sure that they can face the consequences that would happen in the future.

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