Chapter 3: Bandits

Finally feeling clean, or as clean as possible without soap, I leaned back and relaxed. Water flowed pleasantly around me. Cold water. The river was barely above freezing, and would be fatally cold to anyone else, but the strong current felt wonderful to me, especially flowing against the most intimate of places.

With a contented sigh I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, the scents from the forest carried a thousand little stories to my nose. A nearby fox’s den hid a mother and her kits. A couple deer fed downstream, keeping a wary eye on me. When I was human, I felt helpless with my eyes closed, but I didn’t feel that way anymore. I was almost as aware of my surroundings with my eyes closed as I was with them open.

Just a slight hint of unexpected emotional scents caught my attention. Greed. Lust. Anticipation. It wasn’t that animals couldn’t experience these emotions, but that their emotions were far less complicated. Someone was sneaking through the nearby brush. I had underestimated how useful empathic scenting was. Not only did I know someone was nearby, even with my eyes closed, but I also knew exactly where he was. I opened my eyes, being careful to avoid looking directly in his direction. Pretending to be unaware of his presence, I watched him out of the corner of my eye. The game-like nature of this world was so strange. He was a rogue. That’s not a comment on his morals, it was his class. From my knowledge of the [Great Game], I knew all rogues had the abilities sneak and backstab. Rogues could also have other abilities depending on how powerful they were, but this one is far too low level for me to feel concerned.

After several minutes, he slipped away. That was strange. If he was really planning on leaving me alone, then why was he still filled with such anticipation? A scout? That would explain both what he was feeling, and how he was acting. I quietly climbed out of the pool, then hesitated, considering the best way to handle the situation.

Sometimes the simplest choice is the best one.

The scent trail left by the bandit was easy to follow, even without the tracking skill. I quietly snuck along after him. I wasn’t skilled in sneaking, but I had another plan. I didn’t try to approach him. With these senses I could stay deep in the woods and still see and hear what was going on.

A little while later I reached a clearing. At least two dozen people were in the camp, most of them were men, but there were a few women scattered around. Melee fighters, both warriors and rogues, made up most of the bandits, although I also saw a few rangers and archers. The group even included a wizard. The camp was in an uproar. The rogue that saw me relaxing in the river was having an excited conversation with their leader. I couldn’t hear most of the conversation over the racket coming from everyone else gearing up, but I heard enough to know what they were planning. They assumed that I was part of some merchant caravan they planed on attacking, only they think I went ahead of the rest for a private bath. They planned on capturing me now, then attacking the caravan later tonight. They want to capture as many of us alive as possible, so that we can be sold as slaves. They only seemed to disagree about one thing. Who would get to rape me first.

Yeah. Like that was going to happen.

“I don’t know what she is, but she isn’t a coldblooded lizardkin. The river is nearly freezing, and dangerous for anyone. A lizardkin would die in minutes. She must be some kind of monster. Stupid. Idiots.”, muttered an annoyed looking foxkin near my hiding place. All of the other bandits fit their classes. Strength for fighters. Intelligence for the wizard. Agility for the rogues. But, this foxkins highest stat was intelligence and her lowest stat was agility. So why was she a rogue? Very strange.

While I waited, I took the opportunity and used [Sexual Insight] on all the women. Most were so vanilla it made my teeth ache. Is this how the average woman looks at sex on this world? It seemed impossible. On the other hand, even in the modern world many female children are still taught that sex is bad. It’s really possible that they just don’t know better. Only two of them had ever masturbated, and even they didn’t interest me. The foxkin did. She only thought of sex as a necessary price she paid for protection, which said a lot about her past life. However, buried deep inside her, so deep that she didn’t have the slightest clue, was a kinky little bisexual submissive. She had the spark. I wanted to play with her.

They moved out, leaving the camp abandoned. I briefly considered following, but decided they would be back anyway. They didn’t even put out the fire, and their stew smelled good. I hadn’t eaten anything except for raw meat since regaining my memories, so I settled down for some stew and cheese while I waited for them to return.

Some time later arguing voices announced the return of the bandits. Only the foxkin seemed to be happy. The rest of them seem to be angry at the scout. The foxkin gasped when she saw me sitting on one of their wagons. Even with her reaction, it still took several seconds before the rest of them realized I was there.

I smiled in amusement at the shock on their faces. Their shock was quickly replaced by something else. I had never had anyone look at my nude body with anything more than disgust or pity before. So when the scent of lust suddenly drowned out everything else, I couldn’t help but laugh. What a wonderful change.

The moment was ruined when the foxkin raised her crossbow and shot me. The bolt hit me in my side, but my scales easily reflected it off into the woods. These are low level bandits, and unless one happens to be another champion, I was confident that I could have sat there all day and none of their attacks would even break my skin. Being overwhelmingly more powerful than the monsters I’ve fought didn’t make me feel like this. Fighting monsters had felt unreal. Almost like a dream.