The seven bandits sat in their simple hideout, drinking the alcohol that they'd stolen from their victims today.

「Today's haul was pretty good, wasn't it?」

「Yeah, if we take it to the village everyone else will be happy as well.」

It looked as if they were farmers sharing a drink after finishing their work in the fields, but they were definitely bandits.

The proof of that was the fact that the wine that they were drinking was taken from merchants who had been too stingy to hire adventurers to escort them, along with their lives.

Their equipment was old; their leather armor had numerous patches where they had been previously repaired and their weapons consisted of handmade spears, woodcutting hatchets, bows and arrows – they were incredibly poorly equipped. In addition, they hadn't received any formal training; if you looked at it one way, their method of fighting came from experience in real battle and brawls. If you looked at it another way, they were just a group of people who merely swung their weapons around.

In fact, most of their jobs were Farmer, so they hadn't received training for battle. The reason that they were bandits was their poverty.

The young men from a village that had become poor for to various reasons had left the village to commit crimes. Such cases were not rare in Lambda.

「Well then, I suppose someone should stand watch so we can sleep.」

The bandits' base simply consisted of several tents put up in a meadow with long grass, in a spot where they had cleared some of the grass away. They did have a lookout tower, but they didn't seem to have any intentions of using it.

In fact, there was nothing in this meadow but wild deer, so they were safe as long as they kept a fire lit. The reason they still kept watch is because sometimes a stray Goblin came to attack.

But even such a Goblin would scream loudly as it approached them, so they had little motivation to stand guard.

That was why they had no way of knowing if any enemy were to approach them quietly, concealing the sound of their footsteps.

「Hic, I've drank a little too much – UOH?」

The bandit on watch who had apparently drank too much wine was snatched up by Bone Bear's paw that had risen up from the wall of grass and disappeared.

Muffled sounds came from inside the tents, but nobody came out. Instead, Bone Man, Bone Monkey and Bone Wolf with Bone Bird on his back emerged from the long grass.

And behind them was Vandalieu.

「There are six left. Finish them quickly.」

The air was filled with the sound of rattling bones.

The bandits never returned to their village.

For Vandalieu, finding the hiding place of bandits was easier the more atrocious their crimes were, as he could use the spirits of their dead victims as sources of information.

The victims who were attacked by their bandits and had not only their belongings taken, but also their lives. Their regret and hatred towards their assailants was fierce, and having bugs find the spirits was a simple task.

Even if the spirits were far away, he could use the【Spirit Communication】technique to summon them to hear what they had to say.

And then he would send out the Undead using the information he got from the spirits, and the hideouts would be found within a few days.

With this method, Vandalieu had already found four groups of bandits operating in the area around Baronet Bestero's territory.

After finding them, he continued to gather information such as how many of them there were and how they were armed. The villager bandits that he had attacked today were the smallest, most poorly equipped group out of the four.

「Nice, the training's successful. Good work, everyone.」

Vandalieu was emotionless as he confirmed that the bandit group had been exterminated, but he was in a good mood as he praised the Undead.

Of course, the Undead, being made of only bones, were unable to smile, but the blue glow in their sockets seemed to flicker in happiness. Their MVP was Bone Bear, who had killed the one on lookout duty with a bear hug and then buried another bandit with his claws.

Bone Man had stabbed two of them to death with his dagger, and Bone Monkey and Bone Wolf had taken one each, strangling and biting them to death.

「Err, it'll be fine. You'll be able to fly soon!」

Bone Bird was the only one to be depressed. Vandalieu had made a Golem of the earth and buried one of the bandits from the neck down, and Bone Bird had defeated this bandit by diligently stabbing him with its beak repeatedly.

With only one wing, it was just a burden, but there was no helping it. Bone Bird couldn't fly.

It was obvious that wings made of only bones and no feathers would not be able to fly.

「If you keep gathering experience and rank up again, you'll definitely be able to fly. Believe in yourself!」

As Vandalieu encouraged Bone Bird, it flapped its wings with a rattle to express its happiness, as if to say that it would try its best.

After looking at Bone Bird happily and giving it a pat on its skull, Vandalieu examined the treasure that the bandits had gathered.

The first thing that caught his eye was the wagon with three barrels of wine still left in it. They were the leftovers of what the bandits had been drinking.

Evbejia prided itself on its wine, so it was probably of reasonably high quality.

「... I wonder if there's anything else.」

But to a one-year-old, it held less value than water. He had no way of selling it for money and his companions were all made of bones, so it was completely useless. At best, he could perhaps use it for cooking.

No, it was probably possible for him to drink it. Even as a one-year-old, Vandalieu possessed the Status Effect Resistance skill at level 3, so he would likely not become drunk unless he consumed a very large quantity of it.

『No~♪ You can't drink alcohol at the age of one. What if you become a drunkard later in life?』

However, his guardian would not allow it, so he decided not to drink it.

「Well, I might as well take at least one barrel back. There's even a wagon for it. And next is -」

Vandalieu searched around the wagon and inside the tents, but concluded that they were「completely broke」compared to normal adventurers or soldiers. They had apparently stolen cloth purses from the merchants who had normally stored copper and silver coins in them, but there was a whole pile of pouches filled with only seeds and oats that would normally be fed to pets and livestock on Earth. There were some dried river fish. The rest were items for the bandits' daily necessities.

The special feature was perhaps the vase filled with about five kilograms of salt.

It was a considerably meagre treasure, but perhaps that was to be expected. They were merely seven men that were normally farmers.

They would have been unable to aim for targets with a larger payout - the kind that would hire adventurers as escorts.

But for Vandalieu, it was a decent harvest in its own way.

「This is a great result. I was getting sick of eating only meat and blood, and the salt that Mom had ran out ages ago. And I'm glad I got my hands on some cloth.」

Vandalieu's lifestyle up until now had been sustained through hunting the deer in the forest. Darcia's emergency stores of wheat, cheese, vegetables and salt had been used up relatively quickly after her death. In the first place, it was only one person's worth and it was for the journey that she had been planning, so it was only an amount that she would have been able to carry.

And as Vandalieu developed, the amount that he ate also increased.

It would be problematic to use blood for all of his dietary needs, and if he became too much like a vampire, he would become weak to the sun so that would be problematic. That was why he wanted to eat normal food as well. But meat that was simply cooked after having its blood extracted was dull as well and there were times when he could only get his hands on the meat of raccoons and foxes and such, whose meat was not tasty. Though it was much better than the times he only had Goblin meat available.

The clothes he was wearing were not really clothes, but furs that he had wrapped around himself.

He was like a barbarian child.

「If I use the bandits' spare clothes, I might be able to make proper clothes for myself. There's also money, but... well, will I get a chance to use it?」

The Amid was the currency of the Amid Empire and its countries. One Amid was worth about a hundred yen on Earth. There was a half-Amid copper coin, a one-Amid copper coin, a ten-amid copper coin, a 100-Amid silver coin, a 1,000-Amid gold coin and a 10,000-Amid platinum coin.

TLN: 1 Amid = $0.87USD

In addition, there was apparently also paper money used only by wealthy merchants and nobles, notes worth 100,000 Amid and 1,000,000 Amid. To be more accurate, they may not be actual notes, but something like handwritten government bonds.

The bandits had saved up about 1,000 Amid, about twice the monthly income of a worker living in an urban area.

But if Vandalieu were to enter a town, guards or adventurers would kill him without any questions asked, so it was doubtful whether he would get a chance to use it.

However, it might be possible to exchange it after moving to another country, so he decided to keep it.

「Hmm? What's this pouch?」

He realized that there was another leather pouch beneath the pouches containing the money. It was light and something clinked around inside softly when he moved it.

He untied the string and looked inside to see two transparent, colored stones inside. They looked like some kind of gem, but they were not very pretty.

「Mom, do you know what this is?」

『These are Magic Stones. You can collect them from monsters, and from this size and color, I think they're from Goblins. If I remember correctly, they sell for ten Amid each.』

The Mana in monsters' bodies crystallized in the moment they died, and the Magic Stones were apparently the result of that. They were used as ingredients in various magical items and spiritual medicines such as potions, or used as sources of power for even normal people with low Mana to use magical items.

If used as sources of power in this way, they became normal stones after the Mana they contained was depleted, so they were consumable items. But with alchemical refining, Mana could be imbued into the stones again, so they could be used over and over.

Nobody would bother refining the Magic Stones of Goblins and they would be used as disposable items, which was why their value was low.

『Incidentally, it's more common for low-rank monsters to not even drop Magic Stones when they die. The probability for a Rank 1 monster to drop one is about one in a hundred. On the other hand, higher-rank monsters are almost certain to drop Magic Stones when they die. Rank 5 monsters and above will definitely drop them.』

Incidentally, Darcia had apparently thought it pointless to tell Vandalieu about Magic Stones earlier because he had been fighting nothing but a few Rank 1 Goblins at a time.

Also, it seemed that there were some low-rank monsters that easily dropped Magic Stones, and also monsters that dropped Magic Stones of far higher quality than their original rank. But to Vandalieu, who was focusing on hunting bandits for now, this was all just information for future reference.

He wanted to register with an Adventurer's Guild and become an adventurer as soon as possible.

「Finally, let's check the status of Bone Man... Oh, just by killing two of those weak Bandits, you've gained thirty levels. You too, Bone Bear. The rest of you too. Just by killing a single man each, you've gained more than 10 levels!」

Just by ambushing and killing one or two bandits that had failed as farmers and couldn't even fight properly, their levels had risen this much. The amount of experience they got from Goblins or the monsters in the forest couldn't even be compared to this amount.
If this applied to not just the Undead but all monsters, than that meant that humans were a very good source of experience of the monsters. It would also explain why monsters were so aggressive against humans.

「Alright, I'll wipe out all the Bandits in this area and increase everyone's levels.」

After seeing this explosive increase in level, he couldn't go back to hunting small monsters.

There were still many Bandit groups left in the area around Baronet Bestero's territory. One of them had the same number of people as the one they had killed today, one of them had more than ten people, while another one had around twenty.

The Undead would surely reach Rank 3 after they were all exterminated.

『Since you were able to kill us, the guys to the south will be a piece of cake.』

『The guys west of here are from three villages over. They have a lot of people, but it should still be easy.』

『But the guys up north are professional bandits. Their leader was apparently a guard in some city, and I've heard that he's gathered himself a bunch of strong underlings. They extorted some money out of us as well.』

While learning some information from the spirits of the dead bandits, Vandalieu used the Earth Golem to bury their bodies. After loading up their loot on the wagon, Vandalieu left, leaving the tragic scene behind him.

Around a month had passed since Vandalieu's first Birthday. It was the season in which he had to get rid of mosquitoes every evening using【Bug Killer】, and he was finally ready to take on the largest and most highly-trained bandit group in Baronet Bestero's territory. They moved while making sure no travelers or guard patrols on the highway found them and trained in forests or in areas with high, thick grass to polish their skills.

「Our opponents are in a different league from the bandits we've been killing up till now. Their leader is a ex-soldier, and his subordinates have been trained under him to some extent. In other words, we can't just raise our weapons and scare the enemy, we actually have to『fight』them.」

「Oooooooooh~」

「Gurururuuuuu~」

The Undead listening to Vandalieu literally had fires of determination burning in their eye sockets. Because of the experience they had earned from killing all the bandits, Bone Man had increased his rank to become a Skeleton Solider, while Bone Monkey, Bone Bear and Bone Wolf had become Bone Beasts.

They had also gained the skill【Superhuman Strength】and, perhaps because they had been killing bandits by ambushing them, they had also gained【Silent Steps.】When this skill was used, the sounds of their bones hitting and grinding against each other completely disappeared. In addition, Bone Man had gained the skills 【Swordsmanship】, 【Archery】 and 【Shield Technique.】

They were all still level 1 skills, but the results were pretty good considering that they had obtained them after fighting in practice battles against golems for a month.

「...」

Bone Bird, however, was still at Rank 2. But it was at Level 90, and if today's plan went well, it would also rank up.

「That's why we need to be extra careful today. We have a lot of spare bones for you, but make sure your skulls are not damaged or broken. Also, if there are any humans that don't look like bandits... For example, humans that are tied up with rope or humans that are in cages, don't kill them. Lastly, we'll begin the plan as soon as I cast the support magic.」

Speaking in his usual indifferent tone and expressionless face, Vandalieu didn't show his internal nervousness at all as he cast the spells.

「First,【Bloodshed Enhancement】to their weapons, fangs and claws. Then【Energy Absorption】to their armor and bones.」

【Bloodshed Enhancement】 was a magic spell that boosted the attack power of whatever it was cast on; even shields and armor could damage the enemy if they came in contact with them.

【Energy Absorption】 was a defensive spell that could absorb magic, heat, electricity and even motion energy, and in Lambda it was effective against both magical and physical attacks.

Both of these spells had very strong effects, but since both were not that hard to use with the Death Attribute, mastering them was easy for Vandalieu.

「Ooooh...」

The first to move among the Undead surrounded by dark blue magic was Bone Man. He headed towards observation tower the bandits' base - a small gathering of simple huts surrounded by a wooden fence - loading an arrow into the bow taken from Orbie and his companions and pulling back the string.

The bandits in the observation tower were holding bows with quivers on their backs and seemed completely unmotivated.

「Man, we're really unlucky. Getting guard duty on the day before we're supposed to withdraw.」

The bandits were planning to take all that they had earned up till now and move to a new location. They were planning to pick up the ransom money for the hostages along the way and then go on to a new territory or even a new country, and start their jobs as bandits all over again.

Other bandit groups had been disappearing lately and they had heard rumours that a Lord had become fed up with the deterioration of public order on the highway and put together a subjugation team. If that was the case, then it really was time to leave.
They had decided to get rid of things that would get in the way of traveling, and were in the middle of a party to consume all of the excess food and liquor they had in one go.

These bandits were the unlucky ones that were unable to participate in the party, and they were too distracted by their own misfortune to notice anything.

「Gahhh!?」

Bone Man's arrow cut through the night and buried itself in one of their throats. Letting out a short scream, he lost his balance and fell from the tower.

Seeing one of their own guards fall down with a arrow in his neck, the bandits that had been drunk and enjoying themselves woke up from their stupor.

「E-enemy attack!」

「Wake up, you bastards! Get your weapons!」

As they bandits tried pick up their axes, maces and spears...

「Guwoooon!」

「Uooooooooh, uooooooh!」

Destroying the wooden fence and scattering splinters all over the place, Bone Monkey and Bone Bear charged in.

「I-it's the Undead! Monsters! We're being attacked by monsters!」

「Calm down, you idiots! Those of you specializing in axes and maces, move forward! Those who have swords and spears, fall back! Archers as well!」

The leader of the bandits calmly gave his subordinates clear instructions, a halberd in his own hands.

This man had experience fighting with Skeletons and Zombies from when he was still a soldier. He knew that his subordinates could deal with Undead effectively if they used blunt weapons like clubs or axes rather than bladed weapons like swords or spears, even if they weren't very skilled at fighting.

「A few Rank 1 or 2 monsters are no match for twenty of us! Get 'em!」

The bandits' morale that had been withering because of the sudden attack and death of one of their own was recovered thanks to the instructions from their boss. They rushed at the boorish Undead who had rained over their festivities.

「Guooooo!」

「Ghyaa!?」

A bandit that had raised his axe went flying as Bone Bear stood up on its hind legs and delivered an attack with its front paws.

With a crunch, Bone Monkey crushed a