The supply dispatch had exited borders of the town of Hajin just under two hours. The Apprentices in the carriage had already perked up, growing more and more alert. They had decided that at the very least a minimum of three of them ought to keep a lookout at any given point in time.
Although the dispatch naturally had guards on horses forming something of a perimeter around the dispatch team, surveilling their surroundings, Martial Apprentices were still better. The Foundational Stage of the Academy carefully trained sensory awareness as well as their kinetic vision well beyond the norm. And the discovery of the Martial Path further raised those attributes and parameters above the conventional limit.
Three Martial Apprentices keeping an eye from within a carriage were better sources of surveillance than all the guards on horses outside.
Rui was currently off-surveillance duty along with Dalen. He used this time to gather his thoughts.
('According to the intel provided by the Martial Union, the bandits likely operate by incapacitating the dispatch convoy by crippling their means of transport.') Rui mused. ('In most cases that involves damaging the carriages sufficiently enough and slaughtering the horses.')
The reason the bandits did this was because the chances of survival of any travelling convoy was minimal if they could not maintain a high mode of transport.
Thus, even in the unlikely situation that a travelling transport or supplies dispatch convoy had the means to counter them, they would not be able to escape their predicament easily at all. The bandits could simply retreat and wait until for the right moment to launch an ambush.
Of course, thus far not a single travelling convoy had been able to successfully resist the bandit ambushes.
('Yet despite this, they continue with the norms of crippling the means of transportation in their initial strike.') Rui thought. ('That sounds uncharacteristically careful for bandits.')
Bandits were usually chaotic unorganized groups of low lives who banded together to rob travellers. They were not careful and methodic like an organized strike force. Yet all the data that Rui had gone through indicated that this bandit group was more akin to the latter than the former.
('That makes them more dangerous.') Rui did not want to fight with a disciplined group of criminals, that was much scarier than messing with a random group of thugs who simply used a braindead numbers advantage to edge out a victory.
('I find it highly unlikely that this bandit group was formed in a normal way.')
Rui felt like the probability of the bandit group being involved with some entity in the black market was much more likely, this would explain the sense of order that Rui got from them. Perhaps they were formed by some behemoth in the black market, or something to that effect?
Rui shook his head. It wasn't relevant. The point was that if they were targeting means of transport then the group would have a hard time.
Unfortunately for Rui and the others, knowing about their modus operandi did not mean they would be able to counter it. In their current circumstances, knowing this did not particularly allow them to improve their counters.
The best thing they could do at the end of the day was to defend, protect and eliminate threats. That did not change regardless of what intel they possessed. At most they could finetune their measures to be suited to handling their necessities.
For example, Rui had already concluded it would be extremely difficult to entirely and completely prevent them from damaging their means of transport at all. Largely because of the nature of an ambush. The element of surprise in the hands of the enemy Martial Apprentices could not be mitigated easily, and some loss of life as well as material loss was inevitable.
The question was what were the measure they could take to mitigate the damage inflicted, thankfully. They had already known the answer.
The answer was to abandon the outer ring of the convoy and focus on the most important and vital parts of the dispatch, as specified by the client.
The outer layers of the convoy were mostly there to act as a shield for the inner portion of the convoy, where the valuable high-grade esoteric supplies were stored.
Once the ambush commenced, Rui and the others of the Martial Quint would immediately focus on ensuring the inner circles endured as little harm as possible. The outer circles were pretty much intended to be doomed as a sacrifice.
An hour passed as they distanced themselves from the town of Hajin, and the mountains that were on the horizon at the distance had grown larger in their field of view.
"We've reached the base, it seems." Dalen noted. "The Shadow Trails is only half an hour away from here I believe."
"It's been a long time since I came here." Fae chirped.
"You've come here before?" Rui turned in surprise.
"Hasn't everyone?" Kane asked.
"Yeah, it's a mountain range. The outskirts are pretty safe, and it's a tourist attraction." Fae agreed.
Rui did a double-take, remembering that his companions were a bunch of rich kids with a Martial pedigree.
Forget touring the mountains, this was the first time that Rui had actually left the town of Hajin. Although the Quarrier Orphanage was technically outside the town of Hajin. That wouldn't count, would it?
('Wait, focus! This is important and dangerous.') He shook his head, trying to shake away the silly thoughts.
Were it any other occasion, Rui would have definitely leisurely enjoyed the sights and taken in the new topography and environment in. It had been a long time since he'd even seen mountains.
But in this mission, with the information he was aware of, the Basara Mountains had an ominous impression to them. Like the harbinger of danger and risk. Crossing these mountains was estimated to take twelve hours.
Rui prepared himself mentally. For within the next twelve hours, he would probably be in the most danger he had ever been.
