Ning looked around the 5 carriages at the 30 or so bandits that had surrounded them. He could hear the cries and whimpers of people inside the carriages, all of whom were very scared.

The main leader of the bandit moved towards the first carriage, and with him moved a small group of bandits.

Ning stayed his hand and watched what was happening. If they were here just to steal, he would let it all play out normally. However, the moment they tried to kill someone, he wouldn’t bother keeping up with his own game.

People’s lives mattered more to him than his entertainment.

“When do we attack?” he asked as quietly as he could to Sophie who simply shook her head slightly.

“Essence Manifestation realm,” she said softly.

Ning’s eyes went wide as he looked at the leader. This was somebody strong that they couldn’t just go fight against.

The leader slammed the carriage with his left hand, making multiple people cry out in terror. “Everyone on this carriage, come out!” he shouted. “If you don’t all come out in 10 seconds, I will kill you all.”

One could hear the cries of the people inside without even having any improved senses. The door to the carriage opened and a bunch of men, women, and children came out.

The leader gestured and one of the bandits carefully walked into the carriage before coming out not long after.

“No one is in there, leader,” he said.

“Good,” the leader said. “Separate the men from the rest.”

The bandits grabbed the men and dragged them to the side. The women cried out in terror and so did the men. Some of them were even ready to fight, but with weapons pointed at them and the others, the men couldn’t do anything.

The leader walked in front of the men, looking at each and every one of them individually. He then turned to his men and shook his head.

“Hand over all your valuables, and you will leave,” he said and let his men handle the rest.

He walked over to the 2nd carriage and saw Ning and the rest outside the 3rd carriage.

He grinned at them with a horrible smile and turned. “Do you want to fight me?” he asked them, taunting them.

The group tightened their grip on their weapon, but they didn’t move. The bandit leader only laughed and called the people in the 2nd carriage to come out.

Once everyone was out, he separated the men from the rest and stared at them once again.

‘Does he like men?’ Ning thought for a fleeting moment before realizing he was probably wrong. There was something else going on here.

The bandit leader frowned and angrily gestured at the bandits to loot these people as well. Then, he moved on to the 3rd carriage, which was Ning’s.

Many other bandits gathered around them as well. The leader pulled out a fiery sword and pointed at them.

“Split!” he ordered.

The group hesitated for a bit, but one of the men moved to the side, and then another. In the end, everyone split off.

The leader looked at them very carefully, searching for something.

‘But what?’ Ning wondered. What could he find amongst the men that he couldn’t amongst the women and children?

As Ning thought that, the answer came to him.

‘Could it be..?’ he thought. ‘Are they looking for Clara?’

That was the only answer he could think of as to why they looking at the men. Unless there was supposed to be someone else that was a man and was more important than Clara, then it was most likely her.

Except, these bandits didn’t know that the Boss of the Paradise Hunters was a girl.

The next question Ning had to think of was why would a group of bandits be looking after the boss of a massive gang.

‘They’re not a bandit group,’ Ning thought. That was the only answer he could come up with.

If they were a bandit group, they would focus more on stealing and looting, than looking through people. Most of the bandits hadn’t even taken anything of value from the carriages, just the people.

They wanted to make it seem like a bandit attack, when in fact this was a predetermined attack on the boss.

The only question that remained now was why did they know that the boss was here? Had someone leaked it before they were leaving? How could they have known otherwise?

‘She should be fine,’ Ning thought. ‘Not only are they not even expecting the boss to be a female, but Clara herself could also hide very well.’

Ning wondered if she was going to come out and fight at all, or if she was just going to hide throughout the journey.

The leader of the bandits moved away to the 4th carriage after looking through the 5 men that were in the 3rd carriage. Then, once he was done looking at the 4th carriage, he moved to the 5th.

Ning started feeling tense as he saw the frowning face of the man that had not found the thing he was looking for.

‘This is about to get nasty,’ he thought as he held onto his sword. At any moment, he would have to use his sword if the situation called for it.

The leader himself walked into the 5th carriage after checking the men there and slammed the door on the way out.

“Search through all the carriages again,” he ordered. “Search under the seats, over the carriage, over the carriage. Search the boxes and other items too.”

“Yes, leader,” the remaining bandits nodded and checked through everything, but they couldn’t find what they were looking for at all.𝗈𝔳𝐥xt.𝓬𝔬𝓶

As time went on, the leader got angrier and angrier at everyone. Finally, he couldn’t keep the anger hidden and flipped out.

“Where is he?!” he shouted as he pointed the sword at Ning and the others.

“What are you talking about?” one of them asked.

“You know damn well who I am talking about,” the leader said. “Where is he?”