Extra's Survival: Raising SSS-Rank Characters Is My Only Option

It took them a day and a half to reach the stronghold, the twenty-five captured bandits trudging ahead in a single line, wrists bound together by a long rope. From a distance, they looked less like prisoners and more like the world’s most disreputable pack train, stumbling through the forest beneath the watchful eyes of their captors.

Sir Gareth had assumed Jin intended to finish what they had started-to tear the bandits out by the roots before they could plague another road.

His eyes drifted to the young lord at the head of the column. It was difficult to reconcile this composed, calculating rider with the pampered, bratty young lord he had spent years chasing out of taverns, dragging away from petty mischief, and shielding from the consequences of his own arrogance.

He didn’t know when, but somewhere along the road, that reckless young master had begun to disappear. In his place now was a young lord who thought before he acted, who looked beyond the battle to the consequences and outcomes.

A faint smile creased Sir Gareth’s weathered face.

’The Duke would have been proud.’

He was terribly wrong.

Jin had no interest in crusades or grand speeches about protecting the innocent. If the roads became safer afterwards, that was simply a fortunate consequence.

His reason was far less noble.

Every bandit crew needed a place to disappear when the hunt grew too hot. A place to eat, sleep, and divide the spoils - A stronghold, if he had to name it.

And every such place had a vault.

Jin’s gaze drifted through the trees towards the distant hills where the bandit leader had claimed their hideout lay.

Jin looked at the bound man.

’He isn’t the sort of man to share evenly.’

The thought lingered. From the short conversation he had had, Jin could see how ambitious Volk was.

A man willing to betray the lord who had hired him would never hesitate to cheat his own followers. Whatever caravans they had plundered over the years, whatever coin, jewels, weapons, or valuables had passed through his hands, the finest pieces would never have reached the young lord of Maren.

Volk would have likely kept them.

And where else would a man like that hide his fortune?

A slow smile tugged at the corner of Jin’s mouth.

’That’s my destination,’ he thought, his eyes following the direction of Volk’s bound hands.

The stronghold sat in a fold of the ridge where the pine grew thick - an old watch fort from some forgotten border war, its walls patched with timber, invisible from the road below and reachable only by a switchback path a cart could barely climb.

It was an ideal location for a bandit stronghold.

Smoke drifted lazily above the treetops, thin grey ribbons rising into the clear sky.

Jin and the others watched from several hundred metres away-close enough to study the sentries’ movements, far enough to remain unnoticed.

”How many are left?” Jin asked without taking his eyes off the fortress.

Volk hesitated only briefly.

”A dozen. Cooks, cripples, the quartermaster...” He shrugged as much as his bindings allowed. ”The rest, you’ve already met.”

For once, he was telling the truth.

The assault, if it deserved to be called one, was over almost before it began.

Harun strode up the switchback at the head of the column, Volk and the other prisoners shambling ahead of him with ropes around their wrists. The lone guard at the gate looked from his captured chief to the armed men behind him, weighed his chances with admirable speed, and quietly let his spear slip from his fingers.

It was an exceptionally sensible decision.

By noon, the remaining bandits sat bound in the courtyard beside their comrades, and Jin found himself standing in the centre of a fortress that had changed ownership through the oldest law in existence-the right of conquest.

It was a finer stronghold than he had expected.

The imperial engineers who had built it had known their craft. Though generations had passed since it was built, the stone walls still stood straight beneath the bandits’ crude wooden repairs.

A deep well occupied the centre of the yard.

Two watchtowers commanded clear views of the winding approach.

There were stables, a smokehouse, a cold forge, and three long stone storehouses whose ancient doors had been fitted with heavy new locks.

Jin’s gaze lingered on them.

’A crew like this doesn’t waste iron protecting empty rooms,’ he thought.

His eyes narrowed slightly.

’No... those locks are guarding something worth guarding.’

He glanced sideways at Volk, whose expression had grown increasingly miserable with every step into the courtyard.

’You’ve been a busy man, Volk.’

”Berrick. Open everything.”

The first storehouse held trade goods - bolt after bolt of southern cloth, casks of oil and wine, crated tools, a fortune in carved northern woodwork that had never made it to market.

The second building was smaller, sturdier, and far better guarded.

Berrick took one look at the heavy iron lock securing the central chest, shifted his grip on his crossbow, and brought the stock crashing down.

The lock surrendered on the second strike.

Inside lay the true prize.

Coins from a dozen different mints filled leather sacks and wooden coffers, silver and gold catching the dim light like scattered stars. Beneath them rested several tightly rolled leather tubes.

Jin knelt, drawing them out one by one.

Caravan manifests, bills of sale, records of merchants who had vanished somewhere along forgotten roads.

Then his fingers stopped.

He pulled out a slim ledger. Its pages were filled with precise handwriting, which attracted his attention.

He opened it.

There were eleven entries in the book.

And each one recorded a payment made to someone, which was recorded as nothing more than the initials R.M.

And beside every payment was the date and the names of caravans.

A slow smile spread across Jin’s face.

He lifted the ledger as carefully as a priest raising a sacred relic.

”Sir Gareth,” he said quietly, ”do you see what I see?”

The knight glanced over the page and let out a low whistle.

”I see enough rope for several hangings.”

Jin chuckled.

”Yeah.”

He closed the ledger with deliberate care before slipping it inside his coat, over his heart.

”Beautiful and strong ropes.”

His eyes drifted towards the distant road leading back to Maren.

”Rodric...” he murmured. ”You’re about to discover that the deadliest weapon in the world isn’t a sword.”

He patted the ledger once. ”But good bookkeeping.”

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