NOVEL NEXT Chapter 37
The world was in chaos.
And whenever chaos was mentioned, one job always popped into mind.
“Hey, Charles! Pay attention!”
“Shut it, big gorilla! As if I don’t know what’s going on!”
It was, of course, the job of a bandit.
It was an inevitability that arose whenever situations got messy. Isn’t it obvious? If wars are frequent, there’s no time for farming, and inevitably, poor harvests follow.
Not to mention, monsters rampaging through fields day in and day out.
Unless you were a commoner from a massive kingdom, the residents of a tiny village had no choice but to become bandits just to survive.
Of course, that didn’t apply to Charles and Dance.
They just looked like they were born to be bandits, perfectly suited for the role.
With his keen eyes, Charles spotted travelers crossing the mountains, and after hatching a plan, Dance, with his massive frame, leapt into action as a bandit.
Despite appearances, they were relatively mild bandits, only taking half of whatever the travelers owned and showing restraint when it came to lives.
Being bandits was just a part of life, and crossing the mountains was also just a part of life, so their primary goal was simply to ask for a little “donation” of wealth.
Ironically, because of their non-lethal approach, the kingdom was fine with letting them operate without sending out hunting parties.
Today was no different; they sat on a mountain, glaring at the road to see if any new targets would show up.
“Ugh… banditry hasn’t been great lately. Should we just go back to the village?”
“What are you talking about, you gorilla? Our village got burnt down! Don’t you remember?”
“Oh, right.”
Dance scratched his head.
Thinking back, he was right.
The reason they started banditry was that after hunting wild boars in the mountains, they returned to find their village completely burned down.
Of course, they didn’t have a strong attachment to the place.
The village only consisted of their childhood friends, who had fled long ago, leaving just Dance and Charles.
Anyway.
Since the house they used to call the village was completely burnt to the ground, they decided to embark on a journey, roaming here and there.
Ultimately, they became bandits, but they claimed to be satisfied with their lives.
“Oh, oh! Someone’s coming!”
“Where!”
As Charles shouted, Dance sprang up from his relaxed position and looked around. But all he saw was the dense forest. Charles slapped Dance on the back of the head to get his attention.
“Over there, can’t you see!”
“Oh, ohhh!”
And indeed, there they were.
People riding in a tiny wagon.
But the odd thing was, there were no horses. No horses or coachmen—just a wagon moving all by itself.
“Isn’t that some kind of monster?”
“Idiot, that’s an automated mobile wagon.”
“Auto-what, now?”
“Oh good grief! It’s just an expensive wagon that moves all by itself!”
“Ah, gotcha.”
Feeling smug about his assertion, Charles realized something peculiar after the fact.
As he’d said, that mobile wagon was incredibly pricey.
Not just expensive but absurdly so! Rumor had it, buying one would cost as much as an entire village.
Because of that, wagons were typically the domain of nobles, and an automated mobile wagon was even pricier than that.
Naturally, such a wagon would usually require a hefty guard. Whether the wagon was mobile or automated, it wouldn’t defend itself, after all.
But there were no guards in sight.
Not even a mercenary or a ragtag crew of bodyguards—just emptiness.
“This is suspicious…”
A fancy wagon like that with no bodyguards?
“What’s suspicious about it? A sucker’s just walking right into our trap!”
“Hey, wait! Gorilla! Hold on a minute!!”
But Dance couldn’t care less and had already dashed off.
Reluctantly, Charles followed him.
‘Well, no guards is a good thing, I guess.’
He thought casually, embodying the typical bandit mindset that didn’t require deep thought.
“Ha ha! Hey you folks! Stop right there!”
Dance, with his massive stature, effectively blocked the path in front of the wagon. The two-meter giant stood tall, and the wagon appeared to recognize him, coming to a halt.
Just in case, Dance was ready to physically block it himself, but it seemed this wagon wasn’t too dumb after all.
Nodding, Dance shouted loudly.
“I am the bandit Dance! Pay your toll, or you won’t get through!”
“Well, hurry up! Are you not getting out?!”
Charles, having quickly joined him on the side, bellowed alongside Dance. Their boisterous voices echoed through the forest, startling birds resting nearby into flight.
The quiet wagon.
As they looked at the silent wagon, Dance whispered to Charles.
“Hey, do you think there’s money in there?”
“Uh, it’s an automated wagon, so it must have a lot of money, right? Why?”
“I was just wondering if a tiny thing like that could actually fit a person.”
That was true.
The mobile wagon was indeed very small.
Excluding the door to enter, it seemed like it was only built with the bare minimum size.
When viewed from a distance, it did look tiny, but it really was just a puny wagon.
“Ugh… I feel bad stealing from such a small thing.”
Dance mulled it over.
That mobile wagon must be extremely valuable.
However, its size was disappointingly small.
And there was no escort or mercenary, just the lonely wagon plodding along.
This fact triggered their imaginations.
“What if it belongs to a fallen noble?”
“What?”
“You know, what if there was a sudden rebellion in the family? They had to flee, losing their parents, and got stuck riding a tiny wagon!”
“Oh, look at you, using your brain for once!”
“Ha ha, this is child’s play!”
Normally, such thoughts would be brushed off as nonsense, but surprisingly, Dance’s theory had some sharp logic to it.
Despite being an expensive automated wagon, the lack of guards and how cramped it looked made Dance’s hypothesis seem oddly plausible.
“Well… it is a bit sad…”
“Yeah… Definitely…”
A towering figure over two meters high, Dance scratched his beard, uncertain.
With a face that looked as if he could scare away even the strongest of ghosts, he surprisingly had a soft side. He couldn’t even bring himself to harm animals, which was why when he caught them, Charles would do the killing.
One reason he couldn’t bring himself to kill people was largely due to Dance’s influence.
He sported a clean-shaven face and was just the average height of an adult male.
Strikingly intellectual in comparison, one might question the fact that they were brothers.
But surprisingly, Charles had his own soft side as well.
He didn’t care much about animals, but when it came to fellow humans, he struggled to turn a blind eye.
“Should we just let them go?”
Dance whispered, and after a moment of thought, Charles nodded.
“Well, banditry has been decent lately, so we could skip a few days without starving.”
In truth, they weren’t exactly flush, but they were better off than a fallen noble.
Just as the two were preparing to step aside,
—bang!
The wagon door swung open.
“……!!”
Who would come out?
Feeling nervous, they both stared at the open door.
—wiggle, wiggle.
“……??”
Something tiny crawled out through the gap of the wagon door.
“A… worm…?”
That thought crossed their minds, as a really small, adorable snake emerged.
Given that it had whiskers and ears, it had a look akin to something between a snake and a little critter, but its size was negligible enough to warrant any serious wariness.
One problem remained.
Why on earth was a snake coming out of there?
As they stared at the snake in bewilderment, it opened its mouth and retrieved something.
“That, that’s!!”
“Gold coins!!”
It was indeed gold coins.
The kind that could buy a whole building for yourself.
A precious, rare sight indeed.
For the first time, despite years of banditry, they had laid eyes on actual gold coins.
Just how rare they were made their eyes glimmer with greed.
“Can we… take this?”
As Dance muttered absentmindedly, the little snake nodded enthusiastically.
With cautious hands, Dance picked up the gold coin.
It was the real deal.
Not just some painted piece of metal, but actual gold.
A windfall.
And as he watched the snake wriggle back toward the wagon, greed took root once more.
If it could produce gold coins like this, how many more would there be in that tiny wagon?
But he decided to stop there.
They had already scored plenty with the gold coin they found.
“Y-you may pass.”
“Be careful as you go!”
Charles and Dance stepped aside. The wagon glided past them leisurely.
“I can’t believe something like this happened in my lifetime.”
“A snake crawled out and spat gold coins—if you’d told me this just days ago, I’d have slapped you!”
The two bandits chuckled as they pocketed their gold coins.
What a lucky day it was.