My life with Mikutsuhi was hard. I had nothing to eat and drink besides muddy water and hard brown bread. The man worked me to the bone, putting me through increasingly hard exercises, seemingly at the order of the leader, or at least that's what Mikutsuhi told me when I asked him why I had to do such hard things.

Push-ups, sit-ups, and running through the forest with boulders tied to my feet.

My muscles screamed for their life every movement I made at the end of the day, the muddy water and brown bread weren't good enough for my growing body, but Mikutsuhi wouldn't give me anything better unless I 'earned my keep'.

That meant I would have to kill and pillage.

My village was one of many on the mountain where we lived. We were quite unlucky that we had been targeted and razed from the ground by the group of bandits because of how remote we were placed.

I sighed and looked down at my hands which started to be full of callouses, besides the physical training, Mikutsuhi also made me train with a rusted sword, making me hack at trees at random.

I didn't understand what this training was for, but having some familiarity with a sword was better than nothing.

My hatred for the bandits that captured my mother and killed my mother simmered inside of my body, I wasn't sure if they knew my plans of revenge, but if they were smart, they would surely think of something.

Unfortunately, I wasn't smart, so I had to endure until a good enough opening would appear, and I just started training, so there wasn't anything that could be done until years later.

*******************

Time passed as I trained, the color of the forest's leaves changed, snow dropped from the sky, the seasons changed, and my body grew gradually through the training that I was put to do.

As time passed, years went by and now I was 15 years old, 8 years passed since the fateful day when my parents were killed, and I had already led quite the life as a bandit.

I pillaged and killed according to the leader's instructions, my bodily strength was robust enough to fight it out with the commoners, easily being able to hack them to death under the sword that I was gifted by the leader when I became 15 years old.

The darkness in my heart remained as deep as when I saw my father's head fly into the sky eight years ago, I still planned to kill all of the bandits regardless of how they treated me now.

We were all 'brothers in arms', but I knew that if something bad happened, they would all scatter like frightened birds.

The life of a bandit was a simple one, kill and pillage, nothing else needed to be said, the people that died within my hands since I became 10 years old numbered in the hundreds, and the leader always looked at me with a peculiar eye.

His silver hair already showed his advanced age, but his back started to crook, and things started to look even worse for him as he aged.

My opportunity to avenge my father was coming closer and closer.

One fine night after a successful pillaging, everyone went to sleep after they knocked themselves out with alcohol.

There were no lights in the main camp of the bandits where I was transferred by Mikutsuhi after my training was complete.

The biggest tent in the camp still had light shining from it as I slowly approached before entering it.

The leader of the bandits had a bottle of alcohol in his hands as he looked at me with his lone eye, piercing directly through my soul.

It was obvious he was expecting me.

I took the sword tied from my waist and approached him while he stood still with the bottle of alcohol in his hands.

A sudden eye twitch from him made me almost drop the blade from my hands, but I rushed quickly towards him and thrust my sword forward into his heart, killing him instantly and making him unable to say the things he wanted.

His lone eye looked unwilling as all of his life signs stopped, I quickly removed his head from his neck before I went from tent to tent, doing the same to all of the intoxicated bandits.

I knew this was my first and best opportunity to rid the mountain of this scum.

I was already a criminal because of them, and that angered me quite greatly, wherever I would go, the law would go against me for the sins I have done, and without paying an expensive fine or serving jail time, I wouldn't be absolved of what I had done.

A sigh left my mouth as the last bandit died under my bloody sword, the stench now permeating the whole camp, however, I was now used to such bloody scenes. After decapitating him I then put all of the heads of the bandits on stakes that I prepared beforehand for this situation, encircling the bandit's camp with them.

After that, I decided to loot everything of worth that was left after the party, along with the stash of the leader, and leave this damned place once and for all.

My life as a bandit was done from now on!

But I knew there was nothing else I could do with the set of skills I acquired, and it would be a lie to say that I didn't get addicted to the adrenaline of fighting and pillaging.

Even though my hatred for the bandits remained, my personality warped and molded me into another villain!

But so what? Since I became a villain, I might as well be a good one!

My parents died, and the people who killed my parents were in turn killed by me, but I wasn't satisfied.

My mother was still out there, and I wanted to meet her once again, or at least find her body if she was dead.

This was my new goal!

I wanted closure before I moved to bigger things, Mikutsuhi told me that I was talented and that I should be able to become a warrior if I continued to train properly, but he didn't say anything beyond that.

I sighed as I looked back at the bloody camp that I left behind. My path would start from here!