Properly speaking, there are Bandits, the proper class-holding ruffians, and there are those who have merely turned to banditry. These three fell firmly into the latter category, not even attempting to use [Stealth], or any skill like it.
I began to suspect they didn't have any useful class. I had no ability to sense their classes, and hadn't restored my Reticule. But as I moved from shrub to shrub, following the squabbling uruk, I became certain of my suspicions.
Roughly one in ten people, but certainly not more than twelve in one hundred, never properly "break through". They receive no bonus points from their System, and they never experience the surge of power the rest of us do.
Did I have one of those, or did my starting levels for this life count? Was that all I was to receive this life?
No, focus. Focus.
Ah, the travails of [Curious]! At this point, any normal person would have just left. While harmless enough, the trio is still people, and still regard Rhishi as food.
But, it's a look at the bottom of the civilian barrel. In a land where quests deliver as much as ten experience, what happens to those who cannot collect? It's something I touched upon with Red Tarantula (Tarantula Sangre is properly Blood Tarantula), but with more subtlety and a happier ending.
I don't think it's a spoiler warning that bad things await the trio.
As always, thank you for your continued readership and support! It means more to me than the rumor of an ancient skill book.