The thin scream of a woman awoke Wooyoung. Within a second, he sat straight as an arrow in his bed and looked around in a panic.

His memories took a moment to catch up with his befuddled mind. Once his gaze had swept to Yeosang, spread out with wild hair on the pillow next to him, he remembered his arrival in Nottingham. He hadn't got too drunk last night, so his mind instantly jumped back to the matters at hand when he scrambled out of bed. The fearful neighs of horses and yelling of men outside had him step over Yeosang to open the window on the other side of the man's bed.

For a fracture of a second, Wooyoung got to peer outside onto the street. The marketplace was in mayhem and people, as well as chickens, ran around without a goal. The woman on the stand opposite Ada's house had got captured by a sinister-looking man in a cloak who trapped her arms to her stomach. As she screamed for help and twisted her body, her terror got swallowed by that of the general panic. Men ran from the dark-clothed group that chased them around and startled the horses.

Wooyoung wanted to grasp the situation to figure out what was going on, but an arrow whizzing past his ear interrupted him. The fletching ripped a shallow scratch into his cheek. With a thud, it embedded itself in the wall behind him as he ripped his head down. With hasty fingers, he closed the window before he rocked Yeosang awake.

"Wake up! We're under attack! They are robbers!"

Another shove at Yeosang had the man blink his eyes open finally. Relieved, Wooyoung sat back, but his body remained taut as a feather. Ready to jump, he strained his ears to the noises downstairs. Some men must have entered the house they were in already. Wooyoung believed to hear Ada screaming and cursing at their existence. Wood crashed, but it didn't sound like a fight just yet.

Yeosang jerked fully awake when the direness of the situation finally reached his brain. When he hissed at Wooyoung to take refuge in the closet, Wooyoung sprung to his feet faster than he had ever been before. He ducked into the closet cluttered with Yeosang's clothes, books, and cleaning utensils. As he pulled the doors shut in front of him, he saw Yeosang slither under the bed on his stomach.

They were not a second too early. The moment Wooyoung held his breath and retreated into the darkness of the closet with his hands pressed to his lips, the room's door flew open. Its bang against the wall made him flinch, but he knocked nothing over.

"I'm telling you to leave it be! Only some lonely scholars live under my roof! Nobody with enough money worth to steal would ever even as much as glance at them!"

With thin breaths, Wooyoung listened to Ada complain. She must have followed the bandits into the room. As long as she lamented, she was healthy.

"We just shot an arrow at a boy up here," a gruff male voice replied. When they spotted said arrow embedded in the wall, Ada gasped in offence.

"More for me to fix! Why do you people make life for those of us who already have so little extra hard?"

Heavy steps thumped through the room. They closed in on Wooyoung and he forced back his terrified squeaks. His heart hammered in his chest and he could barely breathe, but he allowed no gasp to escape his lips.

"My men saw a wayfarer with one of your residents last night. He looked too well kept to belong to the lowlives of the city."

"I'm telling you-"

Wooyoung didn't hear the rest of Ada's sentence when the doors in front of him got ripped open. With terrified eyes, he stared up at the tall man. Beard stubble shadowed his chin and cheeks. His dark eyes were vicious, like those of a snake under his hood. Wooyoung's gaze flinched between his triumphant look and the knife on the man's belt.

"Hi, kid. What do you have there?"

Wooyoung pressed into the corner of the closet to become as small as possible. He must have looked unkempt because the man completely overlooked him to dig through the books next to Wooyoung's feet.

"Oh well, at least you got books to offer. Your donation is for a good cause. They are no immense loss, just write them anew." With a pile of books on his arm, the man pulled back. He slammed the doors shut in front of Wooyoung's face; that was still white as a sheet.

For a moment, he had thought he would become a sacrifice once more.

"Fine! Take them and get out of my house! You did enough damage already!"

"Sheesh, we're going. The damned landlady is more terrifying than the sheriff," another man replied. They shuffled off and a few moments later, the door downstairs shut. The rogues took their plundering further down the street.

Knees soft as jelly, Wooyoung collapsed into the closet. Everything had happened too far for his mind to catch up and the shock left him speechless. When Ada pulled open the closet doors a moment later to free him, she threw him a pitying gaze.

"I'm sorry for the mess. They never came here before."

While she helped Wooyoung crawl out of the closet, Yeosang rolled out from under the bed. He was not as pale as Wooyoung, but his hands no less frantic when he dashed to his decimated staple of books.

"No, no! They took the most precious ones!" Despair blended into his shrill voice. His hands clawed at his messy hair and pulled at it in frustration.

"I can't rewrite those; they are long dead legends. Argh! Wooyoung! Those were what I needed to tell you!"

Defeated, the two boys sat on the ground. Ada was less concerned with the books. Under mumbling and cursing, she pulled the arrow from the wall and squeezed the broken splinters of the wooden beam it had damaged back into place as much as possible. She took off to fix the rest of the destruction done to the house while Wooyoung and Yeosang still sat on the ground like two discarded dolls.

Wooyoung's hands still trembled from the spook, but he caught himself faster this time. Nothing had happened to him. After his time with the Vikings, he had grown more resilient to such stress.

"They were the most precious ones in my collection," Yeosang wailed into his hands. Wooyoung reached out to pat his shoulder with as much comfort as he could offer.

"What now?" He whispered. Since he had barely talked today, his voice was still gruff from sleep.

"We need to get them back! It's time for our own adventure!" Yeosang slapped the flats of his palms on the ground on either side of him. Not convinced, Wooyoung looked between Yeosang's solo performance and the window. Outside still ruled chaos, even if it ebbed off gradually. Where was the sheriff when the city needed him?

"Are you sure we are the right people for that?" Wooyoung asked. The doubts in his voice made Yeosang glare at him. Not even his glare was threatening. Wooyoung would have loved to introduce him to literally anyone from San's Viking village.

"It's in our best interest. You need that research; I need my books back. And those rogues have no right to steal from those who also have nothing. I bet they can't even read!" Bold, Yeosang raised his chin.

Wooyoung rubbed the back of his head with a sigh. When he got to his feet, he shook out his nervous hands. Then he reached one out in Yeosang's direction. With big eyes, the man stared at it.

"Guess it can't be helped. Let's play heroes."

The men had seemed unwilling to kill. If they ran into trouble, Wooyoung could always flee and Yeosang could talk his way out of their predicament. As he said, they were no match worthy of a fight.

Gleeful, Yeosang snatched Wooyoung's hand. He jumped up with his help to direct his gleaming eyes at Wooyoung. With his small teeth, he looked like a plotting mouse, but Wooyoung didn't tell him that.

"Let's help Ada clean up first and see if anyone has information on the bandit hideout. And then bam!" Yeosang clapped his hands. "We squash them like flies!"

How they would squash an entire group of trained men like flies wasn't part of the plan. With a sigh, Wooyoung followed Yeosang as he strutted down the stairs with his chest pushed out.

They found Ada in the kitchen where she was busy cleaning up the spilt food from a pot that the bandits had knocked over. She threw colourful insults at them under her breath. When Yeosang and Wooyoung dived in to help her, she included them without thanks.

"Foul robbers. Say they steal from the rich to give the poor. And then they steal from the poor."

Her furious mutter had Wooyoung perk up in interest. That slogan sounded familiar to him.

After he had set the rag he had been cleaning the cabinets with back down in the sink, Wooyoung turned to Ada.

"They steal from the rich to give the poor?"

The woman scoffed. More of her hair had come undone and bothered her face. Every so often, she tucked the strands behind her ears with a huff.

"That's what they say, at least. You see how they kept their word. I hope they all burn in hell." Her scrubbing got more aggressive. Yeosang's weak brushes on the floor paled in comparison.

"What is their leader called? I might have heard of them before."

"He's Robin Hood. Bet he didn't even show up today. He uses his occasional charity as an excuse for his crimes, but in the end, it just causes more trouble for all of us. The sheriff will investigate us all again to find the members of his crew."

So it was that Nottingham. Wooyoung had been so busy admiring his welcoming surroundings he had completely missed the epoch he had landed in. And Robin Hood sounded nothing like what modern fairytales depicted him as.

"I heard of him," Wooyoung said to himself. Would he encounter the living legend? If they wanted to get Yeosang's books back before they got pawned off somewhere, they probably would have to trick Robin Hood and his men.

"Wooyoung agreed to go on a rescue mission for my work with me! Robin Hood may be notorious through the lands, but he wouldn't expect a thief stealing from a thief." Yeosang looked at Wooyoung for support. When Wooyoung smiled at him weakly, he nodded with satisfaction.

Robin Hood wasn't dangerous, right? Especially to those considered part of his class. Even if he made trouble for everyone and didn't give back what he stole, he didn't sound to be a murderer. Even his men had upheld some morals. Wooyoung hadn't seen blood getting shed or epoch-typical rape getting dealt out. They might have a chance if they were careful.

Not that Yeosang was the best companion for that. Ada had grabbed at the young man's ear by now and tugged while he whined at her to stop.

"What a fool you are! They are a group of men with weapons! Your books aren't worth your life! Whip that young brain of yours into action and rewrite as much of it as you can!"

Like a helpless kitten, Yeosang struggled against her and ultimately lost. His gaze wasn't broken. Through his sulking, he glanced conspiratorially at Wooyoung.

Wooyoung doubted this would go well.

After they had helped Ada clean up, she shooed them off to work on their things. She promised them free food for the distress and their help. Soon, Wooyoung and Yeosang were back in Yeosang's room and seated on the floor. On a piece of paper, Yeosang had drawn a wobbly map of the surrounding forests. A few trees dotted the area, and the city was depicted in a circle that had an N in it. On one end of the city, he drew the house they were in and an angry stick figure of Ada.

"Why don't we tell the sheriff to bring the books back? He will probably pursue the group," Wooyoung asked as he watched the other man draw. Wooyoung had tucked his tongue between his lips as he worked away.

"If he goes, then only in a month or two. He is too lazy to care about our losses and Hood is too smart for him."

With a finishing touch, Yeosang drew yet another circle southeast of the city. He tapped on it with his finger while he drew some stick figures and books.

"This is around where their hideout is. They live in the trees and caves. We will pursue them, sneak in, take the books, and back out. No weapons needed, just our wit."

Hesitantly, Wooyoung glanced at Yeosang's face. It was bright with the smell of adventure.

"Sure. Brilliant plan."