A Familiar Taste 3
Having cleared the threat of Han Se-ah's stream getting banned, we headed back down to the 35th floor with the three bandits in tow. Fortunately, no monsters had respawned along the path we'd already cleared, so we were spared the hassle of fighting while dragging along a trio of dead weight. Grunting and groaning, the bandits were hauled all the way to the 35th floor.
"Hmm, Brother? Could you explain the situation? …I have a rough idea of what happened, given that you're traveling with Sister, but still."
"Yes, I'll explain, Brother."
Three men with blood streaming down their forearms, bound in rope and dragged along — the Temple knights stepped forward at once. But the moment Irene, in her nun's habit, came forward from behind me, their eyes softened in an instant.
Perhaps because religion in this world carried more weight than blood ties, regional connections, or school alumni networks ever did in my previous life — the Temple knights believed Irene without a shred of evidence the moment she testified that she'd been attacked. Not a hint of hesitation.
Even through their helmets, you could feel their faces contorting as they ground their teeth and took the bandits off our hands. If no one had been watching, they looked ready to beat the bandits to death right then and there.
"…Has something unpleasant happened, Brothers?"
"Ah, well—"
Irene had sensed it too. After handing over the bandits, she put the question to the Temple knight. Attempting to rob a nun and getting caught without putting up a real fight was one thing — but for them to be this furiously angry, there had to be a reason.
Realizing too late that he'd failed to keep his emotions in check, the Temple knight awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. One of the knights led the bandits off toward the miniature temple, while the one still scratching his neck lowered his voice and began to explain.
"Come to think of it — you're Sir Roland, who aided us in the Holy Crusade. Forgive me for not recognizing you sooner, Brother."
"Ah, it's fine. If it's not too much trouble, could you tell us what's been going on on the 35th floor?"
"In a single day, we've already received more than five reports of bandit attacks. And if five people managed to escape and report it, that means far more Brothers have suffered without even being able to get word out."
Just as I thought — a whole wave of bandits had come pouring up.
What the Temple knight said next lined up almost exactly with the guess I'd made earlier. The side effect of the Temple knights carving a direct path from the 30th floor all the way to the 35th.
Intermediate-grade adventurers who'd been operating on the 30th floor and below had decided to gamble against the sluggish undead. Lizardmen could fillet an intermediate-grade adventurer with those scimitars of theirs, but lizardman skeletons were so slow that with a little preparation, they were actually easy to handle.
Instead of struggling to kill spiders and bats in caves, you could bring a consecrated blunt weapon and farm skeletons for far better money. Temple knights were patrolling the area, and undead were much slower than spiders or bats, so there was no risk of getting your ankle snagged while running away.
Those intermediate-grade adventurers, unable to resist the temptation, had come up past the 31st floor — and the bandits hunting them had come swarming after. On top of the adventurers, merchant caravans and construction laborers were milling about too, so the bandits had shown up like ants swarming a pile of candy, pockets already on their minds.
"Because of this, the Temple and the Adventurers' Guild may well put out a joint subjugation request. There are far too many of these wicked bastards who have forsaken the Goddess's will."
"Ah, I see."
"Yes. With your skill, Brother, there's nothing to worry about — but you'll have plenty of bothersome business for a while. May the Goddess's grace fill the path ahead of you."
"Yes. Thank you for the information."
Hearing all that, I understood why the Temple knights were so furious.
The Temple wasn't pouring gold into the ground between the 30th and 35th floors for any kind of profit. As a religious organization, they were running the Tower at a loss purely out of faith — and now parasitic bandits were freeloading off their work.
They'd declared a Holy Crusade for the Goddess, melted down the price of a castle into thin air, and broken through to the 35th floor — only for bandits to use the opening to rob adventurers blind? Climbing the Tower was done for the Goddess's sake, so bandits who obstructed that were no different from heretics committing sacrilege.
No wonder the Temple knights were grinding their teeth at the sight of those bound bandits.
"Still, it's fortunate some of them were brought in alive. Hang these scum at the entrance to the passage and they'll serve as a fine example."
Muttering that he'd need to find a carpenter and commission a gallows, the Temple knight strode off with a spring in his step. Han Se-ah murmured under her breath.
"Moments like this really drive home that the setting is medieval. I thought they were taking them for the bounty, but they were taking them to hang them up on display. And Irene unnie didn't even flinch at the word 'hanging.'"
"Come to think of it, do you guys run into bandits a lot? Counting the ones who jumped Roland-sensei on the lower floors last time and died to his reflection damage, this is only my second time."
"Hey, come on. Watching my stream isn't teaching you game info — it's just leveling up your skill at twisting everything I say. I ran into bandits, so of course I can be curious about how my viewers are doing."
While Han Se-ah chattered away with her viewers, Irene let out a sharp, decisive hup of breath. Fists clenched tight, lips pressed firm — she turned around with a face that looked like she'd just sworn some kind of oath.
"Hey, Hanna?"
"What is it, unnie?"
And then, bold as anything, she made her case to the party's leader, Han Se-ah.
"For a while — let's go crush some bandits!"
The Bandit Subjugation Campaign.
Irene's proposal sounded completely out of left field at first, but once you heard her out carefully, it was actually a logical and reasonable argument.
Our party's purpose, first and foremost, was to follow the Goddess's will and push through unexplored territory. We'd already secured support from the Temple, and the Temple had spent a fortune purifying the 35th floor. Han Se-ah's quest as a player pointed the same way — the cause for climbing the Tower was a religious one.
I mean, the Goddess literally descends in the main scenario.
"I can't just leave those lawless thugs who trample the hard work of our Brothers and Sisters under muddy boots and climb higher."
"She's right, honestly. We're climbing the Tower according to the Goddess's oracle, after all."
Katie nodded right along with Irene's passionate argument. Grace said nothing, but she didn't look opposed either. We had received an oracle from the Goddess, and the bandits were defiling that oracle — so we had to step in ourselves. That wasn't an opinion you could really argue against.
Sensing the mood, Han Se-ah played along and put a question to Irene.
"So we'd wander around hunting for adventurers who are out robbing people, unnie? Wouldn't that slow down our Tower progress way too much?"
"Um, well…"
As a streamer, Han Se-ah wanted to push through the Tower as fast as possible — that was where the question came from. But it also hit the nail on the head. Our primary duty was conquering the Tower and stopping the Demon King, not hunting down adventurers who'd turned to banditry.
As a party that had received an oracle, we couldn't just ignore bandits defiling the Goddess's will. But obsessing too hard over bandit hunting would, ironically, get in the way of fulfilling that same oracle.
Irene — naive enough that she had no real knack for these things — groaned and fretted as she fell into the dilemma. Katie and Grace watched her with soft little smiles. Eventually, Katie patted the fretting Irene on the shoulder and offered a compromise.
"Do you really need to overthink it that much? While we're exploring the 36th floor and looking for the passage up to the 37th, we just check every human presence Grace scouts in the area as we go. Even if we avoid fighting monsters, if it's a human presence we can verify whether they're bandits or not before moving on."
"Ah… that makes sense!"
"Right? Even the northern knight orders don't comb through every single mountain range when they're out suppressing bandits and keeping the peace. You can't just wander around forever with no information."
At Katie's words, Irene's cheeks flushed red as she finally realized she'd gotten carried away on pure enthusiasm. Being the youngest in the party, and with her somewhat childish streak, Katie had always been treated like a much younger little sister — so getting a talking-to from her was a little embarrassing.
Well, it wasn't a negative kind of feeling. If anything, she looked proud of Katie, so it was fine.
"Then, as Katie said — whenever we sense a human presence, we check it first."
"Good. From what the Temple knights were saying, it sounds like there'll be plenty of them crawling around."
Irene blushed and nodded at Katie's words, and Grace nodded in agreement as well. Monsters turned undead, plus adventurers turned bandits. Intermediate-grade bandits we could handle easily enough — but I really hoped no upper-grade adventurers had gone rogue.
Once your opponent was upper-grade, you couldn't just tank attacks bare-handed. You'd need a shield or armor to defend. No matter how tough my body had gotten, I still couldn't block mana-projected attacks without gear.
I wish I could freeload through life a little more…
Thinking something that would make anyone who overheard foam at the mouth in outrage, we decided to make a full circuit of the 35th floor. The Adventurers' Guild might have come up already, and the merchants might have put bounties on the bandits.