Bandit Suppression (4)
Glass exploded outward with a sharp crash as I leapt through the window, sword already swinging at the bastards who'd been about to torch the inn.
"You sons of bitches! Play with fire at night and you'll piss the bed!"
"Waaaaagh?!"
The inn was only two stories. I landed without a scratch. Honestly, at my current specs I could have jumped from five floors without even bothering to break my fall and walked away fine.
"Aaaagh! Somebody help me!"
"Don't you run! I'll kill you!"
"U-uwaaaaah!"
"....."
The people of Jert were shaking with fear, and they still pointed their swords at me. Whatever scrap of conscience I'd been nursing — that little voice asking whether I really ought to kill helpless people — died on the spot.
A proverb surfaced in my head at the same time.
The weak are not the good.
I had almost forgotten that, distracted by how much weaker they were than me. These people had colluded with the Snake Bandits. They had taken lives. They were monsters.
The moment they robbed and murdered alongside the Snake Bandits, they stopped being innocent. These guys — no. These things were bandits.
Status window.
I looked them over and pulled up their windows.
[Fairy Master] — Not Detected
Stats: Negligible
Skills: None
None of them had Fairy Master, the trait that marked a Master. Their stats were garbage. They had no skills worth naming.
I slipped the shield in my left hand into my inventory.
"Huh? His shield... it's gone?"
"W-what the hell? Did he just use magic?"
"Damn it! Kill him before he pulls something else!"
All I had done was put a shield away, and the village bandits were already spooked. With guts like that, how had they managed to be bandits all this time? Tsk tsk.
"Ahhh... I can hear them..."
"What?"
I let out a breath, half-lidded my eyes, put on a faintly vacant look, and let my sword droop toward the ground. Then, in that state, I murmured.
"The voices of the souls who died unjustly at your hands..."
"....."
"....."
The bandits just stood there, glancing at each other, caught in the words. They could feel the strange energy rolling off me. Someone swallowed hard.
"Revenge."
"Blood."
"And... death!"
"Uwaaaaaaagh!"
I twisted my voice into something grotesque and let out a shriek that punched straight through eight octaves. The village bandits recoiled in pure terror.
"Heeheeheeheeheek! Die die die die! Keeheeheeheeheek!"
Then I rolled my eyes back and charged them. The running form was straight out of Attack on Titan.
"Hwaaaaaaugh!"
"I-I can't fight a guy like that!"
"Great-grandpa! Great-great-grandpa! Grandpa Vincenzo! Please save me! Deliver your descendant from danger!"
The grotesque performance crushed whatever fight they had left. One of them started crying. Another flung his sword and torch to the ground and bolted for the edge of the village. A few more dropped to the dirt and started begging their ancestors for a clutch save.
"H-he's alone! Kill him! A ghost? There's no such thing!"
Not all of them were cowards, at least. A few still had the will to stand and fight.
"If we don't kill him, we're the ones who'll d— gah!"
I picked those ones out and cut them down. A couple managed to swing back, but I was not so slow that a sword driven by less than ten points of Agility was going to touch me.
Slash!
"Ghk...!"
I turned my body lightly aside, let the blade whisper past, and answered. Another bandit lost his life. After that it was nothing but a brutal slaughter. The ones outside who'd been trying to set the inn on fire either died or ran.
The truth was, with a level and stats crowding up against four stars, I could have killed every last one of Jert's failed-Master bandits without putting on a show at all.
And the reason I put on the show anyway was...!
A lion gives its all even when it hunts a rabbit!
...No. I just thought it was funny.
I might actually be pretty strong?
In this world, I am the weakest. If I fought Aquaril for real, one-on-one, I might even lose. I crush her in level and stats, but her skills sit higher than mine.
The reason I think of myself as the weakest is simple: so far I have only ever met and fought people stronger than me.
Come to think of it, I fought people stronger than me and I'm still alive. Ah. Right. I did die once.
Anyway. Among the strong I am the weakest, but among the weak I was the strongest. No matter how they thrashed, they could not even graze my collar.
And because of that, my mindset went light. Slack. Where else was I ever going to get to show this side of myself?
You need opponents this weak to pull off a madness act like the one I just did. Try that in front of someone stronger than you and you eat a sword for breakfast.
I am the strongest, baby!
Time to try a strongest-one cosplay of my own.
"Please spare me! I was wrong! I'm so sorry!"
"Hwaaaugh! Mommy..."
"I-it hurts... it hurts so much... m-my arm..."
"Begging won't save you! The blood vengeance isn't over yet!"
"Aaaagh!"
I wove through the bandits huddled on the ground, trembling, and danced with the blade in a trance. Blood sprayed in every direction. There was no mercy for bandits.
"More, more, more! I need more blood! Vengeaaance! Let the blood feud continue!"
It did not take long. Except for the ones who had fled, every bandit was dead.
But my sword still wanted blood. Time to hunt down the ones who ran. Or I could just walk into any house I liked and start swinging. The whole village was a den of thieves anyway.
"But why is it so quiet... ah?"
"Heh heh! That was fun. Can you still hear the vengeful spirits?"
"Ahem! I saw nothing, Lord Alan."
"M-Master... I-I didn't see anything either..."
"....."
It hit me all at once that the inn had gone quiet. I turned around, and there they were: Kanisia leaning on the window frame, looking down at me, and Abraham and Aquaril twisting their heads away with the most awkward faces I had ever seen.
Don't tell me... they watched... all of it?
"D-don't tell me. How much did you see?"
"Hmm... where was it again? Ah! That's right! From 'Ahhh... I can hear them...' That's where I started watching."
"Oh, fuck!"
That meant they had seen the entire thing from start to finish! Fuck, that's embarrassing! That's humiliating! Aaaaaagh! I could not stand the shame crashing over me. I smashed my way into the nearest house.
When dawn broke, the people of Jert were all gathered at the village chief's house. Whether every last one of them had shown up, I couldn't say, but it didn't matter. Anyone who skipped could die later.
Kids, adults, it made no difference. I had them all bound with rope and forced to their knees in front of the chief's house. Kneeling at the very front was the village's eldest and its representative: the chief himself.
"Hey, Chief. Don't you have something to say to me?"
"....."
I asked it with a bright, easy smile. He bowed his head, trembling so hard the tears looked ready to spill. He was wrecked by his son's death.
Among the bandits who had stormed the inn last night was Saxon, the chief's son. I hadn't seen it myself, but Abraham had beaten him to death.
Compared to those two, I'm an angel. An actual angel.
Beating a man to death with bare fists! In other words, they had hit him, and hit him, and kept hitting him until he died. A human body is tougher than people think. Killing someone with your bare hands is genuinely hard.
And yet that pink Master and her taciturn, secretly kind Fairy had gone and done the hard thing.
Next to those two, Aquaril and I — who had killed the bandits with swords — were gentlemen. Angels, even. At least we had the courtesy to finish them cleanly with a blade.
"Wow~ We almost got completely played. How is an entire village in cahoots with bandits? Or did the bandits found this village themselves?"
"W-we had no choice!"
"Hm?"
The chief was too shattered by his only son's death to speak, so a man bound behind him shouted in his place. That opened the floodgates. The rest of them started piling on, one after another.
"Th-that's right! We had to do this to survive! There was no other way!"
"The bandits were going to kill us!"
"And we sent people to Baidu begging for help so many times! They never sent anyone! If they'd just dispatched one of those fancy Fairies, we never would have gone this far!"
"Waaah~ Mommy~"
The villagers talked over each other, dressing up everything they had done. The adults got loud enough that the children, already terrified, burst into tears. It was five minutes of pure chaos.
"Shut the fuck up, you worthless pieces of shit! What the hell do you think you've done that's worth running your mouths about?!"
"Eek!"
"....."
I swung the sword and roared, and that finally shut them up.
"Khheh heh heh... you people are hilarious. You think any of that makes being in league with bandits okay? Did I hurt you? No. I didn't. I caught the bandits, if anything. So why did you try to kill me? Hm? Why, exactly?"
"....."
"....."
"You dogshit bastards. No — you're worse than dogs. You say you had no choice but to turn to banditry, and then you put sleeping drugs in the food? You try to burn down the inn?"
"Fuck off, you lunatics. If I had died right there — if my party had died — you would have just kept doing the same thing over and over, wouldn't you?"
"Hey. You pieces of trash. If you had even a shred of conscience, you wouldn't spew that garbage. It's disgusting to look at."
"....."
A heavy barrage of facts drove straight into their solar plexus. The bandits sat there like mutes who'd swallowed honey. Propaganda and slander never hit as hard as the truth.
"Let it end with my life alone."
"What?"
That was when the chief, still reeling from his son's death, lifted his head.
"These people are guilty of nothing more than following orders I gave them, because they had no choice. So kill me alone and spare the villagers."
"Chief! That's...!"
"Kh-hhk! Chief... hwaaaugh!"
"....."
The chief, offering his own life to carry every sin, and the villagers weeping, moved by his sacrifice. A scene so touching you almost needed a handkerchief.
"...These fucking bandits are still trying to pull something?"
It would have been touching, if they weren't bandits.
"Listen up, you fucking bandit uncles and aunties. You tried to kill me, and you failed. If you're going to kill someone, you'd better be ready to die yourself."
When I killed the Blood Father King and Haggis, I could have handled the situation with more flexibility. I already had a plan in place. All I had to do was wait.
But looking at those two deliciously strong prey, I could not keep the desire down. It rose in my throat like thirst. I could not endure it, so I staked my life and ate them both. I had to put my own neck on the line, but the result was sweet. It was delicious.
Yes. If you decide to kill someone, you had better be ready to die yourself.
That is how it should be.
What? I only threw that reckless play because I was confident I would come back?
Yeah. That's right.
I trusted the power to resurrect and threw my life away willingly.
But the feeling of a blade punching into my chest. The feeling of an axe splitting my waist. And... the feeling of myself dying, slowly.
Those filthy sensations are terrifying, and they hurt like hell.
Even if I can come back, I cannot look away from the sensation of death I have to face. How many people could meet death the way I do just because they happen to be able to resurrect?
I endured all of it. I bore it.
To take more, I felt the terror death serves you, and I died. I endured all of it, and that is why I became so much stronger.
"You fucking, conscienceless pieces of trash."
That is why I could not stand these people trying to justify themselves. They had clearly tried to kill me, and they were still cosplaying as well-meaning victims. It was nauseating.
Kill them all right now?
If I followed the feeling, I would round up every bandit gathered here and wipe them out. Not one left standing.
...Hah. No. I can't kill them yet. I am going to kill them, but there has to be a way to use them first.
I could just kill this garbage. But that would not make the numbers work. I needed to squeeze more out of them before the ledger balanced.
So what should I take?
"Alan~ We're baaack~"
"...Right."
Right on cue, Kanisia came walking up, dragging the two bandits who had been locked in the village prison. She tossed me a bright, cloudless smile, and a thought clicked into place.
Yes. That would make the numbers work.