The Snake Bandits (1)

"Waaah..."

"Waaah~ Mommy..."

"Hush now. Don't cry."

"....."

Kanisia could not hide the turmoil in her heart ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as she looked at the weeping children.

Their parents were criminals — that much was beyond dispute. They had colluded with the Snake Bandits, the notorious gang operating out of Baidu, harming countless people and plundering their wealth. It was a crime that admitted no defense, and Kanisia knew it as well as anyone.

"I want Daddy... Mommy..."

"....."

But the children's sobs still cut her to the core. Their parents were thieves. The children were not. Could she really hand these kids over to Baidu and let them be made into slaves? They still needed an adult's protection. These fragile little ones would never survive the brutality of a slave's life.

But...

If it were up to her heart alone, she would have set them free. She knew, though, that that was no good choice either. The only people who could serve as their guardians were three of the children's mothers. A woman — and not even a Master — could not possibly look after this many children on her own. No matter which path she chose, only the worst outcomes awaited. That truth weighed heavy on Kanisia's heart.

"Master. Lady Aquaril has arrived."

"...Has she? Wait—"

Roused from her thoughts by Abraham's words, Kanisia realized Aquaril had come alone.

"Where's Alan?"

"Master said he has business to attend to, and that you should go on ahead to Baidu."

"What kind of business?"

"He did not say, so I do not know."

"I see..."

"And, Lady Lora."

"Yes?"

"Master left a message for you."

"A message?"

Aquaril nodded and relayed Alan's words.

"'Do whatever you want. Take your time coming back if you need to — just make sure you do it right. And grab some Melona on your way.' That is what Master asked me to tell you. He also sent this along."

"This is..."

Kanisia's eyes went wide as she checked the pouch Aquaril handed her. Inside were several gold bars, each worth a million gold.

"Ah..."

The moment she saw the gold, Kanisia understood why Alan had sent it. She also realized he had seen straight through what she was thinking. She could not count the exact amount, but it had to be at least ten million gold. With this kind of money, they could open a small shop. It would be hard, but at the very least they could carve out a way to live in Baidu. And it did not even have to be Baidu. There were plenty of villages nearby.

"You idiot..."

Kanisia smiled as she looked at the glittering gold pouch. How did he always know her heart so well? If Alan had been standing here right now, she would have kissed him breathless.

They set off for Baidu with the women and children in tow.

She's gotta be head over heels for me by now, right?

Aquaril should have arrived by now, and Kanisia would have gotten my message.

Spending twenty million gold on a bunch of bandit wives and their brats was a goddamn waste. But if that was what it took to completely win Kanisia's heart, it was a profitable trade. And through this whole affair, I had gotten a crystal-clear read on her values. She did not hesitate to kill her enemies, but she was endlessly soft when it came to children. Play that well enough, and I could steer Kanisia however I wanted.

Profit. It's profit. Ugh... yeah. Let's just think of it that way.

It still made my guts burn with how much it cost, but what else could I do? I had to console myself somehow.

Still, I ransacked the houses thoroughly, trying to recoup even a little of the loss. Given how many people they had murdered and how much they had stolen, each house yielded as much as a hundred thousand gold. All told, I came away with seven hundred and sixty thousand. It was a drop in the bucket compared to the twenty million I had given Kanisia, but hey — something was better than nothing.

Goddammit... nothing else worth taking?

Aside from the money, there was not much worth pocketing. They had clearly killed people and taken their weapons, but I could not find a single one. They had either stashed them somewhere else or already handed them over as tribute to the Snake Bandits.

"Tsk..."

Whatever. Status window.

I checked the status window, but nothing had changed. I had killed a lot of people, but they were ordinary, low-level civilians. I had not gained much experience at all.

This is why I hate killing regular people.

Anyway. Confirming that nothing had shifted, I dismissed the window and sank into thought.

Hmm... what do I do about this? I'm starting to want to summon a Fairy.

The four of us — me, Aquaril, Kanisia, and Abraham — could not keep traveling like this forever. If I was going to fight kings and queens with real power behind them, the Palos's Bird, and the Ferdium Empire, I needed a force that could stand against them.

Until now I had refused to summon a Fairy because I needed to concentrate every resource into growing as fast as possible. That was no longer the case. All of us had hit three-star, which meant Growth Stones of the Lower grade could no longer raise our stats. We were not ready to clear a C-rank dungeon either — for that, we absolutely needed a mage or a healer to hold the back line.

So we would have to keep running D-rank dungeons, and D-rank dungeons dropped both Lower and Medium Growth Stones. The only ones we actually needed were the Medium stones, which meant the Lower ones were dead weight. Would it not make more sense, then, to summon a Fairy now and create a sink for all those leftover Lower stones?

Yeah. Let's summon.

I was going to have to summon a Fairy eventually. Doing it now was not a bad call.

"First, let's top up the gems."

I burned ten million gold to add a thousand gems. The only reason I could pull the insane, life-risking stunts I did was because gems let me come back from the dead. I always had to keep enough on hand for a resurrection.

A ten-pull is the standard play, but...

Summoning a single Fairy cost three hundred gems. Choosing a ten-Fairy summon brought that down to two thousand seven hundred — a savings of three hundred. But if I picked the ten-pull just to save three hundred gems, I was finished. Well, not finished, exactly. But the gates of hellish hardship would swing wide open.

We were already bleeding a fortune on Growth Stones, items, and living expenses. Add ten more Fairies on top of that? We would be tightening our belts until they snapped.

When the hell would I even raise ten of them?

Extreme ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠diversification across ten Fairies was a loser's game. Even if I pulled a one-star, adding just ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a single Fairy was far more economical. Even a Fairy with no talent could be raised into something useful if you poured enough care and hard work into them.

But if I'm doing this anyway, I want a useful one! One loaded with traits! Fairy summon, let's gooo!

I called up the status window and selected Summon Fairy (x1).

A prompt appeared.

"What the fuck is this?!"

What the hell was that supposed to be?

"Am I fucking Iron Man?! First Uroboros and now this — why the hell do you love three thousand so much?! What is this, I love you 3000?!"

I was pissed off three thousand times over.

"Brothers, I'm begging you. Please, just a little faster..."

"We're already going fast. This fucker just won't shut up, will he? ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠You wanna get buried in the sand?"

"I-I'm sorry..."

A murderous glare and a thick, wet threat sent Gios's head ducking toward the ground. He was a resident of Jert — the village Alan had turned inside out — and a low-ranking member of the Snake Bandits.

He had taken Alan's party for prey. They had been far stronger than he imagined. When the friends who went to kill them got slaughtered instead, Gios turned tail and ran. Running faster than the others was the only reason he had walked out of that massacre alive.

He had barely escaped the village and was making for the Snake Bandits' stronghold when he ran into the Third Squad, out on patrol. On foot, the stronghold was still two days away. He could call that lucky.

Gios told them Jert had been attacked, and the Third Squad turned toward the village. Whether Jert burned or not did not matter much to them. What mattered was that Alan's party had come hunting the Snake Bandits.

"Captain, look over there. That's smoke."

"Smoke? You're right."

"Ah... ahhh..."

The moment Gios saw the smoke rising in the distance, he dropped to his knees in despair. The direction it was coming from was Jert.

There was only one reason a village would be on fire.

"Tsk. Those bastards torched the village and ran, didn't they? Pick up the pace. I want to see the face of whatever son of a bitch came after our Snake Bandits."

"Yes, sir~!"

The bandits spurred their camels and left Gios kneeling in the sand, drowning in despair, as they raced for Jert.

It did not take the Snake Bandits' Third Squad long to reach Jert. They arrived at the village entrance — and did not go in.

"Release the snakes."

"Yes, sir!"

Tweee-wee-wee-wee~

At the captain's order, the bandits emptied a sack of venomous snakes onto the sand. One of them lifted a flute to his lips, and ten vipers slithered into the village.

"....."

The Third Squad waited outside. If Alan's party was still in there, the snakes would do the killing for them.

"N-no... NOOOOO!"

"Huh?"

That was when Gios, finally snapping back to himself, came sprinting toward the village in a blind panic.

"That idiot..."

"Leave him. If he's that desperate to die, not our problem. And if that bastard draws them out, even better for us, right?"

"True enough."

"The boss is going to lose his mind, though. A whole village, gone..."

In Baidu, people thought of the Snake Bandits as just another gang. The truth was they were far larger than anyone imagined. They held more villages than Jert alone, conscripting the young from each one and raising them as bandits. Near their stronghold they were clearing a dungeon, growing the Masters and Fairies under their command.

They had one goal: to take Baidu, the land of milk and honey, for themselves.

"Why's it so quiet, though? Don't tell me those bastards already—"

"AAAAAGH!"

"...They haven't run. All right, boys. We're going in."

"Yes, sir!"

A scream tore out of the village, and the bandits smiled thin, ugly smiles as they stepped inside.

"Ghk... *cough*! H-help..."

What they found was a mountain of corpses, stacked and burning — and Gios, collapsed beside it, both legs severed.

"The hell? Where'd they go? Mark! The snakes?"

"I-I don't know, sir. I've been playing the flute this whole time, but they're not responding."

"What?"

The captain's face twisted. And then —

Scrrrape. Drag. Scrape.

A sound came from somewhere. Something being hauled across the dirt.

A man in a clown mask came walking toward them, a blood-smeared sword trailing along the ground behind him.

The bandits knew it in their bones.

That was the one who had attacked Jert.