NOVEL FROG Chapter 707 – Instability and Repercussions
“When a nation fell into political instability, those who suffered the most were always those on the bottom. For all their complaints of hardship those at the top still get to enjoy their life of luxury unbothered, unlike those who were less fortunate.” - Saying attributed to the Silver Maiden.
“The situation in the Empire must have been worse than we thought if things like these happened on their main roads,” noted Rhys in a rather disappointed manner as he used his magic to heal the dying man before him under Aideen’s guidance. “Usually the main roads would be the ones kept safe from shenanigans like these as a show of order and power from the state.”
The group happened to run across a robbery in progress, where a small three-wagon caravan – poor villagers seeking better opportunities elsewhere as their home village died out – were assaulted by a group of no less than twenty bandits. The villagers defended themselves desperately, as they knew they had no other way out, but never stood a chance against the more numerous and better-armed bandits.
Aideen and the rest came across the scene just as the surviving bandits – the villagers managed to take down four of the twenty, to their credit – were dragging out the women and children hiding in the wagon. The elven siblings and Kino had sharp hearing, so they heard how the bandit leader said how he was planning to do unspeakable things to the women and children while the other defeated, dying villagers were forced to watch without being able to do anything.
That was all Eilonwy needed to know as moments later her undead constructs swept through the surprised bandits and crushed them on the spot.
“It’s likely not a recent thing,” noted Aideen as she guided her grand-nephew through the healing process. Aideen herself had taken care of the dying villagers who were in critical condition, though they arrived too late to help some of them, and left the less critically injured for Rhys to practice on. “The scandal we heard about was a decade ago, remember? If there’s political instability here, it’s likely been brewing over the past ten years or more, so no surprise it got this bad.”
“Fair point, I guess. Just not expecting it to have deteriorated to the point that people would rob and murder in broad daylight like this, on the main roads, no less,” replied Rhys with a shake of his head, his magic working on mending injuries on the bodies of two villagers even while he talked. “I’m just glad we happened upon this in time to help at least some of these folks.”
“You could call it their luck, Rhys,” noted Áine as she returned from helping Eilonwy and the others round up the bandits. Eilonwy had not gone for the kill and just incapacitated them instead, as she had plenty of leeway to do so. The bandits were being interrogated to check if they had captives in their base or anything similar, in a not particularly pleasant manner.
Though the intimidation from the undead constructs alone was plenty to make many of the bandits answer whatever they were being asked about, which made things easier as well.
As it turned out, the bandits did have a base not too far away, hidden in the depths of the forest to one side of the road. They had no captives as they were used to directly killing all their victims and leaving no survivors, to minimize the risk of their being reported and discovered. The wild animals would clean the bodies for them while the wagons would be dismantled and used as firewood at their base.
Some amongst the bandits who were not as horribly intimidated by Eilonwy’s undead constructs were begging and pleading with all sorts of arguments to let them off. They said everything they could think of, from promises that they would never do such crimes again, to literally begging for their lives, to pseudo-philosophical arguments meant to make others pity them.
“Look, Missy, if you kill us you won’t make a dent in the number of murderers in this world, you see, eh? You’d just take our place instead and keep the number the same!” said one of the bandits, the man that Aideen suspected might be the leader or vice leader of the bandit group. One way or another, the man was the one most active when it came to pleading for their survival, as he likely noticed how Celia and Kino were looking at the bandits with killing intent in their eyes.
“Yeah! You’d be no better than us if you do that!” chimed in another bandit from the side, probably emboldened by the lack of painful deaths so far. Eilonwy’s undead construct had broken bones and roughed up the bandits, but otherwise avoided killing them since they were weak, which gave her plenty of leeway to take care of them without resorting to deadly force.
“You know, that’s a pretty clever argument,” said Kino with a smile on her face as she leaned over to the bandit who chimed in just earlier. She raised her index finger, claw out, and used it to make the bandit raise his chin and look up towards her, eye to eye. “Too bad you’re using it on the wrong people. That might have even worked if you’re dealing with some naive adventurers with bleeding hearts or other amateurs.”
As she said those words, a paper-thin disc of void magic formed, overlapping the bandit’s throat. He still had the same baffled look on his face as his head slid off his neck a moment later, and his features contorted to a surprised one in the few moments of life he had before the light went out of his eyes for eternity.
“That bit about the number of murderers is actually a very good point,” said Celia as she in turn brought her massive sword-staff out and directly split the head of one bandit in half like an overripe fruit, spilling brain matter and blood on the ground. “Too bad, you didn’t really consider that this isn’t exactly our first time either, you know?”
“For that matter, there’s actually an easy solution to that dilemma you presented anyway,” Celia added as she and Kino methodically slew the bandits one after another, leaving their mouthy leader for last, who was watching the whole process with horror in his eyes. “All you have to do to actually reduce the number of murderers in this world is to not stop at killing just one of them.”
