PART 1/2
The man, after so prodding, handed over his valuables. It felt nice, turning a mugging around on the robbers, even though he didn’t actually have much coin on him. Well, not much objectively. But to us, the five one-hundred-eyt coins he put in my hand almost doubled our haul from tonight. Plus, the satisfaction Ainash had when she stared down at the coins gave the impression she saw them as not only a resource to use, but also a trophy from defeating the “an guys,” as she called them. So I supposed that was a plus.
Once we took everything off of the man, I looked back over at him, restrained and on the ground. “You know the deal, right?”
“I never made no deal with you,” he spat.
“Oh, but you did. See, when you were alone and vulnerable, lying on the ground—like you are right now—and I decided not to kill you, that was us making a deal. A deal where, in exchange for you fucking off forever, you get your life.”
He scowled. “Fine. We’ll leave you be. No revenge. Now can you let go?”
“I don’t think you understand what I’m asking you to do. I’m not just saying ‘no revenge.’ That’s sothing you’ll do anyway if you value your lives. I’m saying that you do not interact with us. You do not talk to us. You do not look at us. You do not interact with law enforcent regarding us. If you see us hunting out here, you run off back to whatever hole you crawled out of. If we’re walking toward each other on the street, you cross to the other side. And especially, you do not mug, rob, extort anyone, ever again. And I know you probably won’t listen to , and you’ll go out and get your coin from the pockets of newbie adventurers. I get that. But I do want you to be afraid every single mont while you do so. Because if we ever see you even speaking to another adventurer in any sort of adversarial way, we will not hesitate to execute you where you stand. This is your one chance.”
“Alright, fine, I get it.” He averted his eyes from .
“I still don’t think you do. If you ever try to kill any of us, whether it's so ambush as a group, or tracking a single person down and targeting them while they’re isolated, we will not hesitate to find and kill every last person in your group. I will track down your hos, your families, and end them. I don’t care if they’re innocent. I will do it just to fuck you over. If a single one of us dies—for any reason—you are all dead. Got it?”
He took a shaky breath. “Look, I’m really sorry we tried to hit you. W-we didn’t know who you were. I-I dunno if you’re so famous adventurer from the kingdom or sothing, but I swear we didn’t know.”
“I don’t give a shit about what you knew. Now you know that if I ever catch you breaking any sort of law, be it murder or fucking tax fraud, you are dead. So, y’know. Move with caution.”
He nodded over and over, as though each nod had a better chance at reassuring .
“Okay. Now go find your little group. Tell them what I told you. And be absolutely sure they understand the weight of my promises. Because when I make them, I keep them.”
I sent a ssage to Ainash asking her to take off the bindings around his wrists, and the mont they were off, he pushed himself to his feet and scampered off.
Erani watched him leave alongside . “You sure you didn’t go too far with the whole threatening their families thing? Also, I do hope you realize I’m definitely not going out and killing random children if you die.”
“Oh, yeah, it was a total bluff,” I said. “But I’m not taking any chances. Obviously, I don’t want them to try and assassinate any of us or whatever, but I also don’t want to get involved with any sort of law enforcent. That’s just asking for trouble, when it cos to tracking our identities if we co forward as witnesses, or sothing. So I thought being as intimidating as possible would be the best way to keep them silent. Plus, if they stop trying to mug people, that’s definitely a bonus.”
“Yes, I’m sure they’re totally reford,” Erani rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, sorry for taking over that whole thing,” I said. “Didn’t really give you any chances to say anything you wanted to say. I kinda got into the role, y’know?”
“Oh, no worries, it was fun to watch you work. I would’ve gotten Ainash to ssage you if I needed to say anything.”
I chuckled. “Well, at least now we know how we’re doing things if we ever need to threaten more peoples’ families. Roles have been assigned. I’m the talking one, and you’re the muscle who stands in the back of the room nacingly.”
“Ideally we won’t need to fall back into those roles.”
“Hey, it’s always good to be prepared.”
Once we were sure none of the bandits were following us—which was sowhat easy, given the open nature of the surrounding fields—we got back onto the road back to the town of Salvation.
“Do you think we should stay outside with Ainash for tonight?” Erani asked as we walked. “I don’t want her to end up ambushed by those bandits.”
“Hm, that might be smart,” I said. “I tried my best to keep them from trying sothing stupid like that, but it’s still definitely a possibility. Maybe we should just run in to grab so food and supplies before coming back out here with her. Safety in numbers and all that.”
“Do not need to do that!” Ainash interjected. “I will be fine.”
“Are you sure?” I asked. “I an, if they decide to co after you…”
“an guys will not find if want to kill . I am very sneaky. Will go far far away from them, to other side of Human territory, and will be very careful to not be followed. Also, if an guys decide to try kill , that ans they are bad guys! And I will kill bad guys. So if they beco bad guys, I will kill them anyway.”
I sighed. Aside from her assertion that she’d just kill all of them, she did make a good point. As a native creature of the forest, she certainly had an advantage when it ca to moving without being noticed. So maybe the danger wasn’t as bad as I thought.
“It’s still a risk I don’t want to take,” Erani said. “If you need help, it’ll take way too long for us to get to you.”
“That is why you need focus on getting into Human settlent, not protecting while I am out of it. Protecting is only making problem not as bad, but putting into settlent gets rid of problem totally! So should spend ti trying to do that. I will be okay for now, because those Humans are stupid and weak. But if smart, strong Humans decide to beco bad guys, then we should be together inside of protected settlent. So put in there!”
Erani pursed her lips at that.
“I kind of agree with her,” I offered. “I an, in the long term, it is kind of a waste of effort to spend all of our ti out here protecting her from so random thugs that she’s most likely able to handle on her own. But if the Demons are able to infiltrate the empire and co after us, that’s when she’s going to be really vulnerable. We all need to be in a city—preferably so place with a good military—when that happens. Not still out here worried about bandits. If we spend the night in town, we can make sure we get an early morning start and head down to whatever place we need to go to in order to get that license to let her in, instead of spending all morning walking there.”
Erani nodded. “I suppose. But be sure to stay safe while you’re out here, alright?”
“I will!”
“Good,” she sighed.
As we walked, I suddenly got an unexpected notification.
Ti Loop has refreshed its uses.
Recycled Loop has activated. Due to 2 uses being leftover, you have gained the following Stats:
1 Strength, 1 Endurance
8 Stats remain until you must Level up.
“Oh, hey, there it is,” I said.
“There what is?”
“It just turned to midnight, so I got my uses of Ti Loop back. And the other two got recycled into Stats.”
“Right, I forgot about that,” Erani nodded. “So, if you got two today, that ans you can get eight more before you have to Level up?”
“Yep. Probably gonna stick with the plan of getting another Spell Crystal use from those guards tomorrow, too. So I’ll get another two then.”
“I’m sure you’re excited,” Erani laughed. “I need to get Spell Crystals for my Spell Upgrades, too. Just about locked out of practicing by now, since Firebolt is nearing 20.”
“That’ll probably be what we save up for soon, then,” I nodded. “Or maybe we’ll find so bandits with a couple of them on hand when we counter-rob them.”
Erani laughed. “Great idea. We should just rely on stealing from bandits to make all our money from now on.”
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