After getting a ferry across the Aurus River, Zelos got back onto his Harley-Sanders and Ado, Shakti, and Lisa into their kei car to resume the trip to Hasam.
The way they were heading—toward the Far-Flung Highway—was the shortest route there, but it came with its own issues. In fact, the party was finishing off one of those issues now.
“Fireball.”
“GWAAAAAARGH!”
Most bandits didn’t try to size up their targets. They just saw a traveler, attacked, and expected the rest to work out.
Maybe it was recklessness, or perhaps overconfidence...but the distinction didn’t matter now. The criminals didn’t even realize their mistake until they were at death’s door.
With no fort or town nearby, simply incapacitating the bandits wasn’t really an option. In this kind of situation, most people would just finish the criminals off and either burn their bodies to ash or bury them in a hole.
Otherwise, the corpses could fester and cause an epidemic, or attract monsters looking for a meal.
“That should do it,” Ado said.
“If these guys had just gotten a proper job, they wouldn’t have had to die. Why do people even do this sort of thing?” Zelos sighed. “Not to mention the hassle they cause everyone else.”
“I’m pretty sure the only people who become bandits are the ones who can’t work a proper job,” Ado replied. “Isn’t that why they turn to crime? Because it’s all they know how to do?”
“Which came first—the chicken or the egg? Well, they’re a nuisance either way, I suppose.”
“Yeah. You’re right.”
The dozen or so bandits who’d attacked were now black stains streaked across the ground.
The average bandit had never had any good prospects for their future. They were the second or third sons from farming villages, for example, or second sons from merchant families who stood no chance of inheriting the family business.
Farmers always had the option of cultivating new land, but some people avoided that kind of hard labor at all costs, and after long enough, they’d break bad.
They reaped what they sowed, really—not that the average bandit was conscientious enough to realize that. Instead, they’d just blame society and vent their anger on merchants and travelers.
Of course, the government had no problem with people injuring or killing these sorts of criminals in self-defense.
While bandits could be scary in numbers, they were basically amateur fighters without any special skills.
The real danger came when failed mercenaries joined a bandit group. Having a real combat veteran in its ranks made any gang much harder to subjugate. Just a single mercenary could be enough to get the bandits to fight as a cohesive unit.
There’d been one such failed mercenary among the bandits Zelos’s party had just defeated.
“Mercenaries stooping to banditry... What a sorry sight,” Zelos said. “If they’d done their jobs right, they could’ve made more money as mercenaries. Idiots.”
Ado gave him a look. “Uh... I know it’s weird to say when I just joined you in killing all those people, but you’ve really got no chill, do you?”
“Anyone who makes a living by killing others should expect someone to return the favor eventually, no?” Zelos said. “I feel like it’d be rude to hold back against them. In fact, purging them with all we’ve got is a token of respect.”
“What?! What do you even— Nobody wants to die! If they did, they wouldn’t have become bandits in the first place!”
“What they want doesn’t matter. You can’t afford sympathy when you’re dealing with people willing to kill innocents. Besides, if they were too incompetent to realize their would-be targets were going to massacre them, forget being bandits—they weren’t even cut out for being mercenaries.”
“You know, maybe you should’ve given them this lecture before you killed them.”
Most bandits were in it to make a quick buck. They’d start with theft, progress toward more serious crimes over time, and eventually become murderers.
If anything, their inexperience only made it more dangerous to show them any sympathy. You never knew what a small-time outlaw might do next.
Sure, experts were their own kind of trouble—but at least they were predictable. You could trust them to know what was best for them and avoid pulling anything stupid, but amateurs were brutally volatile.
“These types of criminals—no principles, no convictions, all spur-of-the-moment decisions—are such a pain,” Zelos said.
“I guess,” Ado said. “But aren’t the ones with convictions even more trouble? Since they’re fighting for something? Anyway...did you really need to kill every last one of those guys?”
“If word spreads that an entire gang was slaughtered down to the last man here, it’ll keep this region safe for a while. Sometimes, excessive force can save lives in the long run. Though of course, that’s not to say you should kill every single enemy you come across.”
Too many people fell victim to bandits along highways. Solo travelers in particular were prime targets.
And all crimes of this sort—from the sudden, impulsive attacks to the carefully planned ambushes—were real headaches for those in charge of public safety.
At least the attack on Zelos’s party had come as they’d just started to make camp, when they were beginning to prepare a meal. If the attack had come just after they’d finished eating, things would’ve turned out a lot worse.
Shakti was already cowering and looking nauseous, and Lisa had outright fainted. It was hard to blame them, though, given the carnage they’d just seen.
“You’re handling it better than I would’ve thought, Shakti,” Zelos said. “Meanwhile...” He glanced toward Lisa. “Her? Fainting in the middle of an ambush could get her killed.”
“We’ve been attacked by bandits before. More than once. And Lisa’s fainted every time. To her credit, though, I haven’t seen her faint during the attacks,” Shakti said.