The guard captain began, "As you know, milord, there were ten bandits in total who had attacked the village."

Gorsazo interrupted, "But are you really sure that there were only ten bandits? What if there are more of them still waiting to attack us?"

Hudan shrugged. "Everything Calubo had told us has been true so far and I have found no holes in his story, so I have no reason to doubt his claim about there being only ten bandits in total. Even so, all the guards are still alert and ready to defend the manor if there is a need."

He continued, "Now, amongst those ten bandits, one of them was already killed by Calubo when he escaped from the bandits - which I have confirmed myself - and then he was the one who also killed the bandit archer who had been hiding near that body to keep us there - and the other three guards there have confirmed that as well. Apart from those two, I found out from the guards that they have found five other bodies of bandits in total. These are the ones who had come inside the village to loot grain and take slaves from here. Although I wish that one of them had survived for us to interrogate."

"I guess we can't help it now." Kivamus remarked. "But why didn't any of you try to keep one of them alive?"

Hudan shrugged again. "The usual procedure for any outlaws which have been caught is to hand them over to the Count, and he is the one who gives them a suitable punishment - which often includes maiming them and selling them into slavery somewhere far away - usually away from Cilaria, so they wouldn't have a way to escape to their old hidey-holes. The bandits would have known about that for sure, so I think that's why most of them were willing to fight to the death. The few who might have been willing to surrender were probably the ones who died of injuries. Even so, I did try to capture one of them without killing him, but I couldn't really do anything about it, my Lord, not when he simply didn't want to surrender."

Kivamus looked at Duvas for confirmation.

The majordomo gave a nod. "It's true, my lord. That's what we did as well. Whenever we caught any bandits or other wrongdoers in the past, we used to hand them over to the Count soon after that. I can't say what happened to them after that, but Hudan seems to have the right idea in general."

Kivamus nodded with a grimace. So that's what went as the criminal rehabilitation system in this world. If the caught thieves or outlaws didn't have hands anymore, they wouldn't be able to steal anything or kill anyone, would they?

He shook his head to get his mind away from the barbaric thoughts, and looked at the guard captain. "But that only adds up to a total of seven dead bandits. It still leaves three bandits who are unaccounted for."

Hudan grimaced. One of those is my fault in a way. There was a bandit - a huge one - whom Tesyb and I were fighting earlier, when he was trying to kidnap the children of the village merchant. I found out later that he was the leader of the bandits, called Nokozal. That bastard was so big that it wouldn't have been easy to defeat him even without Tesyb's injury, and we also had to make sure that he didn't take one of those children hostage, which prevented us from fighting at our best."

"What happened to him then?" Duvas asked with worry.

"He managed to run away from us during that fight after he got injured in his arm," Hudan replied, "although I still went after him. But on the way I saw another bandit threatening a woman, so I had to stop to help her, and I am not proud to admit it, but during that time, that huge bastard slipped away from me. Thankfully that woman is safe now, and the other bandit wouldn't see the light of the day again."

He continued, "Since none of the other guards saw Nokozal again, we have to assume that he ran away from the village. There are two more bandits whose location we have no idea about. They must have run away as well when they realized that the raid had failed."

"But the raid did fail, right?" Duvas asked.

"It's safe to say that it did," Hudan replied with a tired smile. "It will take a while to gather up those bodies and ask about everything from the villagers, but only three of the bandits managed to survive, so they couldn't have taken much with them, even if they managed to loot something."

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"Thank Goddess that they weren't able to loot much!" Duvas said while looking upwards.

"And what are the injuries on our side?" Kivamus asked, not knowing what to expect about it.

"We didn't come out unscathed for sure," Hudan answered, "but it could have been much worse. One of our guards got an arrow in his arm, so he won't be of use in a sword fight any time soon, but he can still keep watch where needed. Other than him there were two more guards including Tesyb who've got some light injuries, but they should be fine after a week or two of taking it easy."

"That's better than I thought," Gorsazo observed.

Hudan nodded. "It really helped that the villagers were in a high morale because of the feast earlier. That meant they were more willing to defend their homes and fight for the village than they would have been a few months ago. While the reports are still coming in from the guards who are out on patrol now, I have already heard two instances where the villagers who had some training with a machete helped to defend their neighbors. While they couldn't really fight with a bandit equally, but when a couple of villagers are ready with a machete to defend their families, the bandits - who were usually alone or only roaming in pairs of two, since they had to spread out throughout the village to loot as much as they could - usually move on to find easier targets elsewhere."

He continued, "Of course, the villagers outnumbered the bandits even in the previous raid, but it's all a question of morale. The last time the locals were hungry, weak and dejected after losing their coal mining jobs. So when the bandits came riding on their horses - with the guards only staying inside the manor instead of protecting them - most of the people just gave up after that. At that time even if some of the villagers had a few machetes with them, they still wouldn't have been able to stand their ground in front of the bandits."

He added with a satisfied smile, "But this time, the villagers know that there is a baron who looks out for them - with most of the villagers having seen a guard running here or there to fight with a bandit - not to mention that they were just coming from a feast, which most of them wouldn't have seen in their lives. That kind of treatment makes the people want to fight to protect their privileges and lifestyles. There is also the fact that even the little amount of training that we were able to give to those villagers gave them the confidence to stand their ground in front of the bandits, instead of just running away in fear."

Duvas gave a slow nod and looked at Kivamus. "I wasn't sure earlier if splurging so much of our food stores on a feast right before the winter would be a good idea, but after hearing about what happened tonight, I am glad that you suggested this feast, milord."

Kivamus smiled. "There is an old saying I've heard before - An army marches on its stomach. While the villagers are far from an organized army, having the satisfaction of eating a good meal regularly really helps the morale of people." He shrugged before adding, "I certainly didn't know that there was going to be a bandit attack when I announced the feast, but I do know that keeping your people well fed is much better than keeping them hungry - even at our own expenses."

After a moment, he continued, "That reminds me, I thought all the iron tools were returned to the manor in the evening after the day's work was done. So how did those villagers still have those machetes with them? You certainly couldn't have searched for them in the night to provide them with those makeshift weapons after we got to know about the imminent bandit raid."

"That was Feroy's idea," Hudan replied with a proud smile. "While all of our tools are indeed returned to the manor for safekeeping in the nights, he suggested that it would be a good idea to give those machetes permanently to those villagers whom we were giving some basic training, since it would allow them to familiarize themselves even more with their blade."

He continued, "This way, they could even practice whenever they wanted - since many of them are those people who wanted to become manor guards, but weren't selected in the recruitment - so they still would like to become a guard in the future. And it doesn't really eat up our stocks of tools, since there are barely half a dozen villagers to whom we gave the machetes, and they report to work with those same machetes every day."

"It was indeed a good idea," Kivamus remarked with a nod. "I am glad that Feroy thought of it."

Changing the subject, he spoke to the guard captain again. "Make sure to give a few days off to the injured guards. The man with an arm injury must be in enough pain that he wouldn't be too useful in keeping a watch anyway, even if he doesn't have to move around for it."

Hudan nodded. "Of course. And I have already requested Syryne to bring the few Losuvil leaves she had brought in the morning for your experiment to preserve them - but she didn't get a chance to do anything with them because everyone had to help to prepare for the feast. Those leaves would be very helpful for those guards tonight."

"That's certainly true enough. But where is Feroy?" Kivamus asked. "I thought he would be back by now."

Hudan looked towards the outer doors of the manor hall with a frown. "I'm not sure milord. He was talking with other guards near the gates when I came here. Let me check."