“Deek…” Ruby started to give me a mouthful. “I don’t know what has gotten into you. This is not proper behavior for a lord! Rather, your cruel acts are foolish! He likely lied about the location of the troops! Plus, you just sent him right back to them. Now, they know who we are! Our presence will be known within the hour!”

“Enough, Ruby!” Shao glared.

“No!” Ruby snapped, grabbing me and glaring, “You’ve acted too cruelly, and… ah! Why are you crying?”

“That was scary!” I cried out, wiping my face.

Miki wrapped her arms around me and patted my head. “There, there… Master was very brave.”

“Scary! You’re the one who was scary!” Ruby cried out.

“Yeah, that was the point!” Shao snorted.

“Wait… what?” Ruby blinked.

“You didn’t know? But you put on a perfect foil? Constantly asking him to stop really helped sell it.” Carmine said.

“We were acting?” Salicia blinked.

“…”

I finished recovering from that moment. Even though we were putting on a show, it wasn’t like I was used to acting that way. It got to a point where I even scared myself a bit. It’d still take time before I could truly act that decisive.

“To answer your question, the map is pointless.” I crumpled it up.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

“Ah! But…” Ruby reached out, her eyes wide and her mouth open.

I had drawn the map from my own Map magic, so it would never be as detailed. Furthermore, my Sense Life had a good distance, so I already knew the answer to those questions. In fact, I only detected people in half of the places he indicated. The reason I had him tell me was for misdirection. The reasons behind it were many.

First off, if I just magically kept wiping out troops, they would begin to guess I was using Sense Life, and perhaps even use something that blocked it, rendering my ability moot. Now, if I attacked, they’d assume that I was visiting the places he indicated. Then, they would react to that to try to ambush me. Since I could catch any ambushes with Sense Life, we wouldn’t be threatened at all. The second reason was to give the leaders the impression I was dumb and foolish. The third was that I wanted them to know my identity. The fourth was to start familiarizing them with me.

Miki had used fear attacks on their minds while they were unconscious. Meanwhile, I had changed all of their jobs to something more vulnerable and low level. They’d need a Priest to reset their job to Bandit at the very least. Furthermore, they had been filled with a sense of dread and fear by seeing us. This was really just the beginning, though. I didn’t want to explain my entire plan to Ruby though. She was really just along for the ride. Besides, it was useful getting a view from someone who didn’t know everything. It helped me better guess how I was being perceived and let me know when I was on the right track.

“That girl in Regency had already said it. The waves of bandits are endless. Even with ways to kill them permanently, or send them as captives, it won’t be enough to stop them. I’m not here to kill a bandit or two. I’m here to end the bandit threat that has plagued southwest Aberis for years. If I act too aggressively, they’ll flee to other parts of the country to find better prospects until I leave. If I act too passive, I won’t even make a dent. Thus, I’m walking a fine line here.”

“Deek…”

“Do you think the bad guys see that powerful good guy as the hero?”

“Huh?”

I shook my head. “I don’t. Sometimes, you have to be the villain, to be the hero.”

“…” Ruby looked away, not knowing how to respond.

“Let’s go. It’s time to make an impression.”