Ruby reached down and grasped a hunk of ash. “Still warm, this didn’t happen too long ago.”

“Perhaps last night? These fires took a while to burn all the way.”

The town was nothing but ash. Every building had burned down, some of them didn’t have a single wall standing. Those that did were black and cracked. The fires were probably set by accident. Anyone who thought the bandits were trying to hide their dirty deeds weren’t looking in the streets. Bodies lay in the streets, sometimes in rows like they had been systematically lined up and executed. There were women, children, and men who had all been dragged out of their homes and killed, whether they were holding a weapon or not.

“This is a slaughter.” Salicia said, her expression shockingly stoney.

“You disapprove?” Ruby snorted. “A Bandit King?”

“We steal money. We only kill to intimidate or protect ourselves. We’re thieves. This is a massacre!”

My eyes widened as I realized that Salicia seemed somewhat angry. Her eyes were red and her fists were trembling at her side. I reached out and touched her shoulder. She looked over at me and then calmed down.

“Salicia…” Carmine watched with a somewhat complicated expression.

“It’s not how I would have done it… that’s all.” She turned and walked away, heading away from the city where she didn’t have to see any more corpses.

Carmine turned to me. “This is like… our village. It was a similar event.”

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

That was right. The pair of them had their home destroyed by Bandits when they were just children as well. In that way, it was odder that Salicia went on to become a Bandit King. Yet, I suppose she did have her own way of doing things then. Most people were allowed to leave once giving up their wealth. People who fled were allowed to go. Compared to this kind of slaughter, it was preferred.

“Gather all the bodies.” I ordered.

We had expected that the city would be like this. When I had gotten the list from the elder, I didn’t just ask for every city and village that might still be around, but every city period. When Bandits wiped out a city, they were knowingly condemning that city to death. Without any relatives to try to bring you back, or anyone even aware you were dead, that was the original fate of all these people.

However, the Bandits had found some means of resurrecting themselves, and I did too. Although I had Dark Ceremony, which was the Dark Priest version of Resurrection, Miki had already unlocked Resurrection from her high-level Spiritualist. Originally, the spell had required fairy dust to use as a combination skill, but her Spiritualist eventually reached a level where Resurrection was possible without a mana additive. Now, the additive was simply an extra she used if the Resurrection needed to be stronger.

To explain it simply, when someone died, their spirit left their body and slowly started to degrade, fragmenting into pieces. If those pieces get too near to a curse, it may eat them up. The rate of decay involved many factors, which a general rule stated someone could be resurrected within one month of death. After a month, the chances of success dropped significantly. If you added frequent deaths, a damaged soul, or a cursed dungeon in the mix, and this rate dropped even more.

Resurrection could be seen like a vacuum, sucking up all the pieces and putting them back together. If someone’s soul was lost in a dungeon, it’d be like cleaning under the furniture. The vacuum couldn’t reach it and recover the pieces. The more mana and power behind a Resurrection, the stronger and better the soul can be pieced back together. To the villagers here who had only died a day or so ago and still had their bodies, the Resurrection would naturally require very little mana to work efficiently, depending on the damage of the bodies.

In short, I would undo this massacre, and from the ashes would rise an army.