In the end, Kei decided to surrender… fighting those four guys was useless. He was bad at long and drawn out fights, and those guys were real experts. He could easily escape if he wanted, but after his face was seen, he would be hunted down. Besides, even though those guys caused the whole situation, they were still the only friends that he had… helping them escape from an outside prison would be easier than doing the infiltration and then trying to escape afterwards.

Much to Hei’s surprise, Kai raised his arms and surrendered. That wasn’t something that he had expected… After investigating the cases a bit deeper, Hei learned that the guards and the target had always been knocked down after they saw the bandits approaching them. All of them only suffered some physical damage with blunt weapons… so, Hei assumed that someone had a speed type trait among them. That guy seemed to be the one.

“... What are you after?”

Kai ignored Hei’s words and then was put on the ground with his face pressing against the grass. Soon enough, his arms and legs were tied up with chains. Knocking him down would be a good idea, but Hei didn’t want to do more than he had to to keep those guys under control.

In the end, they returned to the town of the clan without finding any issues along the way. The prisoners knew that causing trouble would mean more punishment for them… fortunately, the lack of kills in their list helped them. They wouldn’t be executed. The worst that could happen is that they would become slaves, and there were plenty of chances for adult slaves to escape in times of war. The issue was Kai… he had a bounty on his head, and a lot of people wanted him dead.

In the end, Hei wondered what he should do. Since he had a lot to do, he decided to let the prisoners marinate in the cells for a bit. That had been enough to make them quite cooperative, but Kai still looked pretty calm. Hei put a chair in front of the cell and then sat on it.

“Are you still in the developing stages of your escape plan? I’m curious to imagine what you’re planning to do with those ten big guys outside.”

Kai had never been captured in his life, so he didn’t think that escaping would be that difficult. If he were to do it by himself, he still could do it, but then the other guys would probably spill the beans to receive less punishment. Some people that helped them were just scouts or informants… letting them get caught would be a true mess.

“Anyway, I can tell that you came from a rare bloodline, and I want to know why you turned into a bandit. Someone with your trait would easily be able to start a clan. It seems that you have your story, and I want to listen.”

“I am not interested.”

“Really? There are people wanting your head for ten sunstone coins. I think that you would benefit a lot from sharing that kind of thing. You might even get a pardon with that if you offer your services.”

“I would rather die than to serve your stupid system.”

Hei studied Kai’s expression, and he truly meant that… he had some issues with the system, and Hei could tell that was probably because he was once a slave. It was a common story, but usually, they wouldn’t last for that long in the life of crime.

“I will come back later.”

Hei got up and then left the prison. Although he had a lot of issues to solve, he couldn’t help but think for quite a while about the prisoners. Perhaps it would be better to start by asking his name or something. It was hard to start negotiations like that when he still had to be mindful of his position.

While Hei was working in his office, he suddenly received a letter from someone unexpected. It was a merchant that lived in the Capital. Hei looked at his assistant, but he just shrugged.

‘Greetings, Lord Hei. My name is Ulys, a humble merchant in the capital. Today I have come to ask you about a certain criminal that you captured recently. I am the one who put a bounty on his head since he killed my father ten years ago. He is a very dangerous criminal that was born with a very dangerous trait as well. He came from a family of assassins who tormented the capital for many years. Twenty years ago, they were destroyed. Only a single survivor was left. It was a newborn baby. My father decided to spare the child to raise him out of mercy, and that mercy killed him. As someone who lost a father recently, I am sure you can understand my feelings. If you don’t want to take the chances, you can kill him and bring me his head, but if you bring me him alive, I can offer you fifty sunstone coins. I wish you a good day.”

Hei studied the letter for a bit longer… if that wasn’t a perfect example of single-minded desire for revenge, he didn’t know what it was. With that much money, no person would have to ever worry about financial problems. Still, Hei felt that the story was weird… It was too grand and missed a lot of details. Later that day, Hei decided to talk with Kai about that. He found it hard to believe that a bandit who had been on the run for ten years would be able to read, so Hei read the whole thing to him.

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“Is that true?”

“Yes, what about it?”

“I guess I can understand why you would act like this. People found your family a lot more dangerous than actually useful. How did you learn all this?”

“I forced him to reveal all of this before I killed him.”

“It feels like the story is missing many details. Why don’t you tell me then?”

“Not interested.”

“You sure are a pain in the ass. Do you really want to force me to send you to this guy?”

“Yes, if he wants me dead, then bring me to him so that I will make sure that I will erase his entire bloodline as well. I decided to spare him the last time, but it looks like he took my mercy for granted.”

“So, are you going to keep killing those who want you dead until the end of your days?”

“If that is what fate has in store for me, then I shall entertain it.”

It didn’t seem like Kai was interested in freeing his friends anymore. That made sense. From his perspective, he tried to get in the way of the people that deserved to suffer a bit, but in the end, that all came back to bite his ass. With the bounty, a lot of people would want to kill him, even if they have no reason to kill him, so he might as well bring down as many with him as possible and unleash chaos in that country, if he is a bit lucky, perhaps he can survive and then escape to another country and join them. Perhaps he can even revive the family business there.

“It seems that the story that you know is from the perspective of the man you killed, if you believe him or not, that is up to you, but if you really trust your family wasn’t like that, you will have to show it with your actions.”

“... Whatever you have in mind, I am not going to serve you.”

“You don’t have to, but you will owe me one.”

The next day, people woke up to the sound of a large noise. Before long, they came to find that the prison had collapsed… A lot of people went to check what had happened and soon found the guards moving the rubble away and revealing the signs of several smashed bodies. Before long, word began to spread that the prisoners tried to escape, but it seemed that they damaged the wrong pillars too much.

“When was the last time this happened?”

“Around fifty years ago… the heads of the Hei clan were usually pretty nice, but they didn’t treat the criminals that tried to escape after they caused problems in our territory. Well, this can’t leave this place… they will rebuild the prison just enough to be able to last for a while… until the next poor bastards decide to escape.”

The spies in the town didn’t seem convinced of that story, but soon they passed the message to the capital and the merchant dug in to confirm that. Apparently, that same thing happened five times in the last two hundred years… that seemed insane, but even if it was just a trick, no one would go that far to free bandits for no good reason… As it turned out, the Hei clan did that several times and gained some allies thanks to it. Kai left the town, but returned years later with a wife and kid.

— —

The group let the horses a bit further behind the end of the hills, alongside some of the stuff they brought. Soon after, they raised a small camp behind the last and tallest hill in the area.

“We will have to work in pairs to keep all the surroundings in check, and we can’t miss any movement since the wind is against us. We are already betting a lot on staying in this area, so we can’t mess up. Katrine and I will watch things until mid-afternoon, and then Zelos and Irlan will take our place. Edea and I will follow, and so on.”

“I guess we won’t have the chance to cook here… cold rations for a while.”

Irlan didn’t like saying that, but it couldn’t be avoided. The smell would spread even further than the sound of their voices. Fortunately, Zelos had brought a large container with milk, so he wouldn’t have to suffer at the hand of the rations. Although they just started with rations, the others were already jealous of him, so he decided to share it with them. Irlan was thankful, but hesitant.

“Are you sure about that, Zelos?”

“It is better than risking you guys getting hungry and killing me over my sleep because of the food.”

“You can at least laugh at your own jokes.”

“Oh, yeah… it was a joke.”

In any case, those who weren’t on guard duty went to sleep while Heirina and Kaitrine began to work in silence. That kind of job was really hard for them, even more so since they couldn’t split their focus by talking. They also didn’t know for how long they would stay there as well.

Now and then, they would see some animals in the distance crawling or running and then they would raise their guard, but soon they would sigh in relief as the tension vanished. Time passed really slowly, but eventually, their turn came to an end, and then Zelos and Irlan took guard duty.

Maybe it was because it had been a while since he ate anything warm. Zelos began to wonder if he should knock down and eat some birds… he didn’t have to cook them, after all. Still, while they were older than the other slave kids, probably the group would look at Zelos with weird eyes by eating raw meat.

At the end of the afternoon, Zelos killed time by juggling with iron balls, but soon night came, and he was forced to focus on the matter at hand completely. The night wasn’t cloudy, but they still could barely see things around them in a range of one hundred meters.

“That is a pretty impressive-looking sword, Zelos.”

“Those two managed to stay quiet throughout the whole day, but it seems that you are even less focused than them.”