"I see... I see.... Emperor Percius, allow me to ask you a few questions. Have you ever been thrown out onto the street before, with nobody to care for you and nowhere to go?"
"Well... no... what are you talking about, Hero?"
Kyle looked down with dark eyes, and Percius could sense that something was off with him.
It was as if he had hit a nerve.
"I am the one asking the questions here. Have you ever been so hungry that you wanted to consume the scraps from a dumpster?"
"Of course not. Why are you asking me these things? Did something I say cause offense to you?"
"Have you ever been so indebted to someone that you couldn't even bear to hear someone speak badly of them? Has someone ever shown you such kindness that you wish to run around shouting their praises for the entire world to hear, only for everyone to look at you with filthy eyes and dirty glances? Have you ever been shown such love by someone that you would give your very life for them, but didn't because that person forbid you from doing so?"
Kyle seemed to be furiously pelting the Emperor with questions, not letting up. His face was completely serious, as if he were about to explode in just a few moments.
"Hero, please calm down.", the Emperor stated, concerned. Oscar still kept his face hidden behind the curtain as Kyle continued his barrage.
"Have you ever met someone who struggled and clawed to get out of a shitty situation, but to no avail? Have you ever been in an endless loop of unsuccessful attempts to survive, only to barely clutch onto your life for another day, once again left with no guarantee of tomorrow? Have you ever witnessed someone be beat to a pulp in front of your eyes in order that you may eat another slice of bread? Have you ever had someone give their very soul so that you can survive while clamping onto the dirt of society, only for every person in the country to look at you as trash once they know that you came into contact with that person? Have you ever wanted to perform a justice so great by giving back to these people, and by allowing them to live proudly after they gave everything for you?"
"Hero!!! I have no idea what you are saying!!!"
"You say that prostitution is a filthy job? It is a market created by degeneracy? I will inform you of something. Prostitutes may be at the lowest dregs of society... but they give their very lives, their very souls, their very beings to cling onto a pitiful survival, in a dirt poor situation. They spend countless hours taking beatings and performing acts that they themselves are disgusted with. They hold in their tears, knowing that they will never amount to anything more than a mere plaything for the people who will betray them in an instant. But why is it then, that they are looked at as the disgusting ones?!?! Why is it that the people who are performing the most difficult work are viewed as the scum!?!? You kings... emperors... nobles... even the regular workers... craftsmen... laborers... merchants... you all don't understand what it means to work a difficult job... you all don't understand what it means to suffer through every moment of your life, and you all dare to speak ill of my mothers and their profession!?!?! EH!!?!?!?!?"
Kyle grabbed the neck of the Emperor at this point.
"Ugh!! I'm- cough!! Chok- Choking!!! Blegh!!!"
Kyle started to squeeze the golden collar which was around the neck of the Emperor, and the metal itself began to bend, creating an obstruction in the Emperor's windpipe.
"I will show you all.... you pieces of shit who don't do anything but sit at the top and look down on the others who are giving their very lives to survive... we at the bottom... we who are dirt poor, and are considered the dredges of society... we who have to work the filthiest and most disgusting jobs just to get by... are not your playthings to be toyed with. If you think otherwise...."
Kyle squeezed further on the neck of the Emperor, who's eyes were now rolled back into his head. Foam formed at his mouth, and a snapping sound was heard as the neck of the Emperor was snapped. His head became limp, however Kyle kept his grip on him.
"THEN YOU ARE THE DEFINITION OF INJUSTICE!!! YOU ARE EVIL INCARNATE!!! ANTIHEROES!?!? DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!!!! THERE ARE BEINGS OF CHAOS RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES!!!! I NOW KNOW WELL, THAT IT IS MY DUTY AS A HERO TO RID SOCIETY OF GARBAGE LIKE YOU!!!!"
Oscar then burst open the door of the carriage.
"Help!! The hero is on a rampage, and has killed the Emperor!!", he shouted in an act which was good enough to deceive even the most perceptive of men.
"WHAT!?!"
The guards around stopped the caravan, and Oscar jumped out with a diving roll.
"He has gone mad!!! After him!!!"
"The Emperor!!! This cannot be!!"
"How could a hero kill the Emperor!?! This means war!!!"
Oscar smiled back at Kyle sinisterly, as if he predicted this exact scenario, and mouthed the words 'Cya later, loser.'
Kyle's eye flinched over to Oscar, who was running away, but Kyle's mind was filled too much with rage for the Emperor, and so he didn't make a move.
The guards began to surround the carriage, and Oscar jumped onto a horse and made a break for it towards the Empire, kicking the horse which ran off in a sprint.
Kyle dropped the stone cold body of the Emperor, which hit the floor with a thud as it bounced off the seat, and faced the men who now surrounded him.
"Do you all as well wish to discriminate against us as well based on our background, or based on the fact that we have to dirty ourselves in order to survive? Based on the conditions we were born into? It seems that you all as well are servants of injustice who need to be purged by myself, the HERO."
----
Blood painted the fields in an instant.
Organs flew, and brain matter splattered completely soaking the previously green grass around the line of carriages.
Oscar had long escaped on horseback, and Kyle didn't really feel like pursuing him.
'If that man wishes to flee, then I will let him flee. He never said anything directly about my mothers, though it does irk me that he seemed to have predicted this situation... well... none of that matters now.'
Kyle stood in the center of a mass of corpses, blood covering his hands.
It was not that they were weak. These soldiers were all among the elite of the humans, and they wouldn't lose even to the birdmen or fishmen- a grand feat for a human.
Kyle was simply overwhelmingly strong.
When Kyle first exited the carriage, he saw the soldiers attempting to surround him.
One man managed to hit Kyle- because Kyle wanted to test out what would happen. The sword swung downwards at him, and Kyle grabbed the blade with his bare hand.
"Impossible!! His skin is like steel! It didn't even make a dent!!"
Kyle simply smiled as he tore the head off this man and ripped the blade from him, tearing his arm off as he did this. The hand of this man seemed to cling to the sword, making it so that the ripped off arm was attached to it, as Kyle held it from the bladed end.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"Listen well, fiends!!! This is your punishment for performing the crime of beating down the weak instead of using your strength to protect them!!! I, the hero, will not tolerate such evil!!!! I will eliminate anyone who performs such acts in front of me!!!"
Kyle was actually a tanker- that is, his stats were much more focused on health and defense than they were on attack power, magic or speed.
So why was he so blindingly fast that he could cut up these men before they could even blink?
It was because he was a hero.
The heroes of the world were on a level that was as strong as the monster kings themselves- those terrible monsters and demons who ruled the monster realm, who's existence prevented the humans from ever making any actual attempts to take over the monster realm.
Yet, even though Kyle was not specialized in speed or strength, he was able to easily crush these 50 men without even blinking an eye.
After Kyle killed the first man, Kyle jumped outside the carriage, onto the horse of another man, and- holding the sword by its tip, with the arm of the man he had taken it from still attached to it, he swung it around in a 360 degree motion.
When he did this, the handle of the sword acted as a blunt weapon, completely smashing in the heads of the 5 soldiers within range of him- and continuing straight through each head with the momentum it had before, not even losing any as a result of taking off the upper half of a mans skull. This showed how strong Kyle was. .
44 soldiers remained at this point.
The captain of the guard had made his way around to the side of the carriage that Kyle had exited, and they had him surrounded in a semicircular fashion with the carriage at his back, as Kyle stood on top of one of the horses, hunched over like a madman- blade in hand and corpses surrounding him. The horses were reeling around and trying to get away, but Kyle took advantage of this opportunity.
He jumped from horse to horse as they ran towards the soldiers surrounding him, and grabbed the arm from the blade he was holding- ripping it off and wielding it for himself. He continued wielding the sword with the tip of the blade gripped in his hand, as if it were a mace with the handle as the blunt end, but now he also had a human arm in his left hand. He held the shoulder part of the arm, and began to swirl it around as if it were a flail, with the elbow joint acting as the pivot and the hand acting as the spiked ball.
Duel wielding these weapons in a completely nontraditional and wild fashion, Kyle leapt from horse to horse smashing in the brains and chest cavities of the remaining soldiers here.
"This man is no hero!!! He has killed the Emperor!! Do not falter men, we must kill this savage here and now, lest he get away from us!!! If we let this thing go, he will likely rampage and harm the civilians!!!!", the captain leading the squad shouted.
But that didn't matter in the face of Kyle's strength.
Kyle was jumping from horse to horse, and he started swinging from the horses' necks like a monkey whilst smacking the soldiers up top with his weapons. He headed over to where the Colonel was barking out orders and pointing at him with a spear.
He killed many men on the way, going from horse to horse. Some men had their heads sliced clean off with the blade of the sword, and others had it smashed in with the edge. Others met the gruesome fate of coming into contact with the arm, which Kyle has strengthened using his own energy so that it was as sturdy as a wooden club- however he swung it around like a flail, and sometimes it would even pierce into the hearts of the people, killing them on the spot and ripping out chunks of flesh and bone as he moved from horse to horse.
5 remaining.
Kyle swung high into the air, doing what looked like an acrobatic flip, and brought the hilt of the sword down onto the captain while free falling with a force so great that his entire body was split in two, all the way down to his stomach. Kyle then used the hilt, which was embedded in this mans body as a lever to propel his motion forward, and he spun around the man in an arc landing behind him on his horse.
Kyle pulled out the sword hilt from inside the man, and chunks of stomach matter and pancreas fluid spilled all over the horse's back. The body of the man fell off the horse, and landed on the ground with a squishy splat.
Kyle turned around with a savage grin. His hair had chunks of blood and flesh in it, and his eyes were now covered in veins.
"Which one of you is next? What about you? Do you also think that my mother's are nothing more than the scum of society?", Kyle asked one of the soldiers in the middle.
After seeing their captain slaughtered so brutally and the other members of their squad taken out in a flash, the remaining soldiers all dropped their weapons.
The man who Kyle had pointed out and asked was dripping with sweat, and tears began to form at his eyes.
"Please spare us!!", the man shouted while bowing down, begging for his life.
The men all got off their horses, and lowered themselves to the ground- trembling in fear over the dominance of the hero.
"We were wrong to ever doubt you!! Please forgive us, and spare us!!"
Kyle stood up on top of the horse, and lightly jumped down as if he was diving feet first into water, with his toes pointed towards the ground. He then stood back on his heels, and lowered his arms which carried the two weapons.
"I asked you a question, and you responded with a question. Let's try this again."
Kyle then swung the human arm so that the exposed bone lodged itself into the back of the bowing man, piercing straight through his armor. The man began to spit blood from his mouth.
'I don't want to die!! No!! Not here!! Not so far away from home!!'
"Isn't it rude to bow to someone while wearing helmets? Get rid of those things."
The men all took off their spartan like helmets, revealing their terrified faces. The one who had the human hand lodged into his back barely managed to take it off, as he was shaking and throwing up blood.
Kyle yanked the arm out of the man's back, tearing up his flesh while he did so.
"Now then... I will ask you over here this time.", Kyle said, turning to the man on the left side. "Have you ever been to a brothel? Have you ever hired a prostitute?"
"I.... I have a wife and a son! I have never been to a brothel before, as I am loyal to her alone!!"
"That was likely a truthful answer.... no, perhaps it wasn't, but I will be gracious and assume that's the truth, but let me ask you one more thing before I decide what to do with you.", Kyle said while pacing back and forth. He had brought the now bony hand which had most of its flesh ripped off to stroke his chin as if it were his own limb, and he was using it as an extension of himself.
"Now, whether or not there is something wrong with the men who visit brothels... whether or not that is a good thing or a bad thing... I do not know. Cheating on your wife... well, some customers did that... is that immoral? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I am not here to judge you based on that account. Now, those men who tried to hurt my mothers... they're an entirely different thing. But the ones who's desires created a demand for the business in the first place? Were they scum? I would say only if they felt the need to hide it. If you're going to do something, and pretend like it's some sort of heinous disgusting act, and act as if the person who sells such a service is a piece of garbage, then wouldn't that make you worse than garbage?"
"T-then what exactly do you want from us?!", the man said barely holding back tears while continuing to press his head to the ground.
"If a prostitute showed up at your door, and asked you for a piece of bread, what would your reaction be? What would your wive's reaction be? Would she be immediately disgusted, and get into a hissy fit with the woman simply because of her line of work? Would you shut the door on her in order to avoid any misconceptions with your wife? Would you close a blind eye to a fellow human in need because their line of work is something that is done behind closed doors, to feed the desires of the men of the world?"
The man tried to spit an answer out, but he was too scared. He was crying and babbling like a baby, and Kyle couldn't hear anything comprehensible.
"The reason my mother's took on the jobs they did was because there was demand... yes, it was because there exist many men who have a desire to go behind closed doors and pay my mothers to do their work... so why is it the women who are at fault!?! They are merely doing what they can to survive, no? They are merely going along with the economy, and providing what services they can! Is there a reason why they shouldn't be allowed to show up in public!?! Is there a reason why they should be locked in their little district without any contact with others aside from the customers during the night!?!?"
Kyle brought the hilt of the sword he was holding near the head of the man who was sobbing without cease.
"The answer is... they shouldn't be barred from society. They should be able to walk around the town with pride, just as the other citizens do. I should be able to walk around the town, claiming that I am the son of a whore, and my value as a person should not decrease. But it is because people are prejudiced... it is because they are too scared of losing their own honor... that such a world cannot come about."
Kyle dropped the sword.
"But I am a hero who will fight for a just world. I will fight for a world where no such prejudice occurs. If you all disagree with me, then why don't you stand up and fight me? If you all believe that my views are incorrect, or that I am merely some bastard who doesn't deserve to live, then why don't you come right at me? If you simply sit there in submission, I will assume that means you agree with my views."
None of the men moved, and they only sat their shaking in fear.
"It seems that I have eliminated all of those who are prejudiced and unjust... I will allow you all to leave here alive. Please return to your hometowns and spread my message of justice."
With that, Kyle mounted a horse and rode off into the distance.
----
Oscar was fleeing.
'That hero... I expected him to flip and assassinate the Emperor, but he was far too unstable for me to control... I need to get away from him... I could have simply killed him, but...'
Oscar smiled.
'If I let him run loose back in the Kingdom, and join forces here with the Empire after their leader has been slain and the King of the Kingdom has foolishly denied any prospect of working together, I will essentially be able to launch a crusade from there on the Kingdom.'
This of course meant that his position as a noble which he had built up would become worthless, but there were other alternatives available. He had given this up from the moment he left for the Empire.
'The antiheroes are dead, so the first step to my plan from here on out is to have the human countries war with each other... if I can unite the countries under a single banner, then world domination will not be far off... all I will have to do is take over as the ruler of that country, and with whoever is left of the heroes launch a campaign on the monster realm...'