+1 Bonus Chapter
…
No sense wasting time.
Erwin decided to move that same night.
Strike while the gang’s spirits were still broken, before word could spread that their den had been found.
Catch them with their guard down completely.
He had the men eat a bit of hard rations and take a few pulls of ale, left two sellswords behind with the farmers to hold camp, and set out with the prisoner in tow, heading for the bandits’ den.
He’d promised the man his life, plus a gold coin on top of it, if things went well.
Operating on the old logic that another man’s neck was always worth more than his own, the prisoner turned guide without a second thought, leading Erwin’s company through two or three hours of dark trees before they came within sight of the den.
He proved useful besides, steering them clear of a couple of traps and quietly dealing with two hidden sentries along the way, right up to the mouth of the cave itself.
By then it was deep into the small hours, the hour when everyone sleeps soundest.
With the guide leading the way, five of the mail-clad sellswords, Willem among them, passed themselves off as bandits fleeing back home and talked their way past the men guarding the entrance.
From there, it was simple enough.
Erwin’s men pushed straight in and rounded up the whole gang before a single one of them woke properly enough to fight back.
Bandits still half asleep were bound tight by the swarming sellswords before they even understood what was happening.
Looking over the lot of them, kneeling now and begging for their lives, Erwin could all but see the words 100 XP hanging over every head in the room.
Cut them all down, and he’d climb two levels easily.
But he held off, choosing to question them first.
Claiming the moral high ground mattered more right now than the experience.
He had them questioned apart from each other, one by one, told to confess to whatever they’d done.
Any story that didn’t match the others earned harsher punishment.
Anyone quick enough to turn on his fellows might see his own sentence lightened for it.
That was all it took.
Every man in that cave understood exactly how close his own end had come.
If he wanted to live, he had to sell out the man next to him, and do it faster than anyone else in the room.
Once they were separated, the confessions came pouring out of every one of them, nothing held back.
Every one but the leader.
He knew well enough there wasn’t water enough in the world to wash the filth off his own hands.
And he knew his own men just as well, knew they’d sell every last one of his secrets without a moment’s hesitation.
So he wore the look of a man already dead, with nothing left in this world that could frighten him.
He said nothing at all, only glared hatred at Erwin, and even when Willem beat his face bloody with the flat of a sword sheath, he didn’t make a sound.
That, if nothing else, earned him a measure of respect from Erwin.
It didn’t take long before every man had told them what they needed to know.
Crime after crime came out, most of them with more than one death on their hands, and more than a few who’d come to enjoy killing for its own sake.
Most had started life as farmers at the very bottom of things, ground down by lords they couldn’t fight until robbery and murder became the only road left open to them.
Others had simply been idle, cruel men from the start, the kind who bully the weak and cower before anyone stronger, who’d taken to banditry the moment they discovered how much they liked it.
A few of the sharper ones had even dressed the whole business up under the name of some Kingswood Brotherhood, tossing a little charity to nearby villages now and then to buy themselves eyes and ears among the smallfolk.
The mole planted in Erwin’s own company turned up in the confessions too, the same man who’d slipped away in the chaos of the earlier fight, thinking he’d be safe once he made it back to the den.
He hadn’t counted on Erwin coming for the whole gang that same night.
His gold coin was found on him and turned over to Erwin, who kept his word and handed it straight to the guide as promised.
The man’s face lit with joy, and he never once noticed the envy and resentment on everyone else’s faces around him.
In the end, Erwin picked two men out, both recent enough to the gang that they hadn’t done much real harm, and spared their lives.
The two fell over themselves with gratitude, bowing their heads to the dirt again and again.
Still, on Willem’s advice, Erwin had an ear cut from each of them, a reminder not to walk this road again.
The rest, eleven men including the leader, Erwin sentenced to death, speaking as though by the old tradition of his house, in the name of a Great Lord’s second son of House Augustus, and declared he’d carry out the sentence himself.
At the word of execution, the leader finally broke his silence, cursing Erwin without restraint, spitting about heartless nobles and a world with no justice left in it.
Willem cut that short fast, beating the man’s face into a swollen ruin with the sheath again, then stuffed a rag in his mouth to silence him for good.
Then came the executions themselves.
Erwin had already killed men in the heat of battle, but taking a blade to bound men, one after another, sat differently in his chest.
Some measure of unease came with it, whatever he told himself.
He talked himself through it well enough in the end.
The bandit leader hadn’t been wrong about one thing.
This world was exactly as unjust as the man claimed, and whatever notions of fairness and law he’d carried over from his old life had no place here anymore.
If he couldn’t harden himself enough to belong in this world properly, he’d be the one who paid for it eventually.
Besides, every man kneeling in front of him had more blood on his hands than he could ever account for.
Whatever came to them now, they’d more than earned it.
So Erwin raised the greatsword and sent them on, one after another.
Just as he’d hoped, each death brought another hundred experience.
The leader alone, when his turn came, was worth five hundred.
Fifteen hundred experience, all told, by the time it was finished.
He’d already reached level three before tonight, and the jump from three to four had doubled the cost, twelve hundred experience needed this time around.
That left him newly at level four, with three hundred points to spare, his experience now sitting at three hundred out of twenty-four hundred.
His stats had grown with it.
Strength up to 14.6, still climbing at two-tenths a level.
Speed to 12.2, up from 11.9 at level one, a tenth of a point each level.
Stamina to 15.2, up from 14.9 at the start, the same steady tenth of a point.
His sheet now read:
Character: Erwin (Erwin Augustus) Level: 4 Class: Warrior Strength: 14.6 Speed: 12.2 Stamina: 15.2 Mana: 0 Health: 100/100 Mana: 0/0 Skills: [Heavy Strike] Lv.
2, [Charge] Lv.
1, [Hamstring] Lv.
1
He’d picked up a new skill besides.
Hamstring.
Hamstring: On a successful hit, slows the target’s movement for ten to fifteen seconds.
Duration and severity depend on the target’s own stats and build.
Another PvP monster of a skill, if he’d ever seen one.
With Charge and Hamstring both in hand now, he had no doubt they’d earn their keep the next time he crossed blades with someone who actually knew how to fight.
Charge especially.
Unlike back in the game, here it worked from horseback too, sending his mount into a burst of speed on command, and the effect was better than he’d dared hope.
All told, seeing what tonight’s leveling had brought him, Erwin could hardly keep the satisfaction off his face.
He was still savoring it when two sellswords came running up, practically shouting.
“M’lord!
We found where they’ve been keeping their coin!
Come see for yourself, there’s silver stags enough to choke a man!”
Every head in the cave turned at the noise.
At last, the part everyone had truly been waiting for.
Erwin strode deeper into the cave without waiting to be asked twice.
Willem gathered a few of the sellswords he trusted most and hurried after him.
Griff and his men traded a glance of their own, then followed close behind, hunger plain on every face.