28 The Punishment

The mother ran towards her child, not even caring about her situation. She was naked herself, still, she didn't hesitate to hide her child in her embrace.

The lieutenant was reluctant to release her, but… "If the captain wants her I will gladly give her to you."

"But lieutenant, why should we give her to him?" The boy was reluctant. His little brother was excited about some action. But the moment his eyes met the blue flame of Kinoya, he felt somebody had poured a bucket of cold water on him.

"Tell me Akori, do you have someone you love?" Akori didn't dare to meet that eye again nor did he answer.

"If you don't then, let's tie your ball and penis and throw you in a cage with men on horse aphrodisiacs. If that doesn't satisfy you, I will let you have a stallion. If you still have your urges then I will let you enjoy her with a hot rod in your anus."

Each and everyone present in the place, even the ones who were observing from far, broke into a cold sweat. The upright member of naked Akori had fallen from its grace. He wanted to put something on himself but couldn't control a single muscle.

"What do you say/ Do you want to try it? I think Chanakya has some horse aphrodisiac" Hearing Kinoya, he lost the power in his leg and slumped on the ground. The only person who was unaffected with the whole situation took out a small pouch of white powder from his bag.

This development was outside their expectation. The other two were in the army from a long time ago, but in front of a superior officer there was very little they could do. Within a moment the all three of them ran away, dragging the unconscious one.

The child was still crying in her mother's embrace while the mother was looking at the 12 years old child in armour with caution.

Chanakya walked towards the mother and daughter pair and offered them the white powder.

"What is that? Isn't that horse aphrodisiac?" Even Kinoya was shocked by such an action. That was the same thing Chanakya took out when he had asked.

"This is the calming medicine. Also, relieves pain." The mother was still hesitant. Chanakya put some powder in his mouth before offering her again.

The woman waited to observe if there were any abnormalities with Chanakya's lower body before accepting it.

"Captain, what if he had someone he loves?"

Kinoya couldn't help but smile "That is your concern right now?"

"No, I want to know why you wanted to tie his balls and penis before throwing him in the cage?"

'How could I know? That was at the heat of the moment. Sorry for not thinking something effective.' Kinoya wanted to say but he had a more important task to complete.

"Blow the whistle, meet them at Chararch. Put up a camp at a safe distance away from the city." Kinoya thought for a while before adding, "Save as many citizens as possible. Tell the troops that for everyone they would rescue, I will give them 1 silver. And if anybody dared to do something silly, kill him and blame it on me. "

It was just a high pitch whistle, with some basic command system. Kinoya introduced it to the troop as a form of simple communication. Chanakya blew it.

"Lord, give me some food. No, just for the child will be enough." Before Kinoya could move, the woman grabbed his legs.

Kinoya frowned before removing the naked woman from his body, "Don't you have food in your house?"

"The Lord and his army took everything and ran away a week ago." The woman said after hesitating for a while. "We didn't eat anything for three days."

Kinoya pointed at Chanakya and said, "Go with him and he will give you the food. Take anybody whom you know with you." Then they parted away.

**************

'It has to be a trap. Otherwise, they wouldn't have abandoned such a good strategic location. But there is a problem' His brain was working full time while he was looking for Akai.

'They had abandoned the city weeks ago. If they are abandoning the city why leave behind a few women and the garrison?' No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn't understand what was the real plan of the enemy.

After looking for a while, he found him at the city lord's palace. The guard was heavy here but there were very few people in the general's guard who didn't know about him. After some exchange of words and confirmation from the general of the west, they had led him to the chambers.

The people who were present were almost the same as last time. The commander-in-chief, General Akai, General Andlat, General Vorn. Other than the captain of the general guards, there was one new person.

From what he had heard, it's a 3-star general, General Riyasu from the front of the General of the South. By the order of the imperial court, he had come as reinforcement.

"What do you want to say, boy?" General Andlat sounded hesitant. Even without that Kinoya could feel the tension in the air.

"It's a trap. There is one inside the city, not sure if there is one outside the city or not." As a captain, Kinoya had no intention of mingling in the affairs of the generals. All his intention was earning as much contribution as possible.

"So you are the devil?" Riyasu had an eerie smile on his face, "What fine name! Devil. Well, you are one after all. So little devil, what type of news do you bear today?"

The frown didn't appear on Kinoya's face, but it surprised him that Riyasu dared to talk like that in front of General of the West, the commander-in-chief. Even if one didn't consider the rank difference, just by the power of the commander-in-chief, he could have stopped him but had chosen not to do that.

Kinoya couldn't care less about it but from the sad look on Akai's face, he was sure that he had fallen from the commander-in-chief's grace.

To begin with, he didn't even know what he had done wrong. All he could do was to do what he should do as a soldier.

"The city is a trap."

"And what makes you think that?"

"There is no food in the city."

"The fleeing lord and army took it away."

"They opened the gate to invite us in."

"They didn't open the gate, we fought our way in the city."

"They could have just defended the closed city if they wanted."

"You have said it, they don't have any food, how do you expect them to defend."

"But there are only women in the city."

"That is because all the men died defending it."

'How much arrogant can you be to miss such an obvious clue?'Kinoya sneered as he controlled his temper as much as possible. He had no idea about the plan of the enemy so…

'No, I can't just let them die because of these ignorant bastards.' Kinoya couldn't help but plead, "General, I am saying there might be a chance…"

Kinoya couldn't even finish his words before Riyasu shouted out again, "Yes that is the thing I was talking about. This little devil puts a seed of doubt in your mind, then he plays with you with the words until he convinces you to do those unethical work."

With a confident smile on his face, he had turned to the general of the west, "Don't worry about it. Now that the problem has been identified, there will be no more problem at all."

Kinoya stood there, dumbfounded, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. 'Is this guy a general or a court-jester? Or is the war that honourable in this world? Did I do something unethical?'

[Skill Check: [Soul Persuasion] been used]

[Ill intent detected]

[Affecting the host's mind…]

[Trying to break the skill…]

[…]

[Skill Check: [Soul Persuasion] is blocked]

Kinoya didn't move for a moment. It's an effective skill for a general. But even if somebody told him, he wouldn't believe that the skill was effective against the general of the West. If it had worked he couldn't have broken it so easily.

[Skill Check: Time is taken to break [Soul Persuasion]: 5 minutes 28 seconds]

[Do you think the skill was easy to break?]

The system didn't forget to add a sarcastic command but he had a more important thing to think about.

"Boy, do you accept your crime?"

"Crime? What crime? Is helping the empire in the war accepted as a crime? If yes, then I am a criminal."

Riyasu was startled for a moment. Not expecting such remarks from Kinoya. He took another look at Kinoya, before continuing with a sarcastic smile "Your crime is that you had dirtied the name of The Great Krounen Empire.

"You persuaded others to do the dirty work, you had done the sinful work of deceiving your enemy, raided your enemy camp at night…"

"Let me get it, you are saying I did something sinful because I deceived the 'enemy'?" It was hard to control the laughter, neither he had tried to. 'Forget about the trap which was the idea of the commander-in-chief, but I couldn't believe that he just said that deceiving enemies is a sin.'

"According to the Code of Honour, yes."

"Do you know that you are talking about an enemy, not a friend?"

"I am well aware of that."

"You are an idiot." The whole room plunged into silence.

"Boy do you know what are you saying?" Riyasu slammed on the table, with veins popping up on his forehead.

"I was wrong" Kinoya took a deep breath and said again, "All of you are idiots. And the funny thing is all of you know that."

Not a single one spoke any words. Riyasu was shouting in an intangible language with fumes coming out of his ears.

"Cut out the list of sins, go straight to the punishment part," Kinoya said without emotion. Without the proper background, it would be impossible to escape his fate and he was well aware of it.

"According to the imperial edict…"

As soon as he heard the part everything became clear to him. With curved lips, he continued to listen.

"... due to your contribution toward the victory, your life will be spared. But you will be stripped of all of your achievement. You will be subjected to forced labour in the army for 2 years. And for deceiving and persuading the high authority to do immoral work you are subjected to 100 whiplashes."

"Like they are the child or something." Kinoya didn't hold it in any more.

Riyasu glared as he continued, "For insulting the imperial edict you are punishable by death. But doing that will be an insult to the empirical edict itself. Your one week ration will be revoked."

Kinoya laughed it out. A twitch appeared at the forehead of Riyasu, "What so funny?"

Kinoya shook his head and started to take off his armour, "Let me ask you one last question. According to the 'Great Imperial edict' if the commander-in-chief was found to be the one who was behind these sinful acts what would have been the punishment?"

For the first time today, the commander-in-chief looked at Kinoya. Those eyes were anything but friendly. Like a tiger, he was staring right at the eye of Kinoya.

Noticing the fire between them, Riyasu added with a smile, "He would have become a 4-star general and would have been sent to the empire for further trial. What? You have something to say?"

Kinoya looked at the general and gave a smile. That smile made the commander-in-chief skip a heartbeat.

"No there is nothing to say, I just want to see how much my fellow people of the Great Krounen Empire love it."

Riyasu looked a little surprised, "What?"

"Never mind" Kinoya had already stripped himself half-naked. Leaving the erect talwar on his back and the lower garment on his body. "Let's not waste any more time and get my war tattoos as soon as possible."

"Leave that here." Riyasu pointed at the talwar.

"I have given up all the things that were given to me by the empire, the short scimitar, armour, boots and the badge. This talwar is my personal property. I am not taking it off on my own but you are welcome to try."

Hearing it, Riyasu was fuming, he was going to Kinoya but Akai stopped him. "It's his personal belongings."

Riyasu was about to argue but didn't. "General of the west if you bestow the punishment on the guilty."

The general didn't move. He just signalled and the captain of the general guard came out. Along came General Riyasu. Under the protection general guard, he was dragged to the city centre, right in front of the Chararch.