Bandits Interrogation

The atmosphere at Village chief home was tense as Rana was taking rounds of the hallway waiting for the return of Ryu, Jue, and Aiena along with her nephew.

"Was it necessary to send children?" she asked the village chief with a troubled expression. Even though she was trying to act fuming and angry, she was concerned for their security.

'The bandits all looked older…' she thought, but the Village chief answered,

"Don't worry much Rana, normal bandits around this area would be nothing for Jue and Ryu!!"

"who said I am worrying!! I am just worried about that stupid nephew of mine!?" she pouted,

And soon they could see many people moving towards the house,

"Thanks, for your all help so far!!" Aiena shouted and the adventurers all went,

"Ahh no need for thanks Aiena!!" the first adventurer said,

"For our savior Aiena, any day!!" another adventurer said,

"Yes, we wouldn't want any one of these bastards to try to run away and harm you!!" a third adventurer said.

"Thanks for all of your kindness!!" Aiena once again said, and the adventurers dispersed.

'She really became all popular behind our back!?' Ryu thought as he saw the backs of leaving adventurers as soon as they entered the town with bandits one by one adventurer joined them in the way with the reason of being emergency security of Aiena if a bandit tries to break free,

They even specified they are doing this for Aiena,

"Aiena sister so cool!? you helped all those adventurers right!?" Jue asked with sparkling eyes, and Aiena nodded,

"Not all but most of them," she answered and Ryu thought,

'Yea, all the others were attempting to show their good side… well bland appeal didn't even work in children's anime nowadays!!'

As Ryu turned the Village chief and Rana was standing there in their welcome.

"You 3 defeated all of them alone!?" Rana asked frantically, and they nodded,

"Although they were stupid bandits, miss Rana, they all were drunk and on the plain right beside the road," Ryu said,

"Yea, all of them were down in one punch," Jue said shrugging. Meanwhile, Bandits were being humiliated, hearing kids calling them stupid as they thought.

'This brat with knuckles said one punch!! Mf your punch was charged with strange skill!!'

'These kids have no shame,' another one thought,

Rana suddenly came to her senses as she asked,

"Where is my nephew!?"

Ryu made every bandit sit down in a row with their leader limp and with scratches at the end, and then pointed at one of the bandit's arms and Rana finally noticed it. Her nephew was in the arms of a bandit,

"What is this stupidity!? Why would you let bandit carry him!?" she asked irritated shaking her arms.

"Ahh Rana grandma, I was carrying him all the way, but felt a bit exhausted near the end… sorry," Jue said. It was actually Ryu's idea to let the bandit carry the nephew as he threatened bandits further with the saber,

"He was sleeping, so we thought we should let him sleep," Ryu answered with the best smile he could muster. Instead of saying anything to them, Rana looked at the Village chief with an irritated gaze as she said,

"Effects of your upbringing are clear as day," and the Village chief just shrugged his shoulders and spoke,

"Well what can I say" with a proud smile, to which Rana shouted in rage,

"You idiot!! I am not praising you!!" and the village chief to divert her attention asked Ryu,

"Ryu, what happened to that last bandit" Village chief pointed at the bandit at the end of the row, who was limping forward.

"He… I mean she is their leader grandpa" Ryu was going to call the leader he but seeing Aiena's face he changed it quickly and a few of the bandits tried holding back their laughter,

One of the bandits thoughts,

'We are lucky to have fallen in first punch… ending up like boss is unacceptable' and sighed in relief,

The village chief moved near the boss and made him sit straight and as soon as he saw his lower full of dried blood,

'What the…' he didn't expect to see something like this and asked in confusion,

"What happened to this one?..." The village chief asked in a confused voice, and Jue answered instantly.

"I don't know anything… big brother did it!!"

'This brat is quick with pointing out… well I guess no male would want to have anything to do with it' and gave a plain answer.

"Grandpa chief, check him with eyes" Village chief nodded as he turned his face back to the bandit and scanned him,

'Ahh, so this is why… it can hardly be called unreasonable now…' The village chief turned back to Ryu and reluctantly gave him a thumbs up.

To which Ryu slowly gave back a thumbs up,

The village chief was again reminded that Ryu was half Demon lord and got chills as he thought.

'Should I be praising this kind of punishment… Ryu can be really scary at times'

Geld, who was just coming back home from a meeting next town, saw all the mess that was right out of their house and questioned,

"What is going on?"

As he moved his eyes toward the bandits, he was confused and thought,

'They are dressed up like bandits but…. Many of them looked like they never held a sword'

"You are right on time, Geld; can you take this man… I mean woman to the basement chamber" said the Village chief with a smile, he was about to say man but seeing Ryu's, Jue's, and bandit's gaze he understood he is to be referred to as a woman,

"Right away, father," Geld said and took the Giant bandit away with him not questioning anything further even though he was surprised as he looked at the blooding lower of the bandit,

Rana took her nephew inside so she could put him on a bed, Village chief turned towards the bandits and asked,

"Now tell me, who are you all!? And don't give me lies as those will be punished," the Village chief stated as if speaking facts, seeing the interaction between Ryu and Village chief bandits knew that this man is senior to Ryu.

'Hehe, their expressions,' Ryu thought as he swings the saber he looted slowly, and all the bandits gulped and the young bandit from before started speaking.

"We are not bandits!!... I mean, not originally…" the young bandit said,

"Hurry up, we don't have a whole day," Ryu said with a frown and the young bandit started explaining,

"We were actually villagers, our village name is Waku village… it was towards the east of Pleura and Zerah somewhere in middle, there are no adventurers Guild and we live self-sufficiently with a trader visiting the village twice a month…" the young bandit scratched the back of his head as he continued,

"About 4 months before 4 emerged dungeons appeared near village… some people who knew the way to fight monsters and were former adventurers formed a party to get rid of the dungeons but only one of them was taken care of… in second they never returned from," every bandit had a gloomy face,

"We went Pleura and registered the quest for the emerged dungeon, with the prize being dungeon core the party will get from the dungeon and also the amount of money we could muster…. But no adventure came. Apparently, they find the price low, and also the dungeons were near stampede so no one dared to take the quest…"

'The dungeons indeed have a few times the normal number of monsters, near a stampede, but still, there must've been some parties…' Ryu thought,

Rana came out of the gate and listened as the young bandit continued his tale,

"Last month two of the three dungeons had a stampede rapidly and our village was mostly demolished. The monsters were killing people and each other everything was a mess…. we who survived by hiding and fighting off the monsters were completely exhausted… that was when the boss appeared, he killed the imps by punching right in the face and orcs by slashing on the back side of their neck, it took an hour before he killed every last of them," the young bandit's eyes were full of admiration,

'Isn't it suspicious when someone appeared right at the time of the incident…' Ryu thought as he listened carefully,

"To us who have nowhere left to go or give he offered us to come under him and serve him… that he will show us the path towards true light and give us a place to live and eat… he only took half of us, but no one complained about taking those who were left behind, as we know that danger of stampede would strike again… we choose salvation that was in front of us he taught us how to use swords, and other things…" the young bandit stopped and couldn't talk further,

"What happened next?" The village chief asked with menacing eyes,

And the Young bandit panicked as he started talking.

"He brought us here near month's end and told us we will be blocking off the trade route of the town and will loot the carriages, in the process he told us we will have our revenge on Pleura's Adventurers Guild's master, he told us soon we will pillage the town and rule over it… we knew it was wrong and there was no way this small bandit group can loot an adventurer's town but he reassured us about coming reinforcement… out of desperation we agreed,"

'That bastard!!... I did the right thing after all,' Ryu thought.

'Poor people…' Aiena thought and Jue was pumped up with the thought of emerged dungeons.

This was when Rana stepped forward and said,

"What you all did won't be justified, even when the desperate using brain is lest a human can do… but I take the responsibility of not knowing about a dungeon quest of this crisis level and failed to take any action… I will investigate how this quest wasn't brought up to my attention and why no one took it"

'I smell trouble...' Ryu thought,

-to be continued