The Morality of a Hero

I continued to press Avi for a few more swings. Switching targets I sent a Firebolt at one of the men towards the side. With only one fire mote my Firebolts weren't very powerful. Aimed correctly though they could control the movements of my opponents, which was my goal. The bandit I aimed at was thrown off balance long enough for me to reach his side. He tried to parry but wasn't able to keep up with my speed.

After he went down I continued onto the bandit next to them. They were able to fire off a crossbow bolt at close range that I deflected with my Osgar aura. My sword sliced through their chest before they could get their sword out of its sheath. Another crossbow bolt deflected off my Osgar aura that I had placed on the back of my vital areas.

Turning back around I quickly survey the situation. Avi and a female bandit were charging towards me. The two bandits near the fallen tree had arrows in them, one was still falling, having been the one to shoot the last bolt at me. The last two bandits were trying to get to Lariss but she was maneuvering her horse around them while using a short sword to deflect any close strikes.

Moving forward, I parried Avi and let the other bandit's strike hit my Osgar aura. I had misjudged where her sword was headed and it hit the outer edge of where I placed the aura. It didn't slice through but would leave a decent bruise as I felt the force move through my body. At higher stages I would be able to protect my whole body, but had to pick and choose where to protect right now. Not stopping to contend with them, I continued on towards the ones attacking Lariss. The first went down without putting up a defence. The other was able to strike at me but I was able to easily counter taking them out as well.

When I faced the last two, the female bandit turned and ran immediately. Avi only hesitated a moment before trying to join her. An arrow that left a green trail pierced Avi's leg. As he fell a vine wrapped around both his legs. Another arrow pierced the other bandit's back and she stumbled. I charged forward to finish her off. Avi chopped at the vine and by the time he freed himself, I had my sword to his throat.

"I guess I was underestimated. Now who exactly wants me alive?" I asked.

"Like it matters now. Just kill me." Avi said.

"Since it doesn't matter, why don't you just tell me?" I said.

He just spit in my face.

"Was it Wassa?" I asked.

He didn't reply. I tried to detect any facial reactions but I didn't see any that could give me an answer.

"Is she the Bandit Queen?" I asked.

His face tightened at that. Did that mean she was the Bandit Queen or was his reaction because he feared the Bandit Queen?

"Unless you have a spell that lets you hear his thoughts, I'm not sure you're going to get much out of him. Could you hurry up, we do have places we need to be." Lariss said.

"Come on, just give me something for all the trouble you've caused me. It might help me impress the lady." Lariss laughed when I said that.

"Ha, you're in for a hell of a time. They'll just send someone else. Unless you run south, they won't stop. Might as well just kill yourself now." Avi said.

Lariss was right. Whether it was fear of who sent him or a sense of loyalty, I wasn't going to get anything from him. My sword quickly pierced his heart. His mocking smile fell from his face as life left him. Even though he was a criminal and the law allowed for his immediate execution, it didn't sit well with me. It didn't help that one of the reasons I didn't want to take him prisoner was because he could report back on how I fought.

"Hmm, I was slightly surprised that you didn't threaten to torture him." Lariss said.

"I'm not that type of person." I replied.

"You don't have to go through with it. The threat alone would make some talk." She said.

I wasn't sure how I felt about that either. Morality on this world was a little more brutal than Earth. My father here had raised me to be practical and to show no mercy to enemies, while also obeying the laws and customs of the kingdom. But I was still influenced by my life on Earth. There were lines that others here could easily cross without remorse that I couldn't. I had always followed the advice of my father of this world but there was an unease that came with some of my decisions.

Back on Earth I had seen a number of movies where the hero had to face tough decisions that tested their morality. How much of that mattered on this world? This wasn't Earth after all. Today I made the decision to end a man's life just to avoid future danger. Duke Osgar would be proud. My father from Earth wouldn't be. Having always done my best to keep my dreams of Earth separate from who I was here, I was now having to reconcile the differences.

"Come on, we need to bury the bodies. We don't want them to attract monsters that could attack travelers." I said.

"I'm sure you can handle it, I did have to help you kill them after all." She said.

"We're partners, you're supposed to help each other."

"Yeah, but they were specifically after you. And I was really hoping that you'd, what was the word? Impress me."

I rolled my eyes. "It's going to take longer if I have to do it myself."

She just gave me a smile. Pulling a small shovel out of my storage ring I made my way off the road to find a place to bury them. When I found a suitable spot I used my earth motes to loosen the dirt before I started shoveling. I shook my head after a few scoops of dirt. The shovel I had was smaller and I bought it to dig latrines, not holes for the dead.

Shortly after I started Lariss came guiding our horses. A bandit was tied to each of them. Both were missing their armor and weapons. As I continued to dig she brought the rest of them. It took a couple hours to dig a hole deep enough for all of them. Not wanting to stay too close to the grave, we moved the tree blocking the road and traveled for a few hours before stopping to set up camp for the night.

We were supposed to get to a village on the edge of the forest tonight. There was someone that we were supposed to meet before heading into the forest. A half a day behind shouldn't make a difference. As we ate rations around the fire, Lariss handed me a bag of coins. It had a few gold and silver, with a bunch of copper.

"This is what they had on them in terms of coins. None of their weapons or armor were that impressive. I'll sell them when we get back and should be able to get a few gold for them." She indicated her storage bracelet where the items would be held.

Having a bracelet like that showed she had access to a good amount of coins at one point. Even if it was low grade, it would be able to hold at least twice as much as my ring could. Of course the highest quality rings could hold nearly as much as low quality bracelets. The other most common type of extra dimensional storage were belts. They were better than bracelets by similar margins as bracelets were towards rings. But only the very wealthy had those. I had one of those once.

"I don't suppose they had a letter on them telling me who sent them and how they knew where I was?" I asked without much hope.

"Sorry, you're not that lucky." She said. "So who's Wassa? And how much did you screw her over that you'd think she sent them?"

"On my way north I worked as a merchant guard. She was another guard that was friendly towards me. Then she and some others betrayed us during a bandit attack. They seemed to be following her orders." I said.

"That doesn't seem like enough to send people after you like this. Maybe to kill you, but not to capture you."

"She tried to get me to join them and I refused. I also killed a man that she may have been intimate with."

"Now that would be a reason for revenge. But still why bring you in alive?"

"To torture me I presume." But that didn't sound right to me. Even though I didn't know her all that well, torture didn't seem like a good reason for her to bring me in alive for revenge. If she figured out my past, she might be thinking of handing me over to my father for money.

"What makes you think she's the Bandit Queen?" Lariss asked.

That wasn't an easy answer. I couldn't say, 'I'm destined to be a hero of legend and stories about them were filled with strange coincidences like that.'

"Nothing really. She was the leader of the bandit attack, so it was a possibility." I said.

"From what I heard, the Bandit Queen is a little older." She said.

"Do you know much about her?" I asked.

"Nothing special. Her bounty has been in the Union since before I joined. She used the chaos from the Years of Sorrow to either force other bandit leaders to join her or she killed them. Most rumors say she is a Master of basic aura, while the less reliable ones say she has a golden mana core or a unique Lineage. She's made herself more of a myth than a person in the criminal underground."

Unless Wassa was the original's successor, the timing made it impossible that she was the Bandit Queen. She wasn't that much older than me and would have been a child during the Years of Sorrow. Maybe the next people that were sent would have looser tongues.