Chapter 147: The Motive of the Bandits (2/3)
âDonât make me laugh.â [Ryouma]
After hearing their excuse, my head started to grow cold.
âItâs scary to kill people?ăYouâre not wrong. Thatâs a respectable thought. But you people donât have the right to say that.â [Ryouma]
What do these people think theyâre saying?
âItâs scary to kill people, so you didnât finish him off?ăBut itâs not like you saved him either, did you?â [Ryouma]
âWhat do you want us to do? Take him to town?â [Bandit 1]
âDid you investigate the reason why he fainted?ăEven if you donât know the first thing about medical science, you should still know that getting hit in the head is bad. A person can look alright on the outside, but that doesnât mean heâs okay. In the worst case scenario, he could never wake up again.â [Ryouma]
Thatâs not all. Although thereâs not a lot of dangerous creatures lurking in this place, itâs still not unusual to happen into a goblin. Even the god-appraised ârelatively safeâ forest, the Forest of Gana, had them. With his consciousness gone and his limbs bound, if a goblin were to find him, his death would pretty much be guaranteed.
âAs Iâve said earlier, I havenât found him yet, so I still donât know if heâs safe. You didnât mean for him to fall off the cliff?ăYou didnât finish him off, so you didnât kill him?ăDonât make me laugh.â [Ryouma]
There are plenty of people who die from accidents.
Itâs not just traffic accidents. Even the innocent but dangerous games played by children have led to deaths.
Countless people die from accidents every year.
And the people that cause these accidents donât go and say to themselves, âAlright! Letâs do it!â And then go and cause one intentionally.
If there was such a person, that would no longer be an accident but planned murder.
You donât need to be resolved to kill someone.
You just have to take a step, and regardless if you want it or not, a person will die.
And thatâs exactly what theyâre doing, though they do it under the pretense of âthieveryâ. It wouldnât be strange if someone died from their actions.
And yet after doing just that, they left him alone there without even checking if he was alive. After going that far, pulling out the âI didnât kill anyoneâ card just doesnât work.
ââŠâ [Three Bandits]
âStill not talking, huh? What happened to all the energy earlier?â [Ryouma]
ââŠYou trying to give us a sermon? What would a brat like you know?â [Bandit 1]
A sermon?ăThereâs no such thing.
âI havenât killed anyone⊠I donât want to kill anyone⊠It just didnât sit right with me hearing those words coming from a group of people who watched someone die without even trying to help. Thatâs all.â [Ryouma]
âŠI donât have time to waste on people like these.
âWait!?âăPlease wait!ăDidnât you say you would help me!?â [Bandit 3]
ââŠI donât like you, but I wonât kill you. In exchange, youâll have to lead me to the place where the carriage fell.â [Ryouma]
72 hours. When the time elapsed since an accident passes that mark, the odds of survival plummets. And thatâs under the condition that the person in question has food, water, and a way to warm himself. If those things are absent and if the person is wounded, the time limit becomes even shorter.
â âDimension Homeâ I wonât kill the others. But theyâll have to go in here. The next time you guys come out, it will be in front of the guards.â [Ryouma]
In the end, I had to say that while picking up the bandit that didnât wake up.
âIs this the right place!?â [Ryouma]
âYes!ăThereâs no doubt about it, Young Master!â [Bandit 3]
ââŠStop calling me âyoung masterâ. It gives me the creeps.â [Ryouma]
âIâm sorry!!â [Bandit 3]
I had the scared man sit on the impromptu rack with shoulder straps so I could carry him while I climbed up the roadless path.
As I had the man show me the way, the place of the crime turned out to be the side of the road near Kereban just as Iâd expected.
But due to them having walked around the mountains these past few days, he couldnât find the path unless we found the official road first.
With no other choice, I gave up going to the scene of the crime directly and went to the official road first.
The rimel birds were there to guide us, so there was no way for us to get lost.
ââŠThereâs still something bothering me.â [Ryouma]
âYes!ăWhat is it? Iâll answer any question!â [Bandit 3]
âYou attacked him two days ago, right?ăSo what were you guys still doing in the forest?ăShouldnât you have run already?â [Ryouma]
âThatâs because itâs all plains down the mountain. Thereâs no place for us to hide ourselves. If other people were to see us looking like this, they will surely be suspicious of us. So we went back up the mountain.â [Bandit 3]
âSo what was the plan if you hadnât been caught?â [Ryouma]
âNothing in particularâŠâ [Bandit 3]
ââŠYou didnât have a plan?â [Ryouma]
âWe had our hands full just running away from the subjugation squadâŠâ [Bandit 3]
âJust how were you able to survive for so long without a plan?â [Ryouma]
âBefore those guys attacked our place, we were carrying food. So we just took those with us when they attacked. Thanks to that we were able to sustain ourselves while running, but even that ran out three days ago and we had no choice but to attack someone.â [Bandit 3]
And thatâs how they ended up deciding on Pedro-san who just happened to be passing bby.
âAnd the luggage you took?â [Ryouma]
âOur late boss hang out with merchants, who provided us with food and weapons in exchange for stolen goods and money, so we figured it would be a good to have some stuff on hand.â [Bandit 3]
ââŠAnd do you know where you could sell those stuff to?â [Ryouma]
ââŠWell, we figured it would be too late to think about it if we only started thinking after the opportunity presented itself, soâŠ.â [Bandit 3]
In other words, you people donât have a single clue!
If you find any errors ( Ads popup, ads redirect, broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.