The bandits were tied up in a sorry state and thrown heavily into the center. Looking at the members of Milia's party surrounding them, they cried out and begged for mercy one after another:
“We're sorry, we're sorry! We were wrong, please spare our lives!”
“I'm sorry! My family member is gravely ill, and I had no choice but to do this! Please spare my life!”
“I won't do it again! We'll never do it again, please forgive me!”
“I still have a daughter! She's waiting for me to come home and eat dinner with her! Please, I beg of you!”
One of the bandits kept squirming, and with a clink, a necklace pendant slipped out of his pocket.
Tucked inside was a small picture, a drawing by a little girl. It depicted a young girl in worn-out clothes sitting on a man's shoulders.
The background was a grassy lawn, and both the girl and the man wore joyful smiles as if they were running.
It looked like a heartwarming scene of a father and daughter playing together.
A look of reluctance and pity clearly appeared on Milia and Charles's faces, and even Gareth and Bernard's expressions gradually softened.
However, there was still one person who stared coldly at the bandits with an icy expression.
True to her nickname, she stared at the bandits like a block of ice, a freezing aura radiating from her body.
She crossed her arms over her chest, forming a platform that supported her heavy bosom.
“Hmph! Who knows if you're lying or not!”
“To think you'd dare to put out a fake quest. Who's to say this is your first time doing it?”
A so-called fake quest was a fraudulent request specifically designed to lure adventurers in. They would fabricate a quest to bait adventurers, taking the opportunity to murder them and steal their treasures.
Adventurers usually stocked up on supplies before going on a quest, and these supplies were the primary targets of these fake quest posters.
However, once such a crime was discovered, the perpetrators would be placed on the Adventurer's Guild's wanted list and hunted down by the guild's powerful members.
The guild's reach was vast; there was no use hiding anywhere.
As long as an Adventurer's Guild existed in an area, the people on those lists would be hunted down.
Sylph let out a cold snort, the two slimes on her chest bouncing up and down like rabbits with her movement.
“If the ones who came today weren't us, but those Tier Two or Tier Three adventurers, would you have spared them?!”
This fake quest was exactly what Milia and her party had encountered. Coincidentally, it was also the quest that strictly required a Healer.
This quest was only a C-rank quest. Logically, as an A-rank party, they shouldn't have given it a second look.
But who could help it when they had such a warm-hearted, foolish leader?
The fabricated quest description had caught Milia's attention. It was a plea for help, stating that a village had been attacked by bandits and many people were injured. It requested adventurers to help repel the bandits and treat the wounded.
Seeing that people were injured and needed help, Milia had accepted the quest without a second thought.
As an orphan who survived her village being massacred by bandits, Milia understood that pain all too well.
She didn't want anyone else to experience the same suffering she had!
She wanted a world where everyone could live happily!
That was why she had been so desperate to recruit a Healer, why she had stood up for Charles, and why she did everything in her power to help others.
Unfortunately, the strict requirement for a Healer was only because the bandits lacked one themselves and had planned to kidnap one.
“We would have! We would have! I beg of you, I swear there won't be a next time!”
“Yes, please, we know we were wrong.”
The group of fierce-looking bandits, their upper bodies bound, knelt on the ground and repeatedly kowtowed to Milia and the others.
Thud, thud, thud!
Their heads slammed heavily against the ground as they kowtowed under the party's gaze, soon leaving a pool of blood on the floor.
Fist-sized, bleeding wounds quickly formed on their foreheads.
“Stop, stop, stop!”
The archer, Bernard, stopped them and said, “Wait here. We're going to discuss how to deal with you.”
His cold gaze swept over each bandit, so sharp that they felt as if they were being cut by knives.
“Remember, while we are discussing, don't even think about running. Otherwise, you'll find out exactly how accurate my arrows are!”
“Yes, yes!”
The hairs on the back of every bandit's neck stood up as they straightened up, trembling, and spoke respectfully.
Seeing them behave, Bernard nodded slowly. The party then gathered in a circle and lowered their heads to begin their discussion.
Milia and Gareth voted to let them go, finding the man who wanted to reunite with his daughter too pitiful.
They believed that the group would definitely repent and never commit crimes again.
Bernard and Sylph, on the other hand, believed that while they could be released, their cultivation must be crippled first. Otherwise, what if they went on to harm others again?
Sylph took an even more extreme stance, believing they should just kill them directly.
“What do you think, Charles?”
Everyone turned their eyes to Charles, who had a wooden, blank expression, asking for his thoughts.
Meeting their gazes, Charles thought for a moment and then whispered:
“I hope we can just let them go.”
“And your reason?”
Sylph asked coldly.
Pricked by Sylph's ice-cold gaze, Charles immediately shrank back like a startled quail.
He lowered his voice even further, yet it carried a trace of determination.
“I think they've learned their lesson this time and know they were wrong. They definitely won't make the same mistake again. Besides, if that man's cultivation is crippled, his little girl will surely be heartbroken when she sees him.”
As he spoke, a look of distinct gentleness appeared on his face.
Everyone seemed moved by his words, their expressions shifting. Then, Milia clapped her hands and said:
“Alright, three to two! It's a grand victory for us!”
She then walked over to the bandits and drew the longsword from her waist.
Under their terrified gazes, several flashes of sword light cut the ropes binding them.
“You may go. Make sure you never do anything bad again!”
“Yes, yes, yes! We will absolutely never do anything bad again!”
Hearing this, the men showed expressions of panic, quickly kneeling to kowtow to her while radiating fear and gratitude.
Milia nodded, then called her teammates over. Under Sylph's dissatisfied gaze, they all left together.
Behind them, the group of bandits continued to kowtow without stopping, remaining that way until long after Milia's party had vanished from sight.
Once they were gone, the fearful expressions on the bandits' faces vanished, replaced by disdain as they stared in the direction Milia and her party had left.
“Tsk, talk about bad luck. To think we'd run into a bunch of strong but soft-hearted fools.”
Someone nearby remarked, “But thanks to those soft-hearted fools, we managed to escape with our lives.”
The man next to him toyed smugly with the pendant containing the drawing, laughing:
“What did I tell you? I said keeping this would come in handy! When we were raiding that place, you guys said I was doing something pointless by forcing that family's daughter to draw a picture. Well, this drawing just saved our lives!”
“My ears are sharp. I heard that clueless blockhead say, ‘If that man's cultivation is crippled, his little girl will surely be heartbroken when she sees him.’”
“Hahahahahahaha!”
At his words, everyone burst into loud laughter, their voices thick with banditry and arrogance.
“I don't know if that little girl would be heartbroken, but I do know I'm thrilled to be alive! Once we pull a few more jobs and get stronger, we can just send him down to the afterlife to ask if she's heartbroken!”
The leader spat on the ground and said with a vicious expression:
“Damn it, we took a huge loss this time. Let's go raid a village to restock our supplies!”
Rate on N.U.
