Duke's sword pointed at Stank's neck then was raised again towards the sky where it descended once more to cut Stank's neck.
"W-Wait! Duke, sir!" But as the blade was about to cut Stank's neck, Rudon stopped Duke.
"Sir, please let him stay alive till we reach the Village... I, I wish to let my Village give him the mob justice they deserve..." Rudon begged Duke.
In most rural villages of the South, it was common for Villagers to form mobs and punish a convict who committed crimes such as murder, rape, and thievery once they were captured... the criminals normally received very very painful deaths as they were mauled by the angry mob. A type of death Rudon felt more fitting for someone as despicable as Stank.
*Sigh* Duke's tensed up muscled suddenly became more lax as in truth, even though Duke was incredibly angry, his cruel smile was still a facade for the nervousness he had for directly killing another person.
Accidentally killing a person in a battle and intentionally slitting a bounded criminal were two very distinct experiences... the immature Duke was still not ready to take another person's life, and so, breathing a sigh of relief, Duke let Stank and the other captured Bandits alive for now.
[*Phew* I thought I was a goner there... Hahaha, despite how cruel that fatass looks like, he's still a naive child. Maybe I can use this to escape] Stank snickered in his mind.
And so, the despicable Bandit lived another day.
Duke rounded up the Bandits and rallied his men as they set forth towards Kath.
On the way there, the Bandits who surrendered and willingly accepted Duke's offer to work for Maine's farms were given donkeys as they traveled with the small army's supplies, the Bandits who tried to escape on the other hand had their hands roped together and forced to walk to Kath where they would be beaten to death.
Waxer was an exception though, as he was about to mount the donkey, Duke came up to him, still with unexplainable anger.
"Not you" Duke stared at Waxer.
"Huh, fine fine" Waxer sighed as he turned around to walk with the roped up bandits.
"What are you planning?" Duke asked in an aggressive tone.
"I plan to farm, I guess?..." Waxer answered nonchalantly, but as Duke's suspicion didn't wane, Waxer sighed: "Sigh, look if you don't trust me, you should've just went ahead and beheaded me. Would've saved you a lot more worry ya know..."
Waxer's answer might've sounded sarcastic, and if were another Noble in front of him, that Noble might've really beheaded Waxer then and there.
But Duke wasn't shallow like the other Nobles, and his years of being bullied as a social outcast plus his innate awareness gave him a very good grasp of people.
This was why Duke knew Waxer's response was genuine, and not a sarcastic one the crafty types normally gave.
Duke grit his teeth and clenched his fists, despite his intense hatred for the person in front of him for taking the life of an innocent young girl, Duke knew taking back his word of giving the Bandits who surrendered a second chance in life would be hypocritical.
"I made a vow, and I intend to keep it" Duke mounted his horse and didn't look back.
The small army Duke led quickly crossed the forest with the supply mules and captured bandits behind them but halfway through their journey Duke's band of men crossed paths with a Merchant's caravan led by a particularly weird Noble who suddenly went up to Duke and asked him:
"Would you be interested in selling those Bandits over there?" The Noble kindly smiled at Duke.
"Sorry, but they're not for sale" Duke politely denied his offer which slightly touched the hearts of the hunters from Kath and Rudon who led them as they knew Duke refused the hefty sum of gold due to their request for justice.
"Hmm, then how about I double the amount?" The merchant persisted.
"Sir, our lord has already denied your offer!" Rudon agitatedly responded.
The Merchant-Noble and Rudon stared each other down. Normally commoners would either immediately cower or be flogged for disrespecting a Noble, but Rudon, the disgruntled father wanted the criminals responsible for his daughter's death to be put to justice.
Duke ordered Rudon to back down as he asked the Merchant: "Why are you so persistent in buying them? Do you have a relationship with one of them?"
"Well... you could say I have a history with one of them" The Merchant responded.
"If that's the case then I would have to deny your offer, sir... These are criminals who have committed grave sins against my territory. If you continue to insist on buying their freedom, then I would be forced to name you an accomplice in their crimes..." Duke continued to be respectful but steadfast at the same time.
"You mistake my intentions sir Count, I realize you are from the Pendragon house and know of the Pendragon's great sense for justice. I have an account to settle with one of them, the sickly looking one. Please..." The Noble continued to persist.
"The sickly looking one?... Bring him here" Duke ordered one of the hunters who in turn brought Stank in front of them.
"H-Hey! Don't be too rough, ey?!" Stank shouted as he was dragged in front of Duke, the Merchant, and Rudon.
"This one?" Duke asked.
"Hm, yes..." The Merchant smiled an incredibly sinister smile hidden behind a calm facade.
"E-Eh? Is that you Derk?! Hahaha, lookin' quite fancy now aren't ya! H-How've you been my friend?" Stank immediately sucked up to the Noble-Merchant Derek in front of him.
Unlike before when Derek was weak and sickly thin and wearing worn rags poor commoners normally wore, the man in front of Stank was a beautifully built strong and dashing man wearing expensive black Noble's attire.
"Hmm? Didn't know we were quite close... Well, even though you did force me to do your assignments, continuously bullied me, and stole my ex-girlfriend, I've done quite well for myself. I got married to a wonderfully kind Viscountess and I've even successfully started a lot of businesses and become pretty rich... How about you?" Derek smirked, but the execrate hate in his eyes was still seen by Duke and felt by Rudon next to him.
"O-Oh! Haha... ha. Oh, you know me, just wandering the countryside... And about your ex-girlfriend, haha... Who was that whore again? Linthia, was it-"
"Cynthia" Derek cut off Stank's mumbling.
"A-Ah! Yes, Cynthia, I'm sure you were glad to get that blood-sucking whore out of your life, right? You've even become a successful man without her! S-She was just holding ya back! Right, buddy? In fact, you should be thanking me for removing her from your life! Hahaha... How is Cynthia these days?..." Stank began to cuddle next to Derek in front of Duke and the other soldiers, thinking to himself: [Phew! Derek's always been the soft-hearted buffoon, he might just be my escape from this god awful fatass!]
"Cynthia?..." Derek's face smirk was replaced with a terrorizingly calm poker-face as his voice turned deep in anger.
"She killed herself..."
"Enough, take back this bumbling buffoon!" Duke immediately ordered before Derek could pull out his sword to murder Stank.
"W-Wait! I, I still haven't caught up with ma friend, Derek yet! Hey! Wait!" Stank shouted, still believing Derek was his way out.
"I'll pay you anything to get my hands on that- Thing..." Derek looked Duke in the eye.
"And judging from you attires, you must be local hunters from either Kath or Sigmund, if you're from Sigmund, I heard those Bandits burnt it down recently. If you'd let me have that... that Thing. I'll even pay for Kath and Sigmund's repairs plus the other Villages surrounding it under Count Duke's name!" Derek added, pleading yet still dignified. Gone were the days where Derek could only beg and plead for mercy.
"That's..." Duke hesitated for a while then looked at Rudon.
Rudon, thinking of his wife back home and their empty house felt it would be better to get financial help rather than petty revenge, and so he agreed...
At first, Stank thought he was being let go by his gullible friend, Derek. Stank might've been manipulative, but that didn't mean he was sharp.
As he was dragged away by Derek's caravan, unable to continuously hear his bickering, Derek ordered his soldiers to knock the fool out.
"Eh- Eh? Where... where am, I?" Stank groggily wondered as he looked around the dark and deep dungeon covered in tools of torture he woke up in...
"W-Who?" Stank asked as he looked to the two figures approaching him.
"Ah, Stanley... you're awake" Derek smiled at the disgusting fool in front of him.
"Why am I?" Stank weakly muttered.
"Oh, yes! Stanly, meet my Physician, Caleb... He's Cynthia's brother... After Cynthia killed herself after you tricked and raped her, I made sure to squeeze every penny I could just to pay for his medication...
Caleb and I built up our wealth from the ground up and successfully made it here to where we are now today... Pretty impressive for the lowly commoners you mocked, eh?" Derek calmly narrated in a slightly happy voice.
"Caleb normally doesn't do these kinds of things as he's too uptight righteous as a doctor... But I guess there's always an exception to everything..." Derek continued while Caleb silently watched as his eyes beneath his goggles pierced through Stank.
"W-Wait! What are you trying to do?! Oi! Why are you removing my pants?! H-Hey! Where are you touching!" Stank began squealing and shouting.
"Oh don't worry, nobody wants to go near that small thing... And you'll be fine, did you know, Caleb here is a once in a century genius with surgery" Derek comforted the flailing stank.
"One time, I even asked him if there was a way to physically turn a man into a woman! And what did you know, after just a few hours he miraculously came up with this procedure! Pure genius! Am I right?" Derek enthusiastically explained.
"W-What a-are you planning to do to me?! P-Please, w-wait!" Stank cried out, in a manner no different from how Cynthia cried for him to stop his depraved actions against her.
But like how he treated the poor abused Cynthia, his pleas also fell to deaf ears as Derek slowly told him:
"I already bought you, I must at least earn something from you... right? I heard the Emperor recently sent two legions up north... Frustrated soldiers would do anything that moves, I heard... As a man who has experienced how it was to be poor, I'll even give them a discount..."
"A copper an hour, now that's a deal no soldier can pass up, right? hahaha" Derek smiled, filled with insidious cruelty and unbridled anger.
Derek could never forgive the piece of trash in front of him after he heard Cynthia's last words filled with pain and guilt.
["Derek... forget about me, I'm a dirty woman now anyway...
I'm sure...
you'll find... someone pure and honest...
just like you"] Derek remembered himself helplessly holding her as her right arm continuously bled and life left the body of the innocent and gullible girl he held.
[She didn't deserve this...] Was the only thought, Derek had that night as if his heart and soul were torn to a million shreds...
She didn't deserve this.
*ARGHHHHHHH! URKGHHHHHH!!*
Loud screams and cries were heard under Viscount Honnête's castle that night...
That night, Karma was a bitch.