The man looked towards his saviours with a sorrowful expression and painfully let out a hoarse voice. "Kill me. I am a sinner and I must be punished."
Ki knew of this mans deeds after investigating his life so she could figure out what kind of person he was. "Why should I?"
She knew that he must have undergone a great amount of physical and mental torture to get him to break like this and have undergone a great change.
She and the others had arrived too late to catch him on the road or before he underwent the torture because of the distance between the last location and this one.
Although Ki felt a little guilty about arriving late, it was not too late to save his life and for people like the wandering swordsman it was something that they needed to experience in order to wake them up to certain truths that they had continued to ignore for so long.
He kept his head low not daring to look into her eyes. "I have continued to sin, although I believed I was acting righteously, I kept making the wrong decisions. It would be best for the world if I just disappear."
Ki scoffed. "Isn't that too easy to say that you will use your death to pay for your sins. If you truly wish to repent then you must realise where you were wrong and find a way to correct your mistakes or find a way to repent for your actions. Dying is just an easy escape. Don't you know that you are not the only victim? In many other places others are suffering just as you have, if you die now… who can help them? Sure, there may be our group, but what if something goes wrong when you could have helped save those people? Live on and help us."
As she said that to him she took out a container filled with water and helped ease his hoarse and dry throat.
However inside was a Gu Worm of the same type as the headhunters.
Her words helped to push him from his suicidal thoughts and lead him towards a path of redemption.
The more he was inspired to take action and help her, the more deeply he began to fall under her spell just like the headhunter.
After unlocking the bindings on his body, he was removed from the room while Rashida and the numbers remained to collect the blood from within the room along with the blood and belongings of the dead bodies.
Ki returned after they were done to set up the traps but also hide the other bodies further inside the main room.
After finishing everything, she left and climbed up onto Raven once again. "There should only be a couple more to attack. Then we will return home!"
So far they had been successful and suffered only minor injuries, although they were getting tired so needed to rest at times which increased the risk of others undergoing further torture like the swordsman, there was nothing that could be done to improve the pace that they had been taking without sacrificing their health.
If they continued to push themselves further without rest, mistakes would be made resulting in serious injuries or death so Ki had to balance what they could and could not accomplish.
Many had been saved that should be saved and those that did not deserve to be saved and would become a danger to the mission were not saved but instead were killed.
The headhunter and wandering swordsman had been convinced to come along to ensure the success of the last couple of trips while the Sound Clan leader, the city guard and the retired old man each had their own family members and responsibilities that they had to take care of before going into hiding resulting in them not being able to follow along to assist with the attacks on each base.
After travelling for another couple of days, they all found themselves in a new location to attack another base.
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The illegitimate child of a noble family had talents in martial arts but did not receive the families support whether it was hiring him a tutor to learn how to read, write and how to do other things.
From a young age, he had found that he had a talent for fighting so pursued that path blindly until he was noticed by the family head for his unruly behaviour.
His family were a family of scholars who pursue knowledge and strict on noble etiquette teachings, seeing an uncultured and wild looking child as part of the family, the family head sent him to the families guard training grounds expecting to frighten the child and make him wisen up no longer bringing shame to the families image for having a short temper and being quick to raise his fists.
When confronted with people stronger than him, the family head expected the boy to back down, learn from his mistakes and hide away no longer bringing shame to the household.
He had no interest in cultivating an illegitimate child and having someone who could be a threat to the rightful heir was not something he wished for so he hoped that the child would keep his head low and not cause trouble.
If he did as the family head wished then he could never go hungry and he would never be poor or homeless.
Things did not go the way he wanted and the child seemed to instead find purpose within the training and sparring grounds.
With every beating and harsh training that he endured, he still showed up to every training session to endure the next challenge.
Although the guards were strict and a little harsh on him because of the family heads words, his persistence and endurance had gained their approval even if he was an illegitimate child.
In their opinion, the child was far more likeable than the weak looking young master of the family who had his servants carry everything for him and do every little physical task for him.
Even if they were guards for the family because their family had always been servants to the noble family or they were only staying for the money, they still served such stuck up people even if they did not like them that much.
Their personalities were not good and their stuck up attitude often angered many who worked for them but many knew how to hold back their emotions in order to not be fired by the family.
Most of them were loyal enough to protect the family and carry out security of the household but when it came to sacrificing their lives for them, very few would be able to say that they respected or feared the family enough that they would jump in front of a sword or spear to save the lives of them.
However they took a liking to the child so they took him under their wing while making halfhearted excuses to the family head saying they were especially harsh towards the boy but he is difficult to scare.
The family head gave up on the child dubbing him as an uncultured and ungrateful fool who would only continue to bring further shame to him.
Not only was he unruly and wild but now he was mixing in with the filthy and sweaty fools who wield weapons day after day.
In his mind, although the guards were there to enforce his will within the household and protect the family, most of the money he pays them is wasted because they are just lazing around his land and not doing their job.
After they had failed to carry out his intended purpose he looked down on them even more with his narrow views.
If they could not even handle a small child then they must not be that useful after all.
However he still did not dismiss them, he had to maintain his benevolent and cultured image to the public to match his reputation as a refined scholar.
If the guards were fired then there was always a risk of them leaking out information about what he had ordered them to do to the child but they could always come back to make trouble for the family.
As a scholarly noble family who was only interested in enhancing their knowledge, maintaining appearances and learning various art forms like painting, music and the art of tea, they could not afford their clean image to be stained or dragged through the mud because of something so small.
The family head had no choice to let it go and put his focus away from the matter completely ignoring the illegitimate child and who he chose to hang around with.