I arrived at the central carriage with a multitude of bandits circled in fear behind me.

  It seems like the captain’s death was one hell of a suppressant for these guys, he must of really struck the fear of god in them.

  I hope I find something shiny to pass off as a national treasure worth sending a fallen to retrieve, if not I’ll just grab a rock or something and work it out.

  I approached the the main carriage and instructed for everyone to wait outside when I retrieved it, whatever it would end up being.

  I first found Jasper’s mutilated corpse, with his valuables stolen, presumably by the bandits outside. I then looked around and found everything looted. I continued to look around for any secret compartment to no avail. Thinking of a solution I picked up a wooden plank and decided for it to be the treasure.

  I went out of the carriage to find a bunch of bandits looking at me in anticipation. I looked sternly at them, “This carriage was tasked with transporting an item on behalf of the empire, making it for the duration of it’s mission, property of the empire. This right of property includes all other valuables carried by the convoy and the people on this convoy. Which includes any valuables on these persons.”

  I brought out a couple of the empty chests I found and in the main carriage and displayed them.

  “Place all stolen imperial property in the chests, failure of compliance will result in immediate execution.”

  Feeling the weight of my words, the chests were soon filled with gemstones, jewelry, and valuables of all tradeable types. Although I almost lost my composure when they dragged back a corpse of a giant bird.

  “The bird will be untradeable, It will rot by the time it gets to a place it can be harvested and the meat will then go bad.”

  But terror bird meat is poisonous to begin with, thought one of the bandits.

  “Cut it up, it best if we use such a valuable carcass when we can use it.” I said

  I didn’t really care about saving resources, but it’s eyes were terrifying.

  After an hour of butchering, the bandits were finished separating the organs, flesh, and bone and draining the blood. I noticed the the bones were covered in irregular red jagged lines with the left leg bone in particular coming to a point at it’s end.

  I felt that there was a good idea somewhere.

  After contemplating possible uses I told the bandits to fashion a cane of bird bone for me because walking around holding the bones of your victims is badass. Although I didn’t actually kill the bird, I can at least act like I did.

  The cane was crude, the original red line designs were cool but since the handle was in the form a knob created by torn bird ligaments that stuck to my hand after I held it, I considered it kind of disgusting. Although I kept it anyway.

  I’ll fix it later, somehow.

  “Now it’s going to be a long walk to the capital, since you lot killed the horses. Cook up some of that meat for the journey.”

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  They then stared at me in pure disbelief, which confused me.

  As I was contemplating on how to ask them about their look without seeming lenient, one of them spoke up, “Venerable fallen, even if you can eat terror bird, us lowly mortals can’t. It’s poisonous for us.”

  P-Poisonous!

  I subconsciously dropped my bird cane, which probably poisoned me.

  No, actually it will be fine for as long as these guys believe that I can’t be poisoned. But what happens if they leave? Will I just drop dead? Hopefully my authority works causally and not just situationally. If my authority causes me to not get poisoned by a poisonous material, then I won’t be poisoned by it. It shouldn’t cause any further complications.

  With that copium in my brain we headed out towards the capital. I of course had to make a few of them carry me. I mean, it’s improper for someone of my standing to walk, but more importantly, I don’t know where the capital is.

  We were arriving there swiftly, too swiftly. I began to worry, what am I going to do when we get there? I am playing as an imperial fallen with high standing, which according to their reactions isn’t something out of the ordinary. Meaning that fallen are relatively welcomed there. I said relatively, fallen might not be truly praised there though, they might only come to their standing through meritous deeds and me posing as someone who had those deeds when I really hadn’t could result in let me quote myself, ‘immediate execution’. More importantly though, I am really going to give them all of these valuables? I don’t want to. I was thinking about making my own empire. The problem with that now is these guys. The moment it’s revealed that I lied to them about anything, their belief in my fallenhood would waver since the fallen are so noble that they have no need to lie to mortals, it would be strange in their eyes and the second their belief starts wavering so would my power, so I absolutely can’t let that happen. I either need to ditch them, kill them, or convince them to go in my empire. I don’t really like the idea of keeping traitor-prone bandits in my empire and ditching them may result in further complications down the road, so there’s only one real option left. I kill them.

  “Stop.” I commanded them

  They looked at me in fearing anticipation as I spoke, “This is a top secret mission. So this is as far as you go.”

  “Thank you, venerable fallen.” They spoke unanimously. They started to leave but I knew I couldn’t let that happen.

  “You seem to be mistaking this situation. When I say this is a far as you go, I mean it in every direction.”

  They turned around and stared at me in horror.

  C’mon don’t look at me like that, you’re criminals who raided a caravan and slaughtered innocent tiny merchants, you’d get hanged at the capital anyway. I’m doing me a favor by killing you, you must understand.

  I jumped out of the wheel cart they were pulling me in and landed in front of one of the bandits, “Stay still and feel yourself slipping away into the unfathomable abyss which is the weight of my soul, feel yourself crushed knowing that you are taking your final breaths, soon to be no different then the people you victimized to satiate your own fragile ego. Don’t think for a second that I’m trying to instill the notion that I’m better than you, for it is just common sense, it has been something that has always been, a notion that should have already been instilled in your very birth. Yet that vain captain of yours thought different, and being a captain means that your decisions effect your subordinates. I thought of letting you all go, but when I remember your captain’s defiance, it irks me to my very soul. You should share the same fate.”

  I tossed the silver axe to the bandit, “Your captain had something against me killing him, so he actually cut his own neck with this very axe. Out of miniscule respect for your captain’s spirit, I shall let you do the same.”

  Fuck, this is the only thing I can think of. They aren’t dying, they just fear me now. Shit, I really didn’t think about this, no matter how much you think someone is going to kill you, it’s always somewhat of a shock when it happens, meaning that the third descriptor can’t take effect like this. There is a possibility that I can say ‘die’ and they will die, but there’s also a big chance that will fail and if it does, my weakness will be exposed, it’s too much of a risk for me. I have to opt for this option.

  He picked up the axe and started quivering.

  I really can’t kill them all. I’d run out of reasonings and start contradicting myself if I tried to convince all of them to commit suicide. I can only present this solution, invite others to kill themselves and instill fear for the remaining ones to never speak about this ever again.