Epic Of The Demonic Sage

"Do you think some people have survived based on the strength of those six, Peter?" Lucius asked. "You guys were part of this large bandit group… may I perchance know of their name?"

Helm looked alarmed, but then realized the importance of answering this.

'They're all dead now, so we could actually make up everything, give a name… but lying about them, right now. Tch. Spending too much with Peter made me too sentimental as well. Besides, Leif here too can fact check.'

"W-we were part of the glorious Ashen Raiders, S-Sir Lucius." Peter said with a touch of pride in his voice. "Our Bandit Lord, Sable, he was someone who accepted everyone willing to join us. As long as they knew what they wanted, from wherever they came from. He was willing to take them in, and that's why we were one of the largest bandit groups."

Helm listened hard and kept a straight face, but even he couldn't help but let emotion seep into him.

"Dredges, Peter." Helm muttered, more to himself than anyone. "Mostly the ones from the dredges of society."

"What was he like? Do you think he survived?" Lucius asked.

Peter sucked in a breath but laughed weakly and shook his head.

"N-no. Bandit Lord Sable was the best out of the rest of the bandits, I mean, it may be hard to believe that… but when everyone was starting to get attacked, he said that it was best to form a huge group together. Gather everyone. The bigger the group, the harder it was to take everyone down, but the others were uncooperative."

"Thought we were safe. We were already large. Most bandit groups are small, maybe around thirty people, sometimes more, but we were at nearly a hundred bandits, Sir Lucius." Helm said, sighing and trying to keep the edge out of his voice.

'In hindsight, even though we were already large, it should have still been scary. We should have been more prepared. It's… it's hard. Not everyone is as strong and powerful as Lord Sable, but he went down like the rest of us.'

"A-and well, maybe that was the wrong decision. So, when those six, those six folks came around, well, it became quite clear that they can handle more than ten times their number. Maybe more. And Bandit Lord Sable, he was with the strongest, we had our own elites too. Er, Bandit Lord Sable could have probably run away back then. Left everyone behind, and tried to get away by himself if he wanted to, we had time, the six were taking out other bandit groups left and right, everyone was making their final stand."

"They thought it was a threat that could be handled. There were only six of them, they couldn't have been that good." Helm said. "Each of the bandit lord must have thought that they could take them on, some stood with pride, sentimentality… not that it really mattered since they're dead now, and so is Bandit Lord Sable."

"H-he was a good man!" Peter looked back at Helm with a glare.

"You think we're good people?" Helm chuckled sardonically.

"Within the circumstances that you guys experienced, I think only a natural occurrence. And while I do not think you're all good people, it does not mean that you're all necessarily bad either." Lucius said. "Perhaps I am wrong, but as I've stated earlier, the circumstances…"

It was a strange thing to hear for the two. Bandits were people who stole from the others to survive, and it wasn't like their hands were clear of blood either.

At the time and place that they were in, it should have been a norm, but there were people who were weak minded and couldn't take it.

"Bandit Lord Sable, he… he really wasn't uh, like us." Peter laughed. "He came from a wealthy family, didn't he? He had a good Gift, a great one. It was the Shadow Sword, with every cut of his blade, they always deal an extra cut. And he was smart, incredible, he had good wits. Could have run away."

"But he stood his ground." Helm's shoulders lowered. "You can say that he… well, he along with the rest tried their best. He would spout about something called noblesse oblige if you got him drunk enough to talk. That's how we ended up kinda learning of his past. He's got a weak tolerance to alcohol."

Lucius' face remained expressionless for a moment.

In his past life, there were an occasional number of people who were like that, perhaps far fewer due to his experience of being in the Great Barrom Clan… but there had been an occasional man or woman who'd go on about how it wasn't actually too late to give up their life.

Most of the people in the True Family of the Barrom Clan were mostly considered evil and irrevocable, but there were a few idiotic people who presumed that people who were in the lower and bottom rung of the Barrom Clan would open up to kindness and generosity.

There was a time when Lucius wasn't always as expert and skilled as he was, and there came a time when his allegiance as a member of the Great Barrom Clan became known.

It happened when Lucius was still a kid. He had still been in the process of gathering knowledge, and everything else, but he was sent out on a mission.

A look of displeasure momentarily flickered in Lucius' face. It was a memory that he preferred forgotten, but suffice to say, to the individual who presumed that a young boy from the slaves of Barrom Clan could be saved, that clearly wasn't the case for him.

It might have worked, an ounce of kindness, but Lucius had survived for a reason and it was not due to the goodness of life.

'A pathetic end to that man then. Sacrificing himself for his people, based on how his story goes. Not unheard of. It's truly incredible what entire lengths that people will go through, and yet that ideal of his ended when his life vanished too.'