Chapter 21: Ten Years (Part 12: The Fatty)
A merchant caravan consisting of three carriages was moving towards the Fortress City of Black Fire.
The peaceful looking part of the route was the outer region of the infamous Waste Land, home to various barbarian tribes as well as demonic beasts. This made the journey across the Waste Land very dangerous and the trade very lucrative, as there was very few who could cross the Waste land on their own, enabling the merchants to charge whatever price they like for the goods they brought with them.
The merchant caravan started to increase their speed as there were few men rushing towards them, but even after increasing their speed, they were soon surrounded by a group of almost fifty men.
"We are the Red Hand Gang, leave your carriages along with all the goods they have and we will let you go" A short man with a large beard shouted.
The merchants started to shiver with fear as they only had ten guards with them but they were surrounded by five times the amount.
A tall fat man, who was covered in jewelry soon came out of the carriage and walked towards the bandits.
"I… I would… like to meet your leader" The fatty asked in fear.
"Look at that fatty, he looks like a gold platted meatball" The short man with a large beard chuckled, making all laughe.
"I would like to meet your leader. I have a business proposal for him" The repeated.
"I would let you meet the boss but you have to give me all the things you are wearing as a goodwill gift" The bearded man said.
"I will, I will. Just let me meat your leader" the fatty pleaded.
The bearded man looked towards a pale man in the group and the pale man nodded.
"Come with me" the bearded man walked towards a pale man.
"He is the leader of the Red Hand Gang, Mr. Shou" the bearded man introduced.
"Sir the deal is very simple, you can charge us a fixed amount and let us go, this way your gang can collect money from many merchants and there won't be any violent struggles. The merchants would also be able to earn some money with the goods they sell, encouraging them to cross the Waste land again and again."
"We can have this arrangement for the next time, so leave the goods and also strip yourself than you could leave," Mr. Shou said with a grin on his face.
"Sir… NOW!" The fatty shouted as the merchants in the caravan started to shoot arrows at the bandits and the fatty himself rushed towards Mr. Shou.
The fatty took a large sword out of his clothes and slashed it towards Shou but he missed his target as Shou used the bearded man as his shield.
The bearded man was unable to react in time and slumped on to the ground after receiving the attack, it was unclear whether he was dead or alive, but there was no one who bothered to check as they were all engaged in battle.
"What a leader you are using your own men as a shield? Well, this type of behavior can only be expected from bandits" fatty taunted as he attacked Mr. Shou again but this time Shou was ready with his short sword and easily blocked the attack.
Soon the merchant started to lose the advantage of surprise as bandits started to retaliate. Some of them even reached the carriages forcing the archers to fight in close quarters.
"You dared to attack me? Oh… You don't know much I'm going to enjoy a fat meatball" Mr. Shou grinned as his body started to emit a ghostly black mist, the grass below his feet started to wither as the ghostly mist came into contact with it.
"You cultivate death essence" fatty's face turned pale on seeing this mist.
"Now you know how I'm going to enjoy your flesh" A creepy smile came to Shou's face.
Just as he was about to make a move, a figure appeared behind him and slammed a huge stick on the back of his head.
"Boring" the figure muttered as he looked towards the fatty.
At the same time, more soldiers rushed towards the bandits and started to capture them alive.
"Shouldn't you remove this disguise, General Hammer?" The figure asked as he stared at the fatty.
"You shouldn't interfere in someone else's fight, your highness. The death essence might cause harm to your body, so you should refrain from such acts and there was no need for you to act, everything was under my control" General Hammer shamelessly tried to act like everything was fine and he wasn't scared of death essence at all.
"General Hammer you should not act so shamelessly, it's not good for a leader to be shameless. It's alright if you fear death essence, we all have something that we fear and there are many of Redash continent who fear the death essence" Adone walked towards him surrounded with a large number of soldiers.
"Brother you should at least let me know if you are going to sneak attack someone so that I can find a nice spot to enjoy the seen" Adone continued with his rant as he walked towards the figure.
The figure was none other than Liam and he was smugly standing after his 'triumphic' win against evil bandit had a wry smile on his face as he looked at his little brother then looked at his friend General Hammer who was trying to pull all the bandages that he had used to appear like a fatty.
"Let me help you with that" Liam walked towards General Hammer who was trying his best to remove the bandages that were wrapped around him. Liam started to cut the bandages with a short knife and soon General Hammer returned to his normal look.
The soldiers brought all the captured bandits and started to tie them up to the end of carriages.
Adone and company returned to the Black Fire Fortress dragging all the bandits with them who were constantly healed by the soldiers who cultivated Life essence making sure that they don't die in the transit.
Some of the bandits tried to escape but were unable to open the ropes while others tried to kill themselves but were healed at the last breath which scared the rest from trying to die.
In the evening when they reached the city, the bandits were stuffed inside the prison cells of the fortress.
After taking a bath and having a sumptuous dinner, Adone went to the meeting room were both Liam and General Hammer greeted him.
"So, how do we deal with the bandits? Should we pry the locations of the rest of the bandit groups from them?" General asked.
"First we should do as you suggested, then we can punish all of them at the same time" Adone replied.
"I will order the soldiers adept at torture to collect all the information from them" General said.
Liam nodded and went to his room to cultivate, while General Hammer started to order the soldiers to start collecting information.
Seeing that Liam was cultivating Adone walked out of the room and headed straight towards the prison cell where bandits were detained.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
Lazy_Cat_Kush
Lazy_Cat_Kush (2/3)
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