chapter 18

After interrogating the outlaws for a while longer and milking them dry for any information they had, I ordered them to bury their dead companion and was now waiting for them to finish the process.

"Wilson, you take these guys back to the town and hand them over to the sheriff, don't forget to check if any of them have any bounties on their heads, and make sure to collect it no matter how small if that's the case," I said to Wilson, who was watching the prisoners go about their grim task, in no small amount of boredom.

"So you can have all the fun all by yourself? who cares about these guys anyway. just cut them loose or kill them or something." Wilson mutteringly, seemingly sinking even more into boredom.

"sigh, I know you're not stupid, so why don't you use that brain of yours for once eh,? you know we can't cut them loose because they'll alert their comrades to our presence, and we can't kill them because it would give us a bad reputation which we don't want so early in our journey." I said placatingly and continued to speak before Wilson could make any more objections.

"take some money with you. your two-and-a-half-meter figure lumbering around the town is bound to bring us too much attention. you can go to the bar to try some new kinds of alcohol too if you want." I said as I handed him some belly notes, which finally seemed to satisfy him as he smiled at the prospect of tasting a different kind of spirit.

Coincidentally, it was also at this moment that the prisoners completed their task of burying the body of the dead outlaw. So I ordered them to tie themselves up again and watched as Wilson shepherd them in the direction of the town, then started to move as well when their figures disappeared from my line of sight.

It took me an hour or so of light jogging to reach the outlaw's hideout, which was a big mansion hidden inside a large canyon and hidden further by a large rock sitting at its back, switching it between the canyon wall and its self.

Surveying the surroundings had taken me a minute, and I spent another couple of minutes infiltrating the mansion. I entered the mansion by climbing my way up one of its thin wooden pillars and into the balcony on the second floor, which conveniently had an open window.

Once inside, I found myself in a large room decorated with all kinds of fancy-looking furs and paintings, with a large double bed right in the middle of it.

Going through all drawers and containers of the room, I found nothing interesting except for a stack of money, worth twelve thousand or so bellies, which I had pocketed, of course.

Once I was done with the search and sure that I didn't miss anything. I headed towards the room's exit. And found me in a hallway, with several four wooden doors divided by a wooden staircase going into the first floor.

I, of course, decided to start checking the rest of the rooms, and after going through two of them with nothing to show for it, I suddenly heard a sound coming from the third room as I reached for its handle to open and inter it.

I reacted as fast as I could, as I quickly opened the door and pushed the door open, hitting and stunning the man standing behind it with the edge of the door. I then covered his mouth with my left hand and lifted him off the floor by his face, and slammed him into the wall behind the door while taking out satori and bringing it to his neck.

"if you scream, you die. if you speak without my permission, you also die. if you try lying to me, you guessed it, you die. so believe me, when I say, I will know if you lie, now nod if you understand," I said in a low tone of voice as I buried my fist into the man's stomach, not hard enough to make him faint, but hard enough to make him scream in agony if my hand wasn't covering his mouth.

I generously gave him a couple of seconds to groan the pain away as I watched him squirm in my grip until he was calm enough to understand the situation he was so suddenly in and nod.

"where is sam bass?" I said as I removed my hand covering his mouth and brought satori's blade close enough to his throat to cut his skin and draw a thin red line on his neck.

"h-he went out to check on the guys he sent on patrol, he should be back in an hour or so and bring them with him," he said as a dozen droplets of cold sweat rolled down his forehead while his eyes shifted nervously, alternating between looking at me and the sword held to his neck.

"I see. how many of you are at the hideout right now, including you, and what are they doing this moment?" I asked again while looking him dead in the eyes.

"there should be around twenty or something people in the hideout right now. they're all downstairs. some of them are doing chores around the mansion while some are just getting wasted or lazing around," he said quickly, trying to make his words as precise and short as possible.

"you did well to cooperate, but I believe it's past your bedtime now, young man, so goodnight," I said with a shit-eating grin as I punched him in the gut again, this time hard enough to make him faint.

I then made my way downstairs and proceeded to beat the living crap out of anything that moved until I was standing in the middle of twenty-something unconscious bodies.

I then picked up the guy who was the most fancily dressed and kept slapping him on the face until he woke up, and then slapped him some more until he led me to their stash, which had roughly around seven hundred thousand bellies.

I quickly pocketed the money and then tied up all the bandits. Once done, I moved on to take a seat at the stair's lower steps, which were located at the centre of the mansion and right in front of the mansion's main entrance, and lit a cigarette leisurely to wait for my target's return.