Sword God in a World of Magic

Shang looked at the first poster.

He recognized the person in it.

It was one of the bandits that he had killed.

Why did he have a missing poster?

Wasn't he supposed to be a bandit?

The officer noticed that Shang hadn't said anything in several seconds. "The local bandits mainly get their recruits from the beggars and rebellious children," the officer explained.

"People that have stepped onto the path to power are not lacking money, which is why a lot of them don't need to become bandits. Of course, there are still some that enjoy that lifestyle of freedom and doing whatever they want, but most of them don't want to deal with being hunted by society."

"However, the normal people often need money for multiple reasons. Some need to take care of their family. Some want to take care of their friends. Some need money to survive themselves."

"Others don't care about the money but want to do something else other than overtaking their family's business, shop, farm, or whatever. Some of them only want adventure. However, they all will run into the problem of money and power again."

"When you have power, making money is easy. When you don't have power, making money is difficult. However, to make money, you either need to be outstanding in a specific field or power, and to become powerful, you need money."

"You need medicine, tutoring, equipment, supplements, and many other things to become significantly more powerful than the average person."

"Most people can't step onto the path of power due to their minuscule finances."

"That's where the bandits come into play."

"They scout out these troubled individuals and entice them with resources. That's how they get their recruits."

"Of course, the bandits aren't directly handing them the resources to become powerful. What they do is to give them an opportunity to make big money, which would, in turn, allow them to start their journey to power."

"Nearly all recruits start with Rat Raids. That's when a group of normal people charges at something valuable and bank on the possibility that the owner of these things doesn't have the conviction to kill a bunch of unarmored, normal humans."

"These raids are called Rat Raids because, like rats, the group mindlessly charges forward to gorge themselves on wealth. They know that some of them will die, and they will most certainly get injured, but they are betting on the possibility that they won't be the ones that will get killed."

"After they plundered the valuables, the new recruits will give them to the bandits, who, in turn, will teach the recruits about training and how to become more powerful. They are also willing to trade in supplements and medicine for outstanding contributions."

The officer leaned forward and put her right index finger on the top missing poster.

"Most of these missing people should be recruits for the bandits," she said slowly as she looked into Shang's eyes. "The bandits force them to abandon their old life for fear of someone leaking out their camps and locations. They can't allow any of these recruits to come into contact with their loved ones."

"They are only allowed to return when they have proven themselves."

"Most of them will never reach that stage."

leaned back

why I need you to identify them. Some of them are genuinely missing, and some of them are recruits. According to what I've heard, some of them have already died on your hands, and that's fine. Killing bandits is a good

is like killing off the offspring of Pest Cats. They might not be a danger now, but they

please, tell me who you recognize," the officer said as she

words entered

but

money to start their journey

have any

but the only thing of value had been

money, they could just get some wood and some stones. With that, they could easily make some spears, which

could buy some basic survival gear,

more, they wouldn't even need supplements or medicine

powerful even before he had

training, meditation,

the weakest beasts. Even more, they could

officer had said these words to explain the way the bandits worked to Shang. She wanted to

he shouldn't feel guilty for killing

still had

the officer only accomplished the

power and one

had the opportunity to choose

Yet, they didn't.

of being courageous and putting their own life on the line in

work, and it didn't need the

Shang had seen the missing posters at the beginning, he had feared that the bandits had kidnapped these people and forced them to do

major regret Shang

that these bandits did these

they had had no other

they did have another

simply didn't choose

Shang's suppressed guilt was reduced by quite

that Shang seemed to have relaxed, and she released a

seemed like her words had

looked at the first missing poster and put

"Dead," he said.

piece of paper to write down what

he do? How did

ones that ran with my Ice Wood, and I killed him by diagonally

already running, his fate will deter others from