“Banditry is honestly a difficult scourge to eliminate. All too often, normally honest people might be forced to resort to it, because there was simply no other way to make ends meet for them and probably their loved ones too.

Even when nobody was lacking in basic needs, however, there remained those who might commit the crime regardless, either out of greed for more, or just out of a desire to lord themselves over some who were less fortunate.

As such, any cure to banditry tends to be temporary.” - Ruth Hegenmeier, philosophist from the Kingdom Down Under, circa 102 VA.

“See? I told you they’d come for us on their own,” quipped Aideen when she noticed the figures who appeared from outside the sparse forest to the side of the road and blocked their path. The three of them were just two days into Istrian territory, leisurely walking down the westward road. To all eyes, they looked just like three naive travelers who risked their own lives because they didn’t know better.

As such, none of them three were exactly surprised when a group of around twenty-five people – they dressed like ruffians, but there was something about their bearing and the way they stood that betrayed a hint of trained discipline in them – walked out from the forest and blocked the road bodily, many leaning their weapons, which looked too fine for what bandits would normally use, on their shoulders.

While Aideen had likely correctly suspected these “bandits” to be agents and probably even soldiers sent by an envious neighboring power to wreak havoc in the land of their more prosperous rival, the lustful leers and lewd grins they showed as they looked at the trio did not seem to be any sort of pretense. Considering how they had not ambushed the trio with arrows and just rifled their corpses afterwards, Aideen thought that they were probably looking for some “toys” to play with.

That was a mistake they would pay dearly for.

Well, the mistake was hitting the wrong group of travelers in the first place, so these “bandits” were screwed either way.

Out of the twenty-five, around four in five were men – not that it mattered, given how the women amongst them also eyed Calais as if they were trying to strip him with their eyes anyway – which was about the norm. Given how the Jarldoms tend to value women more than men, they were typically considered less expendable, and thus joined the military more rarely.

As for their origin, Aideen had no real idea. Istria bordered no less than five other Jarldoms after they took their enemies’ territory and made it their own over a century ago. Two of those were their own allies, but the other three were neutral at best. Any of those – and Aideen had not placed the “allies'' above suspicion either, though they were less likely to engage in such activities given that they too had been benefiting from the increased trade with the Lichdom – could likely be the one to have sent these “bandits” to Istria.

It was much like what the matron who housed two a week and a half ago said. While there might be some people with certain predilections that made them turn to banditry even in prosperity, given how the majority of the jarldoms had honest, straightforward people, it was most unlikely for an epidemic of banditry to take place because one prospered, unless someone else was responsible for it.

A quick glance at the face of the bandits showed that many of them were older, in their thirties or forties, but even the younger ones amongst them shared the same looks that the older ones had on their faces. Clearly this bunch had been enjoying the life of pillage – and likely worse – that they had lived as “bandits” in Istria, so not a bunch worth sparing a thought to.

Perhaps the bandits thought the three petrified in fear since they had not said a word since the bandits had shown up, so a couple of the larger, burlier men walked forward towards them, or more precisely, towards Aideen and Celia, given the lewd grins plastered on their faces. Maybe they swung the other way and were after Calais instead, but Aideen no longer cared to spend a thought on these “bandits”.

“Ooooh. We got pretty ones this time, boys and girls! It’s our lucky da-”

The bandit who spoke had his lines cut off and turned into incoherent screaming the moment he entered Aideen’s range. Aideen had her staff in hand to begin with, so the instant she was close enough, she swung the staff faster than the bandit could perceive, purposely aiming for the side of his mouth, just so the blow not only cracked his jawbone, but also shattered more than half of the man’s teeth at the same time.

“You can train on this one, should be softened enough for your use,” mentioned Aideen nonchalantly to Calais behind her, as she walked with firm, unhurried steps towards the rest of the bandits. Celia had already taken care of the other one, the oversized sword-staff she used directly shattering the top of the other bandit’s skull in a vicious blow. “We’ll take care of the rest.”

“I thought soldiers pretending to be bandits would be different, but these ones are no different to the scum we’ve met so far, aren’t they?” asked Celia as she walked beside Aideen towards the bandits. By now the remaining bandits had all drawn and prepared their weapons after seeing what happened to their two compatriots. “I guess expectations were made to be broken. There were nothing soldier-like about these trash, just more lowlives to be cleaned up.”

“They were either ones who would’ve been bandits had they not joined the military, or ones who enjoyed living like trash too much, I’d guess,” replied Aideen with a nod of her head. “It’s not like they’d be sending out their elites for this sort of job. Those tend to be far easier to identify, and that in turn could lead straight back to their employer.”

“Moot point either way, since we’re killing all these lowlives, no?”

“Precisely.”