Hero or Villain, Both
Chapter 95: Paying them back (1)

Chapter 95: Paying them back (1)

"What happened here?"

As I walked into the town, I couldn’t help deeply knitting my brows.

That was because in the short time that I had left the town, it had completely changed.

There was debris that was all over the place and there were even traces of blood on the ground.

It didn’t seem like there was anyone that was dead judging by how they were all gathered outside, but it was clear that there was damage done to the town itself.

There was even a building that had collapsed.

Seeing that I was back, Iris and Chris reported to me.

But it seemed like they were hesitating at first, as if they were afraid to say what they wanted to say.

"Just tell me what happened. It’s fine, I don’t blame you."

Hearing this, the two of them finally slowly told me everything that had happened.

It turned out that in the time that I had gone out to take care of a bounty, our town had been raided by one of the surrounding villages.

I thought that it would be safe for the town since the training for these guards had been going well. At the same time, there was no one that had attacked the town, or at least no one that had caused destruction in this town to this degree before.

But that all changed with this single raid.

"Why did they do it now of all time?"

Vanessa came over with an awkward look to say, "It’s because they’re afraid of you."

"Afraid of me?" I couldn’t help repeating in a confused voice.

Vanessa gave a slow nod before saying, "They’re scared of what you will do now that you’ve taken over the town. Before this, your reputation was enough to keep them away since they didn’t want to cause trouble with you, but they still raided the caravans outside of town since you couldn’t pursue them there."

"Then is this all a warning?" I asked in a heavy voice.

Vanessa didn’t respond at first, but then she gave a nod to confirm this.

It seemed that in a sense, me taking over this town had caused trouble for them.

But I could see that they didn’t blame me since I was the one that they had basically forced to take over this town as the chief.

Instead, I looked at the guards that I had trained.

Seeing the way that they looked away when I looked at them, I could guess what had happened.

I couldn’t help knitting my brows in deep thought before saying, "Gather up!"

All of the guards were caught off guard when they heard this, but they also quickly came in front of me after hearing this.

Once they were all in front of me like this, I said, "We’re going to make them pay the price for daring to mess with us. I will lead an attack on their village now and all of you will follow me."

Vanessa couldn’t help knitting her brows when she heard this.

I could guess what she was about to say, so I stopped her by saying, "Does it matter if we don’t attack them? At this point, they’re the ones that have fired the first shot and we have no choice but to retaliate. If we don’t, you can probably imagine what will happen."

Vanessa knitted her brows even more when she heard this, but she eventually gave a slow nod of agreement.

She knew that it was already too late.

The only other problem was the worried looks that were on the faces of the guards.

Seeing this, I knew what they were thinking.

The thing was, I knew that these guards that I had trained were already strong enough to take care of the surrounding villages on their own. Even if they were ganged up on, they would have been able to hold the line until I came back.

For them to have been overwhelmed by this raid meant only one thing.

Even if they had been trained well, there was still the problem that they had never had any actual combat experience.

Training was completely different from actual combat.

As such, they were lacking in experience and confidence that came with having experienced actual combat.

It made it so that they didn’t perform the way that they normally would have performed.

"I know what you are thinking, but this is a chance for all of you to make up for this. At the same time, it will be a chance for you to prove that you have changed."

All of the guards couldn’t help looking up at me with strange looks, but I calmly looked back at all of them with a confident look on my face.

In the end, they all gave a slow and firm nod to show that they were ready.

With that, we headed off on our first expedition.

With Mia’s skills, it was easy for us to track down the village that had raided our town.

When we arrived, I could even hear the sounds of a celebration coming from the distance.

It was clear that they were celebrating over the fact that they had successfully raided our town.

Which meant that this was actually our best chance to attack since their guards would be down while they were celebrating.

People were at their most vulnerable when they thought that victory was at hand.

Turning to the guards, I said, "I know that all of you are capable of more than you think, it’s just that you don’t have the confidence to perform the way that you normally do. That’s why I’ll tell you one thing that will give you that confidence."

All of them perked up when they heard this and looked curious as they waited to hear what I had to say.

With a smile, I said, "I believe in you."

Strange looks appeared on their faces again when they heard this, but those disappeared soon when they heard what I said next.

"Even if you don’t believe in yourselves, just know that I believe in you. That’s all you have to know."