“We are yet to be done, old man,” Arlan said as he stood up.

“G-Guards!” the general managed to call out, but perhaps he was in too much pain; it was barely a croak. 

Arlan was about to punch the general’s mouth, but Cian held his hand. “Let him be.”

Seeing the fierce expression on the brown-haired prince’s face, Arlan knew that Cian had other plans and didn’t hit the general. 

“Guards!” the general called out again, but this time loud enough for people outside the room to hear. In no time, two guards appeared at the door. 

Seeing the general and other soldiers on the floor, they raised their swords towards Cian and Arlan.

Arlan was ready with his sword while Cian pulled out two yellow pouches tied at his waist from the slit of his outer robes. 

Cian looked at the guards, showing them those two heavy-looking pouches. “Now, decide if you want to die like these four soldiers or want this gold.”

Cian tossed one pouch on the floor, and coins spilled out from the open pouch. Seeing so many gold coins rolling on the floor, the guards’ minds wavered. 

“I have more of these,” Cain said as he signaled them to look at his waist. He pushed aside the slit of his outer robe where he tied those pouches.

“K-Kill…them…,” the general hoarsely shouted, but the next moment, he whined in pain as Cian once again blessed his little soldier with a nice kick. “Ahhh!”

“Be good, general, when I am working hard to give you what you want,” Cian warned as a devilish smirk painted on his lips. He looked at the guards again. “I don’t have much time for your rusty brains to make a decision.”

“We can get it after we kill you,” said one guard. 

“You should know better after looking at these dead soldiers on the floor,” Arlan said and pointed his sword with confidence towards the guards. “But still, if you want, then let’s try it.”

These ordinary guards could see that the men on the floor were General Giles’ personal guards. If these two were skilled enough to kill four elite soldiers, they could kill them too. 

“Well?” Cian prompted.

One of the soldiers hesitated and finally lowered his sword after he looked at the pouch again. “What do you want us to do, sir?”

“Fuck this general till he die,” Cian replied.

“W-What?” the general exclaimed, and the guards felt puzzled by the weird demand.

“Should not be difficult for you after entertaining yourself every night, watching the general’s pleasure activities while standing outside of this door,” Cian commented again. As he said those words, he continued to play with the pouch of gold in his hand. “Don’t worry that he will take revenge on you. We gave him drugs that will kill him in overdose. No one will know what happened in this room. If you agree, you get to keep your life, you get money, and you get to dishonor this nasty bastard. I’m sure he isn’t a nice person to be around, right?”

The soldiers switch their gazes from the gold pouch to the corpses on the floor.

“Fine, we agree, sir,” said the guard who had already lowered his sword. 

“Are you sure about it?” the other guard, who was more hesitant than him, asked.

“We just have to do what we saw him doing with others,” the guard replied emotionlessly as if it was not a big deal. “With this much gold, we can run away to another kingdom. We can even buy our own land.”

“Fine then.” The second guard lowered his sword too and looked at Cian. “We want all the gold you have.”

Cian threw two more pouches of gold to them, and the two immediately picked them up. 

Two more guards arrived but seeing their companions holding pouches filled with gold; greed could be seen on their faces as well. Instead of teaming up to fight Cian and Arlan, the two joined in after hearing a brief recount of the situation. 

One of the newcomers glared at the general as he laughed viciously as if he could see the gold coins rolling in. “You two can’t hoard all this gold.”

Panic covered the general’s face as he tried to stand up. “You assholes! I will kill you all!”

The guards ignored him and looked at Cian. This time, Cian pulled out a bigger pouch. “This one is for the person who will cause his death on his turn.” He threw the pouch on the floor, and all four guards hurried to get it.

General Giles picked up his sword, but Arlan slashed at his arm, and the sword fell on the floor. “It’s time for you to have some fun, general. Isn’t this a death worthy of a song having your name? Imagine the birds singing about the pig-like general with the most disrespectful death in history, Giles Seeiso, who died in bed with his own men, rather than in a battlefield or in the hands of the enemies.”

Arlan and Cian no longer paid attention to the trembling old man as they stepped out of the trashed room. As they left, they could still hear the conversation from inside.

“Bastards! Stay away from me…,mmmph…you!” 

General Giles could be heard shouting, but it suddenly stopped as if his mouth was being gagged.

“I’ll take him first. I want more gold.”

“No, I will. He will die when I….”

“Close the door first.”

“Take him to the bed.”

“Let’s kill him faster.”

“Let’s see who is a real man and can get that last gold pouch.”

——-

Even with that successful revenge, Cian and Arlan did not let their guard down. They were in enemy territory, and it would be disadvantageous if they were caught as they were outnumbered in a full-on fight. Since Giles Seeiso had known Arlan’s identity, the entire fortress might have been already alerted of their presence. They were lucky as so far, the passages they took were empty.

“I didn’t know you had the hobby of carrying that much gold with you,” Arlan commented as the two continued to walk along the long corridor with Arlan in the lead, as he had seen the complete map of the fortress and knew the way out.

“Before coming here, I visited Marquis Percy’s chamber,” Cian informed with a cold tone.