Min-Maxing My TRPG Build in Another World - Volume 1 - Chapter 13

One Full Henderson

1.0 Hendersons

A derailment significant enough to prevent the party from reaching the intended ending.

Every place has its own class of untouchables. Although some are a result of social class, others attain this status with power.

A single man groaned on the outskirts of the canton. He held his stomach tight, hysterically fighting his abdominal muscles to prevent his internal organs from spilling out, all because he knew that once his intestines hit the soil, there would be no saving him.

The man had seen this time and time again: on battlefields, in the mountains, on highways, and in countless villages. Yet it was not a sight he’d ever clenched his own stomach for. It was a view reserved for enemies, women, children, merchants—the prey that he’d cut down. As the leader of a crew of thirty bandits, the man was supposed to be the predator...and a predator was never meant to find himself in such a position.

The bandit chief had delved into his memories to try and recall where he had gone wrong and come up dry. Nothing had been any different from usual.

Their preparations had been perfect. The scouts had studied the patrol routes of the local lord and magister’s watchmen, and they’d deftly avoided them. He’d sent in a few men disguised as travelers to confirm that no soldiers were quartered in the village. They’d even stayed for a few nights to determine when the watchtowers were first manned and when each shift ended. On the night before Sabbath day—the one day of the week when all the peasantry could enjoy a deep slumber—the raiders had been blessed with a cloudy night that hid the moon. Could he ever have asked for more?

There were ten watchmen, give or take. Even if they rallied all of the men in town who could wield a weapon, they’d number thirty strong at the most. Naturally, the side with the element of surprise would be at a massive advantage. All the raiders had to do was break into the watchmen’s houses first, or light the whole village all ablaze to enjoy a nice duck hunt. Then, they’d bask in the soft, delicious spoils of victory for a few days before cleanly razing everything to the ground.

The bandit chief had spent seven years repeating this routine in the towns and cantons of Rhine’s satellite states. His villainy remained unchecked in the year he’d spent roaming the well-patrolled streets of the Empire that left other criminals quaking in their boots.

The professional thug had never let his guard down, and this time had been no different—or at least, he felt it hadn’t, but now he found himself in a sorry state of affairs.

When his scout had waved two torches back and forth to signal that they were in the clear, the entire gang had made their move. It’d been going fine until they vaulted the stone fence around the canton’s living quarters and steeled themselves for the attack.

A rain of arrows was waiting for them on the other side, mowing the crew down. Preoccupied with the thrill of plunder, half of the man’s unwitting underlings were killed or maimed by the initial volley. Though they were all equipped with at least light chainmail that they’d looted during previous raids, the heavy projectiles had pierced their defenses without any issue. Their equipment was sturdy enough to block arrows from afar, but not strong enough to handle longbows and crossbows at close range.

What came next was a hurricane of steel conjured up by a single dancing blade. All the bandit chief could see from his subordinates’ torchlight was a deadly silver afterglow that left screams in its wake with every step.

His goons’ fingers, thighs, and tendons—supposedly safe beneath their armor—were torn to shreds in the blink of an eye. The boss had no idea how much time had passed. Despite his skill with the sword, it only took a single strike to cleave through his breastplate and torso piece, leaving him crumpled on the ground.

The man crawled away, clutching at his wound. He could hardly move with his open injury, couldn’t fight, and had lost all of his men, but he still tried to run all the same.

He simply did not want to die. Throughout his long history of bloodshed, never once had he held the slightest intention of dying himself. To kill and to be killed were not so inseparable in his mind, and the thought that the latter might ever come to pass never occurred to him.

How very wrong he’d been. Something bumped into his nose, and it took some time for him to link the faint smell of oil to the long boot it emanated from. The wind parted the heavy clouds covering the moon, and in the new light the man recognized the shoe in front of his face...and the man wearing it.

“Oh... Ohhh...” The thug groaned and looked up into the face of a lone swordsman. Clad in light leather armor with an open helm, he cut a prosaic figure as he rested his sword upon his shoulder. Only the ice-cold stare in his blue eyes stood out, gleaming in the moonlight.

“Are you the leader? Never mind, don’t bother answering. I can tell from your armor.”

A voice as frigid as the cool of night cut deep into the bandit chief’s—no, into the lone bully who had lost all of his subordinates’—brain, as if to prove a single fact: Oh, I’m done for.

His head hung in despair until the tip of the victor’s sword scooped his jaw into place and forced his gaze up from the boot before him. Skewered by that hateful gaze, the man delivered a line he’d heard many times before. Without any conscious thought, he begged for his life.

“H-Help! D-Don’t kill me... Please!”

His pathetic pleas for mercy and whimpering cries made the swordsman frown as if he’d bitten into something bitter and had trouble swallowing.

“What an indulgent request,” the swordsman spat. “Have words like that ever stopped you?”

The man thought back on his travels. Not once had anyone’s desperate words stayed him. However, the swordsman’s blade did not cruelly slice into his vitals. It slowly retreated from his chin and slipped back into its sheath with a delicate hand.

“Still, I have no intention of sinking to the level of a common thug. Don’t worry, none of your men are dead.”

Hearing such soft words from such a harsh voice made corners of the thug’s lips pull upward. We’ll have plenty of chances to get away with an idiot this tender, he thought.

“If anything,” the swordsman continued, “don’t think that you can get away with dying here, scum.”

A deft, ruthless kick to the side of his head neatly snuffed out the thug’s consciousness before he could even begin plotting his escape.

[Tips] The Trialist Empire’s ruthless war on crime means that there is always a reward for dealing with bandits, even if they don’t have bounties. Petty footmen are still worth a full libra, and bandit chiefs net a minimum of one drachma, with the most notorious criminals having bounties worth thirty gold pieces. On top of that, a bonus reward is available under certain conditions...

After kicking the bandit unconscious, I lifted him up and wrapped him in gauze before his insides decided to take their shot at life in the great outdoors. I wasn’t charitably tending to his wounds in the vain hope that he might turn over a new leaf, of course.

It was a verifiable fact that this sort of vermin was rotten to the bone. I could dunk him into a river of holy water, but his blood-soaked heart would never lose its stain. Parting his head from his shoulders was far better than waiting for reform that would never come—for him and society both.

The only reason I’d yet to follow through was to suit my longer-term interests.

“Well done.” I turned to see Sir Lambert calling over to me. Now that I was twenty, my master was getting along in years, but terrifyingly had no issues keeping up as an active watchman. “Twenty men reduced to chopped liver in an instant.”

“That makes me sound like some kind of monster,” I protested. “I didn’t kill a single one, you know.” The captain grimaced as he raised his torch above the fallen thugs, prompting an involuntary frown of my own.

A few of the raiders had died to our surprise volley of arrows, but I’d made sure not to add to the body count when I stepped forward alone. I’d either maimed limbs or cut along an opening in their armor to injure them grievously enough that there’d be no fighting back.

“That makes you even more of a freak,” Lambert said with a tired sigh. He made a wide gesture with both hands at the crowd of groveling men and said, “No matter how chaotic the fight, most people wouldn’t be able to aim for a single thumb or specific tendon against battle-hardened bandits. Even I wouldn’t want to do that.”

You “wouldn’t want to,” but that means that you theoretically could. I get it. At any rate, I hadn’t been given a choice: the bounty on these criminals was higher if they were alive.

After telling my mentor as much with a smile, he merely scratched the back of his head, at a loss for words. I didn’t see what the problem was. These sadists marched in and plotted to run amok in our canton; any punishment they received was fair game.

Sending in a scouting party was all well and fine, but these morons had been far too careless. Their equipment had been too oriented for combat to suit a normal traveler (since heavy weapons and armor were ill fit for long journeys), and their awkward grasp of the imperial language had made their cover story obviously unnatural.

On top of that, I could turn a blind eye to how they’d scouted out the locations of our warehouses and watchtowers, but the way they’d stared at the local women ventured into the territory of stupidity. To skip catcalls and go straight to stalking them to their homes was the height of idiocy. They may as well have been hoisting a flag that read, “We are scheming something evil.”

My best guess was that a streak of good fortune had gotten to their heads. Their assault tactics were carefully conceived and hard to counter, but that also meant any failure was doomed to be a critical failure.

Above all else, I had no idea what they thought would happen if they made passes at someone’s missus before they got to work. I’d lost my temper immediately and invited one of them for a friendly little...conversation where I confirmed their plans and began preparing to offer them our best hospitality. After all, there’s nothing softer to sink your fist into than the distracted mug of a man who thinks he has the upper hand.

The result was as you see here. Everything went our way, and not a single citizen of the canton was hurt. Plus, we’d pull in a fat purse, so the whole situation turned out swimmingly.

“Honestly,” Lambert said, “the fact that you stuck around as a reserve watchman was these fools’ downfall.”

“I can’t bring myself to appreciate this twist of fate, considering you were the one who said, ‘Why don’t you try taking them on by yourself?’” I responded to my master’s barb with a cynical jab of my own.

That’s right: after all those twists and turns, I ended up staying in the canton...

“Yes, yes,” a new voice called, “I see you two are as cordial as ever.”

“Margit,” I said, “you could have waited for me at home.”

...For the sake of my new family. Nowadays, I was a member of the Konigstuhl Watch’s reserves and spent my days working as a huntsman, since I’d married into Margit’s family. I didn’t have a particularly complex reason for abandoning the path of adventure, despite my big talk and long years of preparation. A little bit of this and a little bit of that had led to some friendly tumbles in the hay, and...

“How is our little princess going to fall asleep when her father is out and about like this?” Margit said, rolling her eyes. At twenty-two, her cuteness hadn’t waned at all from the time we first met, and the young girl in her arms almost looked like her sister. Margit tightly held her by the thorax, and the adorable angel looked at me with lustrous blonde hair and baby blue eyes.

“Papa...”

“Iseult, sweetie,” I cooed, “you know you’re supposed to be in bed.”

“No! I wanna sleep with Papa!”

The angel’s name was Iseult, and my lovely only daughter had blessed our lives six years ago. Look, these things happen—I’m only human. It’s not my fault; I wasn’t the one who started it, okay?! Don’t you think it’s unfair that I’m the one taking responsibility just because I’m a man?! Not that I didn’t want to, but still!

And, well, I ended up staying in the canton to live out my blissful days; my parents had been elated but shocked, and the look on my eldest brother’s face had been brilliantly meh. Issues like this cropped up now and again, and it’d taken ages for Elisa to accept our marriage, but all in all, I had a good life.

Though a far cry from adventure, every day was full of surprises. Unlike me, my six-year-old daughter was cute and childish, and watching her grow up was incredibly fulfilling. I had nothing but gratitude to her for teaching me what it felt like to be a parent. As unexpected as she was, in my mind, she was the embodiment of my happiness.

“Hrm,” Lambert grunted, “We’ll clean things up here, so you head on home.”

“Huh? But—”

“You can’t let your kiddo stick around a bloody place like this.” He glared at me as I rocked my little girl and shooed me off like a stray dog. “And Margit, be more careful about the places you bring her out to.”

“Oh dear, my apologies, Captain,” she responded. “But the little one’s eyes are glued onto her father, so there isn’t any need to worry.”

We still had a lot to do: there was no end to the preparations needed before we turned the criminals in to the magistrate, and we needed to make sure they didn’t die of blood loss or infection before we got there. And even outside of that, the mere act of tidying the scene was its own task, but Sir Lambert had made up his mind and driven me away once more.

“Yeah, yeah, get going, Erich!”

“C’mon, poor li’l Iseult looks all sleepy!”

“You did the heavy lifting, so leave the rest to us.”

The rest of the watchmen chimed in, and I began thinking it’d be less tasteful of me to stay and help than to leave at this point.

“Papa...”

“Okay, you’re right, Iseult. Let’s head home and get to bed.” I graciously accepted everyone’s kindness and decided to retire one step earlier than my fellow city guardians. For some reason, our daughter had a hard time falling asleep without me around. Unsullied by even a speck of blood, I readied myself to hurry into the covers and rock her to sleep.

[Tips] Live bandits are worth half again to twice the reward for their dead counterparts; bandit chiefs triple, quadruple, or even quintuple in value.

 The man who had once again taken up the title of bandit chief—or more precisely, who had once again been turned into a bandit chief—trembled at the realization that a quick execution was not so merciless as he thought.

His ears ached from the chorus of voices. Each of them shouted the same words, but the dissonant rhythm and harmony gave birth only to a cacophony of sound. Still, he knew all too well what they were screaming. Their will had taken form and ruthlessly assaulted him from the moment he came into view.

“Kill them!”

The men, women, and everyone in between; the young, the old, and even the gods themselves; everyone in the city was calling for death. The man and his subordinates had been given the bare minimum medical care to survive being shipped to some metropole they couldn’t name. They’d been locked up like packages of mail on their trip here, leaving them disoriented in this foreign land.

Furthermore, the people of the canton had neatly prepared each and every one of them: the tendons in all four of their limbs had been snipped to prevent them from ever causing trouble—or escaping—again.

First, they had been chained together in an open cell for all to see. Though onlookers pelted them with everything from pebbles to rotten fish and fruit, the captives still had enough will to shout back at those who threw filth their way. After all, they’d preyed on common citizens just like the ones beyond the iron bars.

However, the theatrics of the third day were enough to snap their pride. A few of the man’s lackeys had been taken out and reduced to laughingstocks for the locals to kill.

Three of his youngest men, of which one had only participated in their latest raid, were dragged to their feet and chained to a post in the city center. The boys hardly looked to be of age, but that drew no mercy from the feral crowd.

Each of the spectators held stones the size of fists and eagerly began hurling once the guard permitted it. However, they refused to put their strength behind solid overhand throws, electing instead for softer underhands or side-tosses.

The cruelty of the act could not be understated. A clean throw from a full-grown adult could knock a man’s head clean off. This relatively quick death would free the boys’ souls of their earthly suffering. Yet the citizenry held back to prolong their ordeal. Weighty rocks brought pain and pain alone—their gentle trajectory would never come with sweet release.

The agony continued as the damage slowly piled up, and after an unbearable eternity, the boys finally died. They themselves could not know how many days had passed, but the torture had stretched beyond the scope of time.

The bandits quaked at the sight of their newest recruits being reduced from humans to man-shaped meat over the span of days...as it grew clear what came next. Their fear manifested when the last of the newbies (who’d failed to kill even a single person on his first and only raid) drew his last breath, and the next handful of men were taken away.

This lot was cooked alive in a massive contraption. The towering mechanism resembled a grill for smoking meats, and the people of the city were free to add firewood at their leisure. While the men were fine for a short period, the extended heat slowly turned them into no more than cured cuts of venison. Onlookers pointed and laughed at how their seared, bloated bodies looked just like the lambs that were served during festivals.

Time passed, and the grueling torture continued for the bandit chief to witness. They forced food and drink into his mouth to rob him of a chance at starvation. After enduring an everlasting stream of verbal abuse from the audience and his once-loyal grunts, the man’s psyche had shattered. In truth, he could no longer distinguish the hateful clamor from the voices of the past that bounced in his mind.

At long last, when the last of his party had been nibbled to death by rats, it was finally his turn. Once again reduced from a bandit chief to a mere man, he breathed a sigh of relief when they slipped a thick straw rope around his neck. No matter how long it took, a death by hanging was more humane than the fate of any of his men.

“You a fan of this knot, deadbeat?” the executioner said, seeing his happiness. “But let me warn you. I’m not as nice as the people around town.”

The masked executioner kicked the man like a roadside pebble and marched him to a river that ran through the heart of the city. A large bridge overlooked the ferry-worthy water, beautifully adorned, with enough embellishment to tell its tourist landmark status at first glance.

Yanked to the center of this architectural marvel, the man was lowered into the water with the rope tied to the bridge’s handrail, as if he were fishing bait or a bobbing river marker.

A single wooden platform had been constructed underneath the gentle current, its height tweaked so the water would come up to the convict’s navel when he stood. At first, the former bandit chief didn’t understand the intent behind this punishment. Why are they making me stand here? he thought, only to be met with a swift answer.

Despite his fatigue, he could no longer sit or sleep; any accidental attempt at the latter was interrupted by the stinging rush of water in his lungs, while the platform kept him in place so he wouldn’t wash away.

At wit’s end, he tried to drown himself...but failed. To drown was so horrific that, no matter how many times he tried, his body would instinctively claw for the rope to extend his life. Each time, he despaired at his continued breathing while the townsfolk mocked him for his folly.

The Trialist Empire of Rhine had elected to keep its penal code confidential. Judges, lawyers, and the lords of every region strictly hid the secrets of their punishments all for a single reason: they did not want their citizenry to evaluate established consequences and come to the conclusion that a crime was ever “worth it.”

The opening preamble to the Empire’s penal code is lined with this message: Let every penalty atone for one hundred sins. Today, the austere people of Rhine upheld their policy. This was as common a sight as a father fighting to protect his family.

The shore’s sand is yet more finite than the seeds of human malevolence; still, how easy it is to nip the bud once it forms.

[Tips] Public punishments are deemed a necessary evil in all corners of the world.

“Blanket of night—pillowy moon—cradle this little spider to bed. Stars watch over—her gentle dream. Tucked and covered—her eyes unseen.”

As I sang my original lullaby and softly patted Iseult’s back, she quickly dozed off into the kingdom of slumber. Seeing her conk out so easily nearly convinced me that I was a genius singer-songwriter.

Long ago, my daughter had been a terrible sleeper. When she’d been a baby, her tears were so stubborn that, even after taking traits to reduce the rest I needed, my short-slept arachne wife and I could hardly keep up with her.

I’d written this lullaby in a desperate attempt to rock her to bed, and I can’t begin to express how grateful I’d been when she’d taken a liking to it. Leveling a singing skill was ludicrously expensive, so I’d chosen cheap traits like Lingering Timbre and Gentle Voice to try and come up with something myself. When she had first fallen asleep to it, I had cried tears of joy.

Though, admittedly, Margit then immediately forbade me from singing—not just lullabies, but in general—in front of other people, so my excitement was short-lived. I supposed my daughter was just as biased toward me as I was toward her. I wonder—how much longer will this song put her to sleep?

“Asleep already? My, it’s as if I’m not even needed.”

I’d been lovingly watching over my adorable girl when my wife whispered into my ear without the faintest forewarning. The bedframe failed to creak, and I was puzzled at how I hadn’t even felt the mattress shift. She’d been putting up my armor while I was busy putting Iseult to bed, but she’d finished up her end in the blink of an eye.

As a delightful tingle ran up my spine, I mentally noted another defeat. I tried to turn toward her from the side I was laying on but was preempted as Margit blocked my arm with her chest. Her perfect positioning had totally locked me in place; she had the fulcrum of my body tightly bound. Clearly, she had no need for webs to seize her prey.

“What are you going to do with your poor, captive husband?” I asked.

“Who’s to say? What shall I do? Perhaps I’ll keep you in a little cage. Or would you prefer a collar?” Margit peered over, placing the better part of her weight on me. Although her lips twisted into an arched smile, I could tell from the golden reflection of the moon in her eyes that she wasn’t playing around. She was so intensely bewitching that her charm overwrote the childish exterior that I’d seen for all my life, stealing my breath away.

“You know, I’ve been thinking... Why is our little princess such a crybaby?”

Uh-oh. This is bad. I immediately tried to break free, but the eight legs digging into the mattress deftly wriggled into place to kill any momentum I had. She had me on my back before I knew it, and by the time she mounted me with her arms through my armpits, I was at her mercy.

For a moment, I worried that the movement might have woken our daughter, but she’d been moved to the corner of the bed (but not close enough to the edge to fall, naturally) before I knew it. Not only that, but the extra blanket wrapped around her was proof of her mother’s love. Wait, this is no time to be impressed!

“Iseult’s all alone, isn’t she?” Margit cooed. “She gets to keep her mother and father all to herself, and her loving grandparents dote on her at every turn.”

“Um, that’s true...”

My wife then laid on me, resting her chin on my chest with a playful grin. Still, the look in her eyes was anything but jolly.

Hauntingly beautiful as always. I’d used this phrase before, but allow me to reiterate that I wasn’t saying her elegance lingered with me; she was simply terrifying and captivating in equal parts. And much to my horror, it seemed both qualities only deepened with each passing year.

“So, perhaps,” she continued, “she could do with a little brother or sister.”

Don’t you think my idea is perfect? was written all over her face, and no objection came to mind. I myself didn’t find the idea absurd: I’d been the youngest in my past life, and the brotherly responsibility I felt from Elisa’s birth had certainly changed me a lot. Her reasoning was solid, but...

“You’re not thinking that things are fine the way they are because you love pampering your daughter...are you?”

“Aha ha ha ha. No way.” How’d she know?!

Margit sighed at my monotone response and propped up her chin, still on my chest. Her free left hand came closer and gently rubbed my cheek.

“My, what a sweet father. But...you know, Erich,” she whispered as she pulled my face close. “You may be a father, but it won’t do to forget that you’re also my husband, will it?”

Margit’s smile disappeared from view as her lips fell onto mine. The gentle kiss left behind a tender, mushy sensation as the hunter finally bared her fangs. To be fair, I’d had no intention of refusing from the start. Love made me weak—or rather, perhaps I was simply fated to be her prey.

Our marriage may have arisen from an overly affectionate camping trip, but I wasn’t rash enough to risk making a child due to lust alone, no matter how excitable my pubescent body could be. I’d been close to full-grown back then, so I always had the option of pushing her off of me...but I didn’t.

I see no reason for me to go out of my way to explain why. Don’t ask, it’s embarrassing!

“So, what do you say?” Margit asked mischievously.

I answered only by closing my eyes. You win—tonight, I’ll obediently play the role of the hunted.

[Tips] When mensch males reproduce with other species, the offspring almost always takes after the mother.