Despite no further confrontations, there was tension among the group that had made their way down the mountain and back into Simonston.

  They now stood close to where they had first stopped in their rescue attempt for Adam’s team, at the Warriors’ residential compound.

  “How do you want to play this?” Allison asked Ben.

  “I want to get through this without a fight. We are stronger, but that doesn't mean that we can’t get hurt or worse. So why don’t we just knock on the front door, tell them what happened and hope they surrender?”

  Allison thought about it for a second, “I’m not sure it’ll work, but I also don’t see a huge downside, worst case a few of them try to run and we could place a couple of people around the compound…”

  “That sounds like a great idea.”

  A few minutes later, Ben, flanked by nine Protectors, walked up to the gate. They were an impressive-looking group, all in armor, with weapons, and the Protectorate emblem proudly displayed on their chests.

  The two guards who had been lounging around the gate snapped to attention as they approached.

  Ben walked at the front of the group and hailed the Warriors, “Stand down. Your attack on our settlement has failed. Smith and most of your comrades are dead; Gooding has sworn a system-enforced oath to flee the territory. Your only options are to fight—and lose—or submit.”

  Both men ran into the compound.

  Ben did not run after them but kept his measured pace. Michael scouted ahead but quickly signaled the way was clear.

  There were a dozen houses on both sides of the street in the compound, and Ben could see movement in several of them.

  He asked two groups of three to clear the houses next to the gate while he remained with a small team to ensure that they could reinforce if needed and keep people from fleeing through the gate.

  The first house was empty, but the group in the second house returned to inform him that they had found three people who were enslaved servants. Ben decided that they were safest if they stayed where they were for now.

  He asked two more of his people to stay at the gate, and then they moved forward, systematically clearing the houses. Any other enslaved people were asked to move to the first house where the team at the gate could protect them, too.

  They were halfway through the compound when the door of one of the houses flew open and a half-dozen men stormed out, trying to overwhelm the team of three that was in the process of clearing it.

  Jamal reacted quickly with a taunt that distracted the men long enough for the team to find its bearings. Ben shouted at the Warriors to stand down but was ignored.

  It was a short fight afterward with just one wound on their side which was quickly addressed with a potion.

  After that, clearing the rest of the houses was quick work as no more Warriors were around.

  In total, they had freed 19 enslaved workers. Allison talked with them and offered them the opportunity to join the Protectorate or return to whatever family they had in Simonston.

  13 chose the Protectorate and were asked to remain in the compound until they could be picked up later. The others were asked not to spread any information about their freedom yet but could leave right away. It probably would have been safer to keep them in the compound, but that would require Ben to leave someone with them to monitor the situation and he neither wanted to do that nor keep them from their freedom any longer.

  After a brief discussion, they decided to go after the Warriors’ warehouses next.

  It was quite a walk to get to the industrial area of the city, but they managed to get there in less than an hour.

  Michael scouted the area and found just four Warriors guarding the two buildings. According to him, they didn’t look like regular muscle—more like contracted help—but obviously he couldn’t be sure.

  Ben decided on the same approach as earlier, knocking on the front door. The four men were much more amenable to surrendering right away. After some questioning it turned out that three of them had indeed just helped out to get paid in food; one had been a member of the Warriors.

  They decided to let the three helpers go while the remaining Warrior agreed to an oath.

  The amount of food and other goods that they found was staggering. Both warehouses were mostly full and held everything from tinned food to crackers and alcohol—this would definitely make a difference for the city.

  Ben decided to leave one full team at the warehouses to safeguard the food until they could hand it over to the city council.

  It was time to take out the last stronghold of the Warriors, their red-light district.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Fortunately, that area was not too far from the industrial district that the warehouses were in. Most restaurants and bars in the area had closed after Arrival Day, but the Warriors had expanded their operations. What they traded services for was unclear to Ben. At the heart of it was a block with a number of bars as storefronts, but according to Little Tony, the real business was the brothel that was built like a warren, connecting all the different buildings. This was the real heart of the Warrior operations and the most hardcore of criminals worked here to maintain order and sell drugs to their ‘guests’.

  Ben had long decided that the approach to the slavers would be different. He did not want to give them the chance to use their slaves as shields or get lost in the block-sized brothel.

  Michael and Ben would take out the remaining Warriors as quickly and stealthily as possible while the rest of the Protectors would surround the block and keep new guests from entering. Once they had cleared out the Warriors, they would kick out the guests and give the slaves the same option they’d given the servants in the compound: return to their lives in the city or join the Protectorate.

  “I want to come along,” Anne said, meeting Ben’s eyes, determined.

  Ben nodded at her, accepting her wish. He trusted his team implicitly and there was no reason to not take her along.

  There were two lounges and one office distributed throughout the block that the Warriors used to hang out while maintaining control over their business, plus one bouncer each on the two main entrances.

  The first bouncer sat on a stool outside the west entrance. By then it was late and the streets were largely empty, so it was easy for Michael to use [Shadow Step] and [Backstab] to take him out without being seen from inside the building.

  Inside, the bar was nearly empty. Ben walked up to the barkeeper, a young woman, “Excuse me, Miss, the bouncer asked me to ask you to come outside for a minute.”

  She looked at him with wide-open eyes but nodded haltingly and followed him.

  The moment they were outside, Ben pointed towards the body of the bouncer, “I am sorry for putting you through this, but by the end of the night the Warriors won’t exist anymore. I know there are a couple of rooms where the remaining Warriors hang out. Can you describe how to get there?”

  The woman was frozen in shock from everything that was happening around her. After a few seconds, she stepped closer to the Warrior on the ground to check whether he was truly dead.

  “You did this?” she asked quietly.

  “My team did, yes.”

  She looked back at the body, then to Ben, seemingly coming to a conclusion. “The first room is just three doors down the hallway behind the bar. The second one is on the third floor, two buildings in that direction,” she said, pointing down the street. “It is the only one with a black door. The office is right beside that one. That should be all.”

  “Thank you so much! If you want to, you can go over there to my mother. She will take care of you.”

  She briefly hesitated, then ran over to Allison, who pulled her off the street into a doorway close by.

  The three of them quickly moved forward towards the room the barkeeper had indicated. Ben gestured for Michael to knock, then for Michael and Anne to storm into the room once somebody came to open the door. The others nodded and he stepped forward to knock.

  Instead of someone opening, a voice just shouted to come in. Ben knocked again.

  A loud noise, then the door was ripped open.

  “What is...”

  Before the Warrior could complete his sentence, Michael was on him and had dispatched him while making way for Anne to go in next. She immediately fired off a [Power Projection], then stormed forward into the room.

  With Ben following her, the room, which had held six Warriors, was pacified in seconds.

  As they made their way towards the third floor, they passed by many rooms with open doors where young women and men were lingering.

  The second room was slightly larger and had eight Warriors lounging around, but the resistance was not measurably higher.

  The last place to check was the office—if anybody was in there they must have heard the commotion of the fight in the neighboring room—so they opened the room carefully, ready for an ambush.

  What waited for them on the other side wasn’t an ambush but Stemberger.

  The councilor sat behind a large desk, hands on the table, back rigid, expression neutral.

  He greeted them as they entered the room. “It seems that the ill-thought-out attack on your Protectorate failed.”

  “It has. The Warriors are no more. You are actually the last one.”

  “I am not a Warrior. I’m just trying to make things work for everybody—I told you that.”

  “That would be a bit more believable if you weren’t sitting in this office. In a building full of slaves being abused as horribly as one can imagine.”

  “I agree that this might look bad, but even during the end of the world, people have needs and this establishment caters to those needs. Without it, it would be running rampant.”

  Ben felt [Palisade of the Mind] activate as Stemberger tried to use a perk on him.

  “You know, I have always asked myself what true evil looks like; I think I have found it.”

  “You are...”

  “I don’t want to hear any more of your insane ramblings—and don’t even try to use your perks on me again. You are a real test for my conviction that the death penalty is wrong. But I am giving you a choice. You will either swear a system-enforced oath or I will find another way to make sure that you are no longer a threat to the people in this city.

  “The oath is as follows: First, you will leave Simonston and all surrounding areas and will never return. Second, you will never commit, enable, or abet any crimes. Third, you will never use any of your perks to influence others to your benefit. Fourth, you will actively work to help those in need. Fifth, you will never seek a position of influence over others again. Sixth, you will give everything you own, beyond what you need to survive, to the needy for the next 25 years.”

  Ben was fairly sure that Stemberger had been the mastermind behind the Warriors all along and that he had perks that helped him expand their activities since Arrival Day. For that reason, and to protect others, he expanded the oath.

  Stemberger looked at him with horror in his eyes.

  “What is a system-enforced oath?”

  “You will have to find out. Just repeat what I told you—and don’t think I’ll miss anything.”

  It was obvious that Stemberger was looking for an out, trying to think of anything that would help him.

  He pointed towards a large safe. “How about we make a deal? Everything in there is yours, and I will leave the city—no need for an oath.”

  “This is not a negotiation. You have three seconds to decide; afterward, the oath is off the table, and we will find other ways.”

  Stemberger swallowed heavily, and a slight sheen of sweat covered his forehead. After a moment, his shoulders dropped and he recited the oath Ben had set out word for word—his Mind attribute seemed high as well.

  The man was defeated; none of his control remained. He pulled a large key out of his pocket, threw it at Ben’s feet and left the room without another word.

  It was time to free many people and see whether the Warriors had anything of value in their safe.