All the patrons inside the store were looking at the burly guys in confusion, obviously still unsure if he was joking or not.
Seeing that no one seemed to be taking them seriously, the leader raised up his club and slammed it onto the table of a customer nearby, smashing the plates and mugs that had been on the table.
"I said we're robbing this place!!" He shouted again.
There were a few screams as a few of the patrons scrambled to their feet, some of them trying to leave the store only to find the entrance was blocked by more of those bandits.
The leader of the bandits turned to me, "So… You're the owner aren't you? Cough up all the money you have in your drawers right now if you don't want us to mess up your customer's faces! Then after this, you'll need to pay up some protection money since you're in my territory, got it?!"
Eris tried to pry her hand free from the bandit holding her, "Stop it! Stop! This wasn't what you agreed on!"
The leader of the bandits sneered at her, "Ahahaha! You should know better than that! You think a bandit would honour a deal as ridiculous as that?! Give you time to pay so that we'll leave such a nice target alone? Ahahahaha!"
Hmm… Ok, I think I understand what's going on now.
These bandits probably found this place through Eris and wanted to take advantage of us through the usage of force and intimidation, getting me to pay them protection money to leave us alone.
Eris then tried to negotiate with them by offering to pay them in our stead.
But as expected, they were not satisfied with just that and came to extort us anyway.
The leader of the bandits grabbed her from his subordinate to pull her towards me by her wrist, "So, I heard this little thief here has been under your care for a while hasn't she? You might be happy to know that it's because of her that this is happening to you right now! Maybe you shouldn't take in filthy rats like her anymore, eh?"
Eris looked at me with fear in her eyes, terrified that I would believe him and blame her for our current 'predicament'.
I looked at Lian Li, "Do the knights not deal with problems like these? We're literally in the streets of the Royal Capital, aren't we?"
She tapped her chin with a finger, "Umm… I don't think their influence stretches all the way out this far in the city, Darling. We're quite far away from the palace after all so bandits like them are still present. Besides, Guiying isn't here either."
Oh, that's right… I didn't set this World to have her as Empress, so her old family is still in power… I guess without her around, problems like these would be present.
Ah… That also explains why Elaria and Tsuki could just stroll in and do whatever they wanted without any worry too.
I then turned back to the leader who was still smirking at me proudly, "Can you let her go first?"
He raised an eyebrow and looked at Eris, "What? This little bitch? You know she's one of us right? Turned on the waterworks to get your trust just so that she could case your shop? We know where you store your money from her, you know?"
"That's not true!" She cried, still trying and failing to pull herself free. "I never did any of that!"
"Ahahaha! Look at that! She's lying even now! Let me just give you a free warning, mister owner! In our circle, we call her 'The Rat of many faces'! Do you know why?"
"Mmm… I already know why but that's not my question. I just asked if you could let go of her first," I told him with a straight face.
"Oh, this is interesting, don't tell me you've actually fallen for this little rat? She's simply using you, you know?"
"I'm asking you one final time and consider this my free warning to you. Let her go, pay for the damages, apologise to my customers or all of you will be losing an eye, an arm and a leg in the next few moments."
"Ahahahaha!! Now I know why this little rat is so interested in your store! You're fucking crazy! Who do you think you are?!"
"I'm Master Lin, the co-owner of this patisserie and the husband of that beautiful lady over there."
Of course Lian Li started squirming and giggling when she heard that, "Ehehehe~ Husband~"
"Ahahahaha! So what if you're… Err… What?"
I raised my hand and brought it down smoothly, cutting through the reality where the bandit leader's arm was still attached to his body.
Eris fell backwards when the arm suddenly lost its connection but Lian Li was there to catch her, preventing her from falling onto the ground.
Since I didn't cut his arm physically, there was also no blood coming from the 'wound'. It's as though his arm was never attached to him in the first place.
The bandits all stared at the decapitated arm that fell onto the floor with a soft 'thump'.
"What…"
That was all the leader managed to say before I exploded his eyeball in his head, making sure to cause the most amount of pain as possible before I cut off his leg.
This time, blood did spray out from the wounds but I used a little bit of reality manipulation to wipe them out before it dirtied the floor. No need to scare my customers with it after all.
He screamed out in pain and fell over onto the ground, using his only good hand to cover his eye socket as he writhed around in agony.
The other bandits also met with the same fate, all of them quickly collapsing one after the other as I did the same thing to all of them.
I let them scream for about a minute before I teleported them away to another space that I had just created, intending to take some time later to torture them a little before killing them.
Hey, they made Eris sad, there's no way I'm going to let them get away with just dying.
Speaking of which, I should also send the manager that took advantage of Manami and those customers who threatened her there as well.
Yep, cleanup complete!
Now all I need to do is pamper Eris a little and calm down my customers~ Easy.
