Among the bandits kept alive, the leader was included. As the leader of the group, he definitely knew about all the treasures even the ones that the other regular bandits were not aware of. So keeping him alive was important.
As for the other two remaining bandits, Weiss had kept them as extra. If she was unable to extract the needed information from the bandit leader, then they would at least be able to take her to the bandit hideout.
After that Weiss ordered Karl to keep an eye on the two bandits while she took the bandit leader a bit away from the road to do some interrogation.
Weiss had wanted to test her interrogation skills on karl before but as he had immediately pledged his loyalty to her, she was unable to do so.
But now that another test candidate had appeared, Weiss was not going to miss the chance. She was going to use this nameless bandit leader to see how good or bad she was in extracting information.
...
The result of the interrogation turned out to be quite good. It looked like Weiss was underestimating herself and her ability of extracting information was even better than what she had expected.
It only took her an hour or so and the bandit leader had already told her everything that she had asked. And about the validity of the information, Weiss was going to check it now.
If it turned out to be wrong, then the bandit leader was going to see hell but if it was true then he was going to get the sweet release of death.
As the hideout was not located far from the location of the carriage, Weiss decided to check it out on her own. He informed Karl about her decision and told him to make sure that the bandit leader was alive till her return.
...
The hideout of this Ravenous Wolves bandits was a abandoned small castle located in the middle of the forest.
This castle did not belong to the Brightshine kingdom as its structure looked to be older than the kingdom itself.
The castle was broken in almost every corner but there were a few rooms which were still somewhat intact. These bandits were using those same rooms as their warehouse.
After checking those room and making sure that the bandit leader had not lied to her, Weiss came back to where the carriage was.
After coming back, she found that Karl had already taken care of all the dead bodies. As he himself had killed a lot of people in his lifetime, he was an expert when it came to taking care of corpses.
As there was no need to keep the remaining bandits alive anymore, Weiss told Karl that he was free to get rid of them. Immediately karl killed all of the captured bandits including the bandit leader.
After recruiting someone like Karl, Weiss had given some thought to get more people like him under her. But even then, she had a standard and the vicious bandit leader was a not someone that she would like to be a part of her retinue.
...
After taking care of all the bandits, Karl went to the castle while Weiss stayed in the carriage. As this carriage can not traverse the forest, someone needed to stay here to guard it and one another person needed to go and take the treasure away from the old castle.
Obviously karl could not allow his mistress to do something like that. So he decided to go and carry the treasures out. It would take some time but as the treasure hoarded by this bandit group is not a low amount, this time spend would be worth it.
...
It took Karl about an hour to carry all the treasures out. It looked like this Ravenous Wolves gang had really made some good money looting people. But now that they had been defeated by Weiss, all their wealth would become hers.
After checking out everything Weiss was very surprised. So much so that she even though about forgetting all her previous plans and just going on a bandit hunting spree. She had no idea that bandits were this rich.
But obviously Weiss did not do so as it was not a very sustainable plan. But she also made up her mind that if she came across any more bandits in the future, she was definitely going to wipe them out and loot everything from them.
Other than money, there were a lot of weapons, decorative items and such things among the loot that Carl had brought from the bandit hideout. And as the carriage was already filled with the things that Weiss was going to sell in the city, there was no space to store all of them.
So Weiss and Karl decided to take only the money for the time being and hid the other items in a remote area. They were planning to retrieve them when coming back from the city.
...
After this bandit incident ended in a good note, the journey continued and Weiss's carriage did not face any other significant danger on the way. This was actually a bit disappointing for Weiss as she was hoping to encounter at least one more bandit raid on the way.
But unfortunately or maybe fortunately that did not end up happening and Weiss was able to see the walls of the city of Tigatha very soon.
These walls were made of stone and were almost 10 meters tall. The count ruling this place must have used a lot of money in building this.
But the amount of security that it provided to the citizen was unmatched. So in the future, Weiss was also planning to build something similar around the Souran village.
As the carriage got closer to the city gates, Weiss saw a line of carriages before her. There was one gate that allowed carriages to enter and there was another smaller gate for the people without a carriage to go in.
There was also another more fancy looking gate which was for the nobles to use. If Weiss used that, she would be able to enter the city immediately without having to wait in the line.
But Weiss did not do so. The reason for that was simple. If she revealed herself as a noble, then this would be told to the ruler of the city. And that could attract his attention toward the Souran domain as they were known to be close with his enemy, Count Falgur.
That was why Weiss and Karl waited in the regular carriage line like everyone else. As there were not many carriages waiting to enter the city on this day, they were able to reach the front of the line after just half an hour or so.
There were a little bit of commotion among the guards when they saw how beautiful Weiss looked. But with a tough looking man like Karl with her, nothing serious happened and they were allowed to enter the city after paying the standard fees for the materials that they had brought to sell in the city.
That was how Weiss finally managed to reach the city and from now on her and her territory's developement would accelerate.