The Villainess Will Not Bring Dishonor To Her Family

173 - Afterwords

...but most weren't lucky enough to escape the grasps of those that had planned their lives on blackmail, protection money, drugs and murder.

However, this decree was not the only thing that was whispered throughout the underground. Another, far stranger offer was extended: Any spies still remaining after the fall of house Salender would be offered a position as investigators or guard captains, were they to surrender themselves to the crown.

---The First Night of Winter---

The first night of winter arrived. A crisp night where leaves were covered in a layer of frost. A full moon night tall and white... and a night that would henceforth be known as The Night of Bloody Shadows, or the Winter Purge among nobility.

As the moon rose over the city, the army surrounding the capital descended upon the capital, going through the streets from the outside and in, in a grid formation. They walked as shimmering shadows under the moonlight, only to slam in the doors of civilian residences, ripping screaming family members from the arms of their beloved, and executed them right then and there, staining the cobbled streets with blood. Then continued to the next house like bloodhounds hunting foxes for their master. That is how the commoners remember the night, glancing from their windows and trembling as they hoped their turn wouldn't come next.

By the time it ended, the streets and houses were stained red with blood, and the smell permeated the cold winter air, together with the reminder that the rule had changed, and those unwilling to change with it, would die.

Gambling dens, whore houses, slave traders, drug dens, crime headquarters and 'disposal guilds', all closed forcefully and brutally, making bundle of screams echo into the night. Where the soldiers weren't enough to deal with those who resisted, came a high noble that turned the scene into a scene of horror that would haunt everyone there for the rest of their lives.

Come morning, the corpses were still being cleared away, creating a sight that none who lived in the capital would ever forget. For the next many days the rain poured down heavily.

---Winter---

With the massacre came the consequences. For the capital wasn't the only place that had been hit. Lord Celeste and Lady Tepet had been going through what they could catch in their own lands, and the Northern Marquesses made short business of what remained there, though they had been doing a slow purge themselves ever since they found out they were being targeted.

The large pleasure cities along the river were economically crippled, as they'd thrived on the lack of rules, and the free work force from people under slave contracts well hidden away.

Slaves that were now free.

On top of that, those that had made their living off of crime, but had given up that life were, just as the slaves, helpless and work-less.

Huge sums of money that had been confiscated UCOR's associates were fueled into initiatives to lure new merchants, chefs and the like to open new stores in the now vacant spots, with the requirement that they take a couple of the female slaves or former prostitutes in as apprentices.

The situation for the men now without work was far simpler. Now where the control over the underground had been cut, pockets of remaining resistance began appearing. In addition, nearly all guards were corrupt and needed fresh blood. The men were to serve either with the army, or in newly formed guard squads vastly increased in size.

Existing corrupted guard captains were given exactly two chances to reform to a long list of new, practically military, standards. There were rules from everything between training routines and guard routes, to basic etiquette when dealing with nobles and foreigners. The spies that had surrendered themselves would get a chance to lead new guard squads like these, of course under supervision.