Nice that he got there before she was raped, at least she was spared that. Also, I have to say again how refreshing it is to have a protagonist who actually kills enemies. Mercy in the face of evil is a weakness.
I wouldn’t be taking her to the duchy either, who knows what spies are there. Go to the elves instead bro.
Since forgiving someone is harder to do than to not forgive, mercy actually requires more strength. Thus, giving in to your urges and killing the enemy is actually weakness. Afterall, you are loosing your cool, loosing your way, loosing your ideals. You are loosing if you don't show mercy.
Especially so if you have an overwhelming advantage over the other person, such as here. This guy is weak asf.
Now, what I will say is that sometimes you can't afford to choose, whether to show mercy or not. In some scenarios, you have to let go of your ideals to protect something or someone more important. A great example to this would be the Bayverse Optimus, who, through the course of 2 films realizes, that he cannot afford to pull his punches anymore. Otherwise, he wouldn't be able to protect humans. However, he only got to this conclusion when he was beat and his enemies' victory seemed inevitable.
There is another case to be made for those such as Joker, as puting him in prison over and over again has clearly been shown to be ineffective. Counceling was shown to be ineffective as well. So at some point you have to concede that the man is mentally ill and that there is no way to contain or help him. And at that point the only way forward is the death penalty unless you want to risk the lives of tens, hundreds, or possibly thousands of people.
But again, these 2 scenrios don't apply here. MC is neither weak enough to abandon his ideals, nor are his enemies strong enough to escape confinement and cause mass murders or smth. Thus, if he was actually strong, he would have imprisoned the two of them.
I again want to add here, that prison can very easily count as phsychological torment/torture. So when you put someone in prison, you can still think "hah, at least they will rot in prison for the rest of heir lives" to ease the burden of mercy that you carry in your mind.
One last thing: Whatever happens, one must find the ones responsible for the incident. Because whatever you decide to do with the perpetrators, killing innocents is never justified. In this case for example, killing everyone in the castle is just crazy. You are potentially killing people, who may not have known about the situation. You may argue "war", but that's not an excuse when you are a modern millitary vs swords and bows.
So no, mercy is not weakness, even in the face of evil. Mercy is strength. Not showing mercy is weakness. MC is weak ASF.
