hiding that bandits had conquered the village and the villagers were their slaves.
In the next chapter MC moves with a small group to their base, kills and captures them, the female noble moves in too, she finds a bandit busy raping and harming with sever physical violenge a poor girl, of course the dude gets put down like he deserves.
From there it follows to MC organizing a lynching of every surviving criminal, and he personally executes them, stopping the villagers before they do it, as that is the job of nobles, he doesn't like it but knows he have to do it, he was already showed similar executions in the past in his training as heir.
The weird behaviour of the village chief seems to have been on purpose to make MC and company investigate.