If you want to keep the object view, let's try something else then. If NPC are objects then they are public objects, they are not objects that you can do anything you want with them. Damaging them is vandalism, and damaging certain public objects will receive worse punishment than others. Since NPC looks like humans, they will have basically the same balance of judgement than in our world in how we judge crime against the age of the victim. A rapist who rape an adult is a big piece of shit, a rapist of children is an even worse piece of shit.
Here the punishment is that the player lost his levels and items that he acquired. Quite a light punishment in reality because he can just have a fresh restart, he wasn't denounced to Praetorians who could have excommunicated him.