by Charles Dean
“So you brought muscle with you this time,” a woman said as she stepped out in front of the others. “Didn’t hear you were the type of coward who wouldn’t handle his own fights.”
“Nick, you know who the hell they are. Can you at least tell me? Or I’m leaving you here,” Lars said.
The woman cracked her knuckles. “If you’re not hired help for this cowardly little goat, you best scram. He knows what he did and who he offended.”
Lars thought about the situation for a moment and came to the first conclusion he could think of. “You’re help from the rich brat that got stabbed over a kebab . . .”
“Yeah, and I’m good at what I do, so scram, boy,” she said.
“He’s not some boy; he’s the disciple of Hsein Ku!” Nick stated proudly.
How much you wanna bet that he stuck to your leg like a horny dog the minute you left the courtyard just so he could say that line when confronted? Two zednaughts? Maybe a bag of Ruri’s rurkis if Brandon lets her out of bed long enough to go back to work?
Nothing. Lars frowned as he looked at his companion. He didn’t want to think it, but it was the only thought that was in his head too. Nick hadn’t been trying to pay off a debt; Nick had been trying to stick to a bigger name than the guy he offended. He knew what was waiting for him when he got out of prison.
“Ooooo, a big name, boys,” she said, laughing. “You really expect me to believe that Hsein Ku—the royal Hsein Ku—would take in some tailless little bastard?”
It’s the way the world works, little Lars. There are an infinite number of cackling Nicks who talk big and then cling to others for safety. Question is . . . what are you going to do? Kill the people just doing their job, or let the kid who just stood up for himself die for standing up for himself? Classic fat elephant rolling down a mountain problem. Push the elephant ball and save five people you don’t know or let the gray ball of tripped doom squish the one person you do know.
How about I just try to save the one that isn’t trying to kill others? Lars said. This “classic elephant-doesn’t-forget” problem, as she used to call it, was a hypothetical he had heard a dozen times, but this was the first time it felt relevant.
Well, can you kill them? Can you save the goat? Or will there be mutton delight even if you do intervene?
Well . . . they’re about . . . Lars looked at them more carefully. Four of them were Stage 4 Qi-Gathering Cultivators, and one of them was a Stage 3 Qi-Gathering Cultivator. It was fair to say that, even though he was probably stronger than all of them, death wasn’t an impossibility. Their Power could be anywhere between 160 and 319 if they were Stage 4 cultivators. If one was close to 319, a solid crit or a skill that hit him with a good damage multiplier might nearly kill him in one hit. If they were closer to the 160 side, even if they landed the perfect attack, he’d still live through over five of the same. Is there some way to know exactly what their Power is? Like to be able to judge more precisely than just knowing they’re Stage 4?
Of course there is. You can tell exactly how strong their Power is in a moment.
Really?! Lars was a little excited at this idea. He had been wanting a more fine-toothed way to comb through the details of beings he was about to battle, and finding out that there really was a method was like manna from heaven.
Yeah. Just let one of them punch you without a technique in a place that isn’t a dead-on vital spot, and then assume it’s a 5 for the damage coefficient.
You are being unhelpful on purpose, aren’t you?
I gave you a very real way to judge how strong they are. Don’t complain to me when you’re not willing to shed a little blood to try it out.
You know what? Never mind. “I give up.” He sighed, shaking his hands as he walked toward the group of five people.
“Hey! You can’t just leave me!” Nick whined.
“Don’t walk this way; walk the other way,” the woman warned. The five were overly cautious, each one getting into a fighting stance as Lars got closer. They clearly knew he was up to something. If he were really walking away, then he’d have gone in the other direction.
That’s my boy. Are we doing this because you want to protect Nick? To stand up for justice? Or—let’s be honest—is it just because you want to feel as good as I do when that Qi courses through our body?
Don’t make this awkward, Lars said as he put his hands in the air, trying to take in his surroundings better. It would have been better for him if the alley were narrower. As it was, four people could just barely walk side by side and avoid scraping their shoulders against the mucky clay walls. This was probably because the alley opened up to the back doors of several restaurants. He didn’t like imagining the fact that the ingredients used in any of these restaurants had a high chance of spending far too long in this alley to not absorb some of its “local flavor.”
“Back up, kid! I don’t buy you being Hsein Ku’s disciple, but who cares if you are? I’ll still kill you,” she threatened as she pulled out a glowing dagger.
Woah! Careful with that one, Lars. It’s a magic weapon. Get hit by it, and you might die a lot faster than I anticipated.
It’s nice to know you care, Ophelia. Lars smiled and took a deep breath when he was about ten feet away from the five of them in the foul-smelling back alley. He then executed a move that he had only seen once and read the instructions for twice: Stomp of the Earth King. Lars had 270 Wind Qi and 152 Earth Qi, and the skill was leveraged off of both of those elemental Qi types. As far as Lars could guess, that meant his skill likely had 102 more Power than his regular Qi, so he was hoping it would do a lot of damage—especially since, if they weren’t resistant to the element, it should do at least 120 or more damage.
“Jump!” the woman shouted the moment Lars began to activate the skill.
It was as if she had seen it a hundred times and knew exactly how to counter it. They jumped. Only the Stage 3 Qi-Gathering Cultivator to Lars’s back left didn’t do anything. Those who jumped were still pushed back by the strong wind—the girl skated back fifteen feet, and the men on her left and right were smashed into the walls—but it didn’t seem like they were hurt. The one who hadn’t jumped was catapulted backward, and his body smashed so hard against the wall that his bones audibly cracked. He fell forward onto his face half a second later, and his skull clearly smashed open from the impact.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Evan. You have gained 42 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Ice Qi has increased by 31.
“You think ‘cause you’re strong, we can’t kill you?!” the woman shouted angrily, throwing her dagger at Lars.
Lars dodged to the right as fast as he could, not realizing how fast he was after dumping all of his stats into Speed. He could practically see the dagger hanging in the air as she threw it.
“Falcon formation!” she yelled.
Lars didn’t know what their formations were, but rather than backing up and letting them execute whatever they were doing, he attacked the guy who was still pushing himself off the wall to his right. Although he hadn’t seen any weapons on the man—or on any of them but the girl who had pulled out the magic dagger—the moment he struck the man in the chest, a dagger fell out of the man’s sleeve.
Freaking hell! Lars yelped as he felt a sharp pain go through his left side, stripping him of 68 hit points.
Solid hit to a vulnerable spot? That’s a 3 coefficient, not your standard 5. So… there you go: she has 256 power. Congrats, you now know how strong their ring leader is. Treat me to tteokbokki later for doing that math for you.
Quiet! Lars tried to hush her as he jumped back. His attack hadn’t killed his target despite landing a blow to the man’s chest. Once he was backed up, he activated his stomp skill again, sending out one more push attack at the enemies.
“Jump again!” the ring leader shouted. All of her men, except the man whom he had just hit, were pushed back down the alley and toward the main street. The guy who had failed to jump, ho
wever, was already pressed against the wall, and the attack did little more than bounce him off of it and onto the ground. He started to push himself back to his feet, but Lars wouldn’t let him. He moved as fast as his body would allow, channeling Knife Hand into his right hand and stabbing it straight into the man’s wide open back before he could push himself off the ground. The Qi blade went straight through him, but even as it did, Lars felt one more stabbing pain, this time in his right shoulder, and he took 41 more points of damage.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Durian. You have gained 85 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Earth Qi has increased by 55.
How many knives does that woman have?
Ophelia’s question was one Lars had as well when he looked up to see the ringleader pull out two more daggers and throw them at him. He just barely dodged them by shifting his body to the left, but then completely lost control when his foot planted onto a slippery coating of ice. His momentum carried him forward, and he slammed straight into the wall on the other side of the alley hard enough to fracture its clay surface and jam the dagger that had struck him earlier a little farther in.
Freaking falcon formation indeed, Lars grumbled. He pushed off of the wall and leapt to the first piece of ground that wasn’t covered in ice before rushing away and putting some distance between himself, the ice cultivator, the woman, and the guy that was behind the girl when the fight started.
It felt like the slate had been reset for the fight except for the fact Lars was hurting. He had 320 hit points to start with and had lost 40 to the wall mishap, 41 to a basic dagger strike, and 68 to a dagger hitting a vulnerable point, leaving him at square one against three enemies with only 171 hit points left.
Whatever, I can regret this later. Lars took the 85 points he had gotten from Durian and the 42 he had gotten from Evan and dumped them both into Fortitude, giving him 298 remaining health. Lars charged forward full speed at the ice cultivator who was now bent over and channeling his frigid skill straight at Lars and laying down a sheet of ice between them. Lars pushed forward as hard as he could and lowered his stance the moment his feet touched the slick ground this time, allowing him to skate across it.
The ringleader took advantage of the fact Lars could no longer move left or right as his momentum propelled him forward to throw two more of her piercing attacks straight at him.
Lars was ready this time and used his left forearm to absorb the two attacks so that they only dealt 82 damage total and continued sliding forward straight into the ice cultivator. The man tried to stand up and move back, but Lars’s Speed was too great. Lars lifted his foot into a kick and drove his heel right into the man’s face as the foot that was sliding ran out of ice, striking the rough ground and sending Lars tumbling onto his freshly kicked victim.
“Ack! Get off me!” the man screamed, blood shooting from his crushed nose and busted teeth. “Get . . . Get off me!” he yelled again, pushing at Lars, but Lars just gripped the man tightly, rolling with him and turning him over so he was on top.
Sure enough, the man’s eyes practically bulged out of his head as the ring leader’s next dagger attack struck him instead of Lars. Lars took this moment to put all of his force into his next punch, striking as fast and hard as he could.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Caleb. You have gained 96 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Ice Qi has increased by 62.
That’s it! Lars grinned from ear to ear. He had only taken 82 damage from the woman’s attacks, but he now had 96 more stat points at his disposal in case he got hurt badly again.
Rolling once more and still hyped up on the feeling of adrenaline and the incredible sensation of the Qi pouring into his body, Lars lifted his most recent victim’s body with him as he stood and used it as a shield while charging straight toward the last man in the attacking group.
“Duck! It’s finished!” Lars heard the remaining man yell.A torrent of flame shot up and arced over both the woman and then dug into Lars’s back. Lars expected to be roasted as the searing heat poured into his back, burning his robe, charring the surroundings, and heating the entire area up so much that the iced ground completely melted, but he didn’t even take a single point of damage or even feel hurt at all.
Attuned to all basic elements, remember? He needs to have way more Fire Qi than you have Resistance to hurt you, remember?
Lars was too busy focusing on the woman ahead of him, who somehow had pulled out yet another pair of daggers as if every free inch of her body under her robes was covered by strapped-on weapons.
“Kid,” the woman said as she backed up a few steps, getting closer and closer to the street with her remaining companion, “you . . . You don’t have to do this, kid. We’re not here for you.”
“But at this point”—Lars shook his head at her—“I’m here for you.”
“Don’t get cocky, little guy,” she said. “Maybe we can work together. All we have to do is get his head, and we can both make a wagon full of money. You like money, right? Someone of your strength has to need cultivation material . . . and he’s got a thousand-gold bounty on him. We can split it fifty-fifty . . . The boss just wants his head . . .”
Fire attacks . . . So he’s weak against ice probably . . . and water . . . and . . . Lars was trying to figure out what range attack he could use as he saw their fear. They wanted to bolt. They wanted to run away from him. No, I can’t let them leave. They’re murderers, Lars thought, trying to justify the hunger he was feeling as he turned the dead body he was holding, grabbed the daggers out of it, and threw it to the ground.
“Kid, relax a minute and listen to reason. You can’t save your friend, but you can still make some money. Just come back to Bok Kyu’s manor with me, and let’s just collect the fee. We’ll . . .” She frowned as she saw the bodies on the ground. “We’ll forget about this little skirmish. No harm, no foul, okay?”
“He’s going to attack us again. Let’s just . . .”
Lars threw both daggers at the woman with as much force as he could muster, using wind to push them even faster. Her eyes didn’t even get a chance to open all the way before her own blades sank into her chest, blood splashing out of her mouth.
“You . . . son of a . . .” The woman gritted her teeth, staring at Lars angrily.
“Don’t speak ill of my mother,” Lars yelled as he charged, trying to close the distance as quickly as he could and winding up a punch to throw everything he had into it. Before he could reach her though, the man next to her jumped in front of her.
The man managed to say one word: “Just—” The word came out with a massive amount of blood that he suddenly coughed up as Lars’s attack connected. Lars could hear and feel the man’s ribs cracking as his hand smashed the man’s chest, knocking him and the ringleader back and onto the ground inches away from the street behind them.
“Just let her live . . .” he pleaded as he dragged his body over hers despite being barely able to move.
“No, you should be the one to run,” the woman insisted, rejecting his compassion and pushing him off of her.
“She didn’t have a choice but to take the contract. We needed the money. We needed the money . . . Let her live, please . . . Please let her live,” he begged, the whole scene momentarily stunning Lars as he tried to piece together what was the “right” thing to do.
No, Lars told himself as he finally shook his head. If Nick had begged for his life, they wouldn’t have let him live. He activated Knife Hand and stabbed the man in the back. The two-foot Qi blade pierced straight through him and into her. Her eyes turned as wide as saucers and filled with tears as she stared directly at Lars. He pulled back and struck again and again until he felt the long, beautiful strands of Qi leave her body too, coursing into his. Lars was overtaken by the gentle and beautiful feeling that was like lying down in a meadow and staring at the clouds after being forced to carry rocks for a decade without a break.
Congratulations. You have successfu
lly killed Xerxes. You have gained 91 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Fire Qi has gone up by 53.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Artemisia. You have gained 108 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Metal Qi has increased by 31. Your elemental affinity with Earth Qi has increased by 19.
Lars took a little time to collect himself as he let the last waves of pleasure dull down, ebb away, and subside from his mind. He looked up and saw that there were at least ten people in the middle of the street who could easily see him standing above the bodies of Xerxes and Artemisia. He thought they’d be yelling, screaming, and running for help, but rather than any of that, they did nothing. They looked at him like he was some sideshow performed by a wandering minstrel, like he was some oddity or abnormal occurrence in nature that the villagers would point out as they walked down a trail, but nothing more. There was no fear, no gripping trepidation. He could see no paranoia setting into them or fear that he might attack them. Nor was there any concern or desire to do justice. He was something to be looked at and studied for a moment before they went about their daily lives as if nothing happened.
The whole experience felt completely foreign to Lars. He didn’t exactly know what to do or why they were behaving that way. Have authorities already been notified, so they don’t want to interfere? he wondered, trying to make sense of it.
Nick didn’t hide in the light, Lars.
Ophelia reminded him of the events that had preceded this fight. They had come straight for Nick in the middle of the road as if they had no problem killing him where everyone could see.
That’s just the way this world works, is it? Lars frowned at the picture of the local cultural landscape that was being painted in his head. While it left him slightly worried for his own safety, it left him even more concerned about his mother’s. She was taken by the type of people that lived in this world of dog-eat-dog cultivators.