by Charles Dean
“If they’re that strong . . . how did they end up as slaves?”
“Because, when they were made slaves, they weren’t that strong. Bok Kyu put those four through some hellish cultivation technique and obscene experiments to raise their power artificially. He spent nearly half his crops for over a year making compounds he would inject into them every hour. He stretched them, had them practically flayed with a thousand cuts so he could rub something in the wounds that made them stronger when they healed . . . It was brutal. If I were one of them, I’d have killed myself before going through that crap.”
“I think they want to . . .” Lars remembered Gisaeng One’s plea to be finished off. “They just can’t because of those slave collars.”
“Right, well, because they cultivated in the element of lunar light, the assassin’s element, they are also very good at hiding their power, but trust me: They’re strong. Stupid strong. I saw one of them instantly kill a Stage 8 Qi-Gathering Cultivator with a single punch to the throat. You do not want to fight them,” Birkett informed him.
“And you’re helping me because?” Lars appreciated this knowledge, but he didn’t know if he could trust the source.
“Honestly? I know where the gold is, and you don’t. If Bok Kyu dies, and you leave, it’s all mine, and I won’t have to keep picking up that damn mop,” Birkett said.
“Ben . . . if Bok Kyu lives, and he finds out that—”
“He’ll never find out, and that’s only if he lives. I got an idea, murder man.” Birkett flashed Lars a grin. “If I can get Bok Kyu out of his precious chamber, away from that deadly foursome, will you help me out? Will you be able to actually kill him in one shot before the others arrive?”
Lars thought for a moment. “How do you plan to do that? We just wrecked buildings. He has to know something went on out here . . . You gonna actually be able to draw him away from his guards?”
“It’ll be super easy, barely an inconvenience.” Birkett’s eyes gleamed with excitement. “The only thing I’ll need is . . .” He jumped past Lars and began digging through the rubble of the broken building, looking for something.
Lars wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but then Birkett grabbed onto something and started yanking. There, in his hands, was the severed head of the woman that had tried to poison Lars earlier. The hair Birkett wasn’t tugging on was mostly sticking to her face, matted up with the blood, dust, dirt, and debris that had stuck to it.
“Huh . . .” Birkett frowned and then reached back down, digging around a few minutes before happily shouting out, “Yes!” as he pulled out a necklace and the blowdart gun that the woman had used. “I don’t know how much luck favors us, but they’re both intact,” he said, laughing.
“You’re going to . . .” Lars started to see the plan come together as he noticed the necklace and the blow darts that were supposed to have stunned him when he first broke into the room full of women.
“Blow Bok Kyu with the poison darts?” Birkett said as he held the gun. “Yup. That’s the plan. I am going to lure him out with the necklace and blow him in the walkway as soon as he clears the doors and is away from the main hall.”
Ben facepalmed. “Dude, please think about how what you’re saying sounds.”
“Why? I said exactly what’s going to happen: I’m going to blow Bok Kyu with the dart gun once we isolate him and—”
“Just . . . stop, Birkett. Dear heavens above, don’t invite a tribulation one day with your accidental innuendos that denies me a chance at a good girl,” Ben harrumphed, shaking his head as he squeezed his forehead with both hands like he was trying to massage a migraine.
“Oh, quiet. If a girl avoids you because my words are misleading—or at least you say they’re misleading—then you’ve already failed,” Birkett quipped as he handed the blowgun and a few of its darts to Lars. “I’m assuming you know how to use one of these?”
“Not really, but I can figure it out,” Lars replied.
“Well, don’t mess this up,” Birkett insisted. “My entire life is riding on this. You and your little ‘I can outrun the bad guys even if I end up blowing up people’s nice homes in the process, nice homes where they’re taking a day off and—’”
“Birkett!” Ben snapped his fingers. “Focus. The plan.”
“Right-o. I’m off,” Birkett said. He tossed the necklace a few times in his hand before straightening his appearance and then heading into the main hall where Bok Kyu was waiting, leaving Ben and Lars both outside.
Lars was tempted to put his ear to the wall but decided against it, instead hiding behind one of the pillars of the covered walkway as he did his best to still his breath. He looked over to see Ben having already hightailed it across the compound as far as possible in what looked like a comically bad attempt at sneaking, tip-toeing so quickly that his feet practically thudded across the ground. He was even holding his hands in front of him like little rontin chicken wings.
Before Lars could mentally mock the man, he heard footsteps approaching and the sound of a conversation.
“What did she say exactly when she left? Why did she toss aside the necklace?” Bok Kyu demanded. “Why is she jealous of the gisaeng? Haven’t we been over this before? She knows they’re all pristine virgins. I’ve never touched them. If I did, their cultivation method would backfire and they’d die.”
“It’s that damn weasel that snuck in,” Lars heard Birkett say. “The tailless fiend somehow bribed those good-for-nothing lizard people and convinced her to leave with him as well. I didn’t hear how; I only saw them walking out together, but she looked furious, so I tailed them to where she was heading and came to get you as soon as possible.”
“I see . . .” Bok Kyu’s two words were filled with more rage than anything he had said before. It was like entire speeches filled with the vitriol of a dozen angry men had been condensed into a single pair of syllables, and they sent a chill down Lars’s spine as he heard them.
Okay, we can do this, Lars thought as he readied the blowdart gun, took a deep breath, and held it.
“We’ll find and kill that bastard, just you wait,” Birkett said as he ushered Bok Kyu forward. “He’s right this way.”
Lars popped out from behind the pillar and shot Bok Kyu with the poison.
“You! I’m GOING TO KI-l-l . . . kill . . . yuhh.” Bok Kyu had started off by angrily yelling at Lars, his hatred causing all the white parts of his face to turn completely red, but by the time he had reached the last word, his body had started to move like molasses, and he looked down in horror at his chest where the dart had entered.
“YES!!! YES!!! IN YOUR FACE!!! YOU GONNA DIE NOW, YOU PIECE-OF-SHIT, FAT PANDA BASTARD!” Birkett hollered, doing a little victory dance right next to Bok Kyu.
“He’s not dead yet!” Ben shout-whispered. “Stay quiet!”
“So what? He can’t move for a day. He can’t talk. He can’t move. He can’t even blink . . . dry-eyed little bastard. Come on, try it. Try to blink for daddy. Try to show how tough you are now.” Birkett continued to taunt the paralyzed man.
“A day?” Lars asked as he walked up to Bok Kyu. “And what’s to stop his aids from coming to help if they realize something is up?”
“Oh, you mean other than the fact he tells them not to move at all?” Birkett snickered. “But no, no, let’s just enjoy this. Let me go grab a snack before you execute him.”
Lars was usually not one to humor that type of request, but given how every taunt from Birkett seemed to redden the man’s face even further—a sign, Lars assumed, of how angry the panda was—he figured it wouldn’t hurt at all.
“So . . . is this what you make them go through?” Lars asked as he looked down at the man. “Is this the torture you make others go through? You make them sit there, silently, inches away from someone they hate but unable to do anything other than stare helplessly ahead of them?”
Lars began to empathize more and more with the “gisaeng” as they were called. He couldn’t
imagine what that was like. First being tortured, bones stretched, wounds drawn across their body, and then being forced to do the bidding of the person torturing them, forced to sit there silently as that person lived life well at their expense. It must have been hell for them. The very thought of that hell they were going through made Lars’s blood boil. He was furious, beyond furious, as he imagined the nightmarish situation they had to endure.
When he was a kid, he couldn’t even stand being still with his thoughts for five minutes every time his mother made him sit in the corner for bad behavior. They had to go through that for days at a time, night after night like golems that could only move when their master commanded them.
“I don’t think I’m just going to kill you,” Lars said as he took in some air. He wanted to do more: he wanted to torture this guy. He wanted to make this monster feel the pain he threatened Lars’s mother with. “I should rip you apart piece by piece, one at a time—slowly . . .” His anger continued to well up in him.
He felt like a wall started to form between him and the monster in front of him as he imagined the ways he wanted to harm Bok Kyu, and the wall was blocking him from even breaking a single digit on the man’s hands, much less ripping them off one at a time or doing some other monstrously terrible thing.
You’re not going to do any of that, are you? You’re going to give him a clean, quick kill, aren’t you?
Ophelia knew the answer already. Lars knew she did, and that’s why she had asked: to remind Lars of the type of guy he was so he wouldn’t hesitate or dawdle at this juncture. Yeah, I am. Lars extended his Knife Hand’s Qi blade and pierced it through the man’s right temple, the same as he had done to Nick earlier. It might not have been the best way to kill someone, but to Lars, it was the quickest and most painless way to kill a person he could think of. He might have felt good from revenge, but he knew that revenge wasn’t justice. Instead, he knew that it could be both terrible and monstrous. He didn’t want to become like the fiends he killed.
Congratulations. You have successfully killed Bok Kyu. You have gained 604 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Wood Qi has increased by 401. Your elemental affinity with Ice Qi has increased by 104.
“Aww, son of a cricket-humping scorpion!” Birkett shouted from behind Lars. “I said wait for me. What in the First King’s name were you thinking?!”
Lars turned around for a moment to see Birkett standing there, holding what looked like a few pieces of fried brussels sprouts, and frowned at him. Before he could answer Birkett, however, a wave of pleasure washed over him. The pain he had felt from his earlier wounds once again faded. The world once again became a mixed bag of emotions like he was walking through a beautiful forest with the smell of fresh pine filling his nose, like he was dancing with a pretty girl, like he was sharing a first kiss with his first love, and like he was jumping into a pool filled with ice on the hottest summer day. Everything was amazing, and his mind, for a moment, was washed clean of its concerns by the waves of joy that sprinkled across his thoughts. Lost in the dream world, he stared up at a moon that wasn’t there amidst clouds that even the greatest sculptor couldn’t craft into such intricate-looking shapes.
“You know . . . I noticed it earlier, but he . . . He really gets off on this, doesn’t he? That’s the same face you make when you finish with a ten-copper trollop,” Ben said, his voice pulling Lars back to reality despite the fact that he was still being washed away by the pure blissful sensation of the Qi that was entering him. It was greater than anything he had felt before, to the point where he hadn’t even noticed the message boxes that had piled up or Ophelia’s voice as she had spoken them.
Congratulations. By killing Bok Kyu you have successfully caused the death of Jennifer. You have gained 7,412 stat points. Your elemental affinity with Lunar Light Qi has increased by 2,015.
Congratulations! You have completed the following quest: Don’t be sad!
Reward: YAY! Since you’ve listened to your better (me) and returned to a state of not being sad and mopey over your dad, I’ve rewarded you with a bonus skill, one I know you’ll love: Slave Lord.
Skill Details:
There is a 10% chance of stealing the slaves of people you kill rather than allowing their slave contract to terminate their lives upon the death of their master.
There is an 80% chance of freeing the slaves of individuals you kill rather than allowing their slave contract to terminate their lives upon the death of their master.
There is a 10% chance of harvesting 10% of the essence of the slaves of individuals you kill rather than allowing their slave contract to terminate their lives upon the death of their master.
Skill Quest: Kill the owners of 100 slaves. How you feel about and treat the slaves after will change the level progression of the skill.
As an added bonus, I made sure to impart this reward to you before you killed Bok Kyu! Aren’t I so kind? You should thank me because I know, if I didn’t, you’d have been even sadder.
I’d have been even . . . sadder? Lars took a moment as he read that line, and then his eyes finished reading the Slave Lord skill effect and realized what it would have meant if he had killed Bok Kyu without the skill: every slave of his would have just died. Seeing the death of Jennifer, he couldn’t help but realize how strong she was and how one-sided a fight against her would have been. Birkett had said they were Stage 9 Qi-Gathering Cultivators practically at the edge of becoming Qi-Condensing Cultivators, but Lars hadn’t really grasped how strong that was. With four stats at nearly 20,479 points each, it was a monstrous strength that he couldn’t comprehend yet, and just that 10% of the total, 7,412, was far more than he had entered Bok Kyu’s compound with initially.
Yup. Couldn’t have you moping over the innocent victims you caused the death of, which you totally would, knowing you.
But . . . what about . . . the last one? What about Jennifer? I still . . . I still killed her even if inadvertently . . . The notification box for her death was still hanging there.
Hey. That is an existing skill! Be happy I forced the formula into your thick skull in time to harvest the benefits of it. Here I am, busting my butt to look after your feelings, and you nitpick over a small 10% failure rate.
I’m sorry. Lars lowered his head and closed his eyes as he did his best to offer a sincere apology to Ophelia. I know you’re doing the best you can, and thank you. I don’t know what I’d do without you.
You’d be dead, that’s what. No cultivation method, stuck in a backwater town in the middle of nowhere—even if I hadn’t kept your bloodline clean of that infested monster gunk, you’d have still died . . . probably. I mean, maybe not. Your dad’s bloodline was ridiculously powerful. Bastard reached the Qi-Condensing Stage at age thirteen . . . the monster.
Can you . . . Can you tell me more about him? Lars asked.
Another time.
Can you tell me more about the contract? You said it’s why I get . . . Qi the way I do?
The contract, you’re always going back to the contract. Why? You never once asked about your situation when we were at the village. Now I bring it up, and you’re constantly asking about it. You’re not looking for a way out, are you?
No, of course I’m not, Lars quickly assured her. He didn’t want out of it; he just wanted to know what deal his father had made and how his father had met Ophelia. He wanted to know everything about why he was the way he was, not to risk losing her.
Good, then just be more fluid. Be more accepting. You’ll have a lady thinking you’re trying to run out on the bill after eating the meal.
Huh? Lars blinked. He didn’t get that at all, but he didn’t dare let himself think the notion that first wanted to manifest in his head: “Is she scared because there is a way to break the contract and gain freedom of thought?” She heard every one of his thoughts, and so he knew, the moment he let that idea reach the point of inner monologue, he would have a steep price to pay from her before she calmed down. That’s why, a
s the words left her mouth, he had to hum to himself and silence his first reaction lest that notion turn into actual words and get him in horrible trouble.
So, one of those four evil women turned into essence fodder to fatten up our stats, but if any of the others turned into your slaves, then they won’t be able to move until you give the order. Why don’t you go see if we got any spoils? I’m hoping for at least one of the girls. Mmmm . . . those outfits they wore, those legs of theirs—this is going to be fun! SO FUN! Unless you ruin it again like with Desdemona, being all “I can’t take advantage of a girl right in front of me.”
Will you . . . just . . . ugh. Lars grimaced.
“No, don’t touch the psychotic murder hobo during his post-kill . . . killgasm? I don’t know what to call it. This is the time to leave, Birkett,” Ben warned.
“But . . . he . . . He needs to okay me taking the loot. I don’t want him killing me when he finds out I’m plundering the gold,” Birkett argued. “Look at that face. He enjoys killing so much. Do you want to risk him coming after us while we’re taking our fat paychecks?”
“Oh, good point,” Ben admitted as he approached Lars. “But that is all the more reason to let him finish savoring his kill.”
“Yeah, yeah, fine,” Birkett pouted.
“What?” Lars looked at the two. “I’m not some monster. I already told you I wouldn’t kill you two.”
“Umm . . . Mr. Mass Murderer, you did say that . . . but it’s still best to check, right?” Birkett said with an ear-to-ear smile. “I mean, I did help you kill Bok Kyu, right? And we did have a deal. Do you mind if . . .”