Chapter 150

  Festival of Sins (II)

  "Okay, it's safe now!"

  The veil of darkness that was Light hands finally lifted, and I could see!

  To hell with this!

  These kids are treating me like I'm a child, too!

  And, look, look at Long Tao! He looks like he's just about ready to blow his top from laughing harder than he ever laughed in his life! Weren't you apathetic?! Weren't you a legendary hero?! Is seeing the kids make a mockery of me that funny?!

  ... haah.

  I'm venting into the sky.

  I mean, they have good intentions; it's just that their good intentions make me seem like... I don't even know, honestly. I'm kind of at a loss for words.

  Speaking of loss, I couldn't see anyone but their leader, who was currently sitting strapped to a tree, his expression one of bewilderment, anger, shame, embarrassment, cunning, and--yeah, I have no idea. He just looks like he wants to kill us with his eyes.

  "Forgive us, Master!" Dai Xiu and Xi Zhao bowed suddenly, shouting.

  "... just... just go away."

  "A-ah!"

  "Master needs some time..."

  "Of course!" Honestly, their mood swings might be the death of me. I'm nowhere near qualified to diagnose them with anything (and that nowhere is being kind to me), but I'm tempted. Oh my God, am I tempted. There's no way anyone in this group is normal (except for me, of course).

  "Why'd you keep him alive?" I asked Wan Lan, who also returned, seeming rather jubilant about something.

  "He's their leader," she said. "Maybe we can learn who they are?"

  "They're former members of the Fire Sun Sect," I rattled randomly, surprising her.

  "E-eh? Really?"

  "Hm," I nodded. "Not much you can learn from them, I imagine. Their home got blown up, probably while they were away, so they discarded their identities and decided to rob people. They probably heard rumors about the gathering in the Grove and were on their way over when they chanced upon us. Does that just about cover it?" I turned toward the man tied to the three who was gnashing his teeth.

  "Who the hell are you?! There's no way you are just some random merchants! Who are these monsters?! Are you Demonic Cultivators?!"

  ... eh? You literally fought a Demonic Cultivator and you couldn't tell. I looked at him oddly, Wan Lan looked at him oddly, and even Long Tao looked at him oddly.

  It must have been quite a comical sight since Light broke the silence by laughing.

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  That's right.

  Light laughed.

  I mean, I caught a glimpse of her kind of smiling here and there, but no... she actually laughed.

  I snapped my head toward her, but by the time I did, her expression was back to placid. I eyed her for a moment as she pretended nothing happened.

  Seriously.

  I'm the only one even remotely normal here.

  "We're kind of like you, actually." I turned to the tied man whose name I've literally already forgotten despite having inspected him not ten minutes ago. "I'm a former Elder of the Spirit Sword Sect, and these are my disciples."

  "Y-you! It's all your fault! What the hell happened there?! Why?! Just why did you all not die?! If you had just died peacefully, my sect would have become the greatest in the region! Nobody would have been able to defy us!"

  Yeah.

  He's losing it.

  And yet... I still find it hard, both in heart and throat, to actually tell others to just kill him. It's his inevitable fate--there's no way he was leaving here alive once he attacked us; Long Tao would have never allowed it.

  And despite knowing it, despite knowing that his death was inevitable the moment he started following us, and despite there already being quite a few corpses hidden somewhere about away from my eyes... I found it hard.

  It's easy to imagine the hardened and cold ordering of deaths of 'bad' people--it fills you up with a sense of justice, after all. But the reality, for me at least, is that it's not so much a sense of justice that I feel as it is a sense of dread.

  No... I wouldn't really call it dread, either.

  It's just this cold numbness, like my body is trying to aggressively adjust to this new reality, but my mind is still too entombed with my life on Earth to succumb. So, there's this battle--like I'm living out that cringe 'two wolves' shit in real time.

  Haah.

  "Kill him." It wasn't me, actually, but Long Tao. Wan Lan nodded, and Light quickly climbed my back like a monkey and covered my eyes again.

  ... I want to cry.

  Among other things.

  Anyway, I was spared yet another gnarly sight, and we quickly picked up our things and left.

  Today is finally the day we actually managed to leave the forest--we ended up getting out a bit further south than we actually entered it, as there was a small village nearby, according to Wan Lan.

  Though it wasn't likely we were going to find much in terms of supplies, we actually were running low on water. I mean, there were ponds and streams in the forest, but I didn't trust those all too much, even after we boiled them.

  I mean, the kids will be fine, but what if some weird parasite sneaks into me? I'm a goner.

  The village was about fifteen homes strewn about a small dip in the hilly terrain. They were all shacks, really, more so than houses, with fenced-off gardens where several kinds of crops were growing. Most of the people in the village were elderly, with only a few young kids that immediately ran out when we showed up, deathly curious.

  "W-welcome, Venerable Ones," an old man just barely holding himself up on a cane came quickly to welcome us, his voice almost as shaky as his body. "I apologize for the state of--"

  "Don't worry about it," I quickly interrupted him. I did wonder a bit how he recognized we were cultivators, but, then again, it's not like these kids around me bothered pretending very hard to be merchants...

  Oh, and yeah. We didn't actually have any merchandise since all of it was locked away in the spatial rings.

  "We're just passing through, and we were wondering if we could buy some of your excess water and produce."

  "Aa-h! Of course, of course, Venerable One! Please, come! There is no need to purchase; we are more than happy to offer a gift."

  "I was always of the belief that gifts are for friends and family," I said. "And I'm afraid we're neither. Kids, go load up on water and food, but don't be greedy."

  "Yes, Master!" I almost rolled my eyes.

  Even Wan Lan replied the same...

  Aren't we supposed to be merchants?! Why are you still calling me your Master?!

  Haah.

  "In that case, at least allow us to host a small meal for you and your Disciples," hm? This feels a bit... excessive.

  Ah.

  He wants something from us.

  ... well, as long as it's something minor, I don't mean being the dashing hero that the village's folk tales will sing about centuries from now.

  Wow.

  It's really true that men just age past the age of twelve, but we never grow up. Then again, I knew some women in their thirties that didn't do much 'growing up' either, so maybe it's just the children in all of us yearning to come out after being chained and imprisoned by the cold and harsh grind of modern-day living.

  Alright, that's enough of that.

  Let's go and hear what the old guy wants.