Chapter 185

  The Unspoken Hurt (III)

  I don't know how much impact my 'spirited' little monologue had, but even if it was just barely enough to plant a seed of doubt... I'd consider it a success. Though it's gotten much easier to navigate the sensibilities of this world, parts of me still cling to that old reality of life back on Earth.

  Especially because I was never really a violent person, per se--I mean, I dealt with some major anger back in the teenagerhood, but that mostly manifested itself as me being kind of a prick when it came to listening to metal music and making fun of everyone who listened to anything else.

  My form of rebellion was smoking cigs behind my parents' back, not getting into fistfights.

  The paradigm of this world, though... it's not that it grows on you, but more that it... wears you down. Like all the unhappy couples back in college, where the girl eventually just gave in to the guy's pestering.

  However, unlike those girls, I've no means of 'breaking up' with this place--all I can do is try and let it corrupt me as little as possible.

  I stepped out of the tiny little house and walked over to the wall where I saw the decrepit stairs a few days back. With a bit of parkouring (okay, not really), I managed to nimbly climb up to the ramparts and take a small walk.

  One thing, consistently, inspires about this world--its views and vistas.

  The mountain slope bled downward like a river, the mix of ashen gray and the eventual green trees, especially from this far up, almost like colors on a canvas. Though it was usually covered with the clouds, they'd actually parted for a moment, affording me an unimpeded view of the flats to the south--they were so vast and massive that the mountain felt small in comparison, somehow.

  The river was merely a line that cut through a small smudge that was the village we stayed at before departing for this place. It sort of reminded me of those views from the National Parks, where you'd stand at the summit of a mountain and gaze down below at the canyon flanked by several other mountains just like the one you were at.

  The sort of thing that just... takes your breath away, really.

  "Master, breakfast is ready!" Dai Xiu informed me as I slowly climbed down.

  Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the view from this high up is how... un-fascinating it is? Don't get me wrong--it's beautiful in ways that defy description. But it's also kind of... normal? Like the kind of thing that I could also see back on Earth.

  I don't know.

  The breakfast consisted of cooked, plain rice and some slightly stale-yet-still-soft bread. We ate in silence, with the kids seemingly averting their eyes from mine.

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  Well, everyone except Long Tao, who quickly finished the meal and retreated to his 'room'... where I chased him not two minutes later.

  "You've been coming to chat a lot more often, Master. Are you feeling lonely? Perhaps, on our next stop, we can look for a brothel--"

  "Remember that shaman fight we came across during the climb?" I asked.

  "Hm? Yes, why?"

  "I'm fairly certain that the other person--the one who survived--might be the vessel that the Fiend plans to use to resurrect somebody."

  "Oh."

  "You don't think so?"

  "No, sounds as reasonable as any other assumption," he shrugged. "But it's also irrelevant."

  "How so?"

  "I know where they are."

  "..." Honestly, it's... frustrating. I mean, yes, it's great that I have this supernaturally charged little monster that can do so many things I can't, but it feels... unearned. Like I didn't deserve the knowledge or the opportunity to help.

  "Don't look so discouraged," he said. "Honestly, it was a stroke of luck more so than any of my--father's knowledge. The imprint on the girl, I'd placed my own there just for brevity's sake; I didn't think he'd be stupid enough to form a meaningful connection with it... but he did. For a brief few seconds, I think he was using the mark to see what she was doing. Tracing it back to the origin... well, it was something anyone could have done."

  ... I looked over at him and almost smiled invisibly. In his own ways, I guess, he does look out for me. Sometimes. Irregularly.

  "So, where are they?" I asked.

  "In the mountain."

  "..."

  "Answer for an answer, then," he said, sitting up and walking over to one of the boarded windows; he merely pressed his finger against the wood, and the latter disintegrated into ash, letting a small bout of light and wind through. "I heard your little speech yesterday," he said. "Inspiring."

  "..."

  "Do you believe it?"

  "Believe what?"

  "To sully a Master's honor... there is no greater sin in this world," Long Tao said. "Unequivocally. Even if someone slaughters your entire family in cold blood, if they sully your Master's name... the latter is considered worse."

  "That's insane!" I replied almost instinctively as he chuckled.

  "Do you know why?" He sat back down. "Master is a link to the Heavens themselves. What Light did, by all accounts, was exactly what she should have done. No, rather, she should have executed them all on the spot and made sure everyone knew precisely why she did it."

  "..."

  "So, I ask again: do you believe it? That your way is better?"

  "... I do," I replied.

  "Where do you draw the line?"

  "I don't know."

  "You don't know?"

  "I've never been forced to make that choice," I said. "I think... taking a life takes something from you, too. Maybe, to most, it's nothing life-altering--but those things... they slowly add up. Especially with Light. She's a... child. I mean, you all are--but her especially. She should not even be here with me. She should be with her parents, playing, laughing, screaming, and running until she's so tired she falls asleep the moment her father or mother picks her up.

  "You all, too. I... I know that it's a choice you all made. But isn't that the Master's job? To shield you from it all for as long as possible? And the fact that you aren't is a reflection on my failures."

  "Hm. Very noble," he chuckled after a brief silence. "My... father's Master, she was nothing like you."

  "No?"

  "No. The very first lesson she ever taught my father, on the day he became her disciple, was to never trust anyone: she offered him a free meal that had been poisoned by la'tcha. He suffered in grave pain for nearly two weeks, almost dying thrice. She did it twice more after with various other poisons, until he finally learned and stopped taking kindness from others."

  Wow.

  Holy shit.

  She sounds mental, no? Honestly, all things considered, Long Tao is... I don't know, normal, almost?

  "The cave's about four hundred yards southeast," he said. "Hidden in the thickets and behind some trees. There's a long tunnel that winds into the heart where the preparations are underway. If we want to stop it... we should probably depart by nightfall."

  "You're coming, too?"

  "We're all coming," he said as I glanced back and saw the kids peeking through the shadows.

  Yeah.

  I need to institute some freakin' privacy laws around here.