Chapter 580: Let’s Kill the Bandits (2)

However, Amukhablap was unflinching.

“From the start, plateau folk have no brigands. Of the Three Thousand Worlds, the most moral people are us, and we do not covet others’ property.”

“Fishcake Three-Combo wasn’t plateau folk but a Central Plains man? You clung like a leech demanding I hand over the Absorbing Essence Devil Art.”

“Silence! The unvirtuous Mister Shin already burns in hellfire. A technique whose owner has died belongs to all, and since it exists in the world and is dangerous, our pre-Buddhas of astonishing endurance manage it as merit for the world. I, so laudable, strove much to rescue you from the vulgar world. Be very grateful.”

“Hm.”

“You Central Plains wretches already suit our plateau people fine. On earth the gentlest and kindest with superb, excellent character. The world’s foremost ‘barbarians.’ To traverse the soil of the plateau—that is your enlightenment; if you failed to know it, replace your eyes with your empty sockets. Your skulls are nothing but fine ornaments.”

Haven’t you seen how good the plateau people are?

Are your eyes crooked just because the faces are merely decent?

The party found themselves, somehow, getting used to Amukhablap’s way of speaking.

And yet... the words themselves didn’t sound wrong?

On this journey, the plateau folk they’d met had been simple and kind—small hamlets and tent villages alike had welcomed them with fervent hospitality.

Of course, the ample silver paid out had helped.

“Now we go, you heavy-bottomed lumps. Endure the weight as you carry; we shall drive out the seed of brigands. This evening is scheduled for a cozy time between me—enjoying the corpses of the brigand band—and you Central Plains wretches.”

So that’s how you make “we’ll eat dinner in hell” sound deflated.

“Oh? Do you have some exquisite stratagem? But if anyone is used as bait or my friends are put in danger, that I won’t allow.”

“You are half-baked weak fake masters. No Harmony—your limbs are of different lengths, therefore you are the same as limping cripples.”

“Ah, suddenly speaking such truth?”

“Laudable you—foolish, but quick to learn. Yet the great me is a true master. I, mighty, shall lead and slaughter the brigands. You frail little underlings will collect the bugs running for their lives for extermination.”

He’d go in and kill them all; we were to catch the ones who tried to flee.

In short, he meant to just charge in.

“Eh.”

And then a most astonishing fact:

Qing was engaging in the act of thinking!

An unbelievable, shocking, radical claim that overturned all prior common sense, but in truth Qing was a despicable one who, before any fight, took exquisite care of at least her own safety.

She might look like she crashed in without thinking, but at a minimum she always prepared a line of retreat for when things went wrong.

Granted, the enemies were always stronger than expected, or the Blood Cult or demonic factions and whatnot had schemes entangled, so it had been nothing but trouble.

Still, that wasn’t Qing’s fault.

Unless you see the world omnisciently, how do you pre-know and counter someone else’s conspiracy?

It’s not like she’s from the future, or an absolute memorizer who can recall even what was served for lunch a year ago, or someone with a means to read minds—so then how.

“Hm. Doesn’t this feel suspicious? Even in the Central Plains, there are no bandits on a road that doesn’t pay. If they’ve set up in a place like this, of course it’s odd.”

“What! You said the plateau is a bleak, poor frontier of a backwater and that one could scour it for life and find nothing useful, a wasteland!? At once kneel and apologize to fifty million great plateau folk!”

“I didn’t go that far.”

“Brigands prey on people. The great Westerners are the most precious ‘barbarians’ in the world. That alone makes a future swarming with brigands a matter of course.”

Qing’s eyes narrowed.

Isn’t this extremely suspicious?

He’s forcing the point—could it be he hasn’t given up on the Absorbing Essence Devil Art and has laid a trap?

If anything feels off, I’ll lob the poison pellet Nana gave me and bolt.

Hee-mae and San will take care of themselves and follow; I’ll just snatch up Gunyeong and my utterly useless ornamental Bamboo Wife and run.

A truly petty and wicked inner plan.

Qing hid that vile little heart and nodded with a smiling face.

“Fine. Fishcake Three-Combo takes the lead, and we clean up the stragglers who run, yes?”

****

Once you feel suspicious once, you keep feeling suspicious.

How does he even know where the bandits are that he’s suddenly picking up speed? Why are we heading deeper into a lonely, shady stretch of mountains?

He was a suspicious type from the start.

How does someone with that vocabulary speak so awkwardly?

Unless he’s doing it on purpose to look ridiculous.

The party had come straight east out of Hainan.

They weren’t fast, but they were still cutting along with light-step, so Qing casually probed his intent.

“You do know where you’re going, right?”

“There is only one place in the vicinity where brigands would be located. The Central Plains’ geomancy is the same as the art of war. To see the enemy, to approach the enemy, to flee the enemy, to face the enemy—no element unimportant, no absence; the spot where all elements align is called auspicious ground. There is only one such spot. If laudable you engrave the great me’s words, you will obtain the bright Buddha’s wisdom of not losing in a hundred fights.”

“Isn’t that from The Art of War?”

“Sun Tzu also believed in the Buddha. That he believed in the Central Plains’ Buddha is a shameful act he surely hid—that is the truth.”

The nonsense was suspicious. Suspicious.

And a man who’d been lost and wandering—how does he know the local terrain this naturally?

Was he even really lost to begin with?

Qing brushed the pit of her stomach.

The poison pellet she’d kept ready to snatch and throw at any time made its presence known as a hard pressure amid softness.

Thus the party went deeper and deeper into the mountains.

The temperature dropped abruptly and turned cool.

With the perpetual snow close ahead, they must have been climbing up the mountains the whole time.

Low and high cliffs made the terrain vicious.

At this rate, even if they fled they’d be entering a natural labyrinth where finding a way out would be hard.

“Is this really it? Bandits set up shop somewhere this rough?”

“Laudable you. With that hollow skull, it is impossible to fathom the great me’s intent—I understand, and pity you.”

“Save it. What is it?”

“My affiliation is the high master of the world’s foremost monastery, Thunder Sound Temple. At the sight of me, paltry brigands will, in fear, make bold discharge like pants-wetters and flee. Therefore we annihilate them by surprise. The Buddha said: strike the enemy’s rear! This is free instruction bestowed upon laudable you. Permit yourself to revere the great me. Hush! Silence! Do not chatter!”

Amukhablap, who had been prattling alone, suddenly stopped and demanded silence.

If only he shut his own mouth, silence would indeed follow at once.

“From down there beneath that gorge, brigands are scheduled to be visible. From now on, murder your presence. When the great me slaughters the brigands, you will wheel around and smash the bugs who flee.”

Qing’s brow twitched.

If we’re striking the enemy’s rear, then wheeling around puts us blocking the front, doesn’t it?

More and more suspicious, this bastard.

Amukhablap crept off, minimizing his presence, toward a jutting shelf along a downward slope.

Qing met the party’s eyes, watched Amukhablap’s back, and flashed the basic Martial Alliance hand-signs.

Front element: person is suspicious. Escape is valid.

The party’s faces hardened.

Except Gyeon Pohee, who didn’t understand.

They crept after Amukhablap, then peered down from the ridge’s protruding lip.

Hm? No brigands?

Qing blinked. Half flummoxed, half wary, she looked at Amukhablap.

At some point she was clenching the hilt of the Moonlight Sword (No. 10-plus).

Amukhablap declared, brazen as you please:

“It was not this mountain.”

“What?”

“The great me is great. But the brigand band is not great. Therefore only one who has studied the Buddha’s wisdom—me—comprehends a position of so excellent a base. It is a phenomenon in which foolish brigands sport their heads as ornaments and exist in an odd location.”

We’d come to the single best spot to establish a redoubt.

But it seemed the fools were too stupid to recognize an auspicious ground and had picked somewhere else.

“Then what? We’re going to keep hunting until bandits pop up? I thought you were coming from some tip about their location.”

“Rather, you should thank me. You lazy Central Plains wretches—this is a chance to train, bestowed by a great master: my wisdom and mercy, fearsome merit. But it is not merely training. From the first I foresaw two nests for the brigands. Only now have I clearly and distinctly specified their location.”

We practiced light-step, so it’s not a loss, right?

And if the place for bandits isn’t here, there’s only one other spot, so they’ll be there.

“Hm. Let’s go. At this rate the sun will set.”

And then it was straight downhill.

Martial artists are good at running, but even better at dropping.

They leapt off small cliffs and ridges in whooshing bounds, then at some point were again clawing up a steep mountain, then higher still.

Qing entertained a reasonable suspicion.

Is he doing this on purpose to drain us? Seeing we look fresh, he picked harsh slopes to sap our energy, then pull something.

Thus the sun dropped and vanished, leaving only clumsy colors smeared across the sky to pretend it wasn’t dead yet—early evening.

Which is to say, they’d been running and climbing up and down mountains for roughly two and a half Double-hours (five hours).

Another gorge’s far lip.

The party cautiously looked down.

Hm. Bandits? Again, none?

“What is this? Do you actually know the way? There’s no one!”

“Strange! How!”

Amukhablap cried out as if he couldn’t understand, looked around in all directions, then suddenly—clap—smacked his hands together, as though he’d realized something, and proclaimed, high-spirited:

“That’s it! It was that mountain from before!”

“There was nothing there.”

“Fools! Look to the heavens! After the sun sets, they light fires and hide the smoke with craftiness—but even that cannot escape the great me’s gaze. Astonishingly, brigands are beings who eat meals!”

You made us climb another mountain because your eyes couldn’t see what you were looking at, and now nothing can escape you?

Following the finger he pointed with, if one looked very closely, a single thread of smoke rose.

It was the mountain they’d descended from earlier.

“The sun’s setting—what now?”

“I guaranteed an evening meal enjoyed alongside the corpses of brigand scum. Also, you Central Plains wretches own lanterns. Possible.”

Amukhablap was growing more and more suspicious.

He’d made them climb for nothing to bleed their strength, and now he was pushing past dinnertime.

Even for martial artists, if you’re hungry you can’t bring out your full power.

On top of that—night—he’d removed their sight.

At this point it wasn’t merely “suspicious”; he had some design. It was proper to treat him as a potential enemy.

From the start, his karma was blood-red—how do you trust that.

“Possible, my ass. Hee-mae, take out the lanterns. Give one to Fishcake Three-Combo, and Iri carries one.”

“Hm? I can just carry it.”

“No. Iri carries.”

Qing had a quirk: only when she was on edge, or hungry, did her intelligence spike sharply.

Right now, it was both.

If they had to seal up a party member’s arm with a lantern, it was best for the least helpful—Iri—to be the one.

If it came to a sprint, the light could serve as a beacon.

Handing one to Fishcake Three-Combo followed the same logic.

Last time he’d been flinging blood-red handprints with both hands; block one hand and that attack halves.

Thus, as the world darkened fast, two lanterns bobbed, descending the mountain.

Toward that mountain from before.