You know that look you give someone when you’re trying to swallow a fly?

No? Well, prepare to have your horizons broadened because every single person here was shooting that look my way, which is weird considering that, while I have been told that I do have all the charming mannerisms of a household fly by my uncle, I am ninety-something percent sure that I am not a fly.

That extra ten-ish percent is due to the unwavering belief that my uncle had in me. Say what you want about the man, but his belief in me being an insect and a nuisance was as strong as Pebbles The Wondercat’s street smarts.

I’m pretty sure the only reason they were doing this is due to my question earlier. The question being somewhere along the lines of, ‘if iron man’s very slow cousin over there had something lodged in his throat.’

“No.”

Yep, his voice still sounded like it was raping all known alloys. But I guess I’ll have to make do with it.

Hm? Though I can’t see his face all that well, I get the feeling that he is trying to calm himself due to extreme anger. Man, I would hate to be the guy that put him in a bad mood.

“I heard that there was an immensely talented human child here, and I was actually sent to kill you, but to thi—”

“So you’re a racist then?” I asked after listening for a while.

Iron man’s horribly maimed in-law relative became flustered when he heard this. “What? N—No, I mean we don’t like humans sure, but this isn’t—”

“Pretty much feels like racism to me.”

That sounded like a blatant confession. Can we not go beyond these barbaric times?

“Hold on, the leader is no racist, you human brat!” Another one of the black-clad figures pointed his finger at me as he seethed in anger at the apparent disrespect I’ve I’m giving his leader.

However, I could understand where he was coming from… a little.

“You’re right. Technically, we’re not the same species, so maybe specism? In all honesty, I can’t tell if that’s worse or not.”

Seeing my serious rumination, the other black-clad figures looked at each other in apparent confusion before one chose to chime in.

“No, no… he’s got a point there,” one agreed.

“I mean, I don’t think it’s worse. Think about it, we technically think less of regular animals and beasts even if we don’t mean it. Are we racist, then? I think not.”

“No, you can’t think about it like that,” another one rebutted after a while. “Animals and beasts are not intelligent, so I don’t think we can really put them in the argument if we’re—”

“I think the real question here is, what IS a race and what IS a species, really?” Another brought up, his finger fondling his chin as he found himself becoming philosophical.

It was good seeing these men thinking about this so seriously. Being the one who brought up the subject, I wanted to put in my own two cents on hearing the discussion the kidnappers were having.

“Alright, so technically Google does say that racism is defined as—”

“Enough, you brat!” The Bronze Seat erupted in rage.

“Excuse me? Your people were the ones having a conversation—”

“I don’t care!”

The sound of spittle could be heard hitting the inside of the bronze mask.

“First of all, ew. Second of all, is there something in your thro—”

“Finish that sentence and nothing will be able to fix what I do to you!”

I stared at him with a seemingly disinterested expression before deciding to poke tha bear.

“Great, so I was actually here to betray these two to you. So how do we do this?”

“I don’t want the kids, you cur! I want the sword in your hand!”

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“So you, representing the power of a sect, ran over here at breakneck speed to take from the hands of a Core Flame Evocation realm eleven-year-old child his sword?”

“I—”

The Bronze Seat was somewhat flustered into silence, as his cheeks, I’m guessing, burned red with embarrassment.

I could tell what this person intended from the get-go from his reaction alone.

He was probably supposed to come over here, find some high and mighty reason to blame me for some crime he’d proceed to pull out of his butt so that he could have the moral high ground to take the weapon from me.

However, the philosophical evolution of his men most likely annoyed him to near madness.

Calling him a racist was bad enough, but then the entire coalition was debating over said racism and its apparent existence here on a philosophical level and/or whether it should be referred to as specism.

I saw all this at a glance.

The Bronze Seat try his best to calm himself. “The reason we are here for your sword is because we heard of what you’ve done to the son of the sect master of the Blood Crypt Sect.”

As he brought this up, I remembered how I effortlessly manhandled the milk-drinking young master, whilst annoying him to madness as well.

The Bronze Seat paused for a moment before he continued. “You don’t need to know who we are, as we don’t want to use our sect’s prestige to bully you. However, we do have dealings with the Blood Crypt Sect and we cannot stand aside when someone has wronged them, as you have.”

Oh yeah, this guy thinks that I’m stupid. He was trying to justify his previous outburst. But I’m not going to say anything; I only sneaked a glance at Feng Yu before fixing my attention on him again.

The guy didn’t even stop. He just kept going.

“Now, in all honesty, based on the intensity of the trouble you’ve caused, death would be a light punishment. However, seeing as you are such a gifted young genius, I will not make it hard on you and only take your weapon so that you are not able to cause such trouble again.”

I saw how his gaze shifted to Feng Yu and Shen Ling who I pushed in front of him before he added. “In addition, I will partly take you up on that betrayal of yours, but only for the timid looking one there.”

He pointed at Shen Ling, causing her to flinch back in fright, hiding behind me in turn.

“If I remember the report correctly, this is the young one that Xue Zi wanted to accompany him. I will take her with me. I will take it as your goodwill towards Xue Zi and your way of asking for his forgiveness.”

Well, my stomach just flipped after everything he just said.

“What? Are you reneging on your words? I don’t want to be a specist or anything, but you’re not making the humans look good right now.”

He did learn something! Did you hear that!? His words contained a bit of mocking though.

‘Still, though, his voice is as cancerous to my ears as ever. Well, whatever.’

“Okay.” I agreed.

I saw dismay fall over the face of the two boys when I said this.

“I knew we shouldn’t have trusted you! Humans really are scum, you’re nothing but a coward! I curse you Long Di! I curse you to my last breath!”

Tie Lang let loose a spiel of insult in my direction. Jia Yan said nothing, but the disappointment on his face was apparent as well.

I shrugged my shoulders in the face of this and pushed the sword in my grip on Shen Ling before pushing her away from me.

I shifted my gaze afterwards to Feng Yu. “Go.”

Her tear-filled face filled with fury at what I said before she took Shen Ling’s hands, heading in the direction of the leader.

“I didn’t say that I wante—”

“Take her as additional compensation for the trouble I caused the young master,” I told him before he finished what he was saying.

“Your head’s in the right place,” the Bronze Seat nodded in agreement to the arrangement before he made a signal to a few of his men.

A few of them then made movements to surround me in a pincer formation. Should have seen this coming.

“You’re betraying me, aren’t you?”

“You don’t seem to be surprised.”

He almost sounded surprised at me not being surprised. I guess I should owe that to my face and voice, which underwent a deprivation of all things expression-filled and emotional.

Shu!

He quickly moved in front of Shen Ling and surrendered the sword from her grasp before returning to his original spot. He gave it a once over before turning his attention back towards me.

“Well, you have my sword, my friends, and my life. Can’t really say I didn’t see it coming,” I said to him.

“So what? You want to die then?” He asked me.

“It’ll probably happen. Most likely after you though,” I responded, and boredom was quickly setting in.

The Bronze Seat stared at me for a moment and I could tell he felt unnerved after a moment. I’ve been told staring into my eyes was like staring into the abyss.

“Kill him,” he said after a while. “It would seem that we’d be doing him a fav—”

He stopped his command short when he realised that Shen Ling and Feng Yu were now right in front of him.

He couldn’t even respond before Feng Yu tripped, falling into his grasp.

He didn’t even realise when they got so close, and a bad feeling filled him.

“What are yo—”

Krrshhhh!!!

A burst of grey lightning exploded from Feng Yu as it engulfed both her and the Bronze Seat!