And so it was that Will saw a village. Hadn't seen any people in it, but he did see a village.

He hopped onto the carriage, because he had to hop to reach it, and joined the two riders in peering out at the village through the front. After a few long seconds of peering, he finally saw someone. It was an old man who looked as shriveled up and lifeless as the beasts he drained the lifeforce out of.

He was still alive, but that seemed to be a very temporary arrangement. Well he at least seemed to be alright for now. He'd just walked out of the biggest building around here, a small one. He grabbed onto the wall, and pointed his cane at their carriage. It seemed he could still see.

From what Will could hear with his enhanced hearing, he was yelling to someone inside and telling them about the carriage on the way. Will looked at the building.

It seemed to have two floors. It reminded Will of the saloons in westerns with the porch it had at the front. The second floor acted as an awning for the porch, covering the whole thing, held aloft by two thick wooden pillars. Will could spot an oval-shaped sign on the front, with the characters for Rising Dragon Inn on it next to a drawing of what seemed like a groggy dragon that had just gotten out of bed. It made the whole ‘town named after an inn’ thing feel… well, a bit ridiculous. The term ‘Rising Dragon’ felt a lot less cool when you put it next to a dragon that looked like he was just getting up to go have scrambled eggs for breakfast or something.

It took a few minutes to reach the village. When the carriage reached it, the coachman just pulled off to the side of the road. It… well, he definitely knows what he'd expected, honestly. As they got out of the carriage, the coachman waved them off to go ahead while he dealt with the horses. The guards stayed behind as well, though Will wasn't sure if that was what they normally did or if they were just doing that because they didn't really need to be there when Will could do the job of ten of them alone minimum.

Will followed the two ladies through the village. It was almost like he was heading to a motel on vacation with his mother and big sister. Only he looked nothing like either of them, and they weren't his mother and big sister, and this town would never be a vacation spot, and they were going to an inn instead of a motel.

They reached the door of the inn in less than a minute, even though it was in the middle of the village. It was a really small village. Looking around, he could actually see the lightning forest he'd been in. It was pretty close by. If it wasn't, his parents wouldn't have gone there. He could even see what looked like a sharp angle in the forest line a bit to the left when facing the same direction as the inn.

It seemed that the people here substituted off of a few gardens and a chicken coop he saw behind the inn. He was pretty sure the amount of food in the village had more than doubled when he walked in. Actually, he was certain it had more than doubled, he just wasn't sure by how much.

Will guessed this was just how it was for a village in the middle of nowhere when the only point of interest near it was a dangerous forest that sucked. It made sense it wouldn't see much traffic, anyone strong enough to go to the forest wouldn't really need a place close by to stay.

The forest that wasn't lightning thinned a bit before they got here, so there wasn't much in the way of regular trees.

All in all, it was the most backwater shithole he'd ever been in. In the other universe he'd never been anywhere more backwater than a suburb, and in this universe the other backwater villages he'd been in were less backwater than here.

As they reached the inn, they were greeted by the old man from before.

“Heeyy, welcome to the Rising Dragon Inn.”

His voice sounded like his vocal cords were replaced with someone scraping two metal pipes against each other. It was a grating noise. The man seemed to be friendly at least.

He brought them inside, pointing them to the check in counter as he sat at a bench near the entrance. The check in counter was in the middle of the back wall, indented into it. There wasn't any way to get behind it except through the door on the left wall of the indent, which was probably connected through a room to the door on the back wall to the left of the indent. Unless you just jumped over the counter, but that would probably be frowned upon. On the back wall of the indent was a doorless doorway, and a counter to the right of it, this one for the kitchen.

Currently manning the counter was a very buff looking man with hairy arms. He seemed to be related to the old man, though it was hard to tell with how old the old man looked. He waved at them with a giddy smile as they approached.

Xu Lanhua began speaking.

“Hello, we…”

She trailed off. She wasn't sure what she needed. Usually she'd just ask for rooms based on the genders of the people in the group, but she didn't know the kid's gender so she couldn't do that. She decided to try something. She turned to Will.

“You don't mind sharing a room with me and Yingran, do you?”

It was the least harmful option she could think of.

Will didn't really mind that much. It wasn't a big deal for him.

“I'm fine with it.”

Xu Lanhua inwardly sighed in relief, before continuing, turning to the man behind the counter.

“Do you have two rooms for three?”

The man behind the counter nodded.

“Sure do! Already all set up, as well. We've had a lotta people askin’ for ‘em recently.”

After money was exchanged and meal times told, they were shown to the rooms and Xu Lanhua was given a key for each. Once the guards and coachman arrived after a couple minutes, one of the keys was handed off to them.

They had already brought all the luggage for everyone with them when they came from the carriage, so they brought it upstairs to the rooms and dropped it all off, with Xu Lanhua coming with them to unlock the other room for them. Afterwards, they came back down for dinner. They just so happened to arrive just in time for it.

It was good, but Will felt it wasn't nearly as good as the meals Li Yingran had made. He chalked that up mostly to the ingredients. It wasn't exactly out there to assume they didn't use spiritual beast meat.

Everyone already knew the lack of things to do in this village, so they just went up to their rooms after the meal. Everyone except Will. Everyone else came here after planning a route. Will just kind of ended up here. And so he headed outside to explore. The old man gave a look to the group who'd just left him to head outside unattended, but decided it wasn't his business and ignored it.

The town was pretty barren. There were a lot of shitty rundown huts, but not much else. He noticed the carriage was gone. It probably went into the building large enough to store a carriage with a lazy looking man “guarding” it. He saw the horses in a stable beside it, so that was most likely the case.

There wasn't much in the way of shops either. There were just shitty rundown huts that also seemed to sell a few things. All of them closed. There was a roadside stall, too, but it was empty and unmanned.

It didn't even seem like a robber would like this town. The most valuable thing around would probably be a slightly less rusted nail. And as for the thrill? Will was pretty sure he could just casually walk into one of the walls here and it would just fall apart and let him in.

He doubted the people here did anything in their free time other than playing with sticks and getting drunk off their asses at the inn. Except staring dead-eyed at a wall, maybe. In other words, the town was severely lacking in entertainment.

Will decided to look for some mysterious secret or something. Maybe there'd be another evil basement like the one the Sick Freak made, except not evil and not made by the Sick Freak. He almost certainly wasn't going to find something, but it wasn't like there wasn't any non-secret thing to look for. He could see just about everything by spinning in a circle, walking in a straight line for ten seconds, and spinning in a circle again. It wasn't a big place.

After an hour of searching, he found a lot of nothing. Obviously. Inheritances didn't grow on trees. Actually, Will didn't know that for sure. At the very least, they didn't grow on trees in a treeless shithole in the middle of nowhere.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It also seemed like it'd be dark out soon, so Will decided to wrap up his search. He headed back to the inn and knocked on the door Xu Lanhua had decided would be theirs earlier. She soon came to the door and opened it for him. Will quickly followed inside as she closed and locked the door behind him.

She showed him to the bed they'd left for him on the right side. It was the same size as the others, pretty small but not that small. It looked comfortable enough to Will. Probably a bit comfier than what he had in the carriage. He climbed in and stared at the ceiling.

What could he do now? He wasn't tired enough to sleep. He decided to look at his Document Storage. The things he put up for sale still hadn't sold yet. He didn't find it too odd. Considering how many things he'd put up in just a few days, other people probably had put up way more. Considering the Coworker policy, it was basically a way to get free money from manuals without needing to worry about empowering an enemy. And considering how hard it was to get points, it would probably be a while until something sold. He considered selling the things he learned from Sarah, but he felt like that would be disrespectful.

Looking at the Information Manual Exchange Marketplace, he could only afford garbage, as usual. No shock there. Especially considering he'd spent most of his points on the dantian array.

He looked through his rings. Unless he wanted to take up blacksmithing to make a single sword out of one ingot with a handle made of poisonous herb, he really didn't have much there. He had the beast corpses, but there wasn't anything he could do with them. With how strong the ones he had were, it felt like draining their lifeforce would be a waste. It's not like lifeforce and qi were the only things of value, yet all those other things got ruined when they were drained of lifeforce and qi.

With no other ideas, he decided to just practice footwork. He wanted to practice with the sword as well, but that would be a pretty bad idea in a room with two mortals.

So Will hopped out of bed and practiced both footworks. With the knowledge that came with the sword movements, he could switch between them pretty well now. It meant he could practice both footworks and practice switching between them at the same time.

After two hours of this he finally was ready to go to bed. He also didn't want to keep his roommates up. He hopped in bed, a bit of his consciousness handling the flow of storm qi, and drifted off to sleep.

For two hours.

“Hey! Will! Wake the fuck up, dumbass! Your roommates are getting attacked again!”

Sarah yelled at him. Will immediately woke up. It was hard not to with someone yelling inside his head while he was only mostly asleep. But he didn't move. He didn't need to look, he had a sword to do that for him.

Sarah immediately understood his intention.

“Eight men, all wearing black with face coverings. They seem to all be at beginner qi gathering.”

Will, who had been buried under the covers enough to be completely hidden from sight, sprung up out of bed.

“Didn't I teww you to wake me up if bandits come?”

His line, an attempt to act cool like a superhero would, was immediately ruined when he saw that both Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua had a hand covering their mouth. And now they looked like they thought they'd get punished for disobedience. Though the slurring his words didn't help, either.

“Nevewmind.”

One of the bandits spoke.

“The hell is this brat?”

Another bandit spoke.

“Wait… isn't that the kid of them other people we was after a bit ago?”

A third bandit spoke.

“Holy shit, it is!”

A fourth bandit spoke.

“How the hell did it survive that forest they ran into?”

The first bandit spoke again.

“Who cares? It means we can bring it back and get some more pay.”

Will observed the scene. There were eight, like Sarah had said. Will could only describe their attire as sloppy ninjas. The classic ne'er-do-wells trying to hide their faces. Two were restraining Li Yingran and another two were restraining Xu Lanhua. The two on Li Yingran were clearly looking at her lecherously, something she clearly noticed, creating a classic damsel in distress scene. For Xu Lanhua, there was only one who looked lecherous, while the other looked like he really did not want to be here.

The other four were around to act as guards it seemed. Or something like that. Will wasn't an expert on bandits. He wasn't even really sure these were bandits. They could be grunts. Or goons. Or minions. Mercenaries? He couldn't say. He decided to stick with bandits.

“What awe you hewe fow?”

The first bandit didn't respond, instead opting to attempt to grab him. Will dug through his memory, finding the perfect move in an instant.

He swung his sword in one of the swings that barely hit the opponent. He managed to only almost-fumble it. The bandit jumped back, dodging.

“Kid knows some weird martial arts. Sword seems dangerous too. Be careful.”

The other bandits not on restraint duty nodded seriously. So much for catching them off guard.

The other three bandits rushed at him while the first stayed behind.

Will had the perfect move in an instant. He swung his sword down and to the left, nicking the middle bandit in the chest. Of course, the near fumble ruined the perfect part, but it still worked. He followed it up with a step back and another swing from bottom left to middle right, nicking the right bandit. He followed it up with a swing from right to left nicking the third bandit.

All three retreated. The first bandit chuckled.

“Told you he was dangerous. Draw your swords, we'll have to bring a corpse instead.”

The other three nodded and drew swords. Will wanted to cry. Now they weren't even going to hold back to leave him alive. He made a split-second decision.

“I'm sowwy, pwease don't kiww me!”

The bandits smirked under their masks. The plan worked perfectly. The first bandit spoke.

“Then drop the sword.”

Will couldn't do that. He just couldn't. It didn't drop. But they didn't know that. And they also assumed he was just a scared toddler right now.

He held the sword in an outstretched open palm.

“Hewe.”

The first bandit smirked, satisfied. At least it knew when to give up. Though the only thing it saved itself from was a quicker death. His thoughts only made what happened next all the more shocking.

The third bandit walked toward the kid, grabbing the handle of the sword from his hand. Except it didn't budge. His confusion was soon replaced by pain.

As soon as the man held the handle, Will stepped forward-right slightly and cut the man in half, his hand finally letting go of the sword as his top half fell to the floor.

Everyone was shocked. Even Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua were shocked. The kid, however strong, was just a toddler. The bandits they'd fought the first time stood no chance, and when there were more the kid just bribed them to leave. They only wished they could speak and let the kid know that they'd be killed in the end even after surrendering, to tell them to run away instead.

It wasn't like the kid was faking their fear either. They still had visible tears in their eyes! They were shivering! Everything about them read “terrified child begging for their life”!

No one expected a man to get cut in half. And Will capitalized on that. He ran towards the closest bandit, the second, reaching him in a single moment with his footwork. He ignored the pros and cons lists this one time. He knew what would work best right now. Causing chaos, shock, and fear. And there was a perfect move for that.

Will performed a swing. The kind that hits the target in the side and bounces back and forth to make hundreds of small cuts. Except he didn't hit the side. He swung upwards. Right between the legs.

The second bandit let out an ear-piercing shriek as it hit. And then it hit again. And he let out another ear-piercing shriek mid ear-piercing shriek. Then it hit again, and he was triple-stacking ear-piercing shrieks. By the time Will stopped, the shriek combo had hit thirty-nine.

Everyone stood dumbfounded and disoriented. Wasn't this kid supposed to be obediently getting kidnapped right now?

Will left the shrieker alive for now as a distraction. He definitely wouldn't be able to attack for a while.

Will grabbed a snake fang from his storage rings and threw it as hard as he could at the fourth bandit, then grabbed another one and threw it at him as well, to be sure.

The fourth bandit was barely fast enough to react to the first. Will saw his reaction and threw another. The bandit blocked the second in time, only to get stabbed in the stomach by the third.

The fourth bandit added his voice to the choir. In other words, he started screaming as he died painfully.

Will ran towards the first bandit. He was well-trained, and was immediately ready to block. But he made a fatal mistake. He blocked low due to Will's short stature.

As soon as he saw his opponent block, Will jumped. He soared through the air until he was above the bandit's head.

Then he did the light stab movement. Twice to start. Once for each eye. The bandit had seen him jump, and like someone well-trained would do, he kept his eyes on the enemy. His second fatal mistake.

Two stabs was nowhere near enough to slow Will's momentum. As he reached the bandit's head, he Wind Danced over it, throwing himself to Li Yingran. What used to be two creeps and a scared girl had now become three scared people.

The bandits jumped back, leaving Li Yingran to the flying baby. Will used Cloud Steps to hop off Li Yingran's head, flinging himself towards the bandits. While spinning like a top. Li Yingran only felt her hair getting messed up as he flung himself towards the two bandits. Two bandit heads hit the floor as Will used Wind Dance to turn around on a dime, heading towards Xu Lanhua. The lazy bandit immediately spun her around and stood behind her, using her as a shield. The other bandit restraining her stumbled, pushed away as he was completely disregarded in the lazy one's bid for survival.

Will suddenly turned to run towards the stumbling bandit. He jumped at him, kicking off of him to get around behind Xu Lanhua. The stumbling bandit stumbled over towards the blind first bandit.

Will flew towards the lazy bandit. Ignoring the sword movements, he held his sword straight out in front of him and speared through the man's side.

He screamed as well, creating even more noise in the noisy room. It was starting to hurt Will's ears, so he ran to the first screamer, the second bandit.

He swung as hard as he could across the man's torso, cutting him in half. As he turned to look at the blind first bandit, he noticed that he'd just cut a huge indent into the stumbling bandit who'd been sent stumbling towards him. Will ran towards the blind first bandit.

He held his sword pointing up held above his head as he ran through the bandit's legs. His torso up to his chest was split in half.

He ran past the stumbling, sword-wounded stumbling bandit, cutting his legs off at mid-thigh.

Will ran towards the lazy bandit. Xu Lanhua had moved away when he let go after being stabbed, so Will just ran up and sliced him in half as well.

The one hit by the fang had just died, and after ten seconds, the stumbling bandit bled out and died as well. Sarah started praising him.

“Holy shit! That was amazing! You actually have talent! I doubt I could've done it better myself! Sure, you fight like the worst scum imaginable, but you're really good at it! And it doesn't even feel as scummy since you're so little, anyway!”

Will's eyes teared up, snot running from his nose as he fell over on the floor and started bawling his eyes out.

“Should've left one alive to get info from, though.”

Will froze. Then started violently shivering.

“Um… you okay, Will?”

“How would they know? You killed all the witnesses.”

He didn't stop shaking and crying in a ball, though.

“Why are you still crying?”

Sarah's respect for the kid plummeted immediately.

“Oh, grow up! You won! You did it! There's nothing to cry over unless you wanna mourn the fallen you just felled.”

Will slowly calmed down over the course of a few minutes.

“Took ya long enough.”

“Fine. Whatever. You'd think the bandits were your allies with the way you're acting.”

“Okay. Sheesh.”

Will went back to crying for another minute, tears reinvigorated by the sword's talking. Then, he stood up, gulped audibly, and composed himself.

Mostly, he still looked like he'd have a breakdown if someone poked him in the side too hard, but it was an improvement. He breathed two deep breaths before turning to his travel companions and giving the shakiest smile they'd ever seen.

Will sucked up the snot that had come out of his nose with a sharp inhale and started speaking.

“I-I-I-I d-d-d-did it.”

It was a scene that would make anyone feel sorry for the kid. Until they zoomed out and saw all the corpses that is. Every body looked like it would fit right in on the box for a horror movie called “Evil Murderer Torture Maniac”. Yet here was the one who did it, looking like they'd gone with their mom to get their dog put down, only for their mom and their dog to both get put down in a fluke accident.

Li Yingran spoke first.

“Thank you, Will. Thank you so much for saving us. Truly. I-I don't know what would've happened if you hadn't been here.”

Xu Lanhua nodded to show her agreement with her daughter.

Will actually felt a little proud at that. He really did save them. He was kind of like a brave hero in that. Though he wasn't really brave. The closest thing to bravery that had happened was him getting up in the first place, which was out of fear of being stuck in this place with no ride (along with wanting to seem cool), and not freezing up, which was only because he was literally too scared to freeze up.

But more than he was slightly proud of himself, he was afraid. And so he asked a question.

“D-do you kn-know who those g-g-guys were?”

Both Xu Lanhua and Li Yingran’s faces turned solemn.