In the end, I had been forced to put aside all of my straight thoughts, as we had finally reached the end of the “safe zone” for this particular stretch of the road, which meant that the following sections would be near the borders of Qi-infested areas, which could spawn random monsters at any time. The fortified waystation-keep that separated the “safe zone” from the wilderness ahead of us was the last stop any of the travellers took along this road before trying to brave the badlands by themselves, and it was usually the place where impromptu caravans would spontaneously come into existence, as people would begin to huddle together for the “safety in numbers” that a larger group possessed.
Still, our “pack” of Monks simply chose to just ignore the advice to “wait and join a caravan” that the guards had given us out of kindness and caution, as our group wasn't simply made up of normal people like most of the caravaners but rather Cultivators, not to mention that we had a high level Windmage tagging along with us and acting as protection. The road we were taking wasn't THAT dangerous, since it barely touched the outer edges of the danger zones, but it wasn't completely safe like the other roads that we had taken so far, at least from a Monster Infestation point of view.
No roads were truly ever safe, as long as the worst predator animal on the planet still roamed the surface, which was of course, the humanoid-type class of predator, as-in-any-of-the-members belonging to the sentient races.
And of course, not even an hour after I had thoughts about humanoid bandits, Mother System being her lovely-bitch-of-a-self decided as a matter of fact to toss a few of those unsavory types onto our path.
Just as we were coming around a bend in the road in the middle of a forested area, we suddenly spotted a group of about twenty or more armed men which were currently holding hostage at sword point a group of people that resembled merchants and pilgrims. Some of the Guards that belonged to the merchant group had received decently heavy wounds, and were now unconscious or incapacitated. One of the Bandit Leaders kept screaming at one of the merchants to “hand over the loot”, as he kept slapping the decently rotund trader over the face again and again with the back of his palm. Everything was basically just your standard roadside robbery, corny story-development included.
Instantly enraged by the sight, Lingfeng was already poised to go and add a few more holes to the thieves than they had been born with before I intervened.
"Whooah, hold on a second there old fella', let's not be hasty with our gestures. You shouldn't simply just go and kill people in the blink of an eye like that!" I yanked him back into the bush-line that our entire group was hiding behind. "Those are living, breathing people out there, not some insane Qi-tainted Monsters incapable of feelings!"
"Girl, you need to stop being so merciful!" Lingfeng shrugged me off. "If the wheel was reversed, they would cut you down as soon as they would look at you without any hesitation. Not to mention that even if we DO actually capture them, and then send the entire gang to the authorities somehow, they will still wind up getting hanged by the local militia anyway. These are not nice people, Trina! They are thieves, rapists and murderers. Ridding the world of their presence causes nobody any harm!"
"I KNOW THAT! Still, killing people in cold blood simply does not sit well with me! Those used to be someone’s children or friends or husbands before they got into this situation. All of them must have some sort of tragic background that made them turn to banditry in the first place! No “normal” person would choose to do this voluntarily. At least, I want YOU to stop thinking of them like they are “things to be disposed of” and start looking at them like they are people, even if they are guilty as hell, because I’m starting to worry that you have become desensitized towards certain human emotions. Also, I do not want any of us in the “Monk” group to get exposed, since getting involved into the takedown of an entire bandit raid-party would most assuredly draw unwanted attention towards our assembly. I think I have a better idea instead." I immediately grinned my evil smile while looking up at Yi Gore.
"Ugh... Why are you looking at me like that, Girl?" The midget instantly began to hesitate and shiver.
"Hey there my dwarf-tastic Progenitor, how would you like to go and act like a real Hero and save all of those innocent people from the eeeeevil bandits? I'm certain that Carmine would be impressed with such a brave deed, don't you think? Be the man that saves the day, will you?"
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
"Whaaaat? You want me to go out there and fight twenty heavily armed men on my own? Are you INSANE?"
"But, aren't you a high-level cultivator? What are you, like 40-50 ish? There is no way you can be that weak!"
"I'm 49 actually, but all of my statistics have gone towards leveling up my mental attributes, not my physical ones! Having a strong body never really got me out of trouble, but having a strong mind has always kept me ahead of the curve, so of course I invested heavily into the Intellect side of things."
"Then you should go out there and fight in a Smart way, instead of simply brute-forcing it. Didn't you say you had a cloaking mechanism built into your arm? Use that to sneak upon them and then wreak havoc."
"I DO have one, but it is out of power! That thing eats high level spirit stones like you wouldn't believe!"
*Sklong*
"Will these suffice?" I passed him a bunch of highly charged Grand spirit stones.
"Holy Moon Eater's Butt Cheeks! Where did you get these things from? These stones are insanely valuable! You cannot simply use them for such a pathetic encounter as beating up a few thieves, Trina! You could make legendary items with these objects!"
"Oh, don't worry about those insignificant little trinkets, just use them. I have hundreds more and I can make some extra anytime I please."
"Make? What do you mean MAKE? Girl! What secrets are you hiding? How could you possibly be MAKING spirit stones? What are you, a walking Spirit Spring or something?"
"NuhUh! Not telling you! At least, not until you go and save those poor caravan members. You have to EARN your “quest” rewards first before you receive them, you know!"
"But…!"
"No butts! Use the stones and go take care of the bandits! And here, have these things as well." I handed him a few of my alchemical items. "This one here is a pepper spray, extremely irritating when sprayed into the eyes, and will also cause severe coughing. Be careful with the bottle. These here are some pills that do the same trick, but you need to toss them really hard so that the sugarcoated outer shell breaks upon impact and releases the irritating pepperdust contained within. You can use them like a sort of mini-bombs, but you need to be careful not to spray or bomb yourself by accident in the process, as the effects are quite annoying and long-lasting."
"Hff*sniff*...pheeeeewwwwww...oh, wow... That's quite a nasty concoction you got there, girl!" Said the midget as he began to suck up the pepper spray potion with a large syringe-like extension that had been built right into his multifunctional mechanical arm."It's been a while since I've had to sprinkle somebody straight in the eyes using this thing." Demonstrated Yi Gore by releasing the recently sucked up pepper-mace mixture in the form of an aerosol spray away from our group.
"Wow, you even had that sort of gimmick built into your arm? How many more functions does that thing even have?"
"Hundreds... It is why I have built it as a multi tool in the first place, so I can do anything I want with it. The damn thing cost me a literal arm to complete though, as I kept adding more and more things to it, and then needed the extra space."
"Then why not simply store all of the extra tools into a space-ring-like compartment and pull them out from there whenever you needed them?"
"Wow, actually that's a very good point! I should write that down! That would increase the numbers of tools which I would be able to access by an incredible amount...I wonder how I would be able to carve a spatial formation similar to that of a ring onto the basic structure of the arm…Hmmm..."
"Ok, before you get lost into those types of thoughts, you should first focus on the problem at hand."
"Aw...right."
"Fungus, let Yi have your machete just in case things turn nasty. It's always safer to have a weapon on hand. Carmine, can you lend Yi your mining helmet just for this encounter please? Also, do any of you have an item that could be used as a shield, except for the backpacks? Those are too tall for Yi Gore to be able to wield properly."
"I have a pot lid, does that count? He would probably be able to use it as a makeshift buckler." Said Liliam.
"Sure, give it to him, better than nothing."
After our impromptu gearing of the midget, he was almost ready to go and face the bandits. While we had been planning our assault, some of the thieves had begun to grab some of the more expensive wares and were heading back towards their hideout inside the forest.
"Start off with those." I pointed towards the guys headed for the nearby forest with loot in hands.
"Girl, I may be small, but I've performed more ambush-attacks than you have days in your age. You don't need to tell me what to do." Said the midget as he hopped back onto his donkey, then turned only himself transparent by turning a dial on his arm.
Urged by an invisible kick, the lazy donkey then ran towards the closest group of thieves.