Dropping the rest of the clothes back into the chest, Kepa Ying leaves the box at the end of the alley and heads out into the docks proper as a true and appropriately attired disciple of an immortal.

Immediately she runs across the guys that mugged her the first time, and runs back down the alley. Catching her breath, the girl tries to calm down. Just because they showed up didn’t mean they were following her and ready to beat her up for the money she just spent, because there was no way they could know about that. Did she even tell them about her backing? She couldn’t remember. Oh wait right, she wasn’t specific enough to actually scare them off. If they knew that her master was an actual immortal, there was no way they would have dared to try to rob her, much less actually succeed. The beast was even here with her!

Except he wasn’t. Where had they gotten separated? Didn’t he know that his disciple was going to get beaten up for the clothes he wanted her to buy?

This might have been his plan, actually. They were drawn out by her spending the money, and this was their chance to get back the armor. All she had to do was make sure they didn’t see her, and she could follow them to their base. Then, the beast could destroy them all and retrieve what was hers. A foolproof plan, except that it involved her being left alone while following a group of cultivators that are a higher rank than she was, presumably because they would be able to sense the power that an immortal emanated or something like that.

Once she got the helmet back, she was going to need to make it show her what the beast’s aura looked like, so she could tell how far away the beast needed to keep if he needed to keep other cultivators from detecting his presence. That seemed like relevant information when apparently he planned on using his one and only disciple as a scouting tool.

Or if he was going to use her as bait. Either of those.

Regardless, her next step was to follow the thieves until they put down their ill gotten loot, at which point she could sneak in and retrieve her outerwear. Now that she had a dress, hopefully the sleeves wouldn’t get in the way of putting a bunch of metal over her arm. It would be very inconvenient if she had to start ripping apart the thing she just paid so much money for. Swinging her arms about a little bit, she figured that there was enough space in the flappy sleeves to have a layer of armoring underneath it without having to do any adjusting of the material’s composition. Pulling at the tunic top type bit of the dress, she tests how roomy the rest of the clothing happened to be, concluding that even if the beast were to gift her with a full set of the armor, it would all fit under the dress without any problems.

Before the thieves could get away, Kepa Ying tucks the card into the belt of her dress. That should prevent anyone from taking her prize, she had found that one fair and square. Since she was now hidden from any and all suspicion, since she had put on different clothes, and she had no valuable items, clearly, it should be fairly safe to follow behind the thugs. Even if they did see her, there was no reason to think that she was suspicious at all.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Since she was about half the height of the dockworkers working the docks, Kepa Ying was below regular eyeline for a casual observer. She also fit behind random barrels and crates that happened to be sitting on the ground as people moved the cargo from place to place. Most of it would go from ship to warehouse, but apparently it was easier to get it off of the ship onto the dock first, then worry about moving it to a secondary location once the ground was no longer shaking. The ocean was terrible, from what she could tell. Always moving, and pushing around anyone who tries to move on it. It was like boats were constantly being attacked by a much larger and stronger opponent, and deflecting back to skip down them using the force of the blow to speed up.

Waves were something she didn’t quite understand.

Eventually, while she dodged from barrel to barrel, the muggers ended up at a warehouse without any loose crates or other bits of cover to hide behind around it. They knock on the door, and a slat opens up in the top of the wood; it looks like they say something or other to the people inside the building and show them the helmet they stole from her, at which point they open the door. That was interesting, it looked like she had found the base, and where they stored their ill gotten loot.

Now Kepa Ying had a couple of options. She could wait for the beast to come out of hiding and let her know what the plan was for getting into the building and retrieving the armor, she could search out the beast to ask herself, or she could go in and just trust in her master to come in and save her if anything went wrong. She was way too impatient to just wait for him to decide it was time to come out and explain what it was that he wanted her to do, particularly considering that it was entirely possible that the beast expected her to be able to figure out what he wanted without having to personally come out of hiding to explain it to her. Going out to try and find him had the disadvantage of her having absolutely no idea where it was that the beast would be hiding, aside from being better hidden and outside of the range the muggers would be able to sense him. There was the advantage of signalling to the beast that she had in fact found the hideout if he wasn’t watching as closely as he could be, and the fact that if she met up with him outside of their detection range he wouldn’t be having to use the extreme stealth techniques that she had been relying on, but the disadvantage of the first option still applied. If the beast thought well enough of her that he thought she could figure this out on her own, she didn’t want to disappoint him.

That left the last choice, doing this on her own. The muggers had a clear line of sight on anything that approached the warehouse, which was probably why the area was cleared of cargo in the first place. It might not even have any cargo that would have been offloaded at this section of the dock anyway. If they wanted to be inconspicuous, they’d probably not be wanting anyone to unload here, so maybe they scared off the ships somehow?

There were not any windows on the warehouse, and the giant doors that allow people to bring cargo into the building are closed, which limited her options quite a bit. Either there was the front door, which was locked and had a guard, or she thought up something interesting.

She couldn’t think of anything.

Going back to see what the beast had planned it was!