rule one

11-14

Chapter 11 Real (Bad) Martial Artist

Will had yet again run out of things to do. As he sat, sighing in lamentation, basking in despair of his boredom, he suddenly had a brilliant idea. To pester the people in the carriage with him.

"Hey, got anything intewesting in those boxes?" He pointed at the boxes in question, not that there were other boxes.

"I'm not sure? It's not like you'll find anything particularly special."

Will was upset. His brilliant idea ended up being useless. He'd have to come up with something else.

He remembered something. He still had that Cloud Steps footwork that he'd basically been completely neglecting. It's not like he didn't have reason to do so. It was pretty useless without any actual attacks to use with it. It's not like he couldn't just do a regular swing, he wasn't that inept, but the second he started doing it, the footwork would probably fall apart. And when it came to just surviving without fighting back, the Wind Dance footwork worked better anyway, since he could just use it to run away.

But the Cloud Steps footwork did have one advantage. He could easily practice it in enclosed spaces. Though the Wind Dance footwork worked in enclosed spaces as well, practicing it was something best done in an open area.

But useful or not, he was told to learn them both, so he decided to get to practicing. He stood up, stood in the middle of the carriage, and got to work.

It only took three steps to realize. This was hard. Though the carriage had enough room to practice, especially with how small he was, it was still cramped. He had to be careful not to bump into anything. The carriage was also, well, a moving carriage. And they didn't exactly have asphalt roads out here. But hard as it was, it felt better this way. He'd have to be able to use it in bad conditions anyway, and any progress in a situation like this would show even bigger results when he did it in regular conditions. He hoped that was how it worked at least. It could just make him only able to use his footwork while riding in a moving carriage, but that didn't seem like it would be the case.

And so, Will continued practicing. Then, Sarah decided to chime in.

"Practicing footwork in the carriage? I didn't expect that from you. But it's certainly a good move to accelerate your progress. If you can handle it. If you can't, though, you'll just end up making progress even harder."

That brought up something Will hadn't thought of, actually. If he couldn't do it right, he'd just end up memorizing the steps incorrectly, and then he'd be even worse. Luckily, that wasn't something Will had to worry about as much. The only way he could misremember it would be by editing the document he made for it. And he had no plans on doing that.

So he practiced. And Yingran and Lanhua watched in growing awe. They were just a bit confused at first. The kid seemed to just be stepping around like a drunkard. It was only after the first hour that they were able to see something impressive. It was like every once in a while the kid would almost turn cloudlike. The kid didn't look any different, but the feeling they gave off was different. Then, as quickly as it came, it disappeared.

After another hour, they couldn't tear their eyes away. By now, the cloudlike feeling didn't go away. Instead, it just got stronger sometimes. Like it was even more like a cloud. They knew by now that this was true martial arts. Even more so, they could tell it was incredibly profound. They'd both seen martial arts in action before. They'd even seen people just practicing footwork before. But the types of footwork they'd seen didn't feel nearly the same as this.

It felt as if others were trying to become one with the concept of becoming like a thing. The footwork this young cultivator was practicing, skipped all of the nonsense and just went straight to becoming a cloud. It didn't feel like someone made it by examining a cloud and trying to replicate it through martial arts. It felt as if it was just the way to become a cloud. As if it wasn't even made by anyone, like it simply was.

And yet, this young cultivator was simply letting them watch. As if to say they were free to copy every step of it and use it themselves if they could. Except, they felt like they actually could! That was the attitude people would take with martial arts that require a genius to practice, or martial arts that were so widely available as to be public knowledge. But this was neither! This was the kind of martial arts that one would keep hidden and only show to people when they used it to kill them!

But the two weren't scared. Will was unlikely to kill them now. It would've happened already if it was going to, and it hadn't. So they just kept watching, trying to memorize a bit of it, in the hopes that it may one day save their lives.

Will practiced for four more hours. He'd usually get bored of something like this a lot quicker, but the challenge created by the moving carriage made it incredibly engaging for him, even with the slow progress. The challenge wouldn't have been enough to entertain him if he wasn't getting better, but the progress, though slow, was still noticeable.

It also helped that the footwork was so cool. He finally felt like he could actually use this footwork to survive someone attacking him. Though he'd probably just run away usually, if some old guy ever challenged him to survive his attacks for one minute, he'd stand a good chance! That wasn't a scenario he'd really needed a survival method for that much, but it was nice to have. Unlikely as it may be, it was a scenario that wasn't certainly possible in a place like this.

As he was practicing, he felt the carriage turn to the side a bit, then stop by the side of the road.

"Why awe we stopping?"

Xu Lanhua answered his question.

"We're setting up camp for the night."

Will had forgotten about that. It made sense, considering he'd woken up pretty late. While it had only been some hours for him, they were probably up a lot longer than him. They also weren't cultivators, so they actually had to rest at regular intervals. Well, that was less a cultivation matter and more of a lost child in the woods matter, but the cultivation at least made it not as horrible to do.

"Want hewp?"

Xu Lanhua considered it. While she didn't want to burden them, they did offer. And if the kid just decided to do it even if she refused, it would be better if she at least gave instructions on how. She decided to accept the help.

"Sure. Thank you."

"No probwem."

With that, they went about setting up tents. The tents were pretty nice looking, as far as Will could tell. Though, he wasn't really much of a tent expert. He was more the type to sleep in random uncomfortable spots in the woods. Well, that or hospital beds. Or cribs? Basically, he'd never slept in a tent. And he didn't really want to. He'd have to wake up to get in the carriage in the morning if he did that, and that was annoying.

And so, against everyone's hopes of finally finding out the gender of this small cultivator by which tent they chose, Will just said he'd be sleeping in the carriage.

Everyone decided to skip dinner tonight, all of them still full from the venison they had earlier. As everyone went about their business doing the things people usually do before bed, Will decided to practice his Cloud Steps some more, this time outside.

As expected, the results he'd achieved in the carriage seemed even grander in normal conditions. It was certainly exciting. He continued practicing for two more hours before finally hopping into the carriage, because, again, he couldn't get up without hopping, and tucking into bed for the night.

—

Will finally woke up before noon. Not much before noon, only two hours, but before noon nonetheless. He got up and immediately started practicing his Cloud Steps footwork.

After four hours, he felt himself getting a bit hungry. He looked at Li Yingran.

"I'm hungwy. Can you cook? I'll pwovide the ingwedients."

Li Yingran nodded.

"What would you like?"

Will looked at his rings. He had a lot of options, some more appealing than others. Like the one that looked a lot like a person made of lightning. That wasn't very appealing. Sure, he'd eat it if it was all he had, he doubted it would have any of the repercussions actual cannibalism had, but it wasn't high on the list of things he wanted to eat. Of course, that was assuming that the 'lightning' it was made up of was actually meat. Something he hadn't actually checked.

On the other hand, the chicken he had looked quite appealing. The chicken wasn't an exception to his rule of taking the most impressive beasts. He would assume that if he was just looking at the thing, but having seen the fight, he knew the truth. This thing was damn powerful. It was ridiculously fast. So fast there was a chance he wouldn't have picked it up not because it was weak, but because he hadn't been able to see it as more than a yellow flash and wouldn't know that it was the chicken. It was only thanks to his good eyesight and careful watching of the battle that he knew. This chicken was the one that managed to kill two of the really giant snakes. As they teamed up on it too. It only died in the end because it was sneak attacked after it was worn out.

He took out the chicken he had and pointed at it.

"Can you cook this?"

Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua stared at the chicken. Was that a lightning chicken? That was a thing? The lightning deer seemed like what they'd imagine a spiritual beast to look like. They were expecting the kid to bring out that again. Maybe even some other kind of beast. But this was a chicken. It was also a lightning one as well? They assumed the kid would have something other than lightning spiritual beasts, but now they were starting to doubt that.

Li Yingran quickly shoved it off and got to work. Two hours later, they'd finished their meal, Will had stored away the leftovers, and they were back on the road.

Will continued practicing his footwork for four more hours before the carriage stopped for the night once again. Just like the day before, everyone was full from the food from earlier. And just like the day before Will practiced for two more hours on regular ground before calling it a night.

—

Will woke up at the same time he had the day before, two hours before noon. The carriage had already been moving for a minute or two this time from what he could tell. Today would be the day they reached civilization. It was quite exciting. He was curious about what would happen there. Probably nothing much, it didn't seem like it was all too special of a place from what he remembered, but it would at least be nice to have a change of pace. He decided to get out of bed and start practicing.

But as he got into position to begin, Sarah stopped him.

"Wait. You've practiced enough for now."

Will disagreed. Practicing footwork was the only thing keeping him from being bored out of his mind. And he wasn't even that good at the footwork yet, either.

It was a bit snarkier than necessary, but he was a bit annoyed at her after what she said. The sword felt equally annoyed at his snark.

"Yeah, obviously. Why the hell would I just tell you to stop practicing if I didn't have something else for you to do? You think I'm trying to stop you from progressing too fast? You think you're some peerless genius who I need to slow down so I don't run out of things to teach you? Sorry to break it to you, but you're only talented in memorization. Other than that, you're barely talented enough to not fail a beginner self-defense class for mortals."

That… hurt. Especially since his memorization speed was due to his usage of the Document Manipulation section. Well, he knew he wasn't talented already. Why would he be? The closest thing to a martial artist in his lineage would be someone who did boxing in high school. In this universe he probably didn't even have that. At best there was someone who was better than the other kids in the village at the 'beat each other up with sticks' game. Not that he needed to look at his family trees to see how much he sucked. It was pretty obvious. He stopped thinking about his lack of talent and listened to Sarah's next words

"You've gotten the basic footwork styles to a decent level, so now it's about time you learn how to actually use a sword with them. Here."

Will received another package of information, this one bigger than ever, which he quickly copied and embedded into his memory. The movements it contained were numerous, but every one of them reminded Will of rain. Even so, there was a huge variety. The movements seemed to be grouped up into categories, with each category having hundreds of slightly different variations of the same movement. And for every single movement, there was an astronomical amount of information to go with it. What steps from the footwork styles it was compatible with and what movements it could chain into. And for each group of steps compatible with the movement, and each chainable movement, there was a list of which steps the steps compatible with the chainable movement were compatible with, along with ways to chain into it for each of those steps. Not only that, for each set of steps used with the movement, chainable movement, steps used with the chainable movement, and method of chaining it, there was a whole list of pros and cons, when to use it, and other miscellaneous information attached. And that was just the information for one movement. Each movement had that same ridiculously large amount of information to go with it. It was absolutely insane! Will moved on to look at some of the movements. There was also a lot of information about switching between the two footwork styles without the sword movements as well.

There was one he saw where the user would swing their sword from left to right, and would be chained with other movements upon reaching the target to create the effect of making a ton of shallow cuts by almost bouncing the blade off of the target less than an inch and immediately swinging it back again, repeatedly.

There was one where the user would swing the sword fully across, with the sword only making contact with the target at the center of the swing, where the sword reached the farthest. The light contact made it easy to chain it into other movements quickly.

There was one that was just a light stab, that could chain into other light stabs very quickly.

Will was amazed. He never expected this to be so… in depth. Will was broken from his awe by Sarah's laughing.

"Pfft, you really thought I'd make you memorize all of that, didn't you? I was joking! It was a joke! Here."

Will received another package of information, that he also copied and embedded. This one was a lot smaller, though still pretty large. It contained a bunch of moves, made up of the movements he'd seen before, as well as a bit on switching between footwork styles like the previous one had, only a lot simpler. It didn't have the modular aspect from the other information package. Each move had one set of steps to go with it only. Judging by what was in the pros and cons from the last package, they seemed to be designed to be easy to use and functional in as many situations as possible. In other words… they were a bit weak. A move made specifically for the exact circumstances would always be better.

Sarah sighed. It was a very lifeless sigh.

"Of course you did."

Satisfied with the reaction, Will asked a question.

"Practice it, obviously."

<How? Should I fight someone?>

"Ah. I forgot. You only know how to do ridiculous bullshit. Sorry, I mistook you for a genius or something for a moment, my bad."

Sarah sighed.

"Just do the movements, chain some together, get a feel for it. Same as you did with the footwork."

Will supposed that made sense. Even if he had all this knowledge, it wasn't like he could just put it into practice perfectly. Sure, he could figure out an optimal movement, but it's not like he'd be able to do it. It didn't really matter much which movement he picked if he was just going to fumble it anyway.

"I'm gonna go outside to pwactice."

He realized that sounded like he was asking them to stop the carriage and clarified.

"Keep moving, I'ww keep up."

Xu Lanhua nodded, then thought of something.

"Do you want us to slow down?"

Will shook his head.

"I'ww keep up."

She nodded again and left him to his own devices.

Will on the other hand hopped out of the back of the carriage. He used Wind Dance to get beside it, then started.

It went poorly at first. Though he could keep up with the carriage just fine, and could pick his next movement just fine, his picking was almost entirely done on the criteria of which movement would let him recover from his previous fumble. It was an ever-repeating cycle of fumble, find a move that would allow recovery from the fumble, fumble, and pick a move that allowed recovery from the fumble. The only thing that he did right was the footwork, and even that was pretty bad when it came to switching between them.

But bad as he was at it, it was fun. Footwork alone was just stepping. It would only really be that interesting to someone who liked running. That would be great if Will used to do track or field or something, but he didn't. He used to lay in a hospital bed and be a baby.

But this would be fun for just about anyone. It was swinging a sword around! That's cool! Plus it was like a puzzle too, trying to figure out which movement should come next based on the current situation. And Will particularly liked puzzles. In the other universe, his reflexes and dexterity weren't good, and he was pretty awful at any games that needed that. On the other hand, when it came to puzzles, turn-based games, and other stuff like that, he was pretty good. At least he thought so. He didn't have that much to compare it with other than what the nurses said when he showed them a few times.

Put simply, it felt like he was picking moves in a turn-based RPG, but a really complicated cool one that he would've really wanted to play. Sure, he was fumbling every movement, but he was chaining fumbles, which was still pretty cool. And even if they were fumbles, it's not like they were useless. He wasn't failing to swing it, he just wasn't swinging it how he was supposed to. He could probably beat one of those bandits in a one-on-one pretty easily now, without having to rely on tricks like he did the last time.

His first unfumbled movement happened at the thirty minute mark. It was one of the swings that only clip the target. He didn't really do it right, but it was at least out of fumble territory. He assumed as such because he could feel that supernatural part of it again. The swing felt wet somehow. It was a strange feeling. It also felt like he could chain it into another a lot easier. That was something he'd been wondering about for a while actually. Most of the movements seemed a bit impractical. Not completely so, but a bit. He had guessed it would be like that, but he'd confirmed it now. Of course, the part that made chaining easier wasn't enough to stop him from fumbling the next swing.

By the end of the first hour, he could chain three of those swings together before fumbling. His other movements were getting better too, though not yet out of fumble territory.

After another hour, he'd gotten one of the light stab moves unfumbled. It had about the same effects as the swing one. All the movements seemed to share that common theme of a lot of light attacks, which fit since they were based on rain.

When he finally stopped after four more hours he no longer fumbled movements. He just did them poorly. In other words, he could perform them well enough to get the supernatural effect to show, but not enough to make it impactful.

But there was a reason he stopped at this point. Just a few minutes away, Will could see it. Rising Dragon Village.

Chapter 12 Rising Dragon Attempted Kidnapping In The Rising Dragon Inn At Rising Dragon Village

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.

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."

<Alright. >

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?"

<They're gonna kill me. They're send more and this time they'll know what I'm like it won't work me!>

"How would they know? You killed all the witnesses."

<Oh. I guess did.>

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.

Chapter 13Taming A Colossal Lightning Snake Is Actually Really Easy Apparently

Will was standing in front of his two roommates who had almost been kidnapped. Both had solemn looks on their faces after he'd asked if they knew who those bandits were. It had been a few seconds now. After a few more, Xu Lanhua finally spoke.

"Yes, we know who they are. It's a long story. But I suppose you ought to know it."

She sighed, before continuing.

"I am the wife of a man named Li Rencai."

She smiled slightly as she thought of her husband, before her smile faded into the same look as before.

"But Li Rencai also has a concubine. Her name is Duodibunu Lili."

Will felt like he got whiplash. That name was actually wild. It meant something like "many enemies no effort beautiful strength", which, when he read out like that, sounded like the name of some shitty magical girl anime or something. He was also a bit surprised he could tell what each "li" meant considering they were pronounced the exact same way. The limitations of the Automatic Universal Linguistic Knowledge Database Accessor were honestly a bit confusing. He knew they were consistent, that was certain given where it came from, but since he didn't know what ruleset it was consistent with, it just felt like what it told him was random sometimes.

But back to the name, Will honestly was a bit annoyed. How the hell is Duodibunu Lili an acceptable name and Will wasn't? Why the fuck was her family name four syllables? Its meaning wasn't even an object or concept or action, it was a fucking declaration of how easy it is for someone to fight a bunch of enemies. Or that they don't even try when they see a lot of enemies. It didn't even make sense because it was a self-referencing statement used as a surname!

The given name was kind of cute at least. It was like the usual spelling of Lili with the first character repeated twice but the second was replaced with a word about strength. The cuteness was ruined by the surname Duodibunu, but whatever.

Sarah also chimed in, letting out a light chuckle which really made Will annoyed when he thought of how much she'd laughed at his name.

His face was visibly cycling through different emotions in real time, so Xu Lanhua waited until he was done to continue.

After a few seconds Will's expression stabilized on acceptance and she sighed and spoke again.

"I don't know if it's because she resents having to be a concubine to a simple merchant with her status or what, but for whatever reason, she seems to have it out for me."

Will listened intently.

"But it wasn't a real problem until recently as she usually just stayed to her own corner of the house."

Will was a bit annoyed at how casually a house big enough for someone to stay in a corner of it and barely be seen was mentioned, but he brushed it off. He could probably afford one for himself, anyway, considering what he had in his storage rings.

Xu Lanhua continued.

"That changed when Rencai went on an extended business trip. Just a day after he left, almost everyone in our employ started trying to force me out of my own house. They'd make loud noises outside my room at night, they'd spill things on me, they'd shove me from behind, and all the same things happened to Yingran. The two guards and the coachman you've met were the only ones that didn't. The only ones that stayed loyal… or more accurately the only ones who weren't approached."

She sighed.

"But though they weren't approached, they managed to overhear things from the ones who were. As it turns out, everyone had been bribed and/or threatened to get me and Yingran to leave. And then there was the other thing they heard. That it was all on behalf of Duodibunu Lili. So we left. We packed our bags and set off towards Dragon Flame City, where my husband went for his business trip."

She gave a wry smile that didn't reach her eyes.

"I suppose you can see how that ended up."

Will felt bad for her. He was already going to protect them anyway just for the free ride, but now that he had the story, it felt like a real quest.

But that didn't actually answer his original question.

"So, um, who wewe those guys?"

He pointed at the corpse of the deceased blind first bandit.

"My husband is a good man. And a good man like him refused to let crime fester in the city he called home. And that made him a lot of enemies. These people" she waved at the corpses strewn around them, "are a notable group, well-known in less than savory circles. Or were, I doubt they'll be doing anything of much note like they are now."

She laughed a genuine laugh, happy to see the nuisances dead for good. After a bit, she calmed down and continued explaining.

"They were a group that specialized in kidnapping. If that was all, they wouldn't have been special, though. What was special was their cultivation. It obviously wasn't anything grand, but with all eight at that same level, they were pretty good at their work."

Will had calmed down a lot after hearing all that. That meant there wouldn't be an endless stream of them coming, right?

"So we'we safe now? All the bad guys dead?"

Xu Lanhua gave him a slightly awkward but mostly apologetic look.

"As I've said, my husband made a lot of enemies."

Tears appeared in the corners of Will's eyes.

But crying wouldn't help him deal with this situation. Only crying while doing something else would. And Will had a great idea. They wouldn't have to worry about people coming after them if the people couldn't reach them.

The highest level that could be sent would probably be foundation establishment. And he knew of something that could chase down an old monster like the Sick Freak.

The Super Snake. The fact that its body wasn't in the pile meant there was a good chance it was still alive. If he could use it as a mount, and have it bring them all the way to Dragon Flame City…

It was a dangerous plan. It was an insane plan. But he felt like it could be a working plan.

But if he just relied on the array trick, if they ever encountered another array the thing would veer off course and destroy everything. Not to mention the horde he'd end up bringing along with it.

No, he needed to do something better. He needed to tame it. And he felt like he might just be able to leverage his abilities to do it. And if he could buy a manual, even more so.

As it turns out, saving two people with relations to a merchant capable of stamping out crime from a city from people trying to kidnap them was a big change in fate. He'd also killed eight people while doing it. His points were almost as high as they were when he bought the basic spiritual energy gathering array.

So he went to the Information Manual Exchange Marketplace, turning and pacing around the room so as to not worry and confuse his roommates.

Knowing what he wanted, he was able to refine his search very precisely. He first excluded anything with requirements worse than green. He had it only show manuals related to beast taming. He had it only show manuals that would work on the super snake. Then he had it only show things he could afford.

There was only one manual that showed up.

'To Tame A Titan: Colossal Lightning Snake'

That… sounded cool as hell. And there was also a whole series! Will would definitely come back and check the others out someday. But that was for later. He looked at the entry for the manual and went down the requirement list.

Storm qi, purple. Spiritual energy stored internally, purple. Suitable beast corpses, blue. Knowledge of the Colossal Lightning Snake's language, purple. Compatible method of removing impurities, purple. Sufficient control over lifeforce, purple. Colossal Lightning Snake, green.

He bought the book immediately and embedded it.

From what he read from the 'about the author' blurb, the author of this book really liked animals and beasts of all kinds. He ended up taming so many that he was offered a book deal, where he'll get a bunch of points for each taming method he puts up on the market, and the cost to buy each thing is lowered a bit. He now goes around from universe to universe learning how to tame everything there. Will thought he was awesome.

But there was still a taming method. It was very complicated. Basically, it was about using storm qi and a bunch of other stuff to give it a chance to become a Stormbringer Serpent, and then offering it a beast contract. The beast contract is even customized to the Colossal Lightning Snake, allowing it to have an easier time. It all seemed incredibly easy!

Will stopped pacing and turned to face the two people in the room with him, his joy palpable.

They looked at the child, confused why they were so happy all of a sudden when literally nothing had changed.

"If we could go fast enough, could we not outwun evewyone they send?"

Everyone, Sarah included, was lost. How would they outrun everyone? They had a carriage and horses and nothing else. Li Yingran finally spoke up.

"Yeah, but how would we do that?"

Will smirked mischievously.

"Giant snake."

Everyone was confused. Li Yingran spoke again.

"Giant snake?"

Will nodded.

"I'm gonna tame a giant snake I found in the eviw wightning forest."

That sounded like an awful idea. Xu Lanhua spoke.

"Um… how?"

Will smiled triumphantly.

"By levewaging storm qi and a variety of othew things to allow it to become a Stormbwinger Serpent."

They didn't know what that meant. Sarah took the chance to speak.

"Hey, Will, what the fuck are you talking about?"

"Yeah, sure, I remember. How the fuck would you tame that?"

"Ah, almost forgot about that one. Well, if you're sure the book's trustworthy then go right ahead."

Will smiled, confusing his roommates again. Xu Lanhua spoke.

"Um…"

Will asked a question.

"You don't think there'll be anothew attack tonight, wight?"

Xu Lanhua scoffed.

"I doubt it. We should have at least until tomorrow."

Will gave a thumbs up.

"I'll be back soon with a giant snake."

The two nodded, unsure, as Will rushed out the door.

Running full speed, Will made it to the forest in only a minute. He didn't hesitate and headed inside. He'd been keeping his map up to date even after he left the forest, so he was able to run in a straight line through the unmapped territory to reach the Sick Freak's mountain in only two hours. Then, he kept going past it.

He didn't find the snake. Luckily, he didn't have to, as the snake found him instead. It slithered towards him quickly, intent on eating him.

Following the instructions Will used its language to communicate.

"~Stop!~"

It meant stop, but it sounded more like "ssss".

The snake stopped. This human just spoke its language. That didn't happen normally. It decided to allow the human to speak for now and decide whether to eat it after.

"~I want to make a deal with you.~"

Will emptied a few rings of beast corpses.

"~You can snack on those as we talk.~"

That settled it. Human gets to live. It began eating as it listened to the human.

"~I'll help you grow into a Stormbringer Serpent if you'll form a contract with me.~"

The snake liked the sound of that. Not the contract part, that was somewhere between negative and neutral, but the Stormbringer Serpent part sounded great. If it was true. It swallowed its current snack and responded.

"~Prove you can do it first.~"

The snake, well, it sounded like a snake. It wasn't really saying words, he just understood the hisses. Will nodded.

"~Of course.~"

Will came over and started following the directions for what to do with the storm qi. He had to make another ouchy tunnel on the left hand, which hurt, but he'd gotten pretty used to hand holes at this point. He basically just had to send in storm qi in specific amounts in specific places.

After fifteen minutes, he was done, and his meridians were almost empty. Now it was time for the impurity removal. He gave the black gas the signal, and the impurities were removed. The black gas he'd gained was a lot more than he had before. Even so, it didn't feel like anything was wrong.

With the impurities removed, it was now time for the arrays. The book had a three array designs that came with it, and each had to go in a specific spot. They came in the activated form in the book, so he just exported them into the right locations. It used up pretty much all of his remaining points, but that was expected.

With the arrays in place, the next step was a contract. The snake was already prepared.

"~I'm guessing you want the contract now?~"

Will nodded.

"~Yeah.~"

The snake could feel the effects, so making a contract was the obvious choice.

"~Go ahead.~"

The contract was weird in that it didn't need a physical medium. One just needed to have a clear mental image of it and it could be used. And embedding gave him the clearest image possible.

As Will touched it, the snake felt the contract. It accepted it.

Will smiled. Now he just had to finish up.

He dumped a bunch more corpses from his rings.

"~Eat these.~"

The snake complied. Obviously. It was free food.

As it ate, Will controlled the lifeforce within it. The contract made it so the lifeforce wouldn't fight back against his control. While draining the lifeforce from the beast corpses the snake had just eaten, he moved the lifeforce in the patterns shown in the book. He was down to only half of his beast corpses by the time he was done.

Now it was time for him to ask for stuff.

"~So, I have these two humans who keep getting attacked by other humans, and I wanted your help going fast enough that none of those other humans can catch up.~"

The snake made a little hiss before speaking in full hisses.

"~I can do that.~"

This whole "taming a giant snake" thing turned way easier than he'd expected. Though he knew how it would go since he had the book, it was still surprising how it was really as simple as the book made it seem.

"~Can I hop on your back?~"

"~Sure.~"

Will hopped on the snake's back. He checked his map and pointed in the direction of the village.

"~That way, please.~"

The snake knew where Will was pointing through its spiritual senses, so it headed in that direction. They reached the edge of the forest in minutes.

"~Okay, here's the plan. You hide here for now. I'll whistle when it's time. When I whistle, you should quickly head over to my location without breaking anything or hitting anything. Okay?~"

The snake thought it was a bit convoluted, but overall didn't really care that much.

"~Got it.~"

Will hopped off and ran to the village. Once there he headed to the inn and knocked on the door of the room.

Xu Lanhua opened the door and let him in.

"Welcome back."

"Got the snake."

They stared at him.

"I got the snake. We can wide a snake."

Li Yingran spoke.

"Wait, really? Just like that?"

"Yep, just wike that."

Xu Lanhua spoke.

"So what now? Do we just leave our stuff behind and hop on a snake?"

"I can put the stuff we need in a wing. Then we send the coachman and guawds back with the cawwiage."

It made sense. They didn't need a coachman or guards when they were riding a giant snake. Li Yingran spoke.

"I guess we go to bed and then wake up and ride a giant snake in the morning."

"Yep."

And so everyone tucked in for the night again.

—

Will woke up an hour past sunrise. He was woken up by his roommates getting ready. He got out of bed, then headed downstairs. They apparently served breakfast, so he felt he might as well have some.

Heading downstairs, he met with the guards and coachman. He felt he should probably explain things to them.

"They awmost got kidnapped and we'we gonna wide a giant snake now so you can go back home."

They didn't really seem to get it. Well, whatever. One of them will explain it when they come down.

Breakfast today was scrambled eggs, it seemed. It was decent. Not the worst scrambled eggs he'd had. Eventually Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua came downstairs and started breakfast.

As he'd expected, they explained the situation to the men in their group. They still didn't know what the "giant snake" thing was about but it didn't matter all that much. They had their orders.

Over the next hour, everyone packed their things and Will put the luggage they were taking in his storage rings. He had Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua follow him to right outside the village, closest to the forest.

Then he whistled, and the snake came slithering.

"~Ready to go?~"

Will replied.

"~Yep, all set.~"

Li Yingran and Xu Lanhua both stared at the kid, incredibly confused. Were they… talking?

Will pulled out a rope from a storage ring, and tied it around all of their waists so no one fell off and died, and helped everyone onto the snake's back.

The snake started moving, slowly picking up speed as it headed in the direction Will pointed it towards, down the only road other than the one they'd come in on. There was also a map in the luggage that he had embedded and was keeping an eye on to make sure they went the right way. They only stayed near the road for a short while before Will decided to just point the snake in the direction of the destination and ignore the roads. Of course, Will also made sure to keep updating his map as they went.

The snake did something that made it feel almost like they weren't moving. Though it was pretty obvious they were moving very fast if one just looked up. Overall the ride was pretty comfortable.

And it was fast. The city they should've only reached after a month was reached in just a day.

Chapter 14 Li Rencai? More Like Li Wrongguy, Am I Right?

With the city in sight, Will parked his Colossal Lightning Snake in a forest out of sight. He helped everyone off and unfastened their rope-belts. It was kind of depressing that this was the closest he'd ever get to driving a car. Well, maybe he could buy a blueprint and make one someday.

Rope untied, Will and the gang headed towards Dragon Flame City. Looking at the place, it was definitely as bright as a dragon flame. They had a lot of lights all over the place. It was big too. With night having fallen, it really stood out with its big smooth white glowy walls.

It took them a good few minutes to reach the gates. Of course, that was because his two mortal buddies couldn't use his footwork.

The line for the gates was long. But there was also an entrance for cultivators that was empty currently. He Wind Danced over to the cultivator entrance and asked a question.

"Can I bwing family thwough the cultivator entwance with me?"

The woman manning the entrance was a bit stumped, honestly. There was a rule against bringing mortals through the cultivator entrance, but there was also a rule against separating little kids from parental figures or caretakers. She decided to prioritize the anti-separation policy.

"Sure, hun."

Then she noticed the sword the kid was holding. Unsheathed swords out in town were a nono.

"Do you have a sheath for that?"

Will shook his head.

The lady eyed the sword for a moment before reaching into the sheath bucket to her right and pulling out a sheath of the right size. She held the sheath out to the child.

"Try this."

Will grabbed the sheath and sheathed Sarah. The second he held the sword in a way that wasn't pointing straight up, the sheath fell off the sword to the ground, cut like butter.

The woman stared at the sheath on the ground for a few seconds. As she did, Will talked to Sarah.

"I've never tried, let me see."

After a moment she spoke again.

"Turns out I do. Huh."

Will turned to the woman.

"Let me twy again. It's dull now."

The woman shrugged and gave the kid another sheath. This time it didn't get cut apart. Will fastened the straps to hold it in place and smiled.

"Alright, hun, that's all. Grab your people and go on ahead."

The people in question had just arrived, so he led them both through the entrance, and just like that, they were in the city.

Will turned to Xu Lanhua.

"So whewe's your husband?"

Surprisingly, she actually knew the answer to that. Or at least she knew where he was staying. He had talked about it a lot. Apparently all the food and stuff there was delivered in little tiny boats in little tiny rivers.

"Little River Inn."

Will felt that was a shockingly quick response.

"Whewe is that?"

"I don't know."

Will thought for a moment, before deciding to ask someone for directions. He Wind Danced back over to the lady he'd talked to before.

"Hey, do you know where Little River Inn is?"

The woman nodded, then started giving him directions, which Will copied and embedded. He thanked her, then headed back to his group.

"Got diwections. Fowwow me."

They soon arrived at the Little River Inn after a bit of walking. They stopped at the entrance.

"Hewe it is. What now?"

Will was truly asking. He'd never done something like this before. Did they just go inside and ask? Did they wait for him outside? Wait for him inside? Break in? He had no clue. Luckily, Xu Lanhua had an answer.

"We go in and ask them to let him know we're here, then wait for him to come out and meet us."

They walked inside and Xu Lanhua did just that. She told the receptionist she was Li Rencai's wife and asked if they'd let him know she was here. The receptionist nodded with a "sure, ma'am", before grabbing a notebook from the table. She wrote something on it, tore off the piece she wrote on, and put it in a letter. Then she turned to the side.

It seemed like almost every inner wall here was a half wall. Because there was a raised little river behind all of them. There were even little sandbanks to the sides of it, though the sand seemed to be fake. Instead of grains it seemed like it was just one solid object that looked like it. It was probably so sand didn't get everywhere. Cute little boats rode through the rivers. Will thought the shape was like a pirate ship, but it was probably just based off of some kind of ship merchants used. But there were two big differences from a pirate ship that Will could see (other than its size). It didn't have a sail, and it looked to be made out of smooth, untarnished, light grey metal. The walls were also a nice blue color as well, which really tied the whole thing together.

One of the little boats was sitting in the water next to the receptionist. Even though the water was clearly flowing, the boat stayed in place, bobbing up and down like it was in the middle of a still pond. The receptionist placed the letter on its deck, then nudged the back of the boat. The boat started moving, as if it hadn't realized it was in a flowing river until it was nudged just now.

The receptionist turned to them with a smile.

"Feel free to have a seat while you wait."

They left the receptionist to her receptionist business and went over to sit on the comfy cushioned couch bench things while they waited.

They didn't need to wait long. In only a few minutes a man entered the room through a side door. His breathing was a bit heavy, and he seemed to have rushed. The man looked to be a bit shorter than average. Though Will couldn't be sure since everyone pretty much towered over him whether they were tall or not. Will could tell the man was taller than Xu Lanhua at least.

The man, Li Rencai, had a pretty friendly looking face, with very light stubble. His hair was a dark red, and he had it cut short, though the slight curl it had made it look a bit shorter. He didn't have the ponytail hair bun thing that Will had seen a lot of people having here.

Li Rencai spotted Xu Lanhua in a moment.

"Lanhua!"

With the confirmation that it was actually his wife that had come, his surprise had fully set in.

"And Yingran?"

Then, confusion joined it. How were they here so fast? He'd only left a month ago, and had just arrived a few days ago. Even that was only possible because the people he was meeting with here had sent a coachman with spiritual horses to pick him up.

Then he noticed the little kid sitting beside them. He racked his brain, thinking of everyone he knew. He thought of all the congratulations he'd given for births in the past three years, trying to find someone who looked similar to the child, ending up with only a handful who looked at all close. But none of those options made the kid being with his wife and daughter in this situation make sense. He gave up and decided on just asking the kid.

"And who might you be?"

Will answered.

"I'm Will."

He knew it was probably a really unsatisfying answer, but it's not like he had a family name or a title he could add.

Li Rencai's eyes went wide for a single moment before he returned to normal, as if the shock was an illusion.

"Then, it's nice to meet you Will. I'm Li Rencai."

Will smiled, pleased the man got it right on the first try. Li Rencai turned back to his wife, waiting for answers. Xu Lanhua sighed, before speaking.

"It's a long story. You should sit down."

Li Rencai sat, and Xu Lanhua told him the whole story. At the start, the emotion on his face changed throughout the story, from anger, to guilt, to sadness, to worry. But when the story got to where Will showed up, he just looked confused. Other than the slightest bit of worry when he heard about the kidnapping attempt, the only change in his expression was the addition of even more confusion. He looked at the kid, seemingly hoping for some kind of explanation as to how.

Will just shrugged. He had no intention of giving a full rundown on his abilities and their origins. It would be a pain.

The man gave up and turned back to his wife.

"So what do you plan to do?"

She thought for a moment. She'd originally planned to just stay with her husband and head home with him when he left. He was supposed to be staying here for a while, so her time of arrival would be a few days before he'd start heading back home. Then once they got home she'd let Rencai handle the issue there and everything would be fine.

But that was a plan she'd made under the assumption that she'd arrive by carriage. And that their only means of transport would be a carriage. The whole snake thing kind of got sprung on her and she hadn't slowed down to reconsider her plans once they made it yet.

"I don't know anymore. I only had a plan for arriving by carriage."

Li Rencai wasn't too surprised. He'd already come up with a plan himself, anyway. He smiled at his wife as he spoke.

"I'm already done with business, so I can just let them know I've found another ride."

He remembered something, turning to look at Will.

"That is, if you'll let us ride on your pet snake."

"It's not reawwy a pet. But yeah, of course you can wide it."

Li Rencai smiled and nodded, then turned to his wife and daughter.

"That settles it then. I'll get our sleeping arrangements in order and we'll set off tomorrow morning after I let them know."

Everyone agreed, and Li Rencai got up and went to the receptionist to get the room arrangement figured out. The result was one room for Li Rencai and Xu Lanhua, one room for Li Yingran, and one room for Will.

It was already past dinner so after Will dropped off everyone's luggage in their rooms, they all tucked in for the night.

—

Will slept like a rock. He needed it after how little sleep he'd gotten with the whole kidnapping and taming a Colossal Lightning Snake thing.

He only woke up because Li Rencai kept knocking on his door. He'd come by earlier to wake Will up for breakfast but hadn't pushed it when he didn't get up. But now it was four hours past noon, and they were all ready to go.

As he was about to stop and wait for the kid to wake up on his own, Will opened the door, yawning. Looking at Li Rencai, the man looked more sleep deprived than him. Will knew why. It wasn't hard to tell considering the room arrangements. He didn't really care, though.

"Time to go?"

Li Rencai nodded.

"We're all ready."

Will yawned again.

"Luggage?"

Li Rencai yawned after seeing Will yawn.

"All packed up and ready for you to store."

He brought Will over to where the luggage was in the lobby, Xu Lanhua and Li Yingran standing beside it. Will put it all in a ring, and they set off.

After leaving the city, Will brought everyone over to where he'd left the snake. It was still there where he'd left it. He had Li Rencai show him where their destination was on a map. He noticed the city was named Duodibunu city. The concubine Xu Lanhua told him about had some backing, then. Moving on, he tied the rope-belt around everyone's waists, jumped onto the snake's back, and helped everyone else get up.

"~That way, please.~"

Will pointed directly in the direction of their destination.

"~Sure.~"

And with that hiss, they were off.

The ride was as uneventful as the last one. It was so smooth as to be boring. Will even ended up fiddling with his phone during the ride.

Even though the destination was farther this time, it only added two hours to the trip. By the time the city was in sight, it was only four hours past midnight. The only issue was the distinct lack of forest in the immediate area. Or anything else to hide a giant snake with.

But there was a forest where they were now, a very annoying distance away from the city to have to walk with a bunch of mortals. Will told the snake to stop, sighing. They'd have to walk. After getting everyone off and undoing the rope-belt, they started walking.

The walk was three hours long. By the time they reached the city, it was a bit after sunrise. Luckily, the gate wasn't an issue. They saw the people in their group and simply let them in.

After a bit more, they reached Li Rencai's house. It was huge. Annoyingly so. But Will was already annoyed after walking for so long, so whatever.

The guards at the front gate showed a look of shock seeing Li Rencai, then a look of fear.

"Open the gate."

Li Rencai was also a bit annoyed. He'd never been mad at Duodibunu Lili before. She was just a poor girl pressured by her family into a marriage with him that she didn't want. He would've refused if they hadn't pressured him as well. He'd tried his best to accommodate her however he could because of that. He hadn't even consummated the marriage with her.

But no matter her circumstances, he couldn't accept what she did to his wife and daughter. The fate they would've suffered if this kid didn't happen to stumble upon them hurt to even think about. He took a deep breath and tried to calm down.

Li Rencai reached the front door first, holding it open for everyone else. He turned to a shivering maid.

"Where is she?"

The maid shivered even more. She knew who he meant. There was only one person he'd be looking for.

"U-upstairs, in her room!"

The man nodded and turned away from the maid as he started walking. Everyone followed close behind him as he walked towards Duodibunu Lili's room. When he reached her door, he slammed the door open, and walked in without waiting.

Duodibunu Lili was doing some knitting on her bed. When she heard the door, she jumped. Realizing it was her husband and not an intruder only calmed her down slightly.

"Wh-why are you here?"

Li Rencai scoffed.

"You still have the nerve to ask after what you did?"

Lili looked overwhelmed and a bit scared.

"Wh-what-what did I do?"

Li Rencai got even angrier.

"You almost got my wife and daughter captured by bandits and you're asking me what you did!?"

She "eep"ed, dropping her knitting supplies. She looked lost and afraid.

"H-h-huh?"

Li Rencai was fuming.

"Don't play dumb with me!"

She shivered, blocking her face with her arms out of fear as tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.

"Y-you're not making sense."

Her voice was a bit quieter now.

Li Rencai felt like something was off. She seemed like she actually didn't know what he was talking about. He calmed down for a moment as he asked her something.

"Didn't you bribe and threaten all the servants to torment her until she had to leave?"

Lili looked shocked and a bit offended at the question, her arms lowering a tad.

"I wouldn't do something like that! Is that what she told you?"

She pointed at Xu Lanhua.

"She's lying to you!"

Li Rencai got annoyed again at the implication that his wife was lying after what she went through.

Xu Lanhua had a look of confusion.

"What reason would I have to lie about you?"

"To make him hate me!"

Xu Lanhua looked even more confused.

"Why would I want him to hate you?"

Lili looked aggrieved.

"So you can keep him all to yourself!"

Everyone was confused now. Li Rencai spoke up.

"Weren't you forced to marry me by your family?"

Now Lili looked confused too.

"Huh? Why would my family force me?"

"To make connections? Because you're the only daughter in a martial arts family that practices martial arts for men?"

She looked confused, then shook her head.

"They wouldn't send me away for something like that."

"Then why did they send you away?"

Lili pouted grumpily.

"They didn't!"

"Then… why are you married to me?"

Lili blushes slightly.

"Because I like you!"

Li Rencai looked shocked.

"Then why do you always look at me like I hurt you?"

She looked aggrieved.

"Because you did!"

She started crying a little.

"Huh?"

She started crying for real this time.

"You didn't even look at me on the night of our wedding!"

Li Rencai was starting to feel guilty now.

"I didn't want to force you to sleep with a man you don't love."

It finally hit her what had been going on all this time. She pointed at Xu Lanhua.

"So she wasn't telling you bad things about me?"

Li Rencai spoke quickly.

"No! We both just pitied you!"

Xu Lanhua nodded in agreement.

Then Li Rencai remembered what he came here for.

"Wait, if you didn't do the bribing and threatening, then who did?"

Lili had forgotten about that. But, if Xu Lanhua didn't lie to make her look bad, then did that mean something really happened?

"Wh-what actually happened to her?"

Xu Lanhua explained the story to her. Only, unlike Li Rencai, instead of being confused, she was crying.

"I-I'm so sorry that happened to you!"

She got off of the bed and ran over to Xu Lanhua, hugging her. She was pretty short, only an inch or two taller than Li Yingran, so her face ended up in her chest.

Xu Lanhua was surprised, but calmed down after a moment.

"It's okay. Nothing bad happened in the end, so it's fine."

Li Rencai spoke again.

"So were you the one who bribed and threatened the servants?"

Lili shook her head furiously. Xu Lanhua blushed, since Lili's face was still in the same spot as before. Then Lili thought for a moment and started crying harder.

"I-I think I might know who did it…"

Li Rencai asked immediately.

"Who!? Who is it!?"

"I-it might have been my little brother."

"Huh? Why?"

She sniffled.

"Be-because I was c-complaining about how much I hated you…"

She looked up at Xu Lanhua as she said it, making it clear who she was talking to. Li Rencai was a little mad at her again, but his anger quickly faded when he thought of how bad he'd made her feel all this time.

"I'm s-s-s-sorry."

Xu Lanhua looked down at her.

"It's okay. You didn't mean to."

She started crying even harder.

"You're so nice to meeeee."

Will felt like it was about over now. He was satisfied somewhat. It was kind of like that one show on the TV in his hospital room when the remote fell in a way that hit the power button and he couldn't reach it since it had fallen to the floor. It wasn't peak entertainment, but it wasn't bad. It was even better than the show from that one time, since he actually had some context instead of having it turned on midway through a random episode. Though both certainly shared the similarity of making him feel like he was too young to watch them. It was clear they had forgotten he was here considering the subject matter.

But he was tired now.

"I need a bed."

Li Rencai was reminded of Will's presence.

"Sorry about all that. Family troubles. You'll understand when you're older."

Will noticed that the man sounded dishonest on the last line. It almost felt like he was making fun of him for pretending to be a child. Except he was a child. He wasn't even pretending to act like a child the age this body was. He shrugged it off. He was too tired to care.

Will was led by Li Rencai to a guest room. Once they were inside, he closed the door behind them. His face changed to a serious expression immediately. He turned to Will.

"What do you want with my family?"

Will wasn't expecting this. He thought he was just being led to a place to sleep.

"Huh? I wanted a wide."

"You can stop pretending, now, 'Will'."

He emphasized the word. Will sighed internally. He probably needed to take this seriously, now, didn't he? He focused up, putting away his sleepiness for now.

"How am I pwetending?"

"You're a transmigrator. The soul of a grown adult in the body of a baby. Just like I was."

Well, that wasn't quite true. He was a kid in the body of a baby. And a baby in the body of a baby.

"I'm not a gwown aduwt."

"You can stop acting now. Don't you think you're a little old for baby talk? I was in the same situation, I know you can talk normally."

Will was annoyed now. It's not like he enjoyed talking like a baby either! He couldn't control it!

"Shut up!!! I can't hewp it! Stop bwagging!"

Li Rencai was a bit surprised. It turned out he was more talented than this guy at something.

"So you admit you're a grown adult?"

"I'm not!"

Sarah butted in at this point, talking to Will.

"What the hell is going on? Do you know what he's talking about?"

<Maybe. >

Li Rencai spoke before she could follow up her question.

"You're still planning to lie about it?"

"I nevew weached aduwthood."

Li Rencai was surprised again. He hadn't considered that possibility. He'd just assumed any other transmigrators would be the same age as him. So this guy was a high-schooler?

"Fine, kid in the body of a baby, that better?"

Will nodded.

"Yeah."

Sarah was completely blindsided.

"Will, what are you talking about?"

"As well? Also, you were too lazy?"

<I'm two and twelve at the same time due to a complicated thing.>

Sarah noticed he hadn't answered the lazy part. She let it be for now.

"So is that guy the same?"

Will didn't see a coworker symbol, and it definitely sounded different.

<No. Similar, but different.>

Sarah was once again blocked from speaking Li Rencai.

"It doesn't change the question. What do you want with my family?"

"I wanted a wide."

"If you just wanted a ride you would've left after you tamed the snake. Try again."

Will felt like the reason he hadn't left was pretty obvious, but whatever, since the big detective here couldn't solve the case alone, he'd give a few hints.

"What happened befowe I got the snake?"

"A kidnapping attempt. After you slept in a room with my daughter."

"Yeah."

"So is it because you wanna sleep with my daughter?"

Where the hell did he get that from? And now he seemed like he was getting angry about it too!

"They'd get kidnapped!"

"So it was out of the goodness of your heart?"

"Yeah. Mostwy."

"Why mostly?"

Will saw the man getting angry again. Likely at another imagined instance of Will liking his daughter.

"I was bowed."

Li Rencai wasn't expecting that one.

"Bored?"

"Yeah."

"So you just… saved them out of boredom?"

"And goodness."

It was also for points but he kept that to himself. It wasn't that big a part of why he saved them, anyway. Honestly, he hadn't actually thought of not saving them. It just hadn't crossed his mind. It wasn't because he was a saint, of course, it more a mix of sleep deprivation and that he thought of it in response to there being danger if they continued in a carriage. But it actually sounded even better if he added that in without the end but, so he did.

"Honestly, the thought of leaving them behind never really cwossed my mind."

"Huh. Well, I'm sorry for doubting you like this, then."

He thought for a moment, abruptly changing topics.

"What was your life like? Before here."

"Bedridden."

"Ah. I'm sorry to hear that. What with?"

Will shrugged.

"No matter how many tests they wan, they could never figuwe it out."

"How many tests did they run?"

Will counted them in his head.

"Twenty-thwee I think. May have been mowe."

"Wow. The medical bills must've been crazy. So they ended up defeating the Black Dragon, then?"

Huh?

"What? Bwack Dwagon? Medical biwws?"

"The one that came from the SSS-rank gate on a deserted island? The one that had a break because it wasn't found in time? And medical bills, like you pay for medical stuff."

Will was flabbergasted. What gate? What's a gate? Why was it SSS-rank like some kind of gacha pull? And why would you pay for medical stuff? Isn't that the point of taxes or whatever?

"What awe you talking about? What gate? Why is it ranked wike a gacha pull?"

"The gates! The ones that came with the advent of mana! The ones full of monsters that the awakened fight?"

Will remembered something. That's it! Now it makes sense.

"You had hawwucinations!"

Li Rencai stared at the kid.

"Do you really not know what I'm talking about?"

"I do. You're talking about youw hawwucinations."

Li Rencai realized something.

"We must be from different worlds."

That actually made a good bit of sense when Will thought about it.

He still didn't understand the idea of medical bills, though.

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