Unintended Cultivator

“Do you think they’ll leave us alone?” asked Falling Leaf after they’d traveled several miles down the road.

“Maybe,” said Sen. “I hope so. I really don’t want to kill them. We gain nothing from it.”

“And if they come looking for us? Will you just let them go again?”

“I might let them go. But I won’t let them go unscathed. All mercy has limits.”

Falling Leaf nodded as if that was what she expected. The pair fell back into their usual companionable silence and a comfortable pace as the miles disappeared behind them. As the sun started to vanish over the horizon, Sen decided that they weren’t going to find a town. He scouted some nearby areas with his spiritual sense and picked a promising location. He went about the usual tasks of erecting a galehouse, shaking his head a little as he realized he’d just accepted that name for the stone structures. As he was setting up the formation to disguise their presence at the location, he felt something out on the very edges of his spiritual sense. And I was just thinking that those sect cultivators had made the smart choice, thought Sen. He stuck his head into the galehouse. Falling Leaf was poking at the beginnings of a fire.

“I need to go deal with something on the road,” said Sen.

Falling Leaf eyed him. “What kind of thing?”

“Four pesky cultivators who don’t know when to leave well enough alone.”

Falling Leaf sniffed her indifference. “Do you want any help?”

“Not that bored,” she said. “I may come and watch.”

“Suit yourself,” said Sen.

He made his way back out to the road and admired some of the nearby trees. There were maples in the area. While Sen had more familiarity with evergreens, he had always appreciated the look of maple trees. It was a pity that they were passing through in summer. Maple leaves always turned spectacular colors in autumn, and Sen thought that he’d appreciate that all the more with his enhanced vision. He held out hope that the trees might start turning before they made it back to Fu Ruolan. There were some maples near where she lived, but not as many as there were in this part of the country. He was still contemplating the trees when the four cultivators arrived. Sen ignored them as he stepped closer and picked up a maple leaf that had fallen to the ground. It must have fallen recently because it was still green and looked healthy. It had seven points, which Sen hadn’t been aware that maple leaves could do.

The musclebound leader of the group started to bellow something about Sen paying for some dishonor or another. That got old almost immediately. Sen dropped his auric imposition on the leader of the group like a hammer. The man crumpled to the ground with a strangled cry of surprise and pain. The other three cultivators all took a step back, their eyes moving back and forth from Sen to the writhing man on the ground. Sen finally turned his eyes to meet theirs, and the group took another step back. The woman looked especially miserable and guilty. She had clearly told them who he was and that it was stupid to follow them. The other two looked like they wished that were exactly anywhere else in the world. Anywhere at all.

“You’ve put me in a bind here,” said Sen. “I already took whatever wealth and weapons you had. So, I can’t punish you that way again. Not that I would, since it obviously didn’t work the first time. Shame didn’t work either, so that’s out. That doesn’t leave me with a lot of options other than simply killing you or maiming you.”

At the mention of maiming, the three cultivators he hadn’t crushed to the ground looked ill. Sen drew his jian. He made a show of it, adding unnecessary flourishes to the motion. As he ambled toward the cultivators who kept trying to creep farther and farther back, he paused to look down at the leader. He continued speaking.

“I can see from your expressions that you understand what maiming means. It will very likely end your dreams of cultivation. It might be a mercy to simply end you all right here. I’ve maimed people before and, frankly, it left a sour taste in my mouth. It’s permanent suffering unless you can find a miracle, and I understand those are in very short supply. It’s also more punishment than you deserve. Of course, all of this also means that I’m going to have to deal with your sect. They won’t be happy that I’ve killed or impaired their people. That’s a hassle I went out of my way to avoid that the four of you have forced onto me. That’s put me in an unforgiving mood. So, maybe maiming you all is the way to go.”

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Sen glared at the three cultivators who were still on their feet. They were pale and trembling. It seemed that they, at least, were finally starting to understand the depth of their folly. Sen walked a slow circle around the cultivator on the ground. When he could find the focus for it, the cultivator glared at Sen with hate and tried to say something. Sen assumed they were threats or comments on Sen’s character. He didn’t really care, so he kicked the man in the face hard enough to send a spray of blood flying. Sen resumed his slow circle around the man and made the occasional unhappy noise. He focused on the other three for a moment.

“I just don’t know what I should do to you.”

It was a complete lie. Sen did know what he wanted to have happen. He’d even instigate it if the other three were too squeamish to suggest it themselves. He was genuinely curious to see if they’d make the suggestion or not. He lifted an eyebrow at them.

“What would you do if you were in my place?”

The three cultivators traded frightened looks. The other one Sen had stripped naked tried to make a run for it. Sen sighed and sent a pillar of air after the guy. It hit the man square in the back and knocked him down. Sen wrapped air around the man’s ankle and dragged him so he was prone on the ground by the two still on their feet. Sen shook his head.

“No. You had your chance to run away. Now, you are in the time of consequences. So, what would you do?”

The one Sen had just dragged back thrust an accusing finger at the musclebound cultivator. “This is his fault. We didn’t want to come. He made us.”

Sen nodded. “Throwing your leader under the cart. The time-honored move of a coward. The problem is that you came. Are you trying to tell me that if, for example, you’d caught me unawares, you would have simply stood back? I don’t think that’s very likely.”

The pointing cultivator let his hand drop. He opened his mouth a few times but apparently couldn’t find anything worthwhile to say. He averted his eyes when Sen focused on him. Shaking his head a little, Sen turned his attention to the two he had interacted with back at the tree.

“How about you two?” he asked. “Anything to say in your defense? Any suggestions to make?”

Both shook their heads, either unable to think of something or unwilling to put it to voice. Sen heaved a dramatic sigh. With a flick of his wrist, Sen beheaded the musclebound cultivator. The other three stared in shocked horror. Sen supposed that this wasn’t what they thought of as honorable conduct. An honorable man would have let the idiot try to defend him in combat and then killed him. Sen wiped his jian clean on the dead man’s robe before he spoke again.

“You have a few options available to you. First option, you can try to avenge your friend here. Any takers?”

The three remaining sect cultivators shook their heads or murmured, “No.”

“Okay. Option two is that you go back to your sect and cause me more headaches by telling them what happened here. Then, I’ll do what people increasingly expect me to do. I’ll kill everyone and save the three of you for last. Any takers?”

There were much more fervent shaking heads that time.

Sen nodded. “Option three, and this is the one that I recommend you take. You go back to your sect. You tell them all about how this idiot died heroically facing off against a surprise spirit beast attack. Tell them it was a pack of those bear-cat looking things. Those assholes are aggressive as hell.”

“They’ll know we’re lying,” said the woman.

“Of course, they’ll know you’re lying. This moron wasn’t brave or honorable, but they won’t give a damn. They’ll have a nice, face-saving story to tell anyone who might care about him enough to ask. Those people will also know it’s a lie if they knew him at all, but they’ll have a nice face-saving story to tell anyone who asks about him. Most importantly, it spares me from having to deal with your sect. So, any takers?”

The three cultivators traded on brief look before they all started nodding. Sen figured there was about a ninety percent chance that their sect would jump on the story and never give it another thought. He also got to take a pass on doing something awful to the rest of them. That was very appealing to him. He offloaded everything he'd taken from them from his storage ring. He tossed the woman the storage ring he took from her. They at least needed to look the part when they got back to their sect. As the trio started to move away, Sen spoke again.

“You understand, I hope, that this kind of mercy will not be granted to you a third time.”

The men flinched and took off running. The woman turned and gave him a formal bow.

“I will see to it that they understand,” she said.

“Please do.”

The woman turned and dashed off after her companions using a qinggong technique of her own. Falling Leaf stepped out of the shadows of the surrounding forest. She stared after the three fleeing cultivators.

“I thought you were going to kill them all,” observed Falling Leaf.

“I considered it. I think this is better, though. It gives the sect an excuse not to start a fight they probably don’t want. We avoid unwanted hassles. It’s a politically convenient solution.”

“If the sect does what you want,” said Falling Leaf.

“Yes. If they do what I want. I think they will, though.”

“What if they talk about what really happened?”

“Oh, that’s not an if. They will talk about it to someone, at some point. The story will get out. But, by then, hopefully, it will be far enough in the past that no one will care enough to try to do anything about it. It’s just easier for most people to stick with the official story.”

Falling Leaf lost interest at that point. “We should make dinner.”

“We? I think you meant me.”

“I made the fire. I participated.”

Sen shook his head. “Let’s go make dinner.”

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