Chapter XLIII: Idiots Never Learn IV

The Great Plateau Near Shizukana Gake

Month of the Tortoise 2, 172 ,328 DE

Standing nearly two meters in height, Toomey has the features of a gaijin and a lean rawboned build. Shoulder length, dirty blonde hair frames a long, lean face with a pair of grey-blue eyes.

His clothes resemble those from the Dunkle Sonne Empire, but his black, calve-length, leather, long coat does not resemble any of the empires' fashions that I have seen. Pulling back one side of the long coat, he reveals a huge, holstered revolver. Its hammerless design proclaims its nature as a Yuan Qi gun.

Toomey is not someone I remember ever seeing him around Shizukana Gake. I do not claim to know everyone in Shizukana Gake, but a gaijin like him would stand out. Nor have I heard any rumors about him. Either, he is a newcomer, or he was brought in from out of town. It is unlikely the noble idiots, even one like Miura, would go to so much effort over me. So, most likely, he only arrived in Shizukana Gake recently.

As Toomey walks in my direction, the noble morons part like a river around a rock. With a smile that does not reach his eyes, he stares coldly at me. "It's your unlucky day, boy. I have nothing against you, but I'm being paid. You can be smart and surrender, or I can cripple you."

With the distance between Toomey and myself, my senses barely allow me to perceive and measure the flow of Yuan Qi thorough his Body, Mind, and Soul. Compared to the noble imbeciles and their collection of hunter trash, he is strong. He should be in the Core Formation realm of Cultivation, probably the middle of it.

Putting on my practiced smirk, I return Toomey's cold stare with one of my own. "You aren't strong enough to do it."

"Boy, I've just been here a few days, but I've already heard all about you. You can't Cultivate. I'm not strong enough to deal with you? What kind of delusions do you have floating around in that barbaric skull of yours?" Toomey snickers, but from lack of change in the sound of his heartbeat, there is no emotion behind it. Unfortunately, the direction of the wind prevents me from reading his scent.

Visible behind Toomey, Miura glares at me. While I cannot separate his heartbeat from the rest of the morons, the throbbing veins in his forehead show it to be racing. Our single real encounter seems to have filled him with rage and overflowing hatred for me. Even after more than a decade of living among the humans of Shizukana Gake, the arrogance and warped reactions of the noble clans still leave me dumbfounded. After I stopped him and his noble retard comrades from raping a more or less innocent perverted girl, he sees me as a blood enemy, who has to be tortured and killed.

I make my smirk wider. "Even if I can't Cultivate Yuan Qi, it does not mean I cannot practice Body Cultivation."

Toomey's eyes narrow. "Body Cultivation?"

When I say nothing but continue smirking, Toomey looks over his shoulders at Miura. "You did not say anything about this Beast being a Body Cultivator. "

Toomey looks north toward Vorn. "You also didn't say anything about a Prince from the Jewel Kingdoms being on his side. The Jewel Kingdoms are a necessary evil for the Great Plateau to survive. The Providence Confederation takes pains to stay neutral with the Jewel Kingdoms. If you want my services, that's another ten times increase for the Body Cultivation. Another ten time increase for the Jewel Kingdom prince. A total of one thousand times my original price."

Miura's normally pale complexion makes his purple flush all the more obvious. "Don't overstep yourself, gaijin!"

Toomey gives Miura a fairly decent smirk. "You should be the one not overstepping yourself, brat. You Cultivators of this backwater kingdom can't even be called pimples on the asses of the Cultivator of the rest of the Plateau."

"Watch your mouth, commoner trash. The Heian Kingdom is an ancient and noble kingdom. Your Providence Confederation is nothing but an upstart backwater struggling for survival in the badlands between the Dunkle Sonne Empire and the Jewel Kingdoms."

Toomey's smirk never changes, and his words come out in an emotionless drawl. "One thousand times. Pay me now or I walk."

Miura's normally impassive face turns into a snarling mask. Rage and indignation fill his burning eyes. "You have already taken my gold. Do what you have been paid to do!"

With a snort, Toomey turns his back on me and walks in the direction of Shizukana Gake. "I'll take your money as wergild to recompense me for your lies. You tried to rope me into dealing with a Body Cultivator of unknown capability and pissing off the Kingdom of Amber. You're lucky I don't take it out on your clan."

"Bastard! My clan will make you pay!"

Pausing his steps, Toomey glances indifferently at Miura. "You better watch your mouth, brat. You and your clan are the real trash. If your old monster ancestor doesn't show his face, your entire clan couldn't stop me from killing you. Despite your arrogant attitude, I took your little job for some easy gold, but that Beast over there is not an easy kill."

Toomey turns his head far enough to stare at me. "You call him Beast as an insult, but as I see it, he's a Beast in human skin. He'll take some effort to bring down, even for me. He's your problem. If you want to solve your problem, pay me for it. People like him are why access to Cultivation methods needs to be controlled."

What the fuck? While I understand every word that came out of Toomey's mouth, I do not understand what he means. Control access to Cultivation? Cultivation clans and sects keep their methods and techniques secret, but humans outside the clans and sects still find ways to Cultivate. How does he expect to keep people with determination from Cultivating? Even without methods and techniques, humans could still find ways to Cultivate.

Turning around, Toomey gives me a condescending smile. "You don't understand. I see it in your expression. Cultivation is a weapon. If you allow weapons in the hands of those, who are not approved by the government, you cannot control them. Humans need to be controlled or you wind up with chaos. Look at the state of the Great Plateau. How many rogue Cultivators do you see running loose? How many random slaughters and pointless wars between minor factions take place every day?"

I scoff. "You're full of shit. The nature of the world is survival of the fittest. You are either a predator or you are prey."

Toomey's condescending smile widens. "I understand why Miura wants you eliminated. You really have the mind of a Beast. You have no place among humans. Because Miura does not want to pay, and I won't give him a freebie, I won't kill you today. But when we cross paths again, it will be the day you die, like the Beast that you are."

"He's your problem, for now." After giving Miura another condescending smile, Toomey turns back toward Shizukana Gake. With expressions ranging from nervous to fearful, the nobles morons scramble out of Toomey's path. In less than a minute, Toomey has disappeared into the woods.

Toomey is a strange one, and I do not think I am done with him. I have heard of the Providence Confederation's existence, but that is about the sum of my knowledge. Like hundreds if not thousands of other minor countries on the Great Plateau, it exists in the gaps between the territories of the big empires.

After staring in the direction where Toomey disappeared for more than a minute, the majority of the noble idiots look in my direction. The mercenary group has their pack of hunter trash tied up. The smug cat has sniped anyone who dared to pull a gun on me. Their trump card has left. With their former arrogance gone, fear fills their expressions.

I grin like the predator I am. "Don't you hate it when all your plots go to shit? Now, it's down to me and all you trash. Who wants to die first?"

"Aoi is here, too!" Scrambling onto the saddle of my steamer bike, Aoi glares at me with her cheeks puffed out.

"Stay put, Pervert Disciple! The idiot comedy play is over, and I want to have some real fun."

Springing forward, I sprint toward the noble idiots at my fastest speed. It takes less than two seconds to cross the distance between us, and most of the noble idiots do nothing more than gape at me.

Reaching the closest moron, one whose name I do not know, I unleash a simple punch, straight and fast. From the moron's complete lack of reaction, I doubt his Mind even comprehends what I am doing before I hit him. Shatters his jaw and probably breaking his neck, my fist sends him flying. As flips end over end, his limbs flop around like a rag doll's.

While the moron flies through the air, the girl standing nearest raises her arm, releasing the coils of the whip in her hands. Covering the metal barbs running down the whip's length, greenish liquid glints in the sunlight. As they are meant more to cause pain than to kill, whips are cruel weapons, but poison takes it to another level. The cruel girl is one of the students of the Academy of Magic Technology. She is a year by Aoi and me, and she is one of the little princesses in her grade. I think she comes from a lesser branch of the Miura clan.

As the cruel girl lashes out with her whip, trying to encircle my neck, I lean backward. The whip passes over my head, and before the girl manages to swing it back in my direction, I step inside the range of her swing and slam my foot up between her legs. The layered skirts of her traditional kimono and under robes do not even slow my foot.

Crackle.

I feel the bones in the girl's pelvic region shatter. The force of my blow lifts her into the air, sending her flying back a dozen meters. If she lives, she will most likely wish she had died.

Looking at more than two dozen noble morons charging me en masse, I shake my head and display a ferocious grin. My leap carries me among them so fast, most of them probably do not even register my movement before I am in the middle of them. Despite their numbers, the fight remains a one-sided slaughter. Genitals, eyes, ears, knees, elbows, and ankles, each of my attacks lands in a place will maim or cripple my victim. I do not kill most of them. If they die, they cannot suffer.

More than sixty of the noble clan retards, from the Academy, flee toward their steamer cars, with the majority of their surviving hired thugs right on their heel. The rapid chugging of close to fifty steamer car engines fills the air, and the wheels of the steamer cars tear up the ground. As they accelerate backwards, more than a few of the steamer cars slam into one another, and angry cursing resounds over the rumbling of the steam engines.

Trying to maintain an arrogant expression, Miura Ryo remains where he was. A dozen other morons from the nobles clans huddles around him. Except for Miura, all of them have weapons tightly clutched in their white-knuckled hands. A few have their hands wrapped around the buts of Yuan Qi or fire-powder pistols, but they leave them in their holsters. The threat of Vorn's sniping seems to have made an impression, and for the moment, their cowardice and survival instincts outweigh their hostility. While the steamer cars disappear into the woods, the hangers-on glance nervously amongst themselves an at Miura. Each time they look at Miura, fear seems to flash in their eyes, but the cesspool of scents clogging the airs makes it impossible to sort out their emotions from the general miasma of fear, rage, and hate.

If I waited a few minutes, the light wind would clear the air enough for me to read them better, but I do not care enough to do it. With a predatory grin, which I cannot hold back, on my lips, I walk toward them with slow steady steps. Unlike normal, I let my feet land with audible taps and crunches on the ground, brush, and dead leaves. Each step causes Miura's pack of trash to flinch, but none of them make a move. They all keep most of their attention on Miura. He is the ringleader of this little moron circus.

When I reach a distance of less than thirty meters from Miura's pack of morons, one of them can not take the tension any longer. He pulls the pistol he has his hand wrapped around. His head explodes into a red cloud of blood, bone shards, and chunks of flesh. I do not know his name, but I am fairly certain he is one of Harada Gohan's cousins.

Two more jerk their pistols from their holsters. Idiots never learn.

Boom!

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