Chương 8: Bad Memories

The hysterical exclamation that there was a monster on the loose would perhaps have suggested that Elder Flower and Jin would immediately run out to hunt said monster. However, the statement was not actually that informative and inner disciple Ting was too scared to truly give them more information than that. It was here that Jin got to see another side of his mentor.

Elder Flower sat down the female disciple on one of the elaborate wooden chairs in the so-called landing room of the watchtower and quickly brewed her a cup of hot tea with ingredients and utensils from her pouch. She'd made three teas, in fact, one of them which Jin was sipping right now. It reminded him slightly of Oolong, but he wasn't really an expert despite his now very much asian looks so he could only guess and hum in enjoyment as he drank. He wasn't too afraid to enjoy it, unlike Ting.

The reason he wasn't afraid was because he was being accompanied by an Elder of his sect. And not a scholarly one either. What could really happen to him under Flower's supervision? Ting eventually also came to the same realisation, drinking her tea, and letting go of the fear she'd exhibited earlier.

It was thus five minutes after arriving and almost getting stabbed by the disciple in charge of the outpost, that they were not hunting any elusive monster, but just now starting to listen to the story of what had actually happened. The room they were in was very different from the ones that Jin had gotten used to since his insertion. It was oddly non-oriental, composed mostly of large stone bricks. It looked more like something out of mediaeval Europe. A castle tower so to say.

This made listening to Ting's story a slightly odd experience, because he felt for some reason that he was back home as a tourist in some Italian village. However, the contents of what was being described were very much not congruent with that illusion.

"It happened three days ago," Ting started nervously with shaky hands which had already spilt some tea on her beige sleeves.

"With no warning at all, one of the farmhands who was out late never came back. People weren't overly worried at first as he was known to partake in drink. However, when he didn't appear for his work the next morning I helped organise a search party. We found him in a field not far from where the farm's cows had grazed yesterday with a square indent on his forehead. His skull was crushed inwardly." She trailed off with a faraway look in her eyes. Elder Flower remained patient and sat elegantly on her chair.

One hand was on the sword at her side and the other was holding her brown ceramic teapot. She didn't look like she was in a hurry, which was probably the correct decision to make in terms of outward appearance and energy projection. The more nervous she was, the more nervous Ting would get and the more slowly the story would come out.

"It looked like he'd been killed by someone pressing an iron cube into his skull until he died. There was no indication of who or what could have done it. He wasn't an overly popular man, so while this was certainly concerning, we didn't think too much about it. It just happens, sometimes," she said. When she saw Elder Flower raising an eyebrow she quickly corrected herself.

"Naturally I looked around and I sent a report to the sect. The first bird should be arriving any second now. However, I wasn't able to find anything during my own investigation. It was simply as if something had fallen from the sky, knocked the man on the head and killed him for no reason. I told the villagers that help would be arriving within the week and that they should simply continue work as always, but to be a bit more careful." Jin wondered if the girl served as some sort of feudal lord of the village.

What exactly was her political position? She was the one who scouted the danger and advised the villagers and how to behave. Was there no mayor involved? No official from the empire? What role exactly did sects have in the administration of hamlets such as these? He continued listening, not posing any of his questions, knowing that it was not the time.

"Work resumed as normal and I went into my rooms during the day to work on my scenario. A wyvern," she said excitedly before a pallor was cast over her face again.

"Everyone went to sleep, as did I. The next morning when we woke up there was an entire field of cows who had died a similar death, along with the family of those who had owned the herd. 40 or so bovines, and a family of seven. Grandparents, parents and children."

"Did they have the same square imprint on their foreheads or were they killed differently?" Jin piped up. Inner disciple Ting looked at him as if she was noticing him for the first time, with wide confused eyes. However, when she saw his robes were of the same design as hers she simply nodded.

"Brother, it was the same wound, just on the different sides of the head, not only from the front. The sides, the back, from above. It looked as if the people had tried to escape. They were scattered all over the house." Jin hummed thoughtfully while Elder Flower retained a strictly remote facade. She turned towards him at the sound he made and questioned him.

"Do you have an idea?"

"Well, the story is not over. There's still one more day left after all," Jin said.

"But, if we can see the people had the chance to run away, then that can mean one of two things. Either the entity that committed the murders was not powerful enough to do so before their targets noticed or were able to react to their approach. Or, they like to play with their food. I would personally prefer the first option to be true. Someone, or something, that's only powerful enough to kill civilians one at a time cannot be more powerful than an inner disciple," he concluded.

"That's not necessarily true," Elder Flower rebuked.

"There are several beasts which have special powers that are much more dangerous than the simple threat of their physicality." Jin nodded in deference. Flower was much more likely to be right than him and he hasn't been planning on saying anything anyway. The hum had simply escaped him. Flower turned back to the girl and bid her to continue. Ting seemed to hesitate for a second.

"I looked around again, but there was nothing I could do. I could only send for help. There's no one within a running distance that I could summon." Jin wondered why cultivators didn't have some sort of immediate transmittance slip. They had spells and artefacts after all. Maybe a village like this simply wasn't important enough to bother with?

"Anyway," Ting started with a nervous shake of her head.

"I couldn't do anything other than tell the people to stay inside and wait for help while I retreated into the tower and tried to, well, be on guard," she said with a blush.

"This morning," she continued with a sigh, "we found more than just one family dead. It seemed like someone had snuck into one house after the other and killed the residents. The neighbours told me that they heard some screams, but that they were too afraid to leave the house and come get me."

"How many households?" Elder Flower asked. Ting almost seemed like she didn't want to say, before she eventually sighed and opened her mouth again.

"19 households. 200 people." Jin released an unbidden gasp.

"Fuck," he muttered.

"All the same wound again, I still have no idea what could have caused it," Ting said. To Jin, the situation started to sound like the beginning of a murder mystery novel. Just without any of the anxiety since Elder Flower would protect him from harm, hopefully. He turned towards the older woman and tried to discern from her blank gaze what she was thinking. No information was to be read from it. However, that didn't matter as the Elder opened her mouth and spoke.

"We are on a time-sensitive mission, so we will be leaving tomorrow morning," she started. The blood in Jin's veins froze, and he wondered if they would be leaving these people here to their presumed fate of death. Inner disciple Ting similarly didn't look like she was doing too well with the implication. Whatever colour had returned to her face during their little chat and tea party, promptly left.

"We can't just leave all these people to die," Jin complained, forgetting himself. Some of his sense of justice from his last life resurfacing at an inopportune occasion. Elder Flower promptly turned to glare at him, which shut him up. He remembered that he wasn't a citizen of a democratic nation anymore. Now he was just a disciple at the mercy of his masters. Human rights? What are those? It was jarring and he gritted his teeth. The memories of his body's previous owner had resurfaced.

In cultivation land, life was cheap. Mortals were seen as a disposable resource because they bred incredibly quickly. A second of a cultivator's time was worth more than a mortal's entire life. After all, what was a blip of 60 years in comparison to potential infinity? This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Jin lowered his head.

"I apologise for speaking out of turn," he said concisely.

"What would you do? Inner disciple Jin, if it was up to you?" Elder Flower asked in a deadpan voice.

"The diplomatic mission we are on is much more important than the lives of thousands of mortals. After all, it is these small details that in the end determine the value and survival of our sect." Jin frowned and thought of an answer. Obviously, he couldn't take everything back, or else he'd just seem disingenuous.

"I would try to resolve the situation in the time we have, and leave tomorrow morning regardless of outcome," he eventually replied. Elder Flower pursed her lips, before eventually nodding.

"And more specifically? How would you resolve the situation?" Jin went through several areas of knowledge in his head before answering.

"I would analyse the scene of the murders to try to discover any clues that might have been left there. I would do my best to identify the creature responsible for the deaths. I would also question the villagers, perhaps they have some information that makes sense when placed together. Then, hopefully, I would be able to hunt the monster down."

"An incredibly foolish plan," Elder Flower critiqued, causing Jin to bow his head in frustration. What exactly did she want him to say?

"It seems like you're approaching this very calmly, which is good. But, you're not taking advantage of all of your resources," she hinted. Jin thought the words over, before realising with a sigh that this was a reminder of who exactly was wearing the pants in this relationship. It wasn't even that metaphorical, considering that Elder Flower actually was wearing pants.

"Of course. I apologise. The smartest course of action would naturally be to ask my knowledgeable and skilled Elder for help resolving this issue." Elder Flower nodded, finally seeming somewhat satisfied. Perhaps there was a glimmer of pride at having successfully imparted a lesson in her eyes? Jin couldn't really tell. Jin meanwhile realised that no matter how much he was now used to this magical world, he still sometimes forgot the very big personal difference in power that could exist between people here.

Back on earth, no matter how powerful a man was, he was still a man. Here, that wasn't necessarily the case. He looked up to see Ting giving him a very scared look. Jin understood why, considering that what he had just done could have gotten him killed if it had been any other Elder. Thankfully Flower was more rational than her contemporaries and had seemingly let it slide. Jin himself wouldn't have committed the error, had the amount of deaths that had occurred not shocked him.

He'd never been so personally involved in a tragedy such as this, and to hear that he was now in a village where 200 people and more had been murdered. It just made him lose his rationality for a bit.

"Regardless, just because I said that we have to leave tomorrow does not mean that I cannot resolve the issue today," Elder Flower said as she stood up, patted herself down unnecessarily and bid for the two inner disciples to follow. They strolled down the tower like obedient ducklings, Jin getting only glimpses of the different rooms as they quickly traversed the spiral staircase all the way to the ground floor.

They burst through the front door of the tower and exited onto a small grassy hill to the west side of the village which they quickly left behind as they entered the village proper. It seemingly wasn't very difficult to find a house in which one of the massacres had found place, as Ting dully pointed at the first house on the left when Flower threw her a questioning look. Jin meanwhile, was looking around and noting that the village looked oddly normal considering the tragedy that had occurred within it.

It was quiet, but nothing seemed destroyed, and no blood was spilt on the muddy streets themselves. The only movement came from the eyes looking at the trio fearfully through cracks in the window shutters and doors.

"This is the house in which a family was killed?" Elder Flower confirmed with her hand on the door handle, looking at Ting, who was standing behind her nervously fidgeting with the hem of her robes. The inner disciple nodded, causing the Elder to open the door. Jin promptly looked away from the scene that revealed itself in front of him, rather focusing on the cute vegetable patch in front of the house. Were those cabbages? They looked very orange, but the shape was about right.

"Come in Jin." He heard Flower order from the inside and he reluctantly entered the ramshackle wooden house with the sloping thatched roof. There were oddly shaped wooden talismans covering it. He sighed and refocused his gaze as he entered. He couldn't look away anymore. The horror started in the corridor and simply got worse from then onwards. A dead woman was lying on the floor, a hand extended towards the door as if trying to escape.

She was about 50, or so, from what he could see from her face, cast in an eternal grimace of horror as it was. She was dressed in a rough linen combination of shirt and trousers with some bandages to serve as shoes. There was a square indent on the side of her head, but the skin wasn't too torn and her body didn't look like she'd received any other injuries. The first door to the right led to a rustic kitchen which had a small group of dead children.

They were all lying in different positions on the floor with dead bloodshot eyes pointing lifelessly at the ceiling.

"I told the villagers to leave the bodies as they were for the investigation," Ting said from behind Jin and Elder Flower, the latter of which was squatting down and examining one of the bodies. A little girl with long brown hair. The square indent was stamped directly onto her forehead, crushing it inwards.

"Good job. It might seem disrespectful, but it would be even more disrespectful if we were unable to find the culprit due to sentimental reasons such as burials," Elder Flower answered cooly. A white light suddenly lit up her right hand as she ran it over the body of the girl.

"This is indeed the only injury," she muttered in a low voice.

"Interesting. I can conclude quite clearly from this that this was not done by a monster." Jin's thoughts immediately went to the dark realisation that it had been done by a human.

"Well, whoever did it is a monster," he moralised. Elder Flower had a much more meaningful contribution to add.

"Whoever did it, used a quarterstaff. Infused with qi, hardened to ridiculous proportions. It's the only thing that could make such a perfect square in someone's head." She stood up. Something clicked in Jin's mind. They were going towards the Mad Monks Sect. Back in the mission centre, he'd seen that one of their escaped disciples turned bandit was loose in this general area. He was just about to say what he'd figured out when the Elder held up a hand to shush him.

The other slender hand went to the seemingly infinitely big pouch at Flower's waist and pulled out a little packet of paper, which she opened to reveal a luxurious amount of what seemed to be ruby dust. It glistened in the afternoon sun which pierced its rays straight through the semi-open window. The luxury contrasted the general shabbiness and the horrible mess of the scene. Elder Flower dipped a pale finger into the mixture and gently let a bit of the dust fall on the dead body of the little girl.

Jin observed this and sighed as he realised that he was completely useless and that hadn't needed to say anything right from the start. It was very clear that Elder Flower was doing much better than he would have in this situation. He wouldn't have even figured out that the wound had been caused by a quarterstaff. Here he was just a spectator, and he had been foolish to think that he would have been anything else from the get-go.

Perhaps it was his previously American sensibilities that had made him not understand this reality earlier. He was unused to being a side character in his own life. He clenched his fist and hoped that the murderer had not seen their flying sword land in the village. This would have likely caused them to flee immediately, which might prevent Elder Flower from bringing them to justice. He didn't doubt for a second that she would, either. After all, she had essentially done exactly what he had suggested.

She'd questioned one of the people who had been here for the attacks, inner disciple Ting. She'd analysed the crime scene, identified the murder weapon, and from the penetrating gaze she was now casting at one of the corners of the house towards what Jin knew to be a rather dense-looking bamboo forest, she had figured out where the perpetrator was hiding. He didn't know how exactly the ruby powder had helped her figure that out, but he wasn't going to complain.

"She's hiding out in the bamboo forest to the east of the village," Elder Flower said.

"Alone, quarterstaff, ripped robes, talking to herself. Didn't see our approach. Let's put an end to this."

"Who is she?" Inner disciple Ting asked, unable to hold back her curiosity.

"An outer disciple from the Mad Monks Sect," the Elder said. Ting hissed, but Elder Flower continued.

"Her cultivation obviously diverged dangerously. She's probably insane. Knowing what I do about our allies, she likely wasn't able to handle the mental strain of the cultivation but somehow escaped the measures they have in place to deal with such failed products. She likely doesn't know more than how to strengthen the weapon and how to use it. Some stealth? Perhaps, but it's not particularly hard to sneak up on mortals," Elder Flower rattled off. Jin breathed a sigh of relief. Would it really be this easy?

Elder Flower would find the perpetrator and finish them in whichever manner she saw fit. All in time for dinner and rest before they set off again tomorrow. This was the difference in power between a mortal and a cultivator. It was like comparing an ant to a human. When Elder Flower turned around and exited the kitchen, Ting and Jin followed along wordlessly. They exited the house, trying to forget the horrors that they had seen.

Ting continued a process of repression that she'd probably already started much earlier, while Jin wrangled with the new visual stimuli and nightmare fuel that he'd received. He'd thought that perhaps as a disciple of a sect focused on craftsmanship, he could continue the tradition of his previous life to not be confronted with an overly large amount of dead bodies. He saw now that he had been incredibly naive.

It seemed that while his body's previous owner had left him memories, he had not left behind true understanding. Elder Flower pulled out her sword and threw it on the ground once they exited the house. Just like earlier, it grew to several times its size and floated about a foot above ground. She gave the disciples a glance over her shoulder and hopped on. The meaning was clear. Jin got on the sword. Ting hesitated.

"Come along," Elder Flower ordered.

"I won't force you to fight." Ting nodded and hopped onto the sword. They flew off and landed in front of a bamboo forest less than a minute later. The trees were several times higher than them and cast an otherworldly shadow across the leaf-covered ground. The Elder's sword minimised again and she stepped forward before glancing at Jin "You take front and fight the mad-woman. It's about time you gained some real experience." Jin mechanically turned his head to meet his teacher's cool gaze.

"Huh?"