Book 1 Chapter 28 Fifty Shades of Goons
…
The air around the ruined campsite did not just smell of charcoal and old bedrolls; it smelled of a very specific, very biological catastrophe. Han Rowan sat by the dying embers of a small fire, staring at his hands as if they had committed a crime against nature—which, in a way, they had.
"Bull-Gorilla sludge," Rowan whispered to himself, his voice cracking slightly. "I really went through with it."
The plan had been elegant in its disgusting simplicity. To liberate the mayor's children, Kang Hana and Kang Hajin, from the Stonefang Stronghold, Rowan hadn't used a legendary blade or a high-level Qi technique. Instead, he had played the role of a vengeful alchemist with a very low budget. He had harvested the blood of a Bull-Gorilla—a creature whose digestive system was essentially a pressurized tank of bio-hazards—and simmered it with a handful of poisonous herbs he'd scavenged. The resulting concoction was less of a poison and more of a "gastrointestinal apocalypse" in a bottle.
He had successfully introduced the sludge into the stronghold's water supply. He imagined the bandits now, not dying, but wishing they could, as the microbial soup turned their internal organs into a frantic rhythm section. It was cleaner than a massacre, harder to track than a blade, and infinitely more humiliating for the Stonefang bandits.
However, the cost of this victory was his own dignity. Even after scrubbing himself in the icy waters of the nearby river until his skin was a vibrant shade of lobster-red, the faint, cloying scent of Bull-Gorilla musk clung to his hair like a needy ghost.
"If Captain Gong smells me before he sees me, he's going to think the bandits started raising livestock," Rowan grumbled.
He checked his inventory. He was a Level 2 mortal, a fact that still felt like a cosmic joke given the situations he kept finding himself in. Inside his travel bag, his stone knife and wooden sword were tucked away—humble tools for a man who had technically just "defeated" a stronghold. In his sackcloth, he had his wooden shield and a single thorn, plus a vial of springwater that he was desperately hoping wasn't contaminated by the river water he'd just polluted with his bath.
He patted his chest, feeling the rigid, cold surface of the mysterious vest armor hidden beneath his robes.
He looked toward the path leading back to Slow Turtle Town. Captain Gong and the two surviving town guards had headed back hours ago to fetch the mayor's militia for the final "mop-up" operation. Rowan was supposed to wait here, acting as a scout.
But as the sun began to dip, casting long, skeletal shadows across the ruined camp, a cold shiver skipped down his spine. It wasn't the wind. It wasn't the cold. It was that prickling sensation at the base of his neck—the instinct of a man who had spent too much time being chased by people with better cultivation bases than him.
"Something's wrong," he muttered.
He thought of the Green Herb Shop. It was the only thing he truly owned in this world, a gift from Elder Jing, who had no idea Rowan, or rather the guy they mistook him to be, was a sect reject. Then, he thought of Master Cui—Cui Tong—the man who had managed the shop before him. The man who had tried to kill him and ended up losing both his arms in the process.
A man with no arms is a man with a lot of free time to nurture a grudge.
"The shop," Rowan realized, his heart hammering. "Cui Tong isn't the type to just sit around and learn to write with his toes. He's the type to hire people."
He didn't wait for the reinforcement. He didn't wait for Captain Gong. He shouldered his sackcloth and began to jog toward the town.
…
Hours later…
The two-kilometer mark was where the premonition turned into a physical reality.
Rowan was moving through a stretch of open road flanked by dense, ancient trees when he saw them. A cloud of dust was rising from the horizon, and within it, a mass of bodies. At first, his heart leaped with relief. The militia! Captain Gong was fast!
But as the group drew closer, the relief curdled into cold dread. These weren't the disciplined, if somewhat incompetent, guards of the mayor. These men wore mismatched leather scraps, rusted iron caps, and expressions that suggested they hadn't had a legal thought in their entire lives. They weren't marching; they were prowling.
There were about fifty of them. Mercenaries, thugs, and the kind of men who worked for the town's underground syndicates.
As Rowan slowed to a halt, the lead mercenary—a man with a scar running from his eye to his chin—raised a hand. The group fanned out, cutting off the road.
Suddenly, a transparent window shimmered in Rowan's vision, cold and clinical.
Hostile Entities Detected. Engaging Automatic Battle System.
[Han Rowan (Level 2). HP: 3/3/3/3/3/3. Qi: 5: Status: Normal.]
[Opponent: 50 Underground Thugs and Mercenaries: HP ?/?/?/?/?/?. Status: Normal.]
Rowan's eyes widened. "Fifty? Fifty?!"
"That's him!" a voice shouted from the back of the crowd. A few of them quickly checked some kind of rough paper and then looked at Rowan, and then back at the drawing on the paper. "That's the brat we are hired to deal with!"
Rowan looked toward the source of the voice. He didn't see Cui Tong, but he saw the motivation. These weren't here for the mayor's children. They weren't here for the bandits. They were here to take his little life.
"Listen!" Rowan shouted, raising his hands. "I think there's been a misunderstanding! If it's about the shop, we can discuss a lease! Maybe a partnership? I have excellent inventory! Very high-quality sludge!"
The scarred mercenary spat on the ground. "We were paid in advance to bring back your head. Our employer said it'd be easy. Said you were just a lucky brat."
"Easy?" Rowan looked at the fifty armed men. "You brought fifty people to kill one 'lucky brat'? Does your insurance not cover workplace injuries? Because this seems like overkill!"
"Enough talk," the mercenary growled, drawing a heavy iron falchion. "Kill him! Whoever brings his head gets a double share!"
With a roar that shook the leaves from the trees, the mob charged.
Rowan did the only logical thing a Level 2 mortal could do when faced with fifty-to-one odds. He turned around and bolted toward the forest.
"Automatic Battle System, my foot!" he yelled as he dove into the underbrush. "This isn't a battle, it's a marathon!"
He could hear the crashing of boots behind him. He wasn't just running; he was weaving. He reached into the system grid in front of him and pulled out his wooden shield from within the stash in the unlimited space, strapping it to his left arm. He uses the shield to brush off the sharp thorns and thistles in the forest.
"Hmm… This is a big problem. There are 50 of them. What if they saw me using the system and mistook me for some cultivator or mysterious being? What if someone stronger came? Then that would mean the death of me… right? No… No… This would not do." Rowan began musing while running.
He knew that this time he could not freely use his system weapon, or else it might bring more trouble. And so, he decided on a radical move.
"Let's not use the system weapons…" Rowan thought as he suddenly removed the weapons inside the grid. Of course, he dared not remove the vial and the other defensive gears in the grid.
Upon doing so, Rowan slowed his pace while removing the wooden sword and stone knife.
Because of that, the mercenaries began to gain on him.
A mercenary leaped from a side thicket, swinging a rusted axe. Rowan didn't think; he reacted. He used the "Raging Tiger Claw" mortal movement—a swift, low-to-high palm strike—not to kill, but to redirect the man's momentum.
Although he usually relies on the system for his battles, Rowan has practiced the martial arts skill. He might not be able to use Qi, but he still knows how to execute a move or two.
He slammed his palm into the mercenary's wrist. The man's arm buckled. In the narrative of the system, his arm wasn't severed, but the impact sent a shockwave up his humerus. The mercenary let out a Yelp and tripped over a root, disappearing into the ferns.
One down, Rowan thought hysterically. Forty-nine to go.
"He's fast! Don't let him get deep into the woods!"
Rowan felt a sharp sting in his shoulder. An arrow had glanced off his mysterious vest. The armor held, the +2 defense absorbing the brunt of the kinetic energy, but the force of it nearly knocked him over.
"Hey! That was a new robe!" Rowan screamed over his shoulder.
He ducked under a low-hanging branch and suddenly found himself in a small clearing. Five thugs had managed to circle, blocking his path. They looked mean, hungry, and very much like they wanted that "double share."
"Nowhere to go, kid," one of them sneered, brandishing a pair of brass knuckles.
Rowan's breath was ragged. He reached into his pouch and pulled out the two Thorns. These weren't ordinary thorns; they were long, serrated, and naturally coated in a mild paralytic from a forest plant he'd found while he was waiting for Captain Gong.
As the first two thugs lunged, Rowan dropped low, spinning in a circle. From the infinite inventory, he grabbed a sword and drew it out of the system grid. He then used that sword to parry a clumsy sword thrust and, in the same motion, flicked the Thorns.
One Thorn caught a thug in the thigh. The man gasped, his leg immediately giving out as if the bone had turned to jelly. He collapsed, clutching his limb, his HP dropping enough to "cripple" the part in the eyes of the system logic. The second Thorn whistled through the air, grazing the neck of the man with the brass knuckles.
The man froze, his eyes rolling back as the paralytic hit his nervous system. He fell forward like a felled tree, face-planting into the dirt with a muffled thump.
"Where did he get that sword from? It's like he is conjuring things from mid-air!" someone shouted.
"Don't be fooled, he's just using some kind of trick. Attack!" another one suddenly countered.
"Be careful! He's got poisoned needles!" someone yelled from the treeline. "Stay back and use stones!"
"Stones?" Rowan cried. "What is this, the Stone Age?"
A hail of rocks and a few more arrows whistled through the air. Rowan raised his wooden shield, the clack-clack-clack of projectiles hitting the wood sounding like a frantic drum solo. He was moving again, his legs burning. But for some unknown reason, his Qi—all 5 points of it—was circulating through his limbs to keep his stamina from bottoming out. Although he is not using it consciously, it seems to be helping him automatically, as if he were using the weapons from the system.
He burst through a dense patch of thorns, ignoring the scratches on his face. Behind him, fewer than fifty mercenaries were starting to get frustrated. They were tripping over each other, shouting conflicting orders, and several had already fallen behind, exhausted by the pace Rowan was setting.
"You... you brat!" the scarred leader yelled, his face purple with rage. "Stand still and die like a man!"
"I'd rather live like a coward, thanks!" Rowan retorted.
He saw a break in the trees ahead. Light. High, bright light. He pushed himself harder, hoping for a road or a clearing where he could lose them. Instead, as he broke through the final line of trees, his feet skidded on loose shale.
Rowan skidded to a halt, his heels hanging over the edge of nothingness.
He wasn't on a road. He was on the edge of a massive limestone cliff, overlooking a churning river hundreds of feet below.
He spun around. The mercenaries were pouring out of the woods, panting, sweating, and looking absolutely murderous. They fanned out in a semi-circle, trapping him against the drop.
The scarred leader stepped forward, his falchion dripping with Rowan's sweat and the forest's dew. He looked at Rowan, then at the cliff, then back at Rowan. A cruel, jagged smile spread across his face.
"End of the line, b*stard!" the leader shouted, catching his breath. "The employer said you were slippery. I didn't think you'd be 'run-off-a-cliff' slippery."
Rowan looked down. The drop was staggering. The river below looked like a thin silver ribbon. If he jumped, he was dead. If he stayed, he was minced meat.
"Look," Rowan said, his voice remarkably calm even though his heart was trying to exit through his throat. "I know we've had our differences. But think about the logistics. If you kill me here, you have to carry my head all the way back to town. That's a two-kilometer walk! In this heat! With all those bugs!"
"We'll manage," the leader growled, stepping closer.
"And what about the shop?" Rowan continued, gesturing wildly. "If I'm dead, the deed goes into legal limbo! You'll be tied up in the mayor's court for years! Do you know how much the legal fees are in Slow Turtle Town? It's a nightmare!"
The mercenaries paused for a second, a few of them actually looking thoughtful.
"He's got a point about the paperwork," one thug whispered.
"Shut up!" the leader roared. He pointed his sword at Rowan. "I don't care about the paperwork! I care about the gold promised! Kill him now!"
The group surged forward. Rowan braced himself, raising his wooden sword, looking like a final, desperate stand. He would use the Raging Tiger Claw. He would use every skill he had learned before he would rely on the system weapons. Then, he would—
Crrr-ack.
A sound like a lightning bolt striking a dry tree echoed through the clearing.
Rowan felt the ground beneath his boots give a sickening lurch. He looked down. A massive fissure had suddenly appeared in the limestone shelf he was standing on. The edge of the cliff—a piece of rock the size of a small house—was separating from the main body of the mountain.
"Oh," Rowan said. "You've got to be kidding me."
"The cliff's going!" one of the mercenaries screamed, diving backward.
The scarred leader's eyes went wide as he tried to grab Rowan's robe, perhaps to pull him back, perhaps to make sure he died with him. But he was too slow.
With a thunderous roar of grinding stone and snapping roots, the entire ledge disintegrated.
Rowan didn't even have time to scream. One moment, he was staring at a fifty-man lynch mob, and the next, the world was rushing upward. The last thing he saw before the mist of the gorge swallowed him was the shocked, stupid face of the scarred mercenary looking down at him.
I really should have stayed at the camp, was Rowan's final, fleeting thought as gravity took hold.
The "Automatic Battle System" flickered one last time in his fading vision:
[Warning: Environment Hazard Detected. Fall Damage Imminent.]
"No kidding!" Rowan yelled into the wind, and then there was only the roar of the air and the cold embrace of the descent.
…
The mercenaries stood at the edge of the jagged new gap in the cliff, staring down into the abyss. Dust and small pebbles were still trickling down the face of the rock.
"Is he... is he dead?" one of the thugs asked, his voice trembling.
The leader peered over the edge. The river was far below, and the white spray where the limestone block had hit the water was already dissipating. There was no sign of a body. No sign of a robe. Just the relentless flow of the current.
"Nobody survives that," the leader spat, though he sounded more annoyed than triumphant. "Great. Now we have to go all the way down to the riverbank just to find the head. Master Cui won't pay without proof."
"But boss, the path down takes three hours!"
"Then you'd better start walking!"
As the mercenaries began their long, grumbling trek down the mountainside, none of them noticed the small, wooden shield bobbing in the water far below, or the fact that Han Rowan, Level 2 Mortal, had a very peculiar habit of surviving things that should have ended him long ago.
The Green Herb Shop was still technically under his name, and somewhere, deep in the valley, a very damp, very angry shopkeeper was about to make "biological warfare" his new primary hobby.
The battle wasn't over. It had just moved to a much lower elevation.