Before they could deduce what had happened or appraises the situation, a magic similar to an explosion was activated right in the middle of the four adventurers. Jin was using one of the forms of Bam and Boo, the Bamboo Cannon.
Initially, when Jin arrived at the same floor as Zither Mistress. He asked Zither Mistress to play and relax under Shu, the ancient treant. He then went far away from the position Zither Mistress, Ke Mi, was sitting and observed the party dynamics of the group with binoculars that he had created from the Dungeon Maker instance.
He saw Charles leading the group and thought he was the boss. That was until he realised Betty was the party leader. It could be seen by the way she was giving commands to the entire party. Hence, taking this opportunity, Jin took the chance to fire his Bamboo Cannon.
The shot that he had just fired was not an explosive one but more of a flashbang, designed to disorient them greatly. However, there was a small blast that did not deal much damage to four of the adventurers. Jin took this chance to grab onto one of Shu’s branches. With a slight tug on the tree branch, it magically extended to near a small slope where Jin fired his shot. Shu instantly retracted the branch after the shot was taken, and Jin, who was holding on tightly returned to where Shu was located.
Ke Mi, the Zither Mistress, stopped pretending to play with the Great White Snake and took her zither out for battle. Once more, Jin held tightly onto Bam in Bo form and dashed towards the disoriented adventurers.
Meanwhile, only Alex had barely recovered from the flashbang stun because of his high constitution stats and he saw a black shadow dashing towards the group. He knew something was amiss and quickly shouted as loud as he could in order to initiate his ability, Provoking Call. This would allow any monsters within his range to be provoked by him, hence they would target him instead of his allies. He then saw the black shadow running towards him and he immediately gripped his shield hard despite still having an unsteady gait due to the disorientation.
However, within seconds, the black shadow ran past him with no acknowledgement of his presence and it first went for the team’s healer, Daisy. Jin slammed Daisy down, causing her to fall down, gasping in pain.
Next, Jin took out a stun gun and shot it at their guardian, Alex. He purposely increased the voltage when he created it in the Dungeon Maker so that it would periodically send pulses of electricity for a minute to paralyse Alex. The metal armour plating also made for a good conductor, which caused Alex to have more spasms. The moment when the pulse of electricity stopped, Jin proceeded to use his staff to deal a low blow at Alex, causing him to trip. That was when he slammed his bo hard on his head.
For some reason, Jin was starting to feel conflicted emotions in him. A part of him does not want to harm Alex but he did not expect the fight to be so one sided. Jin felt like he was in control of the team’s lives. There was still a part of him that resisted the idea of killing. That part of him though was getting weaker with every second that passed.
Did he really have to kill and listen to the system orders? He did not have the heart to do so but yet he felt so pressured. So pressured by the current situation, so pressured by the system. Does he really have what it takes to take an innocent life just for his store? Can he see them as just livestock?
Charles finally recovered from the disorientation and he himself had a few tricks of his own. He took out an improvised smoke bomb and threw it on the floor. The blast immediately made the area within a radius of ten metres become covered in thick smoke. He hoped that the blast would confuse Jin for a while as he grabbed Betty, who was beside him and sprint in the other direction.
“I do not think the adventurers were missing or enslaved! I think they were being killed by this masked Reaper!” Charles panicked as he held onto Betty’s hand tightly and kept running. However, they did not know that Jin had the skill Playful Panda Hearing, which was able to sense the direction they were moving despite the smoke screen. Yet, he had another plan instead of chasing them down.
“What about Alex and Daisy? Are we going to leave them there?” Betty was scarred by the scenes she had seen as she ran away with Charles. Betty vaguely remembered how the Reaper beat the level 2 priest Daisy with one staff strike, as well as rendering the Level 3 Guardian Alex unconscious, using the electrical stun contraption the Reaper had on him.
“I do not care about them as much as much as I care about you!” Charles looked back for a moment to see if the Reaper was catching up on them but did not realise that they had totally forgotten about the Great White Snake and the little girl. The girl was sitting on top of the snake’s head and with just a pluck of her zither, both Charles and Betty were not able to move a single muscle.
Jin did not do anything more to both Alex and Daisy. Instead, he walked towards both Charles and Betty. “Why am I still hesitating to kill that guardian and priest? Did I not promise myself to build my shop on a mountain of corpses?” Jin thought to himself as he got closer and closer to the Charles and Betty. His thoughts and words were being held back by his own morals. He was unclear, unsure. This was not how he was taught.
Although it seemed like Ke Mi had immobilised them completely, in actual fact, she had only immobilised the major hand and leg muscles. “Please let us go! We will give you whatever you want!” Charles shouted desperately.
Charles suddenly looked at Betty in complete shock and said the unspeakable. “Take her if you want! Do whatever you want with her! I promise I will not disturb this dungeon anymore!” Charles changed his tone by 180 degrees, which made Betty turn her head and face him in disbelief.
“You said you cared about me!” Betty stared at Charles now with anger and rage evident in her tone.
“Not as much as I care about myself!” Charles said in a spite of fury.
Jin later noticed the two of them crying, begging for mercy, trying to outbid the other’s promise since they could not see that Jin had yet to completely kill Alex and Daisy due to the smoke.
“I do not think I have any qualms when removing liars from this world.” Jin did not know whether it was the current atmosphere of hate and anger between the two of them that made him blind to the fact that he wanted to kill Charles for being such a dishonourable teammate.
As Jin walked a few steps forward, and raised the Katana Bam up, wishing to strike Charles down in one go. However, at that moment, another pluck of the Zither was heard and this time round Jin was immobilised by Ke Mi.
“Master. Don’t Kill….” Ke Mi spoke with much effort, caused by the backlash from harming her master, as she commanded the Great White Snake with her zither to bring her closer to Jin. She then dropped her precious zither onto the ground as she dragged herself forward and placed her forehead against Jin’s.
Suddenly, a rush of memories coursed through Jin’s mind. If not for his cultivation, the surge of memories would have killed him in an instant. It was only then he realised that Ke Mi was trying to tell him something as specific memories of her past flashed through his mind.
They were memories of her pent up anger and confusion against the people who had been hostile towards her. Her first kill at the young and innocent age of 13 and how she regretted doing so even though she was dying for that day to come. She cried for many days and nights after that and even tried to go back to the village to beg for forgiveness. However, she was only met with more hatred and anger. In order to protect herself, she had to kill again out of self-defence and things then just spiralled down.
Eventually, she was numbed by the pain and anguish she had inside of her for many years until Jin accidentally found her. Although Jin captured her for the purpose of the dungeon, she was once again reunited with a long lost friend of her parents, Shu. The current dungeon abode that she was living in was even more comfortable than what she had ever lived in before despite its simplicity.
Ke Mi could not imagine that she would have known her real name if not for Jin. Not only that, her skills grew stronger with each shop dungeon fight. Speaking of shop dungeon instances, Ke Mi even met cultivators that were actually happy to see her and appreciated her music. Although they eventually died quite horribly by her hands, she never felt such a sense of relief until she met Jin.
Therefore, she did not want Jin to follow in her footsteps that only lead to a path of regrets.
