Chapter 20: Post-Nut Clarity Sect (3)
Chapter 20: Post-Nut Clarity Sect (3)
I had taken down all the bandits. To be precise, I had selectively spared only the ones who seemed somewhat capable—including their chief.
In the world of bandits, strength is directly linked to one's position.
While most sects and clans follow a similar hierarchy, bandit organizations outright demand proficiency in martial arts.
Why? Because if a weakling runs into even a halfway decent warrior, they're as good as dead.
"Keh-heh-heh. You're beautiful enough to enter my quarters!"
"You there, bandit! As a disciple of the ○○ Sect, I shall carry out righteousness! Hah! ○○ Swordsmanship!"
"Kyaaaaah!"
That's roughly how it goes.
In reality, countless wandering swordsmen and marginal fighters from established factions venture out to hunt bandits, driven by such dreams. While the Green Forest—a massive force—is too dangerous for fledgling warriors to handle, small-time bandits outside their influence make perfect prey for boosting one's reputation.
At any rate, even inexperienced but properly trained martial artists pose a serious threat to ordinary bandits.
Naturally, the strongest among them, those capable of facing skilled opponents, end up receiving better treatment.
Just as I expected, the four I'd captured aside from the chief were all high-ranking members.
"Great Hero! Spare us, and we'll obey any command you give! Please, grant us mercy!"
"""Please spare us!"""
Without hesitation, the bearded bandit slammed his forehead against the ground, boldly begging for his life—his underlings mimicking him.
They didn't dare raise their heads.
"Hmm. I quite like that you're keeping your eyes down."
Of course, that was because they had lecherous thoughts every time they looked at Chi-chi. Given her unconventional attire, I could understand the impulse—but that didn't mean I excused it.
Every time even a hint of arousal stirred in their groins, I crushed it with Void Grasp.
I didn't even want to stomp that kind of filth underfoot. The very idea of making contact disgusted me.
In any case, after seeing several of their higher-ups die with their eyes rolled back from the mental shock of Void Grasp: Ball Crusher, the bearded man and the others had made a point to keep Chi-chi out of their sight entirely. It seemed that, to them, bunny-girl Chi-chi was so irresistibly charming that even glancing at her would make them hard.
They practically buried their heads in the dirt as they pleaded for mercy.
"Hm. Chi-chi, what do you think we should do with them?"
"Either kill them all, or hand them over to the Imperial Troops stationed in the next city. That'd be better, wouldn't it?"
Killing them outright would spare us the hassle of dragging them to the city.
Handing them over to the Imperial Troops meant putting in a bit of extra effort for some reputation and bounty money.
"Excuse me, sirs?"
The carriage driver interjected.
"The next place we'll reach is... well, not quite a city, more of a large village."
"A large village?"
"Yes, it's too big to call just a village—Imperial Troops occasionally patrol there—but it's not officially under a magistrate's jurisdiction, so we still call it a large village."
"So, no matter who we hand them over to, it'd just be wasted effort?"
"Yes, ma'am."
Chi-chi jolted slightly upon being addressed as ma'am. Then she fought to keep the corners of her lips from curling up. It seemed she liked it.
Madam or not, in the end she was just the Lust Demon's wife.
"Then we might as well just take the chief. If we bring him, people will either call the Imperial Troops themselves or offer some kind of reward. There must be victims from that village, after all."
"Agreed. Then we should dispose of the rest."
The moment Chi-chi's icy voice rang out—
Slice.
The bandit officers who had lifted their heads to protest couldn't even finish their words.
The sound of something whooshing past—followed by thoughts of "Why can't I speak?"—shifted abruptly to "Why can't I see my own body?"
"Phew. I cut something worthless."
As Chi-chi muttered to herself, the officers realized the truth—just before they met their end.
The severed stumps of their necks, sliced clean by a qi-infused knife hand, burned black on the spot. At least there was no blood spray. The charred smell wasn't ideal, though.
Shudder.
Trembling uncontrollably, the bearded chief—who had listened intently and grasped the situation—broke into a cold sweat.
"What say you? Even considering the unforgivable crime of lusting after a woman of Post-Nut Clarity Sect—a sin that warrants endless torture—we happen to be busy at the moment. Will you comply quietly and accompany us to the large village?"
"I'll go! P-please let me go! Even if it costs me my life, I'll follow! If my bounty benefits you, Great One, there could be no greater honor!"
Despite being a bandit, he smoothly showered us with flattery.
Then again, seeing two of his men die with their balls exploding, and others having their heads lopped off as soon as they were deemed unnecessary—now en route to the underworld—it was no surprise.
Any sane person would be terrified. And since I mentioned torture, he probably figured being handed over to the Imperial Troops was the lesser evil.
"Good. Then from now on, you'll serve as our carriage driver."
"Eh? M-me?"
"Ah. Do you not know how to handle horses?"
Perhaps sensing the killing intent in my voice, he jerked his head up and shook it violently.
"N-no! I may look like this, but I used to be a servant of the Tiger Roar Sect—I know how to handle horses! Leave it to me! Ahem... though it shames me to admit, I was practically born to be a coachman."
"What a truly shameful constitution. If it were me, I'd rather drown myself headfirst in a bucket."
"......"
The bearded man's expression turned strange. Just like before, he was making the face of someone thinking, What the hell is this guy?
Come to think of it, did this bastard not know how to hide his expressions?
If my mood had been even a little more soured, I would have simply killed him.
Bandits were, after all, perfect sacrificial lambs for manufacturing a reputation. You could kill as many of them as you wanted without getting into trouble. The Green Forest, being the greatest bandit force of all, made things a little more complicated, but that was generally how it went.
So even if this bearded bastard was the leader of some bottom-of-the-barrel bandit gang, the fact that he was this oblivious probably meant he was a real nobody, with a bounty worth hardly anything. He hadn't been much of a fighter, either.
I put the coachman, who must have been worried sick over the bandits' appearance, to sleep by sealing his acupoints, then spent some cozy time in the carriage with Chi-chi.
He must have been thoroughly frightened, because he behaved himself the whole way. When we reached the large village, there were no Imperial Troops patrolling, so we simply handed the bearded man over to the villagers.
From what I heard, although he hadn't caused them any major harm, there were many people who had suffered small, trivial losses because of him. Thanks to that, the villagers gave us quite a lot of this and that.
As soon as we entered the room at the guest inn the village had provided, Chi-chi asked me,
"Why did you accept all that useless junk?"
Her gaze was fixed on the heap of odds and ends piled in my arms. Potatoes and cheap woven cloth, for instance. The villagers had no money, so to thank us for catching the bearded man, they had each given us a little of whatever they had.
Honestly, aside from the food, things like cheap woven cloth really were no better than trash, just as Chi-chi said. It would have been better not to accept them.
"If I want my reputation to spread, I need to make a good impression. Once I've built up a reputation and become famous, the Beggars' Sect and the Hao Clan will both come looking for me. They'll try to find out where I started, so I can't leave any openings for them to criticize me over. First, I act as if I'm accepting their gifts..."
Whoosh.
I burned the unnecessary junk with Samadhi True Fire. It was all cleanly reduced to nothing, without a trace left behind. What remained in my arms was the potatoes and a few supplies for roughing it outdoors.
"Oh-ho. So that's one way to handle things."
"I can promise you, eighty percent of the orthodox sects are hypocrites. Most of them use methods like this to maintain a good impression. The Post-Nut Clarity Sect will soon be stepping into the Rivers and Lakes as an orthodox sect, too, so you'd better get used to it."
Chi-chi seemed quite displeased by the idea of having to adopt the typical habits of hypocritical orthodox sects, rotten and weak as they were. I didn't like having to live as an orthodox sect despite having power, either, but what could we do?
"The orthodox women are more appetizing than the Divine Cult's, so there's no helping it. Put up with it."
"Mm. Even if they are not as attractive as this one, there are plenty of alluring women in the Divine Cult as well, Master."
"The Central Plains is much bigger than Xinjiang."
"......"
It was an irrefutable reason. Since the land was so much larger, that meant the Central Plains had more candidates for wives.
Chi-chi understood immediately, but seemed unable to accept it. She fell silent as if at a loss for words. Instead, her expression turned a little pouty. It seemed she was sulking.
"Besides, going to the Divine Cult would be too easy."
"Mm? What would be?"
"The people there are pretty damn fierce."
Even if Chi-chi defeated the current Heavenly Demon and succeeded to that position, would those people, whose Demonic Qi had invaded them down to the marrow, really submit to her without a fuss?
In the original story, Chi-chi led the Heavenly Demon Cult into the Righteous-Demonic War only in the very late stages. Until then, she appeared now and then in side stories, and every time she did, she was purging the Heavenly Demon Cult and filling it with people who would become her own hands and feet.
In other words, taking control of the Heavenly Demon Cult would take that long.
Even with me there, too.
Even if I, the Heavenly Demon's kept man, helped her make them submit through force, it wouldn't shorten the process by much. Besides, if I wanted to take one of them as a wife, the martial artists who practiced Demonic Arts would all be flower-brained women with about three screws loose, unless they had reached the Peak Realm. Would they even be appealing?
And the only way to handle that process would be to subdue them with overwhelming martial might, then rape them until they fell as females, just as I had done with Chi-chi.
Demonic Humans who hadn't reached the Peak Realm didn't have the word devotion in their mental dictionaries.
What I wanted was to increase the number of my beautiful wives in all kinds of different ways. I didn't want to increase them by raping them indiscriminately and training them to find pleasure in it. I meant that I had no intention of using the same rape-and-conditioning method I'd used with Chi-chi again.
If I only wanted to enjoy someone for a little while instead of making her my wife, I might use that method a few more times, though.
"Wouldn't life be dull if there were only the rape-and-devotion genre?"
"Sometimes I do not understand what you are talking about, Master. How can the words 'rape' and 'devotion' be put together?"
"Chi-chi, you were raped by me, and now you've become a woman who knows no one but me. Are you, the person it happened to, really going to deny that?"
"...I see. So this is the rape-and-devotion genre."
As if post-nut clarity had hit her, Chi-chi's gaze went distant. She murmured in a voice filled with regret.
Lying on the bed, I beckoned to her by tapping the space beside me.
"More importantly, hurry over here. We need to wrap up today."
"Hmph. Do not rush me about my duty as the primary wife, Master. It is not as if there is anyone else to do it for you."
With that, Chi-chi climbed onto the bed, took off her clothes, and bared her body.
Her broad, well-balanced hips—enough to make even a fairy gasp in admiration—soon began slapping down onto my lower body.