Book 1 Chapter 8 The Aftermath of Murder
…
Han Rowan ran.
He ran not with the desperate, lung-searing panic of a man fleeing a monster, but with the frantic, slightly clumsy gait of a senior high student who'd just realized he was going to be late for the national college entrance exam and hadn't studied a lick of physics. The irony, the sheer, wretched, cosmic irony, of finding himself in a life-or-death situation after finally getting into the prestigious pharmacology program he'd dreamed of, only to have his hands—or rather, his magical rocks—imbrued with blood, was a bitter, metallic taste in his mouth that refused to be swallowed down.
The forest around him, a lush, aggressively green tapestry of impossible, ancient trees that dwarfed anything he'd ever seen on Earth, whipped past in a blurry green and brown smear. He moved through the undergrowth, his borrowed cloth shoes from Gong Fa—still too big, still smelling faintly of incense and ambition—pounding a rhythmic, dull headache into his temples.
Ro Fung. Ro Fung is dead. I killed him.
The thought was a bludgeon, flat and inescapable, repeatedly slamming into the fragile architecture of his twenty-first-century moral conditioning. He came from a society where violence was an abstract, theatrical event viewed safely through screens, where the most traumatic event was forgetting to back up your term paper. Now, he was an accidental executioner, the recipient of an unsolicited, ultra-violent, headless corpse courtesy of two spherical geological formations he'd affectionately, and now sickeningly, dubbed the "Malignant Marbles."
His stomach lurched again. He hadn't just witnessed a murder; he had orchestrated it, albeit through a purely mechanical, hands-off interface. The Marbles—stupid, grey, lopsided rocks—had simply materialized, flown six meters, and, with the clinical efficiency of a pneumatic tube system, detached Ro Fung's head from his neck. There had been no effort, no rage, no satisfying cinematic grunt. Just a notification: [Rock (2) Cooldown Reset].
He slammed into a massive, moss-covered trunk, the sudden stop jarring his ribs and finally breaking the momentum of his flight. He sank to the ground, clutching his knees, bile rising. He managed to cough it back down, but the residual taste of fear and guilt clung to the back of his throat. He forced himself to take five shuddering, uneven breaths, counting them out like a mantra. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
"I didn't choose this," he whispered to the unforgiving earth. "I didn't choose this life. I didn't choose this world. I didn't… choose those sociopathic pieces of gravel," he paused, a thought pressing down on him.
But the rocks were his; he bought them. They were in his inventory, a part of the System he was now shackled to, and they had defended him against a petty bully intent on punishing—and probably taking his life—the hapless Gong Fa, whose identity he now wore. The logical, pragmatic part of his Earth-trained brain, the one that used to calculate dosages and solubility rates, finally began to assert itself.
Self-defense. Immediate threat. He would have killed me.
The words were a lifeline, thin and frayed, but they were enough to pull him back from the chasm of complete emotional breakdown. He scrubbed the grime and sweat from his face with the heel of his hand and forced his gaze to settle on the ethereal, glowing interface that only he could see.
…
The Strange Bag interface, a phantom sackcloth of woven light occupying a 2x3 grid space within a much larger, dimmer 9x9 floating menu, was his sole anchor in this horrifying reality. It was a terrifyingly practical tool, a survival app with a poorly curated storefront.
He accessed the Shop. The current offerings, a baffling assortment of mundane goods and arcane garbage, shimmered into existence. A Red Fruit (1x1, Heal 3HP), a Wooden Shield (2x2, 25 Defense), a Leather Cap (2x2, Eyes Protection), and, thankfully, the two items he had managed to reserve: the Stone Knife and the Thorns.
He had reserved it way before the Ro Fung incident, a small act of defiance against the overwhelming powerlessness he felt. Now, it was a necessity. He knew that he would have to choose between the Stone knife and the Thorns, but he had decided to choose weapons rather than defense.
Stone Knife: 4 coins / 1x2 / 2-4 damage / 1.2 Qi / 2.1 cooldown/ 3m range/ 12s use.
Rowan's current balance, after the battle with Ro Fung earlier, was a precarious 5.0 coins.
"Four coins for a sharp rock on a stick," he muttered, his voice hoarse. "In a world with flying swords and palm blasts, I'm relying on Stone Age cutlery and two homicidal pebbles. Peak optimization."
He executed the purchase with a single, trembling mental command. The Stone Knife icon instantly vaporized from the reserve slot and materialized in his inventory, while his coin balance updated:
Current Coins: 1.0
…
Now came the delicate puzzle of placement. The 2x3 Sackcloth was the housing unit, and every item had to be placed within the available grid space for the system to utilize it. His current arsenal was:
Rock A (1x1)
Rock B (1x1)
Stone Knife (1x2)
He mentally arranged the objects around the central 2x3 area of the Sackcloth. He imagined the Sackcloth itself being pinned to the wall of the 9x9 field, leaving 75 squares of unused potential. The small, efficient arrangement he settled on felt morbidly satisfying, like a perfectly organized, tiny utility drawer for mass murder.
The moment the Stone Knife clicked into place on the visual grid, a new notification flashed above his head, an unsettlingly enthusiastic pop-up in an otherwise sterile display:
[AUTOMATIC BATTLE SYSTEM: New Weapon Detected. Stone Knife integrated. Cooldown cycle initialized.] [Happy Killing!]
Of course, the last part was something he added mentally.
Rowan sighed, rubbing his forehead. "Happy killing. Right. I should probably focus on survival before I start thinking about happy anything."
He needed armor. The cultivator, Ro Fung, had worn protective gear beneath his outer robe—a crucial detail Rowan had noted during the brief, horrible fight where he had accidentally won.
I need protection. I need the vileness to be worthwhile.
Rowan's resolve hardened. He needed to stop thinking of himself as Han Rowan, the aspiring pharmacist, and start thinking of himself as a desperate survivor in a cannibalistic world. If the only way to gain defense was to stoop to the level of grave robbery, then so be it. The alternative was a quick, messy death—and possibly an automatic Marble fatality of his own. He had done this before, so he somewhat knew that he had the guts to do it again.
He slowly turned and retraced his steps, forcing his weary legs to move back toward the scene of his first successful, accidental defense against a person. The sound of his own heavy breathing seemed deafening in the suddenly silent forest.
…
The clearing was exactly as he'd left it: still, silent, and smelling faintly of pine needles and something profoundly, irrevocably wrong. The sight of the body, a crumpled heap next to a discarded, flimsy-looking sword and useless blade, made the residual fear clench his stomach like a fist.
Ro Fung, or what remained of him, lay there, a testament to the efficient, zero-frills lethality of the Malignant Marbles.
Rowan approached with a measured, detached tread, trying to channel the emotionless pragmatism of a field pathologist rather than the wide-eyed horror of a bystander. It didn't work. The second he saw the dark, soaking stain spreading into the dirt, he stumbled back two steps, leaning heavily against a nearby boulder. He thought that he could do it, but his heart wavered.
He retched. Hard. Nothing much came up, just a bitter, stringy residue, but the physical act was a necessary exorcism. He spat, wiped his mouth again, and stared at the corpse, his face pale and set in a grim mask.
"Okay, Rowan. This is what survival looks like. This is your life now," he muttered, his voice a tight, low rasp. "It's either this, or you end up like him, and someone else is picking through your pockets."
He forced himself forward. The first task was removing the Green Willow Disciple's Robe. It was a high-quality garment, a vibrant, if slightly blood-splattered, shade of green that screamed 'Cultivator.' Rowan carefully tugged the material. The robe was fastened with several delicate jade buttons, which he fumbled with until he realized it was simpler to just cut the cloth. He used the useless dagger on the side.
Beneath the robe was the real prize. It was a sturdy, but surprisingly lightweight, woven garment. The system instantly recognized it when his hand brushed the material.
[Basic Armor Detected: Cloth Vest].
He pulled it off the corpse. It was a simple, beige piece of cloth armor, slightly padded, offering marginal physical protection but, more importantly, a System-recognized defense bonus.
Cloth Vest: 0.4 coins/ 2 defense / Resist freezing for 10s.
Rowan wrinkled his nose. "Resisting freezing. Great. In this sub-tropical forest, that's exactly what I needed. But two Defense is two Defense." He mentally transferred the item into the Strange Bag's unlimited storage. It settled with a faint whoosh, like a digital inventory sound effect.
Next were the boots. Ro Fung's boots were practical leather, far sturdier and a better fit than the larger, more ornate ones he currently wore (Gong Fa's cloth shoes). These new boots were a simple, heavy leather, offering excellent ankle support. Rowan struggled to remove them, the stiffness of the leather and the unfortunate circumstances making the process agonizingly difficult. Once free, he quickly swapped them, the secure fit immediately feeling more appropriate for running. He tossed the old, ill-fitting Gong Fa shoes into the bushes.
Finally, he rifled through the remaining contents. He found a small, polished wooden box containing a few silver currency coins—the common, non-System currency of the Rising Phoenix Kingdom. He stuffed those into the storage.
And then, he noticed something inside the socks; he found it: a small, palm-sized, tightly bound manual. The cover was stained, but the title was visible in stylized, angular script: "Raging Tiger Claw".
Rowan's breath hitched. He knew this technique. It was the very one Ro Fung had used—a powerful, claw-like strike capable of ripping through flesh, a technique that would have easily ended Rowan had the system not provided the brief, crucial defense assist using the now destroyed bracers.
He opened the book quickly. The pages were dense with detailed, illustrated forms and instructions for muscle activation. The text emphasized the manipulation of Qi for maximum power, a concept utterly foreign and inaccessible to Rowan. However, the manual also meticulously detailed the physical movements, the precise shifts in weight, the rotation of the hips, and the flexing of the core—the purely mortal mechanics of the technique.
I can't use the Qi, but I can learn the choreography. I can learn how to punch like a Raging Tiger.
He knew, instantly, that this was his true weapon. Not the automated, capricious Marbles, but knowledge. Knowledge of how to move, how to strike, and how to defend using only his own, un-cultivated human body. The system could automate the projectiles, but he had to survive the rest.
He slipped the manual into his unlimited storage, a mental promise forming: he would dedicate every spare moment to mastering the mortal side of this lethal art.
With the necessary goods secured and the useless knife once again back in his hands, the psychological toll returned, heavy and suffocating. The corpse was still there, a monument to his transgression. Rowan, now heavily armored with guilt and a few looted items, grabbed the body by the ankles. The weight was significant, and the dragging motion was sickeningly tactile. He hauled the body through the undergrowth, deep into a thicket of thorny bushes, covering it haphazardly with leaves and broken branches until it was mostly obscured.
He didn't look back. He just started running again, but this time, he ran toward the promise of safety, however illusory.
…
Once he felt a safe distance away, he paused, breathing hard. Time for business. The cultivator's outer goods were useless to him. The flashy Green Willow Robe would draw attention. The light, sharp Sword was a liability without cultivation.
He opened the Strange Bag's shop interface and, with cold, calculated efficiency, accessed the Sell function.
Ro Fung's Robe (Green Willow Disciple): Sell Price - 0.2 coins.Ro Fung's Sword (Basic Steel): Sell Price - 0.2 coins.Ro Fung's Miscellaneous Cultivation Junk (1x small jade pendant, 3x incense sticks): Sell Price - 0.1 coins.
Total received: 0.5 coins.
Added the 1.4 coins he already has; he now has 1.9 coins. That is almost 2 coins.
Rowan felt a profound, moral nausea that he was trading the literal possessions of a man he had just killed for pocket change in a magical retail environment. It was profoundly dehumanizing.
He closed the shop, packed the Raging Tiger Claw manual deep into the unlimited storage, and started walking again, the weight of the silver coins in his physical pocket providing a more grounding reality than the ghostly coin counter in his mind.