Unintended Cultivator

V13 Chapter 41 – I’m On My Way

“Do you have any idea what’s happening right now?” Sen asked Master Feng.

“I honestly do not,” answered the baffled elder cultivator.

Their march through this kingdom had, with the exception of clearing out spirit beasts, been met without any resistance. In fact, the local nobles had seemed to welcome them with open arms. Not that they’d seen many of them. The ones they had seen were the ones with fortified towns. Like everywhere else, most villages and towns had been abandoned or razed. It was possible that those nobles would have been happy to see any human soldiers, regardless of where they came from. Nonetheless, Sen, his generals, the cultivators, and pretty much everyone else had found this welcoming behavior more than suspicious.

The working theory had been that this was all some elaborate trap. The nobles were looking to disarm their suspicions so they wouldn’t expect the inevitable attack. However, when they arrived at the capital, there was no army waiting for them. At least, there wasn’t a hostile army waiting. There was a small army present outside the city, but the generals had approached Sen and signaled their unconditional surrender. Those same generals were waiting nearby while Sen spoke to his teacher.

“Do you think they’re being serious?”

“It appears that way. Kho and I didn’t spend much time here. So, I honestly don’t have that much insight to offer.”

“I just can’t imagine anyone being this willing to give up control of their country.”

“To be fair, it’s a small country,” said Master Feng. “I suspect that they’ve been anticipating their destruction in one form or another for a long time. Up until recently, they had larger, more powerful kingdoms on both borders. Then there were the spirit beasts. To them, you may well appear to be the best choice.”

“Maybe,” said Sen, not entirely convinced. “It just feels wrong.”

“That’s the war talking,” said Master Feng. “You’ve become accustomed to needing to take these kingdoms by force. Now, any victory that doesn’t demand bloodshed seems unnatural to you. But things like this do happen in war sometimes. If you have no prospect of winning, surrender can be the right choice. It spares lives that would otherwise be lost for no gain. Whether or not that’s what’s happening here, I can’t say.”

Sen tried to weigh what Master Feng was saying and the demeanor of the surrendering generals against his own misgivings. Was he having an intuition of wrongness, or was this just contrary to expectations he’d developed in the last year or two? Nothing in the generals’ behavior had suggested deceit. They seemed calm about the situation. Almost happy. The scouts had reported that there were no hidden troops anywhere nearby waiting to launch an ambush. By any reasonable standard, the situation probably was as it appeared to be. Sen supposed it was possible that there was an army hidden inside the city itself, just waiting to attack when he arrived.

But the odds of that were poor. When armies fought inside of cities, the cities tended to be among the worst casualties. That was particularly true when cultivators got involved. Sen himself had done a lot of damage back in his own capital years earlier, and that was when he was trying to avoid breaking things. If he fought without regard for what he might destroy…The thought alone was enough to make him shudder. No, he decided. I’m not having a real intuition here. This worry stems from my paranoia about the spirit beasts. He would treat this as what it appeared to be until he had a reason to do otherwise.

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“I guess I should go say hello,” muttered Sen.

“This is new ground for us,” said Master Feng. “How will you deal with their nobles and cultivators? You usually have to kill a bunch of them to make your point.”

Sen frowned and said, “I usually have a lot of reasons to have them killed. So far, the ones here seem decent enough and well-liked enough by the commoners. I’ll just have to see what happens when I meet the rest. Maybe I won’t have to kill any of them. Heavens above, that would be nice.”

“Do you honestly think that will happen?” asked the elder cultivator.

“Probably not, but it would be nice.”

Master Feng seemed to ponder that for a few moments before he shrugged, nodded, and said, “I suppose it would.”

Sen walked over to the generals. They all straightened up and gave him their undivided attention. They’re polite, he thought. I’ll give them that.

“Generals, I accept your surrender. I will have a small group assembled to escort us into the city to meet your king.”

The lead general bowed and said, “Thank you, Lord Lu. We will wait while you prepare.”

Sen gestured at one of his general’s aides. The man blanched and then hurried to Sen’s side.

“Yes, Lord Lu?”

“Please have a table and chairs provided for the generals. Also, have something brought out for them to eat and drink. This always takes a while.”

“Y- Yes, Lord Lu,” stammered the aide, who continued standing there and trembling.

Sen sighed and said, “Now, if you please.”

The aide jerked in place before he bowed.

“Yes, Lord Lu! At once, Lord Lu!” the man shouted.

The aide raced off while Sen shook his head a little. It would have been one thing if he’d been ordering an attack, but all he’d asked for was furniture and food. He wasn’t sure that there was a blander order he could have given. He’d thought that the generals’ aides were getting accustomed to him, but maybe he’d been overestimating that. Still, it wasn’t like he was having people executed for every little mistake. He wasn’t even having them executed for most of the more serious mistakes. Dead people didn’t learn anything, and he wasn’t keen to assist the spirit beasts in their goals. He just didn’t think that he’d been giving his own army reasons to be that afraid of him. When he heard the foreign generals chuckling behind him, Sen gave them a questioning look.

“The young are always foolish,” said the lead general. “They think every task is of monumental consequence when it comes from their king. Or, perhaps, I should say emperor.”

“Is that what that was?” asked Sen, resisting the urge to shake his head again.

“Outer disciples in a sect are just as bad,” said Master Feng, joining the group. “Let them get a task from an elder or, the heavens forbid, their patriarch, and they lose their reason entirely.”

“That sounds trying,” said Sen.

“I’m sure it is, when it’s happening to you. It’s always pretty entertaining when you see it happening to someone else, though.”

“I’m so glad to be a source of amusement for you,” said an irritated Sen. “How often am I likely to get to be entertained by something like that?”

“Not very often,” admitted the elder cultivator. “But the trick is to be ready to be entertained when the opportunity arises. If you spend all your time brooding, you’ll miss those chances.”

“I honestly can’t tell if you’re offering me sage wisdom or making fun of me.”

Master Feng briefly gripped his own chin between a thumb and forefinger while taking on a thoughtful expression. After holding that pose that suggested deep thought, he spoke.

“Both. But at least I’m not trying to marry you off to my granddaughter. So, that has to make me better than Laughing River. Isn’t that right, fox-girl?”

Master Feng reached out, seized something, and pulled Misty Peak out of her illusion. She let out a very undignified squeak and looked as though she wanted to thrash free of the grip that held her robes. She didn’t, but it looked like a close thing to Sen’s eyes. Master Feng released her a moment later. Misty Peak took a moment to straighten her robes, shot an annoyed glare at Sen’s teacher, and then smoothed her expression.

“Being better than my grandfather is no great achievement,” she said. “As for the rest, why wouldn’t Sen want to marry me?”

That was when everyone looked at Sen. He considered all of them considering him. Then, he mustered his dignity, assumed as regal an air as he could, and he made up an excuse to leave.

“What’s that? Lady Fa needs me? I’m on my way!”