Plundering Worlds: I Have a Shotgun in a Fantasy World-Chapter 41: Bo’re
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A wanderer once asked an old man: "What is courage? What is wisdom? What is chivalry?"
The old man gave no answer.
He rose, took out an old painting, and slowly unrolled it. In the painting was a Yaomo—massive as a mountain, fangs protruding, eyes burning red.
"This is called Bo’re."
"To face the Bo’re and stand your ground—that is courage."
"To face the Bo’re and walk away, knowing you cannot win—that is wisdom."
"As for chivalry..."
He paused, shook his head. "I cannot say."
The wanderer sat in silence for a long time, then stood and bowed in thanks.
That night, the wanderer lay awake. At dawn, he left the village and continued his journey.
On the mountain road, the smell of blood hit him.
Ahead stood the Bo’re, eight feet tall, gnawing on bones.
The wanderer understood immediately—this fight would kill him.
He turned to flee.
But in that instant, he saw the village behind him. Morning mist. Quiet houses. Smoke about to rise.
The wanderer stopped.
---
The page ended there.
Kael turned it.
The next page was torn. Ripped clean from the binding, leaving a jagged edge of paper.
He stared at the tear.
The wanderer stopped.
And then?
He closed the book slowly and tucked it back into his pack.
---
The road ahead narrowed. The trees grew dense, their branches weaving a canopy that blocked the sun. Shadows pooled across the path.
Kael walked on.
Movement flickered in the brush.
He stopped.
Four figures emerged from the shadows, stepping onto the road. They blocked his path.
They held weapons—a rusted sickle, a wood-cutting axe, two sharpened bamboo spears.
Kael looked at them.
Men, once. Now they were husks.
Their clothes hung in tatters, grey rags failing to cover their frames. Ribs pressed against taut, yellowed skin. Cheeks hollow, eyes sunken deep, burning with feverish desperation.
Starvation.
They looked like walking corpses driven by one need: to eat.
The one with the sickle stepped forward. His hand shook, metal rattling against wood.
"The pack," he rasped. His voice was thin, dry as dead leaves. "Leave it. And the clothes."
Kael stood motionless. He felt no threat.
The bandit mistook his silence for fear.
"I said leave it!"
The man screamed—a high, cracking sound meant to summon courage he lacked. He lunged. The sickle swung in a clumsy, desperate arc toward Kael’s neck.
Kael moved.
Lu Zhihuan’s body moved before thought could form. Years of training, of repetition, of instinct honed sharp.
He shifted. A fraction of an inch. The sickle passed through empty air.
His hand rose—palm open, fingers together.
He struck the man’s temple. A single blow. Clean.
CRACK.
The sound of bone giving way.
The Qi surged through the strike. The skull collapsed inward. The brain turned to pulp in an instant.
Red mist sprayed across Kael’s face and chest.
Everything above the lower jaw was simply gone and collapsed into the dust. Blood pumped from the neck stump in thick, rhythmic spurts, soaking into the dry earth.
Kael stood still.
He wiped the blood from his eyes with the back of his hand.
The remaining three bandits froze. They stared at the corpse, then at Kael. Their eyes went wide. Hunger vanished, replaced by raw terror.
"Wuzhe..." one whispered.
Two of them broke. They turned and ran, scrambling up the embankment, clawing at dirt, desperate to escape the man who had exploded their companion’s skull with a palm strike.
Kael watched them go.
*They will starve. Or they will kill someone else.*
He moved.
Distance collapsed. He was there, behind them, before they’d climbed three meters.
He struck twice. Two sharp blows to the back of the neck, angled precisely to sever the spine at the base of the skull.
Snap. Snap.
The men went limp. Their bodies slid back down the embankment and came to rest in a tangle of limbs.
Kael turned.
The last bandit remained on the road.
He had dropped his spear. He knelt, forehead pressed to the dirt, body shaking so violently the ground beneath him trembled.
"Mercy! Mercy, Lord!" The man sobbed, voice muffled by earth. "I was blind! I was wrong! I thought you were just another traveler! Please!"
Kael walked back slowly.
His boots left prints in the blood-soaked dirt.
He stopped in front of the kneeling man.
"Why?"
The man kept his head down. Tears cut pale tracks through the dirt on his face.
"The village was raided. Bandits."
His voice cracked."They took everything. Grain. Animals. Tools. What we couldn’t carry, they burned."
He gasped for air, choking on his own words.
"We ran with nothing. We haven’t eaten properly for a long time."A pause."People started collapsing. Children first."
He pressed his forehead to the ground.
"Please... I just wanted to live."
Kael looked down at him.
"Where is the village?"
The man flinched, then answered quickly, afraid to hesitate.
"This road," he said, pointing with a shaking hand."Keep going. You’ll see it, Lord."
The man’s hands were bone-thin. His wrists were sticks wrapped in loose skin. The smell coming off him was sour—rot and desperation.
Bandits.
Always the same story.
The strong devoured the weak. The survivors turned on each other. The cycle continued, grinding everyone down until only the desperate remained.
This man was already dead. He just hadn’t stopped moving yet.
If Kael let him go, he would attack the next traveler. Or he would starve in three days. Or he would wander into another village and spread the terror he carried.
There was no mercy here.
Only degrees of cruelty.
Kael let out a slow breath.
"I understand."
The bandit looked up. Hope flickered in his sunken eyes—desperate, fragile hope that someone had finally heard him.
"Thank y—"
Kael’s hand moved.
He gripped the man’s chin with his left hand and the back of his skull with his right.
He twisted.
Sharp. Clean. Efficient.
The cervical vertebrae separated with a muffled crunch. The spinal cord severed. The man’s eyes went wide for a fraction of a second, then the light faded.
Kael held him for a moment longer.
The body was still warm. The skin still soft. The jaw still slack in his grip.
He let go.
The corpse slumped forward and toppled sideways into the dirt.
Kael stood there, looking down at the body.
The man’s eyes were still open. Staring at nothing.
Kael reached down and closed them.
He straightened.
Four bodies.
The first lay in a pool of blood, skull shattered, brain matter scattered across the road.
The other two were crumpled at the base of the embankment, necks broken, faces pressed into the dirt.
The last lay at his feet, eyes closed, expression almost peaceful.
Kael looked at his hands.
Blood on his palms. Dirt under his nails. A smear of something wet across his knuckles.
He wiped them on his pants.
The smell hit him then—copper and shit. The dead always voided their bowels. It mixed with the scent of sweat and fear and unwashed bodies.
Kael turned away.
He felt it then—the familiar sensation.
Warmth spreading through his core. Qi drawn from the lives just extinguished, condensing into something he could measure.
[Aether: +0.4]
He glanced at the notification, then dismissed it.
Four lives.
Less than half a point.
---
The wind was light. The branches stirred. On the ground, their shadows shifted in silence.
Kael adjusted his pack and continued west.
Flies were already gathering on the corpses. By nightfall, animals would come. Wolves. Foxes. Carrion birds.
The road stretched on.
The trees leaned in from both sides, their branches weaving shadows across the path.
Kael walked alone.
His stride was steady.
His hands were still.
Behind him, the bodies cooled in the afternoon heat.
