Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 107: Talk No Jutsu 2

“You can’t be serious,” Bella said.

“I absolutely am,” Jade replied, crossing her arms. “This is the only way I can know for sure that you’re telling the truth. It’s my duty as a Shikari to seek justice. Since there’s no way for me know for sure one way or another if you’re telling the truth, I have to follow my gut – and that means finding out myself.”

“What’s to stop you from just telling the Shikari where we are?” Bella asked, matching Jade’s pose. “How can we trust you?”

“You’re claiming that you’re the ones wronged, right? So you aren’t doing anything bad.”

“Right,” Chance said slowly.

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about if I tag along,” Jade said, as if it was so logical that she couldn’t even comprehend why they wouldn’t have understood it. “What’s the drawback here?”

Bella stared at Jade. “Did you hear a single word I said? You could somehow report back to the Shikari or otherwise try to hinder us.”

“I’ll give my word that I won’t.” Jade stared expectantly at them. “What? Is that not enough?”

“I mean…” Chance glanced at Bella, then chewed his lower lip. He really didn’t know much about Jade at all, but she seemed very honest from what little he did know.

I’m not sure if adding her to the group is the wisest decision, but having more people would make traveling safer, and I’d really rather not have to fight Jade. But… can we really just trust her like that? I don’t want to get killed because the Shikari show up while Bella and I are asleep.

“Even if you’re telling the truth, how do we know that the Shikari can’t somehow track you?” Bella asked. “It’s entirely possible.”

“Do you really think they care enough about a Knight Rank to waste all the effort of tracking me?” Jade asked with a laugh. “I don’t have any trackers on me. I’m sure they’d love to retroactively do it, but then they’d be able to do the exact same thing to the two of you. Maybe they are. Either way, it wouldn’t change anything.”

Bella pressed her lips together, but she didn’t respond immediately. After several seconds of silence, she glanced at Chance.

“What do you think?”

“You mean you’re okay with it?” Chance asked, blinking. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I kind of figured–”

“That I’d be the one who’d say no,” Bella said with a wry smile. “Yeah, I normally would. But… she deserves a chance to see what the Shikari really are.”

Oh. Bella sees a bit of herself in Jade. I don’t think the situation Jade is in is nearly that bad, but I think I see the resemblance. Well, that leaves the decision to me. Jade hasn’t done anything that would make me believe she’s got an ulterior motive, so I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt. That’s the right thing to do.

“Would you mind if I take a look at your Karma?” Chance asked Jade. “I won’t force you to say yes, but it would help put our worries at ease.”

“You need my permission to do that?”

“Well, no. But it’s pretty impolite. It’ll basically let me look into important events in your past,” Chance said. “I’d only do it without asking if you were an enemy or I thought you were plotting against us.”

Jade chewed her lower lip for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. I can agree to that. I guess it’s only fair.”

Chance didn’t wait for her to change her mind. He peered into the strands of Karma surrounding Jade with his third eye, watching the visions within them flitter by. He started with the largest ones, skipping past the most one that tied her to Lin.

Over the course of the next few minutes, Chance quickly got a pretty good understanding of Jade’s past. He saw multiple glimpses of Gibson within them – some seemed directly tied to him, while others he was simply just present. Surprisingly, that comforted Chance. Gibson hadn’t been the nicest man, but he’d felt like he hadn’t been a bad person.

The visions in Jade’s Karmic strands seemed to repeat themselves over and over. Most of them were fighting – either against other people or against monsters. Chance watched Jade as she threw herself against Soothounds, Imps, and a variety of other monsters within Gleam’s streets.

Sometimes she won, and other times she lost and had to retreat. She had almost no Karmic threats that were just normal interactions with other people. It felt like she was always in some sort of fight – and, more notably, she was nearly always alone.

Aside from the smallest, mostly unimportant, threads, the only big ones tying her to other people were those to Gibson and Shae. Chance watched as Shae shoved Jade into a teleportation circle, using her to test it and make sure it was safe before stepping onto it himself.

His expression darkened.

“What?” Jade asked.

“Nothing. Your mentor was a real piece of work, though.”

“Gibson?”

“No, Shae. Was he not the one assigned to you?” Chance asked.

Jade shook her head. “No. I ran into Shae while on this job. Why? What did he do?”

“You realize he used you to test if a teleportation circle worked, right?”

Jade shrugged. “That’s just how the Shikari work. I’m less important because I’m lower rank. It’s our job to protect people, and that includes our superiors. If one of us died, it would be better if it was me.”

Chance and Bella looked at each other, then turned back to Jade.

“I think you can come with us,” Chance said, releasing his third eye and shaking his head. “And you’re going to really need to work on your self-esteem a little bit.”

Jade frowned and tilted her head to the side. “What do you mean?”

“That’s a conversation for later,” Bella said. “If you’re going to be coming with us, then you’re going to have to help out as well. We can’t have dead weight.”

“As long as you aren’t doing anything criminal, then I’ll do everything I can to help,” Jade said. She paused for a moment, swallowing. “We…we’re leaving the Ancient Realms, right? I really don’t want to run into Lin again. He’s terrifying.”

“Don’t worry,” Chance muttered. “We feel the same. And yes, we’re leaving.”

“Great,” Jade said with a relieved sigh. “Let’s go.”

Bella grabbed Jade’s shoulder as the girl walked past them. Jade paused and looked back at her. “What?”

“We can’t just get on the teleportation circle. It’ll take us back to the Dancing Cloud sect,” Bella said.

Jade blinked. “Oh, yeah. I guess you wouldn’t want to go back there. What was the plan, then? Wait until somebody showed up and hitch a ride with them?”

“Pretty much,” Chance replied with a nod. “Hopefully, it’ll be someone agreeable. To be honest, that’s kind of what we were hoping you would be.”

“Actually, we thought you were probably someone waiting to ambush us,” Bella said. “Chance insisted on trying to talk first.”

“That’s a good policy,” Jade said with an approving smile. “So we just do that again?”

“Yep. We just have to wait for someone else to show up,” Bella said, leaning against the stone wall of the house and looking up out of the valley. “Hopefully it doesn’t take too long. I think we’ve all agreed that it’ll be good to get out of here before Lin comes along.”

***

The three of them set up in the small hut, peering out the windows and waiting for someone to show up. Light started to dim as they day dragged into night and shadows lengthened.

Chance busied himself by absently playing with a tendril of golden mist. None of them had spoken much after the first conversation, each lost in their own thoughts. Chance was no different.

I wonder if Quinn is okay. I feel like I should have invited her to come with us, but somehow that just didn’t feel like the right move. Was I just being paranoid? Then again, she wanted that power. I don’t blame her. If I was in Quinn’s situation, I would have done the same. Then again, she really felt like she was acting about something as well, and I don’t know what it was.

All this suspicion… I really don’t like this. I wish the Shikari could get off our backs. Constantly having to look over my shoulders in suspicion is grinding me down. It’s hard to help people when I’m worried half of them are going to stab me in the back.

Chance suppressed a sigh as he watched the shadows of the trees dance outside. In the far distance, he could hear the sounds of battle once again. Nothing seemed too close, luckily.

I really hope this means someone will be heading by soon, though. And, if we get lucky, maybe we won’t have to fight them either.

The golden mist tingled against Chance’s fingertips. He paused, glancing down at it. The tendril he was playing with had looped around and sank into the ground. Chance cocked an eyebrow slightly.

“I think someone might be coming soon,” Chance said.

“Really? How can you tell?” Jade asked. “I can’t sense anyone. Are you using aura vision?”

“Just listen to him.” Bella rose to her feet and held a hand out, pulling Chance up to his. She paused a moment, then offered the hand to Jade as well. Jade pushed herself upright on her own.

“Thanks, but I don’t need the help,” Jade said with a polite smile. “You won’t have to worry about looking after me. I can watch my own back.”

“What? I was just–”

“It’s fine,” Chance said, shaking his head. “We aren’t worried you won’t pull your weight, Jade.”

Bella shot Chance a look that told him that was exactly one of the things she was worried about, but she was standing in front of Jade so the other girl couldn’t see it. Chance smiled in what he hoped was a comforting manner.

Jade was alone in just about every strand of her Karma. I’m not sure what that means, but I get the feeling she’s not much for working in teams. Well, she’ll learn.

“Where are they?” Jade asked, glancing around. “Should we be ready for a fight?”

“Just wait a moment,” Chance replied, glancing around the treeline. He reached into his chest, activating his aura vision. Several seconds passed. Then, at the edges of the trees, he saw a splotch of brown. “There!”

“I see them as well,” Bella said.

“As do I,” Jade added. “What’s the plan? Wait until they run onto the circle and run on to join them?”

Chance grinned as the splotch grew brighter and eventually emerged from the trees. “No, we won’t need to do that.”

“Would you look at that,” Bella said with a mixture of dry humor and relief. “We got lucky.”

“Quinn!” Chance said, raising his voice just enough to let it carry and raising his hand in greeting.

Quinn, who had already begun descending the valley to make for the transportation circle, sprung nearly ten feet into the air in surprise. She flailed for a moment, then righted herself and landed on a pillar of stone that shot out from the ground to catch her. Staring at them in surprise, Quinn hopped back to the ground and approached them warily. Chance and the others headed over to meet her.

“What’s going on?” Quinn asked, coming to a stop as they drew closer. “Why are you waiting here?”

“For a pretty similar reason to you,” Chance admitted, rubbing the back of his head. “We can’t head back to the area we originally came from.”

“You all came from the same spot?”

Chance nodded. “Jade just joined us, but yes. She just came a little bit after we did. Did everything go okay with the crystal?”

A smile passed over Quinn’s lips. “Yes. Thank you. You did me two pretty big favors there.”

“Technically, I’m not sure how much I did,” Chance admitted. “But I’m glad things worked out. Nobody deserved to be treated the way Nimea was treating you.”

“What happened?” Jade asked.

“Another time,” Bella said, shaking her head.

“Did you want to join us in waiting?” Chance asked. “We’re hoping someone will come by and we can snag their jump back home.”

Even if Quinn wasn’t totally forthright about everything, I don’t feel like she was actively malicious. Probably.

“Actually, I was planning to use the portal back to my home sect,” Quinn said. Her eyes darkened. “I’m not done with them, and I have friends that were in… similar situations to me.”

Chance’s shoulders tensed.

“They’re keeping more slaves?”

“Slaves?” Jade asked in surprise. “The Scholar Cities have banned slavery. What jurisdiction are you under?”

Quinn snorted. “As if the Scholar Cities send patrols out that far into the wilds. I’m in – was in – the Brackern Sect.”

“How strong is it?” Chance asked slowly.

“It’s a small sect,” Quinn replied, glancing over her shoulder as a distant explosion echoed through the valley. “Nimea was the daughter of a sect elder. I’m not going to try to take all of them out. I’m not that strong. But I can definitely free some of the others.”

“Well, I think we found our portal out,” Bella said, rolling her neck.

Quinn took a step back. “What? You mean–”

Chance nodded. “We’ll help, provided you aren’t lying. It’s the right thing to do.”

“I’ll help as well.” Jade’s features were stormy. “And I’ll be following up with the Shikari when I return to Gleam as to why this was allowed to happen.”

Quinn swallowed heavily. “Why? Why do you care?”

“It’s a sad world where you need a reason to care about others,” Chance said. “Are they going to say anything when you show up without Nimea?”

“Not if you’re all with me,” Quinn said slowly. “I was planning on just running when I arrived, since I doubt they’ll be expecting anyone to return this soon. But, if I’ve got Rank Three cultivators with me, they might actually have to think twice before doing anything. The sect isn’t big enough to challenge all of you without figuring out who your backers are.”

“Then we have a plan,” Chance said, a smile crossing his lips. With all that had happened in the Ancient Realm, he was happy to have something straight forward to do. And, judging by how he felt his Essence trembling in anticipation, he got the feeling that it agreed with him.