Gleam [Karma Cultivator Isekai] - Chapter 77: Housing

Chance and Bella popped into existence in a dark street. Faint wisps of fog curled around their feet, slithering away as they arrived. Tall buildings rose up all around them, blocking out much of the sun’s light.

Large tufts of straw sprouted from several broken windows above them, and the ground was littered with the same. Distributed amongst it were small pieces of metal, armor, and an uncomfortable amount of bleached white bones. Some looked fresher than others, but most of them couldn’t have belonged to anything larger than a small dog.

A lone guard stood several paces away, covered in plain metal armor. He stood at attention, watching them curiously from his spot at the end of the street.

“You here to deal with the Windchuckers?” the guard asked, beckoning them over.

“Yeah,” Chance replied. “I take it they’re somewhere in these buildings?”

The guard nodded. “Several of them. I’ve been keeping an eye on the location, but after I roasted one of them, the rest of the flock have been pretty hesitant to come out and fight. It would do far too much damage to the city to root them out normally, which is where you weaker cultivators come in.”

“Why not just use a Ward?” Chance asked.

The guard snorted. “Good one. Maybe I’ll just call the Shikari in as well. While I’m at it, I’d like a breakfast of high grade cultivation aids and the finest steak that you can imagine. Do we look like one of the great Scholar Cities to you, boy?”

“Sorry,” Chance said with an awkward chuckle. “I’ve never been in a big city like this, but I’d heard rumors.”

The guard’s gaze softened. “Don’t worry about it, I’m just giving you a hard time. I was much the same when I was your age. Don’t you fret – even if our Dancing Cloud sect isn’t one of the great cities of Centurion, this is still a fantastic place to live. Who knows, maybe you’ll make enough of a name for yourself that you’ll be invited to one of the cities in time.”

Reaching into his pockets, the guard pulled out two thin wooden badges pinched between his fingers. He them to Chance and Bella.

“Those will send you back to the location you last used a badge from. Please try to refrain from using them unless you have completed the task or are critically injured. Bailing out of a job before it is complete will result in a ban from taking similar difficulty jobs for a month.”

“Understood,” Bella said. “Do you know anything about the Windchuckers before we head in there?”

“There are somewhere around eight,” the guard replied, chewing his lower lip. “The pack leader is a nasty bugger. He’s bigger than the rest and has a red streak of feathers. Be careful of him. I’m pretty sure he’s managed to open his Gate and has some basic cultivation abilities. The rest of them are as standard as the pests get. Neither of you have a very powerful aura, so you should be able to bait them out just by sitting around.”

“Are you planning to help if they all come out?” Chance asked.

The guard chuckled. “I doubt they’ll emerge close enough for me to do anything. If I see anything, I’ll obviously try to aid you. But my main task is making sure they don’t go any farther in this direction and spread to the rest of the city. There are other guards stationed around the area as well. If you manage to lure the Windchuckers over to one of us and we kill them, that works too. Just get rid of them.”

“Noted,” Chance said. “Thanks for the information.”

“Good luck,” the guard replied, raising his hand in farewell as they turned and headed deeper into the dark streets.

They walked for several minutes, turning down the tight roads. More bones littered the ground the deeper they got, bringing with them the scent of offal and carrion. Chance wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“It’s kind of like the Old City, but stinky.”

“I’m surprised I’m saying this, but I definitely preferred the Old City,” Bella said, nodding in agreement. She paused for a moment. “Actually, I’m not sure if that’s true. Didn’t you say it was basically an endless maze?”

“Yeah.”

“Definitely prefer this place, then. At least I know I can get out of here. It must have been a complete nightmare to be trapped alone in the Old City for weeks,” Bella said, shuddering. “I don’t think my sanity would have survived.”

“Don’t let Ocie here you say that. It might get offended,” Chance said with a chuckle. His grin faded and he shook his head in mild awe at the huge piles of straw and bone covering the ground. “It’s impressive that just a few birds managed to make this much of a mess.”

Far above them, something thumped. They both looked up at a nest protruding from a cracked wall, but nothing was there. A large bone pitched down from the nest and shattered against a stone jutting out from the ground. Chance and Bella exchanged a glance.

“That sounded pretty big,” Bella said.

Chance reached into his Gate and called on his Essence. Heat blossomed in his heart and spread throughout his chest as it traveled toward his hands and feet. His bracelet slithered down into his palm, unfurling into its urumi form.

“Really big,” Chance agreed. He sent Essence into his forehead and opened his third eye, scanning the air for strands of karma. Almost immediately, slack golden threads materialized all throughout the air, crisscrossing and leading into the buildings.

“They here?” Bella asked.

“Oh yeah. All around us,” Chance said, turning in a slow circle. “And I’m pretty sure there are more than eight. It’s hard to tell with all the strands going everywhere, but–”

Bella shoved Chance to the ground and raised her hands in front of her face. Jagged claws screeched as the struck her skin and rebounded off them. Chance rolled to his feet, his eyes widening as he got his first look at a Windchucker.

Whoever had thought it apt to call them ‘big birds’ had something wrong with their head. Sure, the Windchucker had feathers and did vaguely resemble a bird, but that was where the similarities ended.

The monster stood nearly eight feet tall. Its feathers looked to be closer to a silvery metal that should have been far too heavy to fly as silently as it just had. Two wide, bulbous eyes protruded from either side of its head like those of a frog.

It clacked its beak, revealing several rows of serrated teeth and a forked tongue that slipped out to taste the air. The monster fluttered its wings, somehow making absolutely noise despite the material it was made from.

Chance raised his urumi, hiding a grimace. He tossed his case of pills to the side. “Thanks. Man, that thing is ugly.”

“Kill it,” Bella ground out. “Talk later.”

Chance flicked his urumi. At the same time, golden mist poured out from his body and enveloped him. The blade scraped along the ground and snapped up at the last second. Screeching, the Windchucker leapt into the air with a heavy beat of its wings. It narrowly avoided the wicked tip of the Urumi, but Chance wasn’t done.

He darted forward, spinning and sending the segmented blade whistling out again. The Windchucker hopped back and flapped its wings to try to take to the air. As silent as it was, the monster wasn’t particularly fast on the ground – and it paid the price for daring to land.

Chance’s urumi carved clean through the Windchucker’s right wing, severing it at the bone with a metallic ring. It screeched in pain, and Chance flicked his wrist, retracting the blade. It whistled back into place just in time for him to send it slithering out once more, silencing the Windchucker permanently.

The monster fell to the ground in a pool of its blood, falling still.

“Good job,” Bella said. “I didn’t even get a chance to do anything. Heh. Chance.”

“That’s low hanging fruit,” Chance said. He looked up at the strands of karma hanging around them. “And you’re about to. I don’t think this thing’s friends are too happy we killed it.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be scared of threats?”

“Evidently, we aren’t threatening enough.”

“We’ll have to work on that,” Bella said, lowering into a fighting stance.

Several dark forms leapt off the rooftops, their wings snapping open soundlessly as they plummeted toward Chance and Bella. Out of the corner of his eye, Chance caught two more of the monsters watching them from a dark perch, waiting for a moment to swoop in while they were distracted.

A grin grew on Chance’s face as he let his Essence fill more of his body. He and Bella nodded at each other and threw themselves into the fight, meeting the Windchuckers in battle. A loud squawk echoed through the streets as Bella snagged one of the monsters by the claws and swung it into a wall with all her might.

Chance’s urumi whipped out, decapitating the creature before he spun it around himself, keeping another Windchucker at bay before spinning after it, laughing the entire time. Several more of the monsters joined the fight, but they quickly met the same end as the others.

The back of Chance’s neck prickled and his foot landed in a puddle of blood. He slipped, pitching forward into a roll and springing back to his feet as a white crescent of energy carved through the ground where he’d been standing.

A ten-foot tall Windchucker swooped through the air, brilliant red feathers covering its belly. Chance sent his urumi darting after the bird, but it was already out of reach. It launched itself upward, then turned and came back by for another swoop, this time targeting Bella.

“Bella!” Chance called.

Bella threw the Windchucker she’d been fighting to the side and glanced up. The red-crested Windchucker flicked its claws, sending another crescent of white energy shooting toward her.

Instead of trying to dodge it, Bella grabbed a Windchucker’s corpse and hurled it up at the other monster. Its eyes widened in surprise and it banked upward, but her aim was accurate and the two monsters collided in the air with a metallic crash.

Chance darted forward and brought his urumi down with all his might, infusing Essence through it. Golden mist swirled around the blade as it cut through the air and came down on top of both monsters.

It cut clean through both of them, striking the ground with a clang before he pulled it back to its resting position. Chance and Bella spun, searching the sky for any more signs of the monsters, but there were none.

The streets were empty aside from the fading echoes of their fight and the sounds of their breathing. No more strands of karma hung in the air, having all been severed with the deaths of the monsters.

Chance closed his third eye and let the golden mist encircling him fade as he pulled his Essence back. His urumi snapped back around his wrist, returning to its bracelet form.

“That went well. Thanks for the save at the start,” Chance said. “Are you okay, though? I saw you get hit right in the chest with an attack.”

“No problem, and I’m fine,” Bella replied. She plucked at her shirt, which now had a long cut running straight through the middle, and grimaced. “I’m going to need a new shirt, though.”

“I’m sure we can find something for gold. I think this counts as a successful job, though. It wasn’t too hard at all.”

“Maybe we should try to get something that pays better and is more challenging,” Bella suggested. “After we check out the housing, though. I’d like to take some time to rest.”

“Agreed,” Chance said. He walked over to where he’d thrown his case and picked it back up, quickly checking the contents to make sure nothing had been broken. “It’s been a while since I got to really sit down and cultivate for a while. Shall we go tell the guards the problem is taken care of?”

Bella grinned and nodded. “Yeah, lets. I’m excited to see what kind of housing we’re going to get.”