Chapter 758: A Murder most (Un)necessary
Zhen Tai looked absolutely mortified as he realized in this exact moment, he probably had zero chance with this woman known as Rachel.
It was one thing to be barely remembered by someone, it was something else entirely when the person who rescued you thought of you as nothing more than a drowning codfish.
Zhen Tai didn’t even know what a codfish was exactly, but he could tell it wasn’t a good thing to be compared to…probably.
‘Even if she doesn’t really think of me as anything, I need to at least share my gratitude with her,’ Zhen Tia eventually concluded. ‘Maybe my sincerity would help to charm her?’
Thankfully it didn’t take him that long to come to this conclusion, otherwise there would’ve been an awkwardly long pause he would’ve needed to explain, and his mouth wasn’t doing him any favors right now.
Then again, it could just be the infinite apathy radiating off of Rachel’s razor sharp features.
“Well…even if you don’t remember that day, I at least do. As such, I wanted to thank you for saving my life from drowning,” Zhen Tai said with a surprisingly steady tone of voice. “I want to repay, if at all possible. As long as it’s within my power.”
“Hmmm. Your thanks is appreciated but unnecessary,” Rachel dismissed with a wave of her hand, her razor sharp nails quietly slicing the air. “You just so happened to be in the grasp of my prey, simple as that.”
Once again, Zhen Tai developed a flat expression at the realization that his rescue was incidental at best.
It wasn’t unheard of that some powerful warriors would simply let people die just so that they could reap the rewards of some shitty situation that happened to stumble upon, the second mouse gets the cheese, as it were.
At this point, Zhen Tai was already at his lowest…until he heard Rachel say the following.
“Besides, I don’t think my fiancee would appreciate someone swearing their life in fealty to me.”
‘Of course she’s taken…’
And with this short exchange, any possible romance was murdered outright.
…
[Wait, that wasn’t part of the script,] Hurricroak noted.
[I might’ve ad-libbed a little.]
[Bruh…]
[Too bad the others aren’t here to see this themselves…what are they doing anyways?]
[I don’t know.]
___While the above was happening…______
“Wait…I just realized something important.”
“Huh? What’s up, Jinju Ren?”
“You said that the kaijin tended to stick together for whatever free time you allow them to have, yes?”
“Yeah….”
“So…why is Razorstella and Hurricroak by themselves right now?”
“That…huh.”
Evidently, Zhen Liu had developed a bad case of tunnel vision since he failed to realize that while Zhen Tai was about to get his heartbroken by Razorstella and Hurricroak, the rest of his kaijin were doing…who knows what.
‘I should probably make it a point to check on a more active basis…starting now.’
“I’m going to do a quick mental check on the others, tell me if shit goes sideways between my cousin and Razorstella.”
“Sideways, how?”
“Emotional or physical, I’ll leave it to your discretion.”
“Alright…and Zhen Tai looks like he just swallowed an uncooked chestnut just as Xiao Liu needs to go talk to the spirits in his head… I’ll leave him alone just a little bit longer.”
________________________________________
‘Wait a minute…why am I now noticing you guys actively muting my connection with the other kaijin? What the fuck?!’
=Told you he’d notice.=
∆Godsdamn paranoid personality, couldn’t just take a back seat today…∆
‘What was that?’
∆I said, we decided to backseat your connection to the Kaijin because you’ve been a giant bundle of stress since all of the incidents and battles at the main clan territory. It’s been a long journey there, you and your family deserve some quiet time.∆
‘Uh huh…alright, so what are the kaijin doing that would cause me to stress out and panic so badly?’
=They’re foiling an assassination plot that would’ve surely soured your entire trip back.=
‘Uh…wait, whose assassination and why?’
∆Don’t know, but it would’ve turned this entire trip into something out of a Hercules Poirot novel…or maybe Sherlock Holmes? Either way, knowing you, you would’ve gotten yourself involved and go mildly insane as you try to solve a “Murder on the High Seas”.∆
=Sounds generic.=
∆Right?∆
‘I get the point,’ Zhen Liu interjected before this conversation went on a further tangent. ‘So have the kaijin killed these guys or what?’
∆=No, you’re girlfriend is very reliable on these clandestine matters.=∆
‘Again?’
________Speaking of Kaijin…______________
Meanwhile, in a hidden part of the ship…
[Wait, did we involve ourselves in this for any good reason, or did we get ourselves involved because we didn’t want to deal with Razorstella’s freak out?,] Screamira asked her fellow kaijin.
[Yes…]
[Seriously?]
[You’ll get used to it,] Spring Brawler answered with a shrug.
While Razorstella and Hurricroak were playing anti-cupid, Nepherage, Frosttusk, Spring Brawler and Screamira were occupying themselves with something arguably more fun: foiling an assassination by choking and kidnapping all of the would-be assassins.
[Hey, I’m fairly certain that guy isn’t conscious anymore…]
[What? Oh shit, you’re right.]
*Thud.*
[Is he still alive? Probably.]
Due to none of them wanting to tag along for whatever emotional shenanigans Hurricroak and Razorstella was about to involve themselves, the other kaijin decided to spend their time roaming around the ship like they had originally planned.
There were a lot more people to spy on, a lot more activities to watch.
When they started roaming, however, they stumbled upon a nefarious plot of some kind…well, what they assumed to be nefarious.
They had stumbled upon a man in the process of poisoning another person’s cup and were about to just let it go since the people in question weren’t at all connected to them or their lord.
As they were about to leave this man to their grisly fate though, it was brought to their attention by Spring Brawler that they would’ve probably be shanghaied into dealing with these guys anyways due to their lord’s, and his clan’s, tendency to get involved in things anyways.
“So…why don’t we just cut out the middle man and handle these guys before a problem occurs?,” Spring Brawler suggested.
And with that statement made, the kaijin proceeded to go assassin sweeping…which turned out to be a bigger pain in the ass than anticipated!
They had only anticipated one, maybe two to three assassination plots on a singular ship. In reality, they had captured over a dozen or so assassins, trying to do everything from poisoning, to subtle bombings to straight up stabbings in broad daylight.
It was a surprising amount of work, but they managed to handle all of these issues with minimal effort…mostly.
There was just one, tiny problem.
The kaijin had about a dozen or so unconscious or possibly dead motherfuckers and no way of getting rid of them in a subtle manner without alerting someone in the process, other than shoving them inside a storage room or closet.
That worked last time because the only people on the ship at the time were just Zhen Clansmen and the crew, it wouldn’t work this time because there were about a dozen or so other independent parties, some of whom were these aforementioned assassins.
The kaijin needed help with such things, but luckily for them, they had someone on hand who was used to handling these kind of situation to a disturbing degree of familiarity.
Unfortunately, she was elsewhere in the ship and needed time to get to wherever the kaijin were to help clean up the mess.
It was for this reason that the kaijin had decided to hole up in a storage room, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of all the assassins they had captured this afternoon, while Nepherage left to go and lead Lady Jin Fang to their location.
This left Spring Brawler, Screamira and Frosttusk behind to make sure to occasionally knock the assassins back out when needed. As it turned out, several of the assassins were a lot more lively than anticipated, with an even larger number of them attempting to commit suicide multiple times in order to protect whatever information was inside their skulls.
Either way, it was a surprising amount of work to make sure none of these assassins either offed themselves or escaped.
[How much longer do we have to wait like this?,] Screamira asked. [I figured we’d just toss these guys into the sea and be done with it.]
[Not too-wait]
“Ow…what the fuck what happened to-”
*Smack*
“Oof!”
[-not too long now.]
[Besides…,] Frosttusk interjected. [The…jarl…wouldn’t…want…unnecessary…blood…on…our…hands…at…least…not…yet.]
[Right…]
*Knock-knock, knock-knock.*
[Hmmm?]
The kaijin all paused whatever they were doing the moment they heard a knocking sound coming from the door to their hiding spot.
[Did…did we agree to a knock when Nepherage returned with the lady?]
[No…we…didn’t…]
[Well then…]
