The day after the auction was mostly spent gathering up travel supplies. Although Lia and I didn't bother leaving the inn, Aurelia had accompanied Wanjing when she went shopping. Apparently, it didn't take long for Aurelia to notice people following and watching them from a distance, just like Dai Jiang and Wanjing warned the day before.
Now as we are hanging around one of the city's exits, Wanjing says, "I'm not sure when it will be, but I'm almost certain that we will be attacked by someone on our way to the Lan Shu forest. But is it really necessary for you and Lia to cover up so much, Teacher?"
"Of course it is, I don't want people running away because they mistake us for being apart of the imperial family. I even asked Dai Jiang to not announce that the Treasury still has the Taotie remains."
"So that's why it felt like there were so many eyes watching us the other day, I thought something was strange," Aurelia says.
"I don't really see a problem here. This should be a good thing, Cory gets to an excuse to beat people up, Wanjing can try extracting their qi, and I get to watch Cory have fun."
"Just as Lia said, it's a good thing. I just hope someone strong shows up," I say.
"I doubt that someone strong will show up though. Anyone trying to attack us over Taotie bones probably isn't going to be anyone respectable. More than likely, it's just going to be some hired thugs. Not to say this applies to all, but most alchemists and blacksmiths aren't the most proficient in combat, but the best of them are, and they wouldn't be in a place like Shiping," Wanjing says.
"Fine, since it's too late to do much about it, it doesn't matter. Let's just get moving and try not to use too much strength before we get to our destination."
The first hour of our trip was unexpectedly pleasant... for everyone else. Nothing happened and for a while, it didn't seem like the ambush we were expecting was going to happen. Unfortunately, Aurelia's hopes were crushed as I noticed a large group of people hiding in the hills and beyond the trees. Aurelia noticed them as quickly as I did, so too did Lia, although it took a little longer for Wanjing to notice.
Of course, on my suggestion, we ignored them and let ourselves get surrounded. As we entered the centre of their formation, they all came out from hiding, additionally, it there are two more non-combatants with them, Wanjing is quick to identify them as a blacksmith and an alchemist. Given the situation, they are probably the ones behind this.
"Surrender the bones of the Taotie, and maybe you won't be hurt," the blacksmith calls out.
"Finally you've all shown yourself, wearing this thing has been such a pain, its so hard to see from under here," I say as both Lia and I throw off the dark veil and cloak that has been coving us.
Seeing our appearance, some of the more cowardly thugs try to run away, but given the relatively short distance between everyone here, I am able to quickly create a cylinder of ice that surrounds us all, preventing anyone from escaping.
"It would seem we fell into a trap, regardless I won't let anyone interfere with my research, not even an imperial," the alchemist says.
As the alchemist waves his hand as I suddenly begin to feel fluctuations in space. The ring on his finger begins to shine lightly as several stone humanoid figures appear.
"No way, are those golems!?" Aurelia yells in surprise.
"Those are automatons, they were originally developed in Yamato and can act as either autonomous weapons or servants. They aren't easy to obtain or develop though," Wanjing says.
Believing to have an advantage with their numbers, the previously hired thugs come to their senses and begin to approach us with the automatons. They probably think we aren't much, but a loud bang comes from behind me as Lia shoots several of the thugs right in the chest. She's certainly gotten better at handling guns, but Lia's supposed to be a sage right? Why does she prefer guns so much?
Whatever she can do as she pleases, I don't care how she fights as long as she is capable of defending herself. Putting that issue behind me, I rush in and begin rampaging amongst the thugs and automatons, much to the horror of the duo watching in the back. Although I don't kill the humans, I do leave them in pretty bad shape so Wanjing can play with them as much as she wants to, I don't care for the nonhuman combatants like the automatons and the few beastfolk. Although I do make sure to eat one of the automatons to study later.
Just like with the human thugs, I beat up the alchemist and blacksmith who clearly regret their decision today. As Wanjing comes over and gets a closer look at their faces, she actually says she knows who they are.
"Well, I don't personally know them, but I know of them. They have a pretty bad reputation for doing exactly what they did today, ambushing people after the auction, specifically for the stuff the didn't win."
"I have to admit, it's probably a well paying job that I might find myself doing if I don't have the money to bid... actually even if I did I might still do this anyway, why would I even bother with giving money away when I can take it for free."
"You truly live up to the name of the Dragon Bandits, don't you," Aurelia says.
"Yes, we all know about Cory's personality, but I want to see the qi extraction process, so hurry up and show us," Lia says pushing Wanjing forward.
"Yeah, yeah, I'm going, no need to push."
Wanjing walks over to the alchemist and blacksmith placing her hands on their heads. As she tightens her grip, I see a faint multicoloured light travel up from their bodies, up to Wanjing's arm and into her mouth. As she continues to drain them, the bodies of the two begin to shrivel up as they lose their muscles mass, becoming nothing more than a pile of skin and bones. As Wanjing lets go of their heads, the bodies are practically folding over themselves like cloth, revealing the outline of their bones.
"One tasted like chicken and the other kind of tasted like river fish, that was unexpectedly delicious, no wonder other Taotie like eating humans so much. I can't wait to compare it with the other people we have tied up here. I also want to see how the few beastman we caught taste in comparison to humans."
Not all of the people I beat up are unconscious and quite a few of them witness what happened and are trying desperately to crawl away, despite the futility with their hand and feet tied up. As Wanjing went around to the others, she finally approached one of the few beastfolk who made it out of the fight alive and began to eat their qi. But as soon as their qi entered her mouth, she spits it out.
"What the hell, that was disgusting! It's like someone tried to shove a fried turd in my mouth, now I completely understand why Taotie ignores the qi of anything that isn't human, it's absolutely disgusting!"
Leaving the beastfolk alone Wanjing moves on to the rest of the humans. Since we can't leave any witnesses, I just kill them as soon as Wanjing decides she wants nothing to do with them. With Wanjing finishing up we just leave the corpses here and go on our way, given their appearance, once the authorities see this, they will probably think they were attacked by an actual Taotie, so we choose not to clean up and continue to the Lan Shu forest.