Riku sighed, preparing to give up for the time being. He would pass the time by cockblocking the molester until he found an opening in the mansion’s defenses. Then he would complete his amazingly awesome plan.

However, the moment he turned his back on the Kumochi mansion, his divine sense caught onto a detail he previously looked over: all the cultivators in the group were masked. 

It was an innocuous detail that perhaps meant nothing. It was flu season, after all, and masks are conducive to a healthy society, despite what an alternate universe’s anti-mask movement might say. But Riku found it odd.

If the molester had indeed pissed off someone powerful, Riku was about just as likely to run into attackers as defenders. And Riku knew that a group of attackers had a lot more incentive to hide their faces; Riku was doing the same.

In order to verify his hunch, he needed more information.

Divine sense, although called “divine,” wasn’t all-perfect and functioned more like a more versatile echo-location rather than omniscience. Riku wasn’t proficient in lip-reading either, so he had to fly closer to eavesdrop on the group’s conversation.

Slowly edging closer with his shadow clones, he managed to catch a few words between the group’s members.

“…get…molester…”

The mention of a “molester” would make any intelligent person instantly conclude that the group of cultivators were the enemy of Riku’s enemy: a friend. However, the Kumochi fifth son was a molester, and it wasn’t as if the molester in question was around to complain if his employees were badmouthing him. Or maybe they were talking about a different molester, a very real possibility. Riku didn’t want to be one of those anime protagonists who stupidly misunderstood things after only hearing a few words. He inched closer.

A few seconds later, he heard another snippet of the conversation. “…beat up the molester…”

Although he was mostly sure that he was dealing with people who had a similar motive, the possibility of the Kumochi clan molester wanting to have a rival molester taken out still remained. 

For legends on the streets said that there were four Molester Kings infamous throughout all Kyoto: Seiryu, the Dragon of the East, known for prowling the Tozai Line for victims; Suzaku, the Phoenix of the South, known for striking terror into the hearts of all waitresses in Minami Ward; Byakko, the Tiger of the West, known for having even celebrities on his victim list; and the most feared of all four kings, John. 

John never wanted to be a Molester King, but he was forced into the alleys of Kyoto to try to gather enough money to pay for his little sister’s operation. Byakko of the West, the Kumochi young master, would become jealous of John’s growing fame and hire his thugs to wipe John off the face of the Earth. However, John would heroically defeat all the hitmen with the power of friendship and tiddies in an emotional climax to the twelve episode series.

While it was an anime plot Riku completely made up on the spot, there was always a possibility of something similar happening. He didn’t want to accidentally mistake enemy for ally and serve himself up on a platter. He was powerful enough to get away, yes, but it would also be very embarrassing. Riku didn’t want yet another episode to randomly remember and cringe over and beat himself up over years later.

Moving even closer, he could clearly hear a female voice speak, “My divine sense is being stopped. I can’t see anything inside the mansion.”

Not everyone was as massively overpowered as Riku was; spirit stone formations in rich homes like the one they were trying to peer into made it hard for comparatively weaker cultivators to look inside, “comparatively weaker” meaning all but the most elite. And even Riku couldn’t see everything in perfect detail.

As for the question of whether or not the group of cultivators were bodyguards, it would still have to remain unanswered. It was after all possible for bodyguards to be testing the strength of the anti-divine sense formation. If anime had taught him anything, it was that coincidences do happen, especially when eavesdropping a conversation that could be misunderstood as having to do with bedroom relations. While the conversation had nothing to do with that topic, he was eavesdropping.

Well, this was real life and lessons from anime had absolutely no basis whatsoever. Riku knew that, but he was a little bit nervous about introducing himself and was giving himself excuses to delay. He was innately shy, and the fact that the group of cultivators could decide to attack him if he blotched his introduction really didn’t help.

Another lady replied to the voice that spoke earlier, “That’s fine then. I’ll use a detection talisman.”

Riku silently cursed under his breath. It looked like he wouldn’t have time to plan the responses to five-hundred different scenarios like he wanted. 

He jumped in. “Don’t! The detection arrays will trigger if you do that! Do you want to be chased by a few Severing Mortality (forty+ fart) cultivators?”

The group put themselves on guard, though their guard was slightly lessened once they realized that the shadowy figures shadowing Riku were shadow clones. Thankfully, the woman who was about to activate a talisman put it away.

“Who are you?” another woman of the group asked, somewhat hostile. Riku wondered if all eight cultivators were of the fairer sex. He supposed it made sense; the molester didn’t seem to be targeting men as far as he could tell.

He snapped out of his train of thought and answered, “Uh, I’m not an enemy! We’re all here because we have a grudge with the Kumochi fifth son, the molester, right?”
His words did not fully assuage their suspicions, however, as the same person asked another question, “That doesn’t answer my question. Who are you, and what grudge do you have with that disgusting molester?”

Before Riku could muster an answer, a melodious voice cut in, “Akari, it’s fine. I recognize this guy’s voice.”

Riku and the girl who he assumed was Akari replied in unison. “You do?”

“You’re the person who called the police on the molester, right? I was the one who captured him.” 

“Oh.” Despite Riku having a cultivator’s enhanced memory, most of his spare memory was used for his waifus. He naturally wouldn’t remember some random 3D girl’s voice. 

Although this particular 3D girl had a nice voice. Riku remembered wanting to recruit her as a voice actress a few hours back.

“Ah, so we’re here for the same thing then. Um, this might be a bit off topic, but have you ever thought of becoming a voice actress?”

“What?” It was the nice voice girl’s turn to be confused.

“Ah, nevermind. Anyways, you don’t want to use that talisman. Like I said, it’ll trigger the detection arrays. You don’t need to do it either since I can take care of everything.”

“You? Take care of everything?” The Akari girl sounded very doubtful. 

Riku nodded. “Just stay put and watch.”

If there was nobody to call for reinforcements but the fifth son himself, Riku’s mission was just too easy.

He jumped up into a flight, heading straight towards a certain window on the second floor. Breaking the window would alarm the person inside, so Riku just teleported through it. 

He looked around the room for the molester. While he had already scouted the building for which room the Kumochi filth was in, the privacy arrays blocked him from sensing too much more.

Riku soon found the fifth son lying on a bed in a corner of the room. He peered closer, checking if the molester was asleep. If the walking pile of cow dung was already sleeping, it saved Riku the trouble of having to knock the molester out. Riku could just silently kidnap the Kumochi scion with everyone in the Kumochi clan being none the wiser.

But no, life did not always work as expected. The molester was jacking his beanstalk. The molester was going at it very intensely, jerking his hand vigorously up and down his Leaning Tower of Pisa, while watching some video on his phone that Riku couldn’t see because his eyes were already melting.

Quickly shutting his eyelids, Riku completely obliterated the problem area from existence, which conveniently also knocked out the pervert from the pain of suddenly not having his beanstalk. Riku tried his best to erase the entire scene from his memory.

I saw nothing. When I came in, the molester was already fast asleep. Yes, the molester was already asleep. Riku frantically thought.

Luckily, the obliteration cauterized the wound, so Riku didn’t have to bandage the problem area. He slung the molester over his back and went back the same way he came.

Once he was back on the ground outside the mansion, he dumped the molester’s body onto the ground. 

“There. No detection arrays triggered, and um, yeah, no problems encountered. So, err, what are you guys planning to do now?”

The others were quite shocked—not that Riku blamed them. Short-range teleportation was something that only Severing Mortality (forty+ farts) cultivators should be able do, which was not something one normally expected from a young-sounding kid with some speaking issues. Though nobody in their right mind would think that Riku was actually a forty+ fart cultivator, instead guessing that Riku had some unknown mystical item or secret technique to mimic a short-range teleportation. 

After some time, the girl with a nice voice replied, “Well, for starters, let’s beat this guy up.”

The other people in her group nodded and inched closer with their fists a-ready. Riku happily joined the rest of them in landing a few satisfying punches and kicks on the bastard. 

Soon, the Kumochi scion was beaten blacker than the African-made caulk that his mother surely yearned for daily. He probably had quite a few broken bones.

“That was pretty satisfying. A shame that he wasn’t awake for it. What next?” Riku asked.

“We leave,” said the nice voice girl.

“Wait, seriously? You’ve gone all this way just to beat him up?”

“Well, yes. We can’t exactly kill him, can we?”

“No, but… You have absolutely no imagination. Whatever, I’ll take this piece of shit since you seem to be done with him.”

Riku commanded a shadow clone to pick up the trash; he didn’t really want to be in contact with the slimy body of a creep. Punching was a totally different matter, of course.

“What are you going to do with him?” she asked.
Not really feeling like explaining himself, Riku said, “You guys are welcome to follow me and watch.”

“Then I guess I will.”

Riku flew off with his shadow clones, and she followed. Seeing that their leader was already leaving, the rest of the group hurried up and took flight.

 

*

 

Kumochi Shito woke up in pain. 

“Ow, ow, owww. Fucking hell, why do I feel like I was sleeping under a sledgehammer?”

His head cleared up, and he remembered that he was draining his dragon before…nothing? As a matter of fact, his pet dragon felt oddly missing.

Shito pulled down his pants. A moment later, his face looked as if all Hell broke loose and was trying to get him, and he shrieked in a voice loud enough to make that actually happen.

“What the fuck, why do I have a fucking vagina!?”