Their leader frowned again, feeling as if her intentions had been misunderstood. So she said clearly, "We woulds like to help yous sirs. Just gives us the breads, and we will give peoples for you."
He shook his head. "No, thank you. I can do this on my own."
Not only isn't he sure that he will be able to gain karma if he lets someone else do the giving in his stead, he also isn't sure that these people will actually give people the loaves of bread. So he rejected their goodwill.
His rejection understandably made her angry. But she didn't show it. Instead, she bowed and left with her group.
He watched them leave with regret. "It seems they are smarter than they look."
He had enough experience to identify them as bullies. What he had said about his charity interfering with their charity was a joke. He expects them to be thugs who take advantage of others.
He doesn't have a problem with what they do for a living, but he will have a big problem if they decide to extend their reach to his project and take advantage of him. He just wanted to confirm their motives before he attacked them.
That's what he plans to do if they had tried to stop him. He was going to beat them black and blue right in front of everyone to show just how much he doesn't like interference.
He wanted to use them to reach everyone watching a lesson. Unfortunately, they had too much common sense. Something about him must have warned them off.
Their appearance was just an interlude. He didn't care too much about their appearance after they wisely chose to give up.
He returned his attention to giving out his bread and advertising his dojo. That would have been everything that happened that morning if he hadn't seen something that angered him.
There was something that they used to accuse him of back on Earth. They say he has an anger management problem.
He doesn't actually get angry easily. He is a pretty laid-back guy and wouldn't mind it if everyone left him alone.
In fact, he can bear some indignant and disrespectful treatment of his person.But once someone crosses his bottom line, he will go batshit crazy.
It was why he sanded someone's soup, killed and ate someone's dog, and was willing to continue killing people every day for 3 years because someone wanted him to stop doing something that was very important to him.
He cared a lot about harvesting karma but didn't steal from his mother when she told him to stop using her foodstuffs. He didn't remain hell-bent on taking everything that the neighbors had either. He was reasonable enough to be content with five loaves of bread from each household.
But his bottom line was crossed when a neighbor refused to give him anything or when his mother wanted him to stop giving people bread. He became angry and was willing to do everything to get his way.
That same anger came over him when he saw some of the thugs from the Black Band gang waylay and accost the people he just gave bread to.
They pushed the woman with the bread to the ground. They slapped her and took her bread. Then they said something to her while she tried to hold back her tears. She could only nod in understanding to what they said.
As he watched, the same thing happened to another person who had received bread from him. When he looked around, he noticed that the same thing was happening in different directions.
Apparently, the members of the Black Band gang had spread out to waylay people from every direction. The people who were standing in line had also noticed this. It made them nervous and uncertain. Some of them were even leaving the line to avoid trouble.
He noticed this and focused on the thugs again. He couldn't hear what they were saying to the people they were beating up after stealing their bread because they were far away from him. But he doubts he could have heard what they were saying even if they were speaking beside him because of the ringing in his ear.
The ringing was caused by his boiling blood. His anger was so high that his eyes had become bloodshot.
His heart was beating fiercely, and adrenaline was pumping through his veins. He was already in flight or fight mode.
With his anger, if there was a soup to spoil so that he could get what he wanted, he was going to sand it. And if there were 1,100 people that needed to be eliminated so that he wouldn't be forced to stop harvesting karma, those people would be eliminated.
He dropped everything he was doing immediately and exhaled deeply. Then he unsheathed his sword and went for the kill.
He wasn't going to speak to them or negotiate. He doesn't negotiate with terrorists, so there must be violence.
If there was going to be violence, he wasn't just going to beat them and call it a day. Beating them will mean that they will get another chance to interfere with his bread run and will teach them to be smarter about it.
As his mother used to say when he was slow to kill those prisoners, if you're going to harm someone, then kill them to cut off future troubles. If you're going to kill them, then kill them quickly.
Was their life worth some bread? No, he doesn't think so. But that is the question that they should have asked themselves before they decided to interfere in his business and cross his bottom line.
He said to himself as he dashed towards one of the men, "Don't think, just do."
It was the same thing he had said when he took the knife from his mother and raised it into the air. Then he raised his sword into the air and chopped down.