Chapter 75
Chapter 75
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 75
Chapter Title: Back to the Origin (4)
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Seoran looked down at the snack thief and said.
"Okay, tell me. Why did you steal my snacks?"
The three-eyed rabbit desperately racked its brains.
It was a yokai that had lived far longer than one might expect.
However, its age and strength weren't proportional, so all it knew how to do was shabby illusions.
Still, it was quick on the uptake.
A rabbit yokai with such meager yokai power wouldn't have survived this long without sharp instincts.
The three-eyed rabbit's eyes darted around busily, sizing up its opponent.
First off, the opponent's power: immeasurable.
Slightly liquefied spiritual power leaked from its pupils in streams.
Unless it was showboating in front of a low-grade yokai, this had to be unconscious overflow from an oversaturated body.
A power that casually defied common sense—probably unbeatable even if all four fiends attacked at once.
With that assessment, the three-eyed rabbit gave up on escaping.
The moment it tried to flee, it would likely wake up in the underworld without knowing what killed it.
Better to cling to a sliver of mercy.
The three-eyed rabbit closely observed its opponent's face.
There was a hint of displeasure, but nothing severe.
Its posture and expression radiated indifference.
Considering the overwhelming gap between them, that made sense.
If it answered well, it might get let off.
The three-eyed rabbit considered various excuses, then decided to just confess the truth and beg for forgiveness.
Getting caught in a lie would make things truly irreparable.
The three-eyed rabbit looked up at Seoran with all three eyes brimming with tears and groveled desperately.
"I-I'm really sorry... I just wanted fruit so badly... Please forgive me just this once, and I swear I won't do it again..."
Seoran said.
"No, if you wanted fruit that badly, you should've found some yourself. Is it okay to sneakily steal someone else's snacks? There aren't any fruits around here?"
After speaking, Seoran stared at the three-eyed rabbit as if daring it to make an excuse.
The three-eyed rabbit rolled its three eyes.
It clearly had something to say.
Seoran readily gave it a chance to defend itself.
"If you have something to say, go ahead."
The three-eyed rabbit cautiously pointed out.
"Um, there aren't any fruits around here."
Seoran asked.
"No fruits? Not even one?"
"Yes, at least I've never seen any."
Seoran was at a loss for words.
Thinking it over, in the depths, no beings below Incarnation Cultivator could fly—not even birds or flying insects.
Maybe there were no bees or butterflies?
No pollination possible?
Or perhaps the trees looked alive on the surface, but their souls had been extracted, leaving them all dead?
Seoran imagined a life without fruit.
For a fruit lover, it was truly a horrific hell.
She started to feel a little sorry for the three-eyed rabbit.
Seoran cleared her throat and said.
"Ahem, even so, stealing isn't right."
The three-eyed rabbit groveled with its front paws once more.
"I'm really sorry... I swear I won't do it again..."
Seoran graciously granted forgiveness.
"Well, since you're reflecting on it, that's good. I'll let you off just this once. Behave yourself from now on."
"Thank you! I'll never forget this kindness!"
"Hm, good attitude."
Showing mercy even to a yokai—this body of mine.
Seoran turned to leave coolly.
But the rabbit wasn't cooperating.
The three-eyed rabbit cautiously asked.
"Um, but... the fruit that fell on the ground—would it be okay if I ate it if you don't want it?"
"Eat it? The stuff on the ground?"
"Rabbits are like that, you know."
"I'm not eating it, so do what you want."
With Seoran's permission, the three-eyed rabbit gleefully scooped up the fallen dried fruit and started eating.
It stuffed its cheeks full of the rare treat it hadn't had in ages and savored it.
It seemed its claim of craving fruit wasn't a lie.
The three-eyed rabbit muttered happily.
"Wow, how long has it been since I last ate fruit?"
It was eating so enjoyably that Seoran couldn't help asking.
"How many years has it been?"
"Not exactly sure, but around a thousand years, I think."
"A thousand years?"
Seoran was shocked.
Yokai didn't have fixed lifespans.
As long as they weren't killed, they gradually grew stronger with age, eventually becoming great yokai.
A thousand years was about the age of an average great yokai.
Seoran couldn't accept that this three-eyed rabbit was over a thousand years old.
"You're over a thousand? You?"
"Yes, is there a problem?"
"Then why are you so weak?"
The three-eyed rabbit's answer was astonishing.
"Well, because I'm a rabbit yokai?"
Seoran barely managed to accept it.
*****
In the end, the three-eyed rabbit joined Seoran.
Its role in the party was guide.
Having lived here for a thousand years, it should know the lay of the land perfectly.
Headhunter Seoran's eye for talent was sharp once again.
Stuffed full of dried fruit and in high spirits, the three-eyed rabbit devotedly served its lifesaver.
"Have you ever seen stone slabs engraved with patterns like this?"
"Of course, just follow me."
The three-eyed rabbit led Seoran east.
After climbing a low hill, the Great Rift came into view far away.
The area around the Great Rift was a barren wasteland without a single blade of grass.
Probably because it was too close to the underworld.
Seoran suddenly grew curious and asked.
"Have you ever gone near the Great Rift?"
"No, I'm not an idiot..."
Even the three-eyed rabbit, which had resided in the depths of the Great Forest for over a thousand years, had never approached the Great Rift.
Wise ones learn from others' mistakes without experiencing them.
But explorers thought differently.
Seoran took a long rope from her backpack and wrapped it tightly around the waist of the expressionless doll (Number One).
"What are you doing right now?"
In response to the three-eyed rabbit's question, Seoran replied.
"I'm curious what's inside the Great Rift, so I'm just gonna peek in a bit."
"This really doesn't seem like a good idea..."
"Come on, watch closely."
Number One headed toward the Great Rift at its master's command.
To avoid being sucked in all at once, it anchored its ankles into the ground and approached slowly.
Seoran and the other dolls gripped the rope tightly.
The closer they got to the Great Rift, the stronger the pull became.
"Shouldn't we stop now?"
The three-eyed rabbit tried to dissuade her, but Seoran ignored it completely.
"It's fine, see? It's still okay right now..."
The moment she said it was fine, trouble struck.
The underworld's pull yanked the doll up, ground and all.
Seoran and the dolls immediately let go of the rope.
Doll Number One was sucked into the Great Rift.
But the shared vision spell was still active.
Seoran quickly observed the inside of the Great Rift in that instant.
The interior was astonishing.
It wasn't just a natural split in the earth.
It was artificially constructed, with precisely fitted protrusions and depressions stacked like the walls of a well.
The Great Rift wasn't a geological feature—it was a massive structure.
And then the shared vision cut off.
*****
After losing one party member, they reached their destination.
It didn't take that long.
The site was not far from the Great Rift.
The place where the three-eyed rabbit had seen the stone slab was some underground facility.
"If you go further in from here, there are tons of stone slabs."
Seoran ordered her now-reduced number of dolls.
"Follow the three-eyed rabbit and bring back stone slabs engraved with the exact same pattern as this picture."
Seoran stayed behind alone, lost in thought.
What was that scene earlier?
It was definitely man-made...
What on earth was it built for?
Seoran had been mulling over the same thing repeatedly.
The Great Rift afflicted the entire East Continent.
Imbalances in spiritual energy caused by the pull, or erosion of terrain by the underworld—these were prime examples.
No matter how she thought about it, she couldn't fathom why anyone would create a Great Rift to wreck the entire East Continent.
She pondered hard to solve the riddle, but no clues emerged.
Frustrated, Seoran looked up absentmindedly.
She was inside a building, so the sky wasn't visible.
But something else was.
"Huh?"
A massive ceiling mural.
Several images were linked in a ring.
It seemed the creator intended them to be viewed in sequence.
The first image depicted the mortal realm.
The four continents—east, west, south, north—and mysterious arrows.
Long arrows from the western, northern, and southern continents all pointed to the East Continent.
The second image showed piles of corpses.
Corpses stacked neatly on a circular platform.
Judging by their appearances, they all seemed to be yokai corpses.
The third image featured a single person.
Grasping a rod stuck in the ground with both hands.
Countless gears filled the background.
The fourth image was also a person.
Pulling the lever, seemingly connected to the previous one.
The gears in the background were moving.
The fifth image was extremely straightforward.
The center of the circular platform split open, and all the stacked corpses on top tumbled into the hole below.
In the sixth image, the platform closed again.
Seoran realized the true nature of the Great Rift.
Gather up useless stuff and stack it neatly.
Pull the lever to activate the mechanism, opening the cover of the hole piled high with junk.
The trash all falls down.
The Great Rift was a sort of trash bin.
Open the lid when needed to dump the trash.
It gets sucked straight into the underworld.
Close it when not in use.
The Great Rift, which had grotesquely twisted the East Continent's mortal realm, wasn't some unstoppable apocalypse or calamity.
It was just a trash bin with the lid left open.
The problems arose solely because it connected to the underworld.
The extremely skewed distribution of spiritual energy, the downfall of Minor Sects due to polarization, the shrinking habitats of Five Elements Treefolk from underworld erosion, and so on.
The cause of every societal issue Seoran had encountered in the East Continent was revealed.
It was all because someone used the trash bin and didn't close the lid.
Seoran was dumbfounded.
"No way, does this make any sense?"
Just then, the three-eyed rabbit and the dolls returned with the teleportation stone slabs.