The Kaminoyama Estate
Great Fortune (Lv. Master)
The moment we entered the mountains, Great Fortune activated.
My body moved on its own, twisting me onto a different path. I was startled, but I surrendered to the skill. Great Fortune was luck itself. It would never do me harm.
"Seong! Where the hell are you going?! Shouldn't we be heading deeper into the mountains?"
Mori Masahiro called out. I answered irritably. Having my body move without my consent was not a pleasant sensation.
"Just follow me for now."
I thought as I ran.
What had saved us in that moment of crisis was the earthquake. Bad luck for the villagers. Good luck for us.
It was fortune, yet Great Fortune never triggered. That earthquake must have been the same one that happened in the original story.
Not that I could remember the original plot.
After roughly fifteen minutes of running through the mountain, we arrived at a place dominated by a massive Japanese-style mansion. A short distance from the estate stood a hospital.
"This is… the Kaminoyama estate."
Mori Masahiro wiped the sweat from his brow as he spoke.
"Kaminoyama. That's the shrine maiden's family name. Is this her house?"
"The main family residence. The shrine maiden, Kaminoyama Kagura, lives at the shrine. Judging by your face, you didn't come here on purpose."
I had simply followed where Great Fortune led me.
"…Wouldn't it be better to just head down the mountain?"
Wada Kyoshiro said. It wasn't a bad suggestion. The original plan had been to descend, after all.
"I think I know what Yujin's thinking."
Nakagami Risa said with a smile. Every gaze turned toward her. The open grin she wore in a situation like this felt alien, and wariness filled their eyes.
"We're in the worst possible position right now. The people of this village are hunting us down to kill us, and we've got nothing. Going down the mountain like this? That's suicide, as far as I'm concerned. You all felt how huge this mountain is on the way up."
"But, Nakagami-senpai. If we go down, we'll hit a road, and if we follow the road, we can reach a city."
"Wada. Getting down is the problem. This mountain is dangerous. There's a cliff on one side, and I've heard wild animals come out too. Let's say we get lucky and make it down. What then, if the villagers are waiting for us at the bottom?"
"…So you and Seong are saying we should stay in this village?"
"That's not it. I agree we need to go down. The problem is that we have nothing. We need gear. Food is essential. And since we might run into villagers… we need weapons too."
Nakagami Risa's gaze turned toward the mansion. Everyone else's eyes followed naturally.
Gear. Food. Weapons.
Everything they wanted would be inside that estate.
"…Isn't that dangerous? The shrine maiden is behind the villagers, and this is her family's main house — the security must be tight…"
Wada Kyoshiro fretted.
"It's dangerous either way. Running through the mountains empty-handed only makes it worse. More than anything, we don't know the terrain at all. Even if we leave everything else, we at least need food."
That was Mori Masahiro.
"…I've been fiddling with my phone this whole time, and the signal's dead. No internet, no calls. Someone in this village is jamming communications. We can't call for outside help. We have to survive on our own. And for that, we need weapons."
Fudo Jun said. He was cold and clear-headed. He showed no fear of the villagers. This was no ordinary man.
The circle members debated. Then they decided the democratic way. They would raid the mansion.
We scaled the estate wall.
It was a fairly high wall, but not one we couldn't climb.
The mansion was quiet. I had vaguely expected guards to be patrolling, but that prediction was wrong. Not a single security guard wandered the grounds.
Thud-thud-thud-thud!
Hurried footsteps sounded from outside the estate.
"Wake everyone up! This is an emergency!"
"Yes, sir!"
"Search the mountains! Get the hunting dogs ready!"
"Understood!"
"Block the road below the village! We need more people — request manpower from outside!"
A middle-aged man's shouts carried all the way into the mansion. It was a voice I had heard somewhere before.
"…Police Chief Shimada."
Mori Masahiro muttered, identifying the speaker.
We only moved after the presence outside had faded.
Lights came on inside the mansion. People had woken to the commotion. The fortunate part was that the main gate remained shut.
Walking at the front, I spoke in a low voice.
"The people of this village are trying to kill us. I don't know why, but they are trying to kill us."
Revenge because I killed villagers first? Absolutely not. Even if I hadn't struck first, they would have tried to kill us all the same.
"So we kill them too. If anyone wants to spout nonsense about not killing people, then do nothing at all."
A door beside us opened. A person stepped out. A woman who looked to be in her forties. Judging by her clothes and her shabby air, she was a servant working at the estate. Before she could scream, I seized her throat and snapped it.
Crrrk.
She died on the spot. I shoved the corpse into the room and shut the door.
My back prickled. A faint fear had settled in the eyes of the circle members watching me.
"…Did you really have to kill her?"
"Mori-senpai. What did I just say?"
"……Sorry."
"The second she saw us, she was about to scream. And after that? The villagers would have swarmed us, and we'd be dead."
"Right. To not die, you have to kill…. This village is hell."
We ran into several more people after that. I took the lead, but there were moments I couldn't handle alone. When that happened, Nakagami Risa or Hagawa Ryoko stepped in to help.
We killed the old man who appeared to be the master of the estate and successfully seized control of the mansion.
Without hesitation, we gathered the equipment needed for mountain travel and the food from the kitchen. For weapons, we took Japanese swords. Whether it had been the master's hobby, one entire room held dozens of blades. I hurried over and grabbed the sword displayed in the most ornate spot.
In manga, legendary swords are always hidden away… but that's not how it works in real life. The owner of a sword isn't an idiot — why would he stash a good blade in some corner?
Sword in hand, I looked toward the annex of the estate. It was the only place we hadn't entered. There was no need to. We had already taken everything we needed.
Still… it piques my curiosity.
The annex had no windows. Looking around, it was sealed with concrete on all sides. The front entrance was a heavy iron door.
I told the circle members, who were busy gathering food and gear, that I was going to check the annex for a moment, then stood alone before it.
I gripped the handle of the iron door. It was unlocked. There was no need for the key from the master's room.
White light spilled through the slightly open crack. A little unsettled, I flung the iron door wide.
Clank-clank-clank.
It was a small factory. Machines turned, manufacturing something. The ceiling was bright and clean. You could feel how obsessively they cared about hygiene.
And at the center of it all, a man draped in black cloth sat watching the machines. His face was hidden. The black fabric covered him all the way over his head.
He saw me, startled, and pulled something from his robes.
Red pills — Hyeoldan.
Not one. Six of them.
He lifted the cloth covering his face and swallowed every last one.
Drip. Drip-drip.
Bloody tears fell to the floor. Then his body writhed.
…No. Not his whole body… his muscles are writhing.
He charged at me. The instantaneous acceleration was enormous.
Still not beyond human limits.
His vein-bulging hand shot toward my head. He meant to crush my skull in his grip.
I bent at the waist and drew my blade. My sword was faster than his hand.
Shhk.
His head was severed and sailed through the air. A fountain of blood erupted from the stump, spraying all the way to the ceiling. His blood pressure had been absurdly high.
The headless body did not stop. I sidestepped and swung again, carving through his shoulder. The tough mass of muscle parted as smoothly as silk.
Truly a masterwork blade.
I looked down at the fallen man. Blood still jetted from the severed shoulder like a fountain.
There's a scar on his throat. He never said a single word… did they destroy his vocal cords and make him a mute?
I left the corpse behind and examined the machines. Even without an operator, they kept running.
At the foremost machine, powder-like substances were being fed in and mixed. There were more than six kinds of powder in total — five of them white, one a vivid crimson.
Once thoroughly blended, the mixture became a pink powder and moved to the next machine.
Water was added and stirred. Then it was boiled until the liquid evaporated. This process repeated several more times.
…That doesn't seem like water.
Next, the powder was rolled into round pellets and hardened. This was how Hyeoldan was completed.
Surprisingly simple to make?
But that wasn't the end.
The finished Hyeoldan was sorted into two groups on an inspection table.
I couldn't tell the difference by looking.
There are fewer of the ones on the right. Defects?
I decided to try them.
I had Complete Recovery. Eating them right away wouldn't kill me.
First, I took one of the pills on the left — the ones I suspected were the successful product — and put it in my mouth.
Thump!
My heart pounded violently. Vitality surged through my body and my mind cleared. My physical senses sharpened. Confidence swelled. I felt like I could do anything.
…Narcotics.
I ate one from the right.
Power surged through my body. My vision turned red. Drip-drip. Bloody tears ran down my cheeks.
So the scarcer ones were the real Hyeoldan.
I grabbed a fistful of Hyeoldan and stuffed them into my pocket. They might prove useful later.
I moved behind the machines. Stacked crates came into view. I sliced one open with my sword. Hyeoldan, elegantly packaged.
So they're selling Hyeoldan. Must be making serious money.
Plenty of people would want this. The yakuza — maybe even the Japanese government was quietly buying Hyeoldan. The temporary physical enhancement it provided was something anyone would covet.
There's a door. Where the raw materials come in?
It led underground. Descending into the basement, I let out a hollow laugh. The corridor was packed with powders.
Narcotics.
At the end of the passage was another door. When I opened it and stepped inside, a thick stench of blood stabbed my nose. But the place wasn't chaotic. It was cold and clean. I turned my head to the side.
Inside a machine were the corpses of Takana Hiroshi, Gonja, and Sakurai. The bodies of villagers I had killed were there as well. The machine seemed designed to store corpses without letting them rot.
And it's extracting blood too. The machine next to it… looks like it's separating flesh from bone.
The separated flesh and organs were being boiled in a pot with the extracted blood. The bones were being pulverized into powder.
I don't know about the powder… but bone, flesh, and organs are ingredients for Hyeoldan?
I recalled the taste of the Hyeoldan I had eaten earlier. There had been no taste at all. Hard to believe a human being had gone into it.
"…Hyeoldan had no taste at all. So it's not made by grinding people up?"
"There's an intermediate process. The extract drawn from the corpses is mixed with the Kaminoyama family's secret medicine, then powdered. After that, it's blended with five kinds of narcotics to produce Hyeoldan. However, the success rate of production is only fifteen percent. During the process of rolling and hardening the powder, eighty-five percent come out defective. We've tried to improve it over the past five years… and failed."
I turned my head.
A giant of a man nearly two meters tall, wearing a doctor's coat, was looking at me with indifferent eyes.
"Who are you?"
"Kaminoyama Kazuto. Director of this hospital."