15 Days
We slipped carefully out of the mansion.
"Hiiik…."
Nebata Noriko, a plain-looking woman with short hair and glasses, clapped both hands over her mouth. Corpses lay strewn across the ground in front of the mansion.
We ignored the bodies, kept watch in every direction, and made for the shrine. We didn't run into a single villager all the way to the stairs leading up to it.
From the bottom, we looked up the flight of steps.
It was dizzying.
The darkness swallowed the top of the stairs completely. Whether it was an optical illusion or not, the steps seemed to climb on forever.
"Climbing these won't be easy either. Figure at least five minutes. And if they start shooting down at us from up there…" Mori Masahiro's voice trailed off. "Just imagining it is enough to make your skin crawl."
Every member of the circle shuddered. But there was no other way. Take a different route up to the shrine? Scrambling up the mountain off the paved path would be brutal. What five minutes of stairs could accomplish might take over an hour any other way.
We started up at a measured pace. Push too hard and you'd burn out halfway. Fortunately, no one ambushed us on the climb.
Shibata. That monster's definitely waiting at the shrine, isn't he?
Honestly, I wasn't feeling confident.
I couldn't use Complete Recovery right now.
Hyeoldan? I'd brought some, but take too much and the side effects could kill you. I had zero interest in going down with Shibata in a mutual kill. If I died, the quest failed. And the quest had to succeed—no exceptions.
The top of the stairs came into view. Leading the way, I stopped. Thankfully, no one was lying in wait above us.
"Let's work out a plan."
"A plan?"
"Nothing elaborate. Once we get up there, there will definitely be enemies. They might have guns, so a straight frontal clash is a bad idea. So…"
I looked to either side of the stairs. Sloped ground and trees. Steep, sure—but if we crawled our way up, we could reach the shrine without using the steps at all. We were already close.
"I see. You want us to take a side path."
"Yes. We split up. Me, Mori-senpai, Fudo-senpai, Nebata-senpai, and Wada go straight up the stairs as we are."
"…And Nakagami and Hagawa circle around the side? The numbers feel a little off, don't they?"
"No. This is right. They'll be watching me and Mori-senpai the closest, and if our group looks too thin, that'll tip them off too. And if it turns out no one's ambushing the top of the stairs… I'd like Nakagami-senpai and Hagawa to skip rejoining us and move as a separate unit to capture the shrine maiden."
"Hold on, Seong! Isn't that way too dangerous for Nakagami-senpai and Hagawa?!"
Wada Kyoshiro flared up. The way he kept glancing at Hagawa Ryoko made it clear who he was really worried about. Hagawa Ryoko herself, though, just listened without a word of protest.
"Not a bad idea."
Nakagami Risa spoke up. Hand axe in her grip, she looked at Hagawa Ryoko and curled her lips into a smile.
"Kinda feels like a ninja mission, doesn't it? Right, Ryoko?"
"…I'm not a ninja, Nakagami-senpai. And please don't call me by my first name."
"Come on, we're close enough for that. You can call me by mine too."
"……."
Wada Kyoshiro's eyes went round as he looked back and forth between Nakagami Risa and Hagawa Ryoko, clearly wondering when the two of them had gotten so familiar. I couldn't exactly tell him it was because the three of us had spent time tangled up naked together.
"Anyway—you're fine with this plan too, right?"
Nakagami Risa asked Hagawa Ryoko. Hagawa Ryoko fretted at the dagger hidden in her clothes and gave a short nod.
"Whether it's the best plan or not is secondary… all of us charging straight in together just feels too risky."
"Then it's settled. We move the way Yujin said."
The two of them headed off into the wooded slope beside the stairs.
They'd handle it. At the very least, neither of them hesitated when it came to killing people. Nakagami Risa's skills were a little less reliable, but with Hagawa Ryoko—raised in a ninja family—alongside her, it would be fine.
"…Seong. You and Ryoko seem to have gotten pretty close."
Wada Kyoshiro said it to me.
"Me and Hagawa, close? What are you imagining?"
"It's not imagination. Ryoko… kept watching you the whole time. Other people might not notice, but I can tell."
Sharp instincts, or just the habits of a childhood friend who knew every one of Hagawa Ryoko's tells?
Either way, I didn't have the luxury of standing around chatting with Wada Kyoshiro right now.
"We'll talk later. This isn't the time for that conversation."
"…Fine."
We reached the shrine entrance.
A torii, they called it. A massive red gate welcomed us. We passed beneath it and walked the stone path toward the shrine itself.
The grounds were silent. No one in sight. Only the chirping of insects filled the air from every direction. The whole place had a bleak, desolate feel.
I narrowed my eyes at the shrine buildings. There were several of them.
"Where do you think the shrine maiden would be?"
I asked Mori Masahiro. He'd been to this shrine during a festival before.
"…I don't know either. A place this large gives her plenty of places to hide. If I had to guess, I'd say the inner residence."
"Not the main hall?"
"When I looked around yesterday, the main hall was for ceremonies. Not a place people live."
"…Well. If we poke around long enough, we'll find her eventually."
"The lack of people is what's bothering me. They could be lying in ambush."
"……."
I had a pretty good idea already.
This village was finished. The shrine maiden who'd ruled it and turned it into a drug factory had a lot of loose ends to tie up.
And she even sent people to kill me. Those ones died by my hand instead.
She'd be very busy right about now.
We searched the shrine grounds thoroughly. Nothing of note turned up.
We were stepping out of the main hall empty-handed when it happened.
BOOM!
A rough crash, and the door of a side building burst open. Through the small doorway, a massive man emerged.
An upper body grotesquely oversized compared to his lower half, black cloth covering him all the way over his face.
It was Shibata.
"Wh-what the hell is that monster?!"
Wada Kyoshiro recoiled in horror. He tensed without thinking and leveled his baseball bat at Shibata.
"…So that's the monster Seong mentioned. I half-believed it when I heard about him… seeing him in person makes my legs shake even worse."
Mori Masahiro gripped his spear and glared at Shibata.
"We have to fight something like that?"
"Wh-what do we do?!"
Fudo Jun and Nebata Noriko panicked, trembling with fear.
The object of that fear, Shibata, showed no interest in them at all—his attention was locked solely on me. The cloth covering his face made it impossible to see exactly where he was looking, but I could feel it instinctively: he was watching me.
"You! Why are you still alive?!"
Shibata's voice was shaking. I smirked. He was trying to bury it under anger, but the man was afraid of me. My eyes went to his right arm. The arm I'd cut off was reattached. Looking closer, thick wire had been used to stitch it back on.
That alone wouldn't make an arm work. It hung limp. Clearly useless.
"Where's the shrine maiden."
"…Maiden-sama said kill you. I kill you."
Shibata started running.
He was slower than the first time I'd seen him. Still not a speed you could ignore.
"Scatter! Scatter and kill him!"
Japanese swords in both hands, I shouted as I leapt backward. Shibata was targeting me openly and without subtlety.
I'd expected a fight with Shibata, and I'd already briefed the circle members.
I drew Shibata's attention while Mori Masahiro and Wada Kyoshiro struck at his back.
"Annoying!"
Thud. Thud-thud!
Shibata swung his left arm wildly, thrashing about.
He'd grabbed one of the decorative statues from the shrine grounds and hurled it. Absurdly, the first casualty was Nebata Noriko, who'd been holding her breath the farthest away.
"Kyaaaaaaah!"
Crunch.
She failed to dodge the flying statue. Her head caved in, and she died.
"You bastard…!"
Fudo Jun, who'd been next to Nebata Noriko, flung five knives at Shibata. Two missed, but three hit—two in the back, one buried in his head.
Shibata pulled the knife from his skull with his massive left hand. The cloth covering his head fell away. The face revealed underneath was revolting. Blood-red eyes looked ready to pop from their sockets, his jaw twisted into an S-shape, and the center of his forehead bulged outward like a horn.
His face was as inhuman as his build.
"You… you…!!"
Shibata spun toward Fudo Jun and bellowed. The absurd part was that a knife had been stuck in his head, and he was still moving like nothing had happened.
Is he an actual monster? …No. Impossible. His eyes are completely gone. He's high. No bloody tears, but… he must have taken Hyeoldan.
Shibata charged at Fudo Jun. Fudo Jun tried to run in a panic, tripped on a stone, and went down.
"I'll crush that skull of yours!!"
Shibata's left hand closed around the fallen Fudo Jun's head. With a wet pop, blood and brain matter spilled between his fingers.
While Shibata was busy killing Fudo Jun, I slipped in close and slashed his right thigh. I couldn't cut all the way through. The muscle there was as tough as his upper body.
Still—I managed to make him limp.
Shibata whirled around.
"My leg!!"
"Where's the shrine maiden."
"Die!!"
I scrambled back and dodged his attack. Shibata fixed on me again. Having stripped him of his mobility, he wasn't nearly as threatening as before.
"Mori-senpai! Wada! Just keep your distance! Maintain range and we can hunt him down easily!"
"Hunt him…?! That monster is still a human being!"
"I like Seong's word for it, personally. Is crushing a human head bare-handed something a human does?!"
Mori Masahiro and Wada Kyoshiro threw themselves into the fight in earnest, furious over the deaths of two circle members.
"Uwaaaaaaah!!"
Shibata screamed and went berserk. We kept a fixed distance from the now-immobile creature and pressed the fight to its end.
Thud.
At last, Shibata went down.
I rushed the fallen man and drove a blade into his eye socket. He convulsed, then died. The tedious fight was over.
Thud.
Mori Masahiro sank to the ground. His left arm, struck during the battle, was hideously broken. I stepped close and checked it.
"Mori-senpai…. Honestly, this arm is beyond saving."
"……I'm grateful just to be alive. If he hadn't been weakened… it wouldn't have been my arm I lost. It would have been my life."
"Can you stand?"
"My legs are fine, so I can walk. But I'd like to rest a little."
"How about resting forever, then?"
"What…? Guh?!"
I drove my sword through Mori Masahiro's chest. The sensation of piercing his heart traveled up into my hand.
"I never liked the way you swaggered around just because you were a senior. Die."
I'd brought him along to deal with Shibata. With Shibata dead, Mori Masahiro was surplus. And for the same reason, I was going to kill Wada Kyoshiro here too. Once Wada Kyoshiro was gone, Hagawa Ryoko would be mine.
"Seong!!!"
Wada Kyoshiro shouted and charged, swinging his battered baseball bat.
I dodged the bat and slashed. The blade cut across Wada Kyoshiro's torso—but shallow. No sense of cutting into his organs.
Wham!
The bat I'd dodged slammed into my side. He'd changed the trajectory mid-swing.
"…Not bad."
I raised my sword to finish him. Wada Kyoshiro threw the bat at me and ran. I tried to give chase, but the throbbing in my side got in the way. I clicked my tongue and pressed a hand to my ribs. Lifting my clothes, I found a deep purple bruise already forming.
In the blink of an eye, Wada Kyoshiro had vanished into the mountain woods. It was already too late to catch him.