Maple Leaf Village (2)
Baaah!
Somewhere, a goat bleated.
"I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. Monsters rarely ever make it down as far as our village. So there's nothing to report."
A firm refusal. To their bewilderment, Maple Leaf Village claimed it had never sent out a yokai-extermination quest.
"That's strange. The guild was certain it received a request form from this village. Are you canceling the quest, then? If so, you'll need to submit an official cancellation notice to the guild."
Bonita spoke carefully, each word measured, addressing the man atop the watchtower.
The man — smooth-jawed, not a whisker of beard on him — looked down at them without blinking even once.
The village was sealed behind a massive wooden fence, every gap boarded up so tightly that nothing of the interior could be seen. Even standing at the entrance, you could feel the air turn cold and foul.
Something reeked of secrets. The kind of secrets people kill to keep buried.
"We never sent any request form. Not a single problem has ever arisen in this village. Please leave. You're making the people anxious."
Through a narrow crack in the fence, though, the villagers didn't look anxious at all. Every last one of them had come outside and was standing rigid, staring this way with blank faces. Completely expressionless. Extremely suspicious.
I sharpened my hearing and focused, straining for the smallest sound from inside.
Voices drifted out at once.
"Mama. I'm hungry. I can't wait anymore."
"Shh. No. If we touch guild people, more adventurers will come. Hold out today. We'll eat the salted meat from last time instead."
Three possibilities.
One: this village lives by preying on travelers.
Two: that little glutton has a nasty habit of attacking strangers whenever he gets hungry.
Three: every last one of these bastards is a yokai that eats humans.
But that last one didn't quite fit — I couldn't sense the distinctive evil aura or grotesque wrongness that yokai usually give off.
I'd never run into a situation like this before. It was throwing me off.
There was no rule that said a yokai had to have four arms and six legs, sure — but a race that craved human blood usually came with a violent, destructive instinct you could feel in your bones.
These villagers, with people standing right in front of them, were strangely calm.
"If you insist... well, fine. I understand for now. Please make sure to send a cancellation notice to the guild later. It's gotten quite dark, though — could you spare us a single room for the night?"
"I'm afraid our village forbids outsiders. It's an old tradition, and it's for the sake of order. I hope you understand."
"Even if there are no monsters, we came all this way for the safety of your people. I think that earns us at least that much hospitality."
"I'm sorry. We make no exceptions. Not for any reason."
Bonita shook her head and turned her back. She looked completely worn out.
"There's no getting through to them. The forest is dangerous, so we'll camp near the village for tonight."
"Very well."
"Alright."
"Okay..."
"Nin-nin."
Everyone was exhausted; the answers came short and clipped. Satton's voice was especially small — the same Satton who had cheerfully monologued about the Sword Saint Society to an audience of zero until his throat went hoarse. Hard to believe this was the same man who'd unleashed that insane shouting during the Jina Shoulder-Check Snowball Incident.
That had been genuinely shocking.
That effort! Those tears! The inescapable law of fate they designed! Ohhh~ Did it truly seem so light↗ that a mere mortal could change it→? Did it look that fragile↗?
Suddenly I was thinking of a musical I'd seen back on Earth. Did this world have musicals too? If there was an Artists' Association, there had to be. I was definitely going to catch one someday.
We set up camp a short distance from the village and pitched the tent. Everyone unpacked in a rough, halfhearted way — but Jina's bag had everything in it, from snacks to a little doll woven out of grass. Looking at the sheer picnic-level variety of stuff she'd brought, her dad must have fussed over her packing quite a bit.
And that kindness was exactly why she'd gotten slapped. Classic saiō ga uma — the old man at the frontier and his horse. Blessing and curse, all in one.
"Monsters... I was hoping to see some. What a shame. Coming all this way feels rather pointless now."
Satton was whining like a child. But the look Bonita gave him was anything but casual.
Had today's stress finally drained her patience for his nonsense?
"It's better that there are no monsters."
"Of course, but what if it was a good monster? If you travel enough, you're bound to find at least one that doesn't harm people. Because the ancestors of monsters—"
"A good monster."
Bonita's expression darkened at once.
"There's no such thing."
"Aren't you being a bit too absolute?"
Flustered by the dark aura rolling off their party leader, Satton scrambled to explain himself. Bonita just stared at the ground with heavy eyes. You could practically see the flashback switch flip on.
"My little sister once brought home a badly wounded monster from the mountains. It looked like a cat — ash-gray fur, eyes that glittered like jewels. Beautiful creature. About the size of a large dog, and so gentle that everyone in the neighborhood just thought it was an oversized housecat. It was so unlike a monster that the whole town was fooled."
I found myself listening without meaning to. Unlike Satton's rambling, Bonita's words carried weight. So this was the difference a storyteller made. When Satton talked, everything sounded like garbage. When Bonita talked, everything sounded real.
"My sister even named it Danto — after the mountain where she found it. Danto was completely devoted to the sister who'd healed its wounds. Wherever she went, it followed, guarding her like a knight. She loved that so much. Sir Danto, Sir Danto — she called it that so cheerfully I can still hear it."
"A cat... hmm..."
Satton licked his lips. Please tell me he wasn't having some disgusting fantasy. Terrifying.
"It was late at night. My sister had just finished a sewing lesson with Grandmother and was so excited she dragged the whole family over to watch her work. She even sat Danto down beside her. She was doing well — until she pricked her fingertip and drew blood. That was when Danto's eyes went red. It let out a horrible scream, leapt up, and tore into my sister's throat."
"..."
Jina clapped a hand over her mouth. The tragic end of someone who'd been enchanted by a yokai. I closed my eyes for a moment too.
"Next it attacked my mother, who was frozen in shock, then my father... If Grandmother hadn't shoved me out the window, I would have died too. I was so terrified, so desperate to live, that I ran straight to the house of a former adventurer — a friend my father trusted."
Bonita drew a breath.
"He was the kind of person I never liked. Always reeked of something stale, always drunk. And the whole idea of adventurers walking around armed made me uncomfortable."
"..."
"But that night was different. The man who always sat there with vacant eyes draped a blanket over my shoulders and listened to every word I said with complete seriousness. Then he armed himself, ran out, and killed Danto — the thing that had slaughtered my family and was still howling. That was when I understood. Monsters are nothing but disasters that move on instinct, beyond all comprehension. The only ones who think of people... are other people."
Bonita toyed with her silver adventurer's badge, which caught the light as she turned it.
"And I found something I could do. A monster is just a monster. My family paid for learning that simple truth too late — with their lives. I don't want you to go through a tragedy like that, Satton."
"Hmm..."
Satton let out a low sound, wearing a serious expression I'd never seen on him before. So a sincere appeal could reach even a madman? There might actually be hope of reforming him.
"I'm sorry. I spoke thoughtlessly, without knowing a thing."
"You don't need to apologize. I got a little carried away myself. Come on — let's get some sleep."
With that, Bonita was the first to pull her blanket over her head. The rest of us, equally spent, collapsed into our bedrolls. Those village bastards were extremely suspicious, but I was too tired to care tonight. Even if they ambushed us, I had the Ninja Rising Technique. A man with a trump card is a strong man.
"Khhhrrr—"
Listening to Satton's snoring as he dropped off almost immediately, I slipped into sleep.
"Prrrrrrr—"
The tent was full of snoring. Orphe was still awake. Her mind remained sharp and clear.
She hadn't noticed it while sleeping on the inn floor these past few days, but camping outside was hard. Sleeping anywhere that wasn't home brought the abandoned mine flooding back into her memory.
For more than a year, I really did cling on for dear life.
Orphe frowned at Satton, who was snoring like a man possessed, then looked at the man who had gone to sleep beside him.
567. Shin Nobin. Robin. And sometimes, the Runaway Ninja.
The first time she'd seen him, she'd assumed he was one of those people driven mad by the side effects of mana awakening.
Status window~!!!!!!
The memory was so vivid it refused to leave her mind. 567, who had terrified every single candidate, had grumbled and looked ready to let out another bizarre scream — and if the instructor hadn't come and restrained him, he probably would have.
But she understood now.
He had come from somewhere far away, somewhere even Orphe didn't know. That was why he thought and acted differently from the people of the Iregal Kingdom.
Nin-nin.
Wazabyot!
"..."
She'd heard them so many times that they still echoed in her ears.
Is that really all it is?
The question rose unbidden. In truth, Orphe already knew the answer.
Whether he was mad or not didn't matter in the slightest.
To survive. To find the truth and take her revenge. To gain greater power and go back — Shin Nobin was the person she needed most.
She had never asked, so she had never answered. But when the time came, would she be able to tell him everything and ask for his help? And before that — could she be certain he wouldn't change his mind?
It was a difficult problem.
"..."
Her chest felt tight. Orphe quietly rose, pulled on her coat, and slipped out of the tent. She wanted to look at the night sky for the first time in a long while.
"Hah..."
The cold drew a pale breath from her lips. She tilted her head back. There were almost no stars.
The feast of stars she had once watched with her parents — she had never seen it again after that day. Beautiful times were always short, and the days of suffering always long.
After the Snake's Tail kidnapped her and put her through that brutal training, Orphe had spent her days waiting only to die.
A Runaway Ninja protects the people and stands against the yakuza, the yokai, the samurai, and the fallen ninja.
In truth, without Shin Nobin, she would have been used as a tool of that organization and died a miserable death.
Orphe thought of the myth of the Ancient Hero who had fought to save the world.
In the ancient age, there had been a hero summoned from another world as a plaything for the Watchmen who ruled all existence. After honing his strength through long years of gladiatorial combat, the hero stirred the otherworlders who had been dragged here for the same reason into rebellion. Before long, every world united as one heart and fought back — and in the end, they succeeded in defeating every last Watchman.
But the ending of that story was cruel.
Only a few years after their victory, the curse the Watchmen had placed upon the hero and the otherworlders activated. The hero went mad, took countless lives, and then destroyed himself. The otherworlders who had supported him with everything they had lost their reason, degenerated, and became monsters.
Hidden in that tragedy-ending tale were both reverence and fear for the superhuman who had defeated the Watchmen.
Reverence and fear. Those were exactly the feelings Orphe held toward Shin Nobin.
What kind of person could toy with and kill so many instructors after only seven months of training? If he were given more time and experience, what kind of being would he become? Orphe couldn't even begin to imagine.
But he is a good person.
There was no such thing as a villain who would rage at the tears of commoners facing slaughter and fight an entire company of assassins for them — or smile at the sight of an ordinary family living in warm harmony.
That alone was the one truth Orphe could be certain of.
"...Adventurer."
Lost in thought, Orphe flinched. A small voice had come from somewhere.
"Adventurer. Over here."
Through a gap in the wooden boards of the village fence, a pair of large, glowing orange eyes was looking straight at Orphe.