The Ninja of Salvation (2)
“S-Senior, stop~!”
The witch flailed her arms and legs wildly as she shouted the order.
Her worshippers could only stamp their feet in helpless panic.
It was clear the witch meant a great deal to them.
“You little shit. You can speak Korean and you’ve been pretending you can’t?”
Or was it the language of the Iregal Kingdom?
Didn’t really matter.
“Split in half and die!”
Trying to throw me off with some weird foreign tongue just added to her list of crimes.
“Yattae~! Children! Don’t take them!”
I tightened my grip. Crocodile tears welled in the witch’s eyes.
“Children! No! Not that!”
She denied it so desperately that it almost looked like there was something to it.
I eased off a little, curious enough to hear her out.
“What’s with the child-shaped totem and the blood in the cauldron? Explain.”
She just blinked at me like she had no idea what I meant, so I set her down and pointed at the totem with the hand that had been holding her legs.
Lies always show, one way or another.
I still had her by the throat—if she tried anything stupid I could snap her neck on the spot.
“Karito! Karito!”
The witch finally seemed to understand and nodded hard.
“Ritual of hospitality! For the dead!”
“What grade did you get in Korean class?”
She was speaking our language, but it was rough as hell.
Exactly the kind of half-assed studying you see from people who never took it seriously.
I asked again.
“So you kill the kids and then hold a feast for them? Bless them because they died to become our nutrients—something like that?”
“Did not kill! Do not eat! Tribe’s children, died… Detra Po Takana attack.”
The look on her face as she said it was genuinely sorrowful.
“What’s Detra Po Takana?”
Just from the name it sounded like some ridiculously strong mid-boss character.
“Detra Po Takana. Degenerate ones. In your words, monsters.”
So the tribe’s children had been killed by yokai, and they had raised the totem to console their spirits.
That actually made sense.
“Hmm.”
Maybe this one wasn’t a witch after all.
It had been the same with the Crimson Flame Dragon Knights—lately I was running into more and more situations where I couldn’t be sure whether someone deserved to die or not.
No matter what, I could never afford to harm innocent people by mistake.
“Translate for them. Tell them if they take even one step I’ll snap your neck. And let them know my hearing is excellent.”
“A-All right.”
The witch (provisional name) shouted something at her worshippers (working title).
They kept nodding frantically even as sweat poured down their faces.
I gave them one hard glare, then stepped into the tent and pointed at the cauldron brimming with blood.
“And this? You kill the kids and drain their blood, don’t you?”
“Horrible thought!”
The witch shook her head vigorously.
“Animal clotted blood. Good for health. Boil with vegetables. We eat often.”
“It was seonji hangover soup?”
All the tension drained right out of me.
Looking again, the jars beside the cauldron were packed with vegetables.
“You bastard, why the hell are you using a cauldron that looks so suspicious? I thought you were a witch.”
This one was partly her fault too.
She had set up a scene anyone would misread.
If it had been anyone less cool-headed and careful than me, they would have gone full conquistador at the sight of Aztec cannibals and wiped the wildfolk out on the spot.
“I, priestess. Not witch. Priestess!”
She protested with fierce indignation—witch no longer, priestess.
“And what’s a priestess supposed to be?”
“Lead tribe, perform rites. That is my role.”
Some hybrid job mixing chieftain and shaman, then.
Only barbarians who had never heard of civilized “division of labor” would come up with something like that.
“Priestess. Why did you try to attack Evergreen Village? Answer straight.”
This was the real question.
Wipe them out, or let them live.
The future of the wildfolk hung on her answer.
“...”
The priestess’s face twisted as if the words themselves were humiliating.
“Answer!”
I tightened my grip on her throat again.
“Hhk—hgh!”
She stubbornly held out.
When she started thrashing her hands in resistance I caught both of them with my free hand.
“If you don’t answer in ten seconds I’ll treat you as yakuza and break your neck.”
The position was a little awkward, but the villain here was still the priestess.
“Ugh… Tetra Po Takana attacked. Tribe’s home. We fled. Asked village for help.”
In the end she cracked under force and started talking.
Her sentence structure was absolute garbage, but I liked how short she kept it.
“You’ve got those tree branches, right? You burn them like mosquito coils. How did you even get attacked?”
“Simato? That cannot calm. Excited ones, or clever monsters.”
So the mosquito incense had its limits.
Trying to drive off something like Delamion with that stuff was never going to work anyway.
“Hold on a second.”
I pulled out my notebook to get the situation straight.
Orphe had bought the innkeeper’s old memo pad and handed it to me; it was proving surprisingly useful.
Left hand on the priestess’s throat, right hand on the pen—ready.
“Continue.”
“Tried to talk. Approached close. But they shot arrows first. Hurt. Three of our people.”
“How exactly did you approach?”
“Distance far. Hearts urgent. So we ran.”
“You idiot. If guys who look like you come charging, of course they’re going to shoot.”
A pack of tattooed, tanned thugs barreling in all at once would rattle even the Buddha. How much worse must it have been for the understaffed soldiers of a tiny village?
“...Wanted to clear misunderstanding. Could not. Men in armor came.”
“Why are you camped out here?”
“Our home. Shrine is there. Cannot abandon and leave.”
“What a goddamn headache.”
The notes were finished.
1. Yokai attacked and occupied the place where the wildfolk lived.
2. There is a shrine there, so they have to take it back.
2. The driven-out wildfolk tried to ask Evergreen Village for help driving off the monsters.
3. They charged in too fast, got shot full of arrows, and ran.
4. Then the Crimson Flame Dragon Knights showed up, so now they’re stuck here whining.
“Good.”
Seeing it laid out like that made everything clearer.
This world had no smartphone or computer to save things for me.
Tribo and Orphe weren’t always going to be at my side, so I needed to make note-taking a habit.
“Follow me.”
I dragged the priestess back outside.
“Delamota…!”
“Dudonta...”
“Donopolado..”
The wildfolk were still standing in the exact same postures as before.
Even with their leader held hostage, you’d expect at least one or two hotheads to lose their temper and charge—but every last one of them was as docile as a castrated rooster.
I’d heard they were ferocious. Maybe that was just a rumor.
They looked big enough, though.
“How many of you can still fight?”
I asked the priestess first.
Her eyes darted around like she was terrified of something.
“Don’t even think about lying. I’ll know instantly. Ever heard of mind-reading arts? I’ve mastered them. The second I catch you, I kill everyone here—not just you. Think carefully.”
Complete bullshit, of course.
“Warriors…. Many dead. Less than twenty.”
“Hah.”
This familiar situation again.
Goldon, is that you? At this point it was just destiny.
I studied the wildfolk’s faces one by one.
At first glance they had looked like hulking barbarians, but up close most of them had the gentle eyes of simple farming men and women.
“They all look like they’d be great at co-signing loans, planting rice, and looking after livestock.”
“Haa…. Me and village, what will you do?”
The sigh told me she was already half resigned.
If what the priestess said was true, then even these idiots were people I had to protect.
That left only one choice.
“How long to reach the shrine?”
“Why?”
“How long?”
“...Less than a day.”
“Tell these bastards we’re heading to the shrine tomorrow morning. I’m going to help.”
Twang~
The priestess’s eyes bulged like they were about to pop out of her skull.
“Put your eyeballs back in and deliver the message already.”
She kept sneaking glances at me while she passed the words along.
“Mila? Mila dae?”
“Dominu peojeo.”
Now the wildfolk were chattering among themselves.
“I’m sleeping in the tent tonight. You’re a hostage, so you’re coming with me. Tell the others not to try anything stupid.”
The tent was surprisingly warm, well sealed with cloth and leather.
Given enough time, even the distinctive reek of seonji became something you could get used to.
Once she finished delivering the message, the priestess met my eyes again.
“Why, help, us?”
“Because I’m a Runaway Ninja.”
“What you want? Mmph!”
I got tired of talking and covered her mouth.
What I wanted? Nothing in particular.
Though if they offered decent food, cloth, weapons—anything useful—I wouldn’t refuse.
I could sleep on the priestess’s bed just fine. Where was I supposed to put her?
“Mmph?!”
I decided to just hold her and sleep.
That way, the second she tried to escape I could slam her with ninja bondage play.
“I’m very light sleeper. Move even a little and I’ll wake up. Behave yourself.”
The priestess nodded quickly.
I was holding her from behind, so I couldn’t see her face.
“Good night.”
A few minutes later.
Zzz.
I was out cold.
How many minutes had passed since she began hearing the secret of her birth?
Shocking truths that appeared in no book tore through Orphe’s mind.
“—Therefore you also have a duty to help me.”
Tribo, who had delivered all of this, remained as calm as ever.
Orphe pictured his face.
Thick brows, sharp eyes, a mouth that rarely opened unless something truly interested him.
“Nobin trusts you more than anyone. If you speak, he will listen to some degree. To stand against the Watchmen, we must make him more perfect.”
When the time had come to choose the first sacrifice from the Snake’s Tail, what would have happened if Nobin had not stepped forward without a second thought?
If, as Lamina had said, they had left Maple Leaf Village, reached the guild, and reported that the villagers were monsters—what then?
When Delbanas had fired his projectiles and shattered the walls and gates, what would have happened if Nobin had not appeared at once?
“Nobin does not need to change.”
Having finished her thoughts, Orphe made her decision.
“I do not understand.”
“There is no perfect person. There is only the right person for the time and place. If he seems to go off course now and then, I will speak to him. But the final decision is always his.”
“That is not enough.”
“Do you believe people can be controlled?”
Faced with a question that was not easy to answer, Tribo fell silent.
A wrong reply here would be to deny the very records of resistance written by the hero and his companions.
“I trust Nobin. So this conversation ends here. Please leave.”
A firm refusal.
“...I would like you to think it over carefully once more.”
Tribo rose on his massive frame and left the room.