Chương 14: Book 1: Chapter 6 - The Favor [Part 2]

The remaining Kume lit the pile of enemies, but it took several attempts. The flames were first low and reluctant, then grew brighter as cloth and dry reeds caught. The smoke rose through the trees in a dirty column.

"It is good that we burn them," Tarō declared, voice rough.

"If they lie like this, more yōma come. Dead old and new draw hungry things. Blood calls to blood." Shimon was never one for superstition, having never believed in ghosts or goblins. Now he felt like a child.

"Is that true?" he managed to ask, his voice almost squeaking. Tarō glanced at him.

"Do you want to test it?"

"No."

"Then it is true enough." They lit the smaller pyres after, and Tarō bowed low before it. Shimon copied him because copying was his only reliable survival skill when it came to social matters. The flames crawled slowly along the branches beneath the three bodies. For a while, nothing seemed to happen, then smoke covered them, mercifully thick. Tarō spoke words under his breath. Names, perhaps. Apologies, perhaps. Promises, perhaps. Even with the chip's help, Shimon caught only pieces.

"Mother… forgive… foolish brother… road together… wait for me… a warrior's end." Shimon looked away, not wanting to intrude. While he did so, he spared a thought for Mochi waiting by the apartment door. Of Daigo asking if he was alive. Of his grandmother, whom he had never quite understood, and now it all felt like something that had happened to another person in another universe. He could have lost himself in self-pity, but instead, he checked his status. It was cowardice, in a way.

Numbers were easier than grief..

"Status," he ordered silently and the orange screen opened.

Ayanokouji Shimon [Human] Class: Ronin Level: 2 Health: 13/19 Mana: 1/16 Stamina: 8/18 Exp: 137/144 Main Attributes: Body 19, Mind 15, Spirit 14 Sub Attributes: Dexterity 116 [Enhanced], Fortune 25, Charisma 15 Skills: Lightning Reflexes 15/20, Analysis 12/20, Spears 3/20, Pain Tolerance 2/20, Swords 4/20, Ranged [Bows] 1/20, Hammers 1/20, Axes 1/20, Unarmed 2/20, Spirit Boost 1/20, Mind Boost 1/20, Body Boost 2/20, Heavy Armor 2/20, Medium Armor 2/20, Light Armor 1/20, Iai Style 4/20, Riding 1/20 Spirit Break: Yae Ikazuchi.

Condition: Spiritually Marked. Somehow, unnoticed, he had gained skill levels in Medium and Heavy Armor, not to mention four levels in Iai Style. He rubbed the back of his head absent mindedly, the notifications must have come when he had been out of it. But that was not what worried him as Shimon stared at the final two lines. It was worrying on an existential level. Spiritually Marked.

"No," he whispered.

"Absolutely not. Remove that," he demanded, but the screen did not remove anything. He focused on the blue chip overlay instead, as if the familiar corporate interface could protect him from the metaphysical mark. For years mankind had searched for answers on the nature of the spirit, if it existed at all. Regretfully, he had just been given a clear and concise answer He glanced at Tarō, seeing that he was busy with something and distracted.

"Search for recorded voice. Last hostile encounter. Source analysis. Frequency, carrier, localization." [REQUEST RECEIVED] Searching auditory log... [RESULT] No external auditory waveform matching perceived voice.

"Neural input, then. Internal audio?" he hissed. [ANALYSIS] Perceived speech event detected in cognitive record. No matching cochlear input. No external radio-frequency transmission detected. No local network source. Unknown Carrier Signal: Elevated during event. Direct neural stimulation: Possible. Metaphysical interface: Undefined/Unknown Shimon closed his eyes and breathed through his nose.

"Find the frequency of the carrier signal." [SCAN INITIATED] Spectrum sweep: No conventional frequency detected. Electromagnetic correlation: None. Acoustic correlation: None. Thermal correlation: None. Quantum-noise model: Inconclusive. Unknown Carrier Signal present as non-local structured interference. Connection Status: None.

"It spoke to me," Shimon thought. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. [NO EXTERNAL AUDIO CONFIRMED]"It spoke to me inside my head," the young man complained. [EVENT CLASSIFICATION: UNDEFINED] [RECOMMENDATION: Avoid further interaction with unknown signal.] Shimon almost laughed again, but he was beginning to understand that laughter in this world was one step away from a mad scream. Tarō rose from the small pyre.

"We go," he uttered, a new hardness in his words.

"Now?" His was a simple answer to a simple question, "Now." The ronin looked at the smoke climbing through the trees.

"This fire will tell everything in the forest where we are. Maybe the yōma fear it. Maybe they love it, but I do not care to learn which before sunset." The young man agreed with passionate sincerity. So, they gathered what they could carry, making a litter to drag behind with the proof pouches, Sakurai's wrapped head, the earlier Hojo head in its sack along with a few of his comrades. A few serviceable weapons and bits of armor. Tarō took his brother's short blade and tied it to his own belt with mechanical care.

Shimon did not comment. They left the rest stacked under a torn banner tied to a branch, visible enough that men could find it later if men returned later and not something else. Then they climbed out of the hollow, but every step away from the dead felt both too slow and too fast. Shimon kept expecting the voice to return. He kept expecting an eye to open between the branches. He kept expecting one of the bodies to stand up behind them despite being in pieces and on fire. Instead, the forest watched them go.

The forest let them go, and for a long while, neither man spoke. The ronin walked like someone whose body intended to keep moving even if the person inside had been hollowed out. Shimon followed with the spear in one hand, dragging the litter behind him, the swords at his hip feeling heavier than they had that morning. The blue route line from his chip flickered uncertainly across the ground, adapting from his memory and glimpsed landmarks. His body wanted water. His stomach wanted food.

His mind wanted to be turned off and stored somewhere safe until the world became less insane. The other man broke the silence first.

"Thank you." At first Shimon could not understand, and just simply nodded. Then a few paces later it dawned on him that without his"heroics" they would both have been dead. A bitter part of him wished that the other man had paid the price of their survival instead of him. As they neared the boundary path, the trees began to thin. The air changed first, becoming less wet, less close. Birdsong returned in fragments. A distant human shout carried through the branches. Shimon almost wept at the sound.

Then the shouting multiplied.

"Who goes there?" Tarō stopped and Shimon stopped beside him half a heartbeat later. Ahead, shapes moved between the trees. Not yōma, men. Too many men with spears, swords, and bows. They had the air about them of people very ready to stab anything that looked unusual.

"Answer!" someone screamed in shrill warning.

"Living men!" he shouted. His voice cracked.

"Kume Tarō! Hired under Master Hieda and witness of the Adventurer's Za! Do not shoot!" Several bowstrings drew in answer.

"Do not shoot!" Tarō shouted again, louder.

"We bring proof! We bring heads! We are survivors!"

"Survivors?" another man yelled, and the word broke apart into disbelief and alarm.

"Name the leader of your party!" came a harsher voice.

"Kuroda Genzō!" Tarō shouted.

"Dead!"

"Name the client!" came another.

"Master Hieda!" the ronin pleaded. Men emerged fully from the trees and path beyond, but they did not lower their weapons. And, there were far more than Shimon expected. Fifteen, perhaps twenty armed men. Some were Hieda's guards, their dark coats marked with the stepped-triangle symbol. Others wore castle livery that Shimon did not recognize. Behind them stood the two coolies who had run, both alive, both pale with terror and shame. One pointed at Tarō, then at Shimon, babbling something.

Master Hieda was there too. But most interesting of all was the creature perched upon his shoulder. At first glance, Shimon almost mistook it for some strange bird, no larger than a hunting hawk, with a narrow, sharp-snouted head and eyes like polished black beads. Then it shifted, and the illusion failed. Its forelimbs were not wings, not exactly, though long feathers fanned from them in dark iridescent layers.

More feathers streamed from its legs and tail, forming a four-winged silhouette that made it seem half-bird, half-lizard. Tiny hooked claws gripped the samurai's shoulder guard without scratching the lacquer. Its head tilted as it studied Shimon, and when it opened its mouth, he saw a neat row of needle teeth. A microraptor, his memories from his early childhood informed him. He tore his eyes away, knowing that to focus on one thing, was to lose focus on everything. There were priests as well.

One wore shrine robes, white and faded red, with a tall black cap and an ōnusa in his hand, a purification wand hung with folded paper streamers. The paper shook faintly though there was little wind. The other was Buddhist, or what passed for Buddhist in this version of Japan. His head was shaved, his robe dark and of a practical practical cut, and prayer beads were wrapped around one wrist. A young acolyte stood behind him. The high-ranking samurai looked at the bundles in the litter.

"Open them," he ordered, as the pet on his shoulder chittered. Tarō obeyed and a guard stepped forward first, keeping his spear ready as if the sack might bite. He loosened the cord and pulled the cloth aside. Sakurai Iori's head stared out at them, prompting a collective intake of breath. Even smeared with dark fluid and distorted by the rictus of death, the face was recognizable enough. Master Hieda took one involuntary step backward and the shrine priest's face went white.

The high-ranking samurai's hand tightened around his sword hilt.

"Sakurai Iori." Tarō bowed once, short and sharp.

"He cut Kuroda Genzō and called the yōma brothers." The words moved through the men like wind through dry grass.

"Impossible," someone muttered and grumbled. The samurai's eyes lifted from the head to Shimon as the microraptor scrabbled to his other shoulder.

"And this one? I do not know him."

"Ayanokouji Shimon," Tarō said.

"Hired under the same witness. He killed Sakurai. He killed the grey yōma too."

"Not alone," Shimon replied quickly.

"Mizuno fought. Kuroda fought. The Kume brothers fought. I was alive at the end." The high-ranking samurai studied him for one long breath and shook his head in stubborn disbelief. Master Hieda finally found his voice.

"Bring the teeth." Tarō opened the smaller pouch and the shrine priest flinched before the teeth were fully exposed. Shimon's chip pulsed him new information. [UNKNOWN CARRIER SIGNAL DETECTED] Signal Strength: Low-Moderate Pattern: Structured / Intermittent Source Direction: Unclear The high-ranking samurai looked at the priest.

"Well?" The shrine priest swallowed.

"Yōma. Freshly taken. Strongly stained." The Buddhist priest closed his eyes and murmured a short prayer, and only then did the bows lower. Master Hieda exhaled through his nose.

"The coolies said there were monsters," Hieda remarked softly.

"We had hoped they were spooked by rusting branches and startled animals. We had hoped cowardice had given imagined teeth to shadows.

""They had teeth enough already," Tarō added laconically. The high-ranking samurai stepped forward.

"I am Nagai Morichika, senior retainer to the lord of this castle. You will take us to the site." Tarō bowed.

"Yes, Nagai-sama." Shimon bowed half a beat later, copying the angle and hoping it was not too wrong. Nagai's gaze lingered on him again.

"Can you walk?" Shimon considered the question. The practical answer was yes. The answer least likely to cause new trouble was also yes. So he simple said, "Yes."

"Good. Then walk," the important samurai declared. So they walked back into the forest with twenty armed men, two priests, Master Hieda, and the surviving coolies. And for Shimon, the return to the hollow felt much longer than their escape from it as men muttered prayers as they passed the first signs of death. One of them began to shake so badly that his comrade had to grip his shoulder and push him onward. When they finally reached the camp, the men stopped at the edge and stared.

The fires Shimon and Tarō had made still smoked. The enemy pile had burned badly and incompletely, leaving blackened shapes curled among the ash. The smaller pyre for the comrades had fared little better. Kuroda, Mizuno, and Jirō were hidden under smoke-blackened branches, not burned so much as touched by fire and left behind. Tarō made a sound. It was not a word, not quite a sob, and it was something smaller and worse for it. The Buddhist priest stepped past him gently.

"You did what two men could do," he offered in comfort.

"Now we will do what we must."