by Nikita Thorn
At least, the old man could impart little bits of almost-relevant wisdom that made him feel like—in some measure—someone knew what they were doing.
“That’s not a good sign,” said someone beside him.
Seiki turned to look. Walking alongside the snowstepper was a man, labeled as Genta, who appeared to be in his early forties, with cropped hair and a hint of a messy goatee. He was dressed simply in brown slightly ragged peasant clothes.
Seiki tried to ignore him. “I don’t have time for quests. Sorry,” he said. “And I hope you’re not going to try to rob me or kill me or trick me into doing anything, because I really don’t want to fight right now.”
Genta was silent, and Seiki observed him. There was something about the man’s expression that made him seem an entirely honest, upstanding man. But then again, after everything that had happened, Seiki could not be so sure anymore. Mitsue, the thief at Mani Shrine, had seemed perfectly innocent at first.
“You know what I miss?” said Seiki, out of the blue. “The ability to be able to look someone in the eye and see if they’re telling the truth. People take that ability for granted.”
Genta simply looked at him without saying anything, but without slowing down. Seiki chuckled, grimly. Without Master Tsujihara, he guessed he would just ramble on to random strangers.
“It’s really hard to go by tone of voice alone,” Seiki said. Genta seemed to be trying so hard to figure out what he meant that he had to chuckle again. “Sometimes, I get angry when people say something and they claim I misunderstood, and then it’s my fault. I can’t win these arguments, and sometimes I’m just so sick of it and just want it to end. So, I apologize, and they go ‘it’s all right, I know you’re going through a lot right now’.”
Genta was still silent. The only sounds were Fubuki’s hooves on the ground and the man’s footsteps, and the very soft trickling of the clear stream on his right. The Wilderness was peaceful, but it was a lonely place.
“I feel like I’ve been going through this forever. It’s been months. At first, I tried not thinking about it and hoping that one day I’d wake up and be fine again, you know.” Seiki let out a short breath. “That didn’t work, so then I tried thinking about it, and there’s all these horrible thoughts that I keep thinking and thinking about until I don’t even know what I’m thinking about anymore.”
The truth was, at the bottom of it, mixed in with anger and despair, Seiki was starting to doubt. As baseless as it sounded and as much as he had tried to convince himself otherwise, he could not suppress the growing feeling that maybe he had really done something to deserve all this. That somehow it had been his fault, and that somehow he had been so vain not to have realized the gravity of his unknown sins that he was now being punished for.
Seiki pinched his nose and sighed. “I’m getting really tired.”
Genta was still quiet.
Seiki looked ahead at the empty Wilderness. “And sometimes, I really just want it to end, you know,” he added, quietly. It was heavy, and it was dark, and he really did not know how much longer he could hold on.
“That’s not good,” said Genta, once more.
“No,” Seiki agreed.
Seiki turned to glance at the man again, who now seemed so miserably confused that Seiki had to let out a bitter snicker and shake some sense back into himself. “Hey, if you keep following me, you’re going to have to listen to all this crap. So, you’d better go look for someone else to do your quest.”
“You’ve ever been in love, young master?” asked the man.
Seiki’s eyes narrowed.
Genta went on, “There’s this girl. The village chief’s daughter.”
Seiki suddenly burst out laughing. “Oh, God.” He almost collapsed onto Fubuki’s neck as he gasped for breath. “This is what they want you to do in support group.”
Genta exhaled, sadly. “You, too, young master? You think she’s above my station?”
“Oh, no, no,” said Seiki, wiping away a mysterious tear and trying to compose himself. “It’s not that.”
“I’m really not hoping for anything,” said Genta. “But lately, things have been difficult in our village. People have been disappearing, and the village chief claimed it was the work of a gigantic demon. So, he had us dig this large pit and put spikes down there to trap and kill it. But before it was complete, last week, he disappeared too. Now my Rumi has to step in and try to continue his work.” He clenched his jaw. “I know she is grieving, but she puts on this brave smile and keeps us working on the trap. Still, every few nights, someone disappears, and we haven’t even seen the demon.”
Seiki tried not to respond, and Genta shook his head in sadness. “I just wish I could do something.”
“Look,” said Seiki, as he knew exactly where this was going. He pointed to a brown Otter [Level 15] standing idly on the other side of the bank. “This zone is way too high for me. As much as I want to help, your demon is going to be at least that high, and I can’t fight it. Not at my level.”
Genta looked disappointed. “I just wish I could do something.”
“In a few weeks, I might be able to, and the demon is still going to be there. If I pass by again, I’ll do it then, okay?”
“But this is very urgent, young master,” said Genta. “There won’t be any of us left in a few weeks. You have a sword. You see, peasants aren’t allowed to carry swords, so we cannot defend ourselves.”
Seiki did not quite know how to explain. “Uh, what about your… landlords? Can’t you go to one of the clans and ask for help there?” He was pretty certain that was not how it worked, but he needed an excuse.
“We are not that kind of village, young master. A long time ago, our village chief hosted an injured young warrior, who left us with an imperial crest that puts us under the direct protection of the Shinshioka Palace. Thus, the daimyos have no right over our land. We have tried sending someone to Shinshioka to ask for help, but the officials said we had to wait our turn because there were so many things wrong with the world and there are only so many brave volunteers to go out and take care of them.”
“Okay, so you have a response ready for that, too,” said Seiki. He chuckled. “Maybe if you tell the officials to let people do more than one civil mission each week, things would move along faster.”
“How do I do that, young master?” asked Genta, so earnestly that Seiki could not help but feel a slight pang of guilt for not taking him seriously.
“Genta!” A girl burst through the thicket beside them. Despite the fact that her face was wet with sweat and her hair was in a disheveled ponytail from running, she was very pretty. From the way Genta held his breath, Seiki could guess this was no doubt the object of the man’s unrequited love. Rumi, the village chief’s daughter.
Still panting, Rumi shouted in alarm, “Genta! We found it! We found the demon! It killed Yujiro. He saw it, and it…” She paused as she recalled the horror. She was trying to continue, but in the end just simply shook her head, her eyes wet with unshed tears.
“Yujiro?” said Genta, in shock. “Yujiro, too? But this morning he was just… I mean, I said to him that maybe we could try going to Shinshioka again, and he smiled and said…” His voice shook.
Seiki looked helplessly at the tragic scene unfolding in front of him. “Don’t do this to me, please,” he said in almost a whisper.
The girl took a deep breath to calm herself, and when she spoke again her voice was composed. After all, she was the village chief’s daughter. “We must get rid of the demon before it kills again,” she said. “Come back with me now, Genta. We need everyone’s help.”
Paying Seiki no attention, she turned and ran back the way she had come from, and Genta rushed off after her. “Young master?” the man glanced back at Seiki one last time.
Seiki knew it was a bad idea. However, these two people seemed to be in genuine distress, and, script or no script, it was starting to get to him.
“All right,” he said, hating himself for it. No doubt anyone with a bit of acting skills could get him to do whatever they wanted. With a deep sigh, he urged Fubuki after them, wondering how horrible it would be to be eaten by a demon. “Can’t say I didn’t try.”
Seiki found himself riding through tall grass that had smoothly phased in out of nowhere, perhaps just to hide the previous scenery from sight, and he could only guess he was going into an instance.
Rumi glanced over her shoulder at him. “This young master is helping us?” she asked Genta, sounding relieved. “And that’s a real sword, isn’t it?” she whispered.
“Don’t be too happy yet,” said Seiki. “I don’t think I’ll be much help.”
On the other side of the grass patch was the village in question, surrounded by yellowish green rice fields, beyond which rose forests and mountains in the distance. The place consisted of only six or seven thatched bamboo houses with a dirt road running through the middle, and was marked by an old faded sign with crudely carved characters that read ‘Nasano Village’.
The villagers—thirty or so men and women and children, of various ages—were huddled in the middle of the road, talking, pointing, crying, and consoling each other.
As soon as they approached the entrance of the village, Fubuki tensed and stopped dead in her track. Seemed like riding was out of the question. “Of course, I wouldn’t want you to get eaten, too,” said Seiki, as he hopped off and dismissed the horse.
“Genta!” said someone. “I saw it. I saw it. It was hiding in the rice shed!” A boy labeled Saburo, who could not have been older than fifteen, had spotted them, and was now motioning toward the largest building in the village. “I was with Yujiro, and we saw the door open, and Yujiro went in to check, and, and the thing… the thing had this mouth...” He looked as if he was about to cry. “I can’t believe—”
“Saburo,” said Rumi. “We’ll mourn later. This brave young master here has agreed to help us, so let’s show him the situation.”
The villagers were now staring at Seiki, their terrified eyes showing a hint of hope, and Seiki wondered again what he had gotten himself into.
“Keep the children indoors and, no matter what happens, don’t come out,” said Rumi to the group of villagers, before nodding to Seiki as a sign to follow her.
“Rumi,” said Saburo in alarm. “Don’t go near there! What if it—”
Rumi simply gave him a smile and nodded at Seiki again, and her status as the chief’s daughter earned her immediate respect. The villagers silently parted to let them through.
The rice shed was in the middle of the village and was a few feet taller than the rest of the houses. The four walls were made of bamboo and the roof was thatched with old hay. Behind it was a backdrop of expansive rice fields, and the sight would have been perfectly idyllic if not for the yet unseen horror hidden within the building.
“This demon has been terrorizing our people for a long time,” said Rumi. “Every week or so, someone would go missing.” Her voice almost trembled, but she managed to maintain her composure.
“My father went to the next village and consulted a witchdoctor there, who said the demon was an Onihitokuchi, a one-eyed human-eating demon that could swallow a grown man, which was why we never heard screams or cries for help. No one has seen it and lived, yet, except for Saburo, who only caught a glimpse, and he only saw its mouth, which he claims...”
Those disturbing details were not making the situation sound any more encouraging, and she stopped herself.
“The witchdoctor gave us poison strong enough to kill it.” Rumi produced a ceramic bottle marked Oni-Slaying Venom [Instance Item] from her sleeves. “We tried bathing pieces of meat in the poison and hanging them out in the open at night, but the demon never touched them. So my father had a new strategy. He had us dig a trap and put poison on the spikes at the bottom.” She pointed toward the far end of the village, where Seiki could make out a large patch of strangely-colored leaves and hay that presumably hid the pit below from sight.
“We were waiting for the demon to appear so we could lure it toward the trap, but then the demon got to my father, too.”
“I’m very sorry,” said Seiki. This bit of info gave him hope, though, that maybe he did not need to fight it all the way down to zero health, and that he could use the pit to his advantage.
As they drew closer, Seiki could see that, despite there being no wind, the building seemed to be creaking eerily at regular intervals. Rumi stopped before the door, pointed and silently mouthed, “In there.”
The door was made of very thin strips of bamboo bound together, which was most likely much too flimsy to hold anything in. If the demon was inside, it was probably there out of its own volition rather than because it was trapped.
Pushing aside any thought on the implication of the fact, Seiki crouched down and peered through the bottom of the door. The interior of the rice shed was shaded, and it took Seiki’s eyes a bit of time to adjust before he could start making out the details of what was inside. He could see the bottom of what looked like large rice bags stacked in orderly rows, as well as perhaps sacks of other kinds of grains. There was dirt, and hay, and a pitchfork or some other farming equipment. One sack of rice had a darker shade than the others.
It also had crooked yellow toenails. It took an instant for the fact to sink in that Seiki was in reality looking at a gigantic red foot.
Onihitokuchi [Level 17 Rare Elite]. HP 2840/2840.
The thing filled pretty much the whole shed, and it was its regular breathing that was causing the building to sway.
It was worse than he had imagined. Elites dealt double damage, and Seiki now knew that Parry did not always work on very high-level attacks.
He stood up and glanced at the path that led to the trap. His two Slides would only get him halfway there. He would have to outsprint the thing and then, somehow, force it down that pit.
It was near impossible.
Rumi was watching him, hopefully, and Seiki drew a silent breath as he nodded for her to follow him back out of earshot of the demon.
Once they were a safe distance away from the rice shed, Seiki said, “I’ll try, all right? But don’t hope for much.” At least, the demon allegedly killed so fast people did not have time to scream. So, it would be over fairly quickly. The rest of the villagers had milled round them as they tried to hear what solution he would come up with, and Seiki wanted to kick himself for agreeing to do something he knew he would not be able to achieve.
“If it kills me,” said Seiki. “Just run, okay?”
The instance would then probably reset after that, but where would be the nearest spirit shrine?
Genta was looking at him. “Young master,” he said.
Seiki sighed. This term of address would have to go.
Genta’s eyes were resolute. “We’re not expecting you to fight it alone.”
“No,” Saburo, beside him, chimed in.
Somehow, this had not occurred to Seiki before. He glanced around at the villagers and found determined faces looking back at him.
“We’ve all lost someone dear to us and we want nothing more than to avenge them, even if it costs us our lives,” said an older man, gripping his walking stick. Beside him, a woman nodded. “My husband was the first to have gone missing, and while this demon is alive his spirit would never be at peace.”
They were driven by a common pain, and Seiki had not expected their degree of conviction to affect him this much. They were no fighters, but the simple idea of not having to do it alone filled his heart with a strange kind of hope.
“What do we do, young master?” asked Genta. “Tell us what to do.”
They were all waiting for his call. Come to think about it, in a way this was like a smaller, more personal version of the Gashadokuro world event. And these people were his own little army.
He glanced at the shed. If this was the case, the d
emon would most likely stay put until provoked, which would give them some time to prepare. He took a deep breath as he looked around, feeling a strange sense of relief. If it was more of a problem-solving challenge than straight fighting, they might have a chance after all. Gauging the distance between the rice shed and the pit again, his mind worked to formulate a plan.
“What should we do, young master?” said Saburo.
“Uh, first, can you just call me Seiki?” Seiki quickly said to the villagers. There were about thirty of them, but not everyone would be fit to fight.
“What should we do, young master Seiki?” said Saburo, enthusiastically.
Seiki winced. “Just Seiki, please.”
Genta hesitated. “Well, young master, you have a horse and a sword, so you are definitely a member of the ruling class, and we must show proper respect.”
Seiki had never heard anyone in Shinshioka talk like this before. Were all the farmers in the Wilderness scripted this way to add more realism to the dynamic between fiefs and land-owning clans? “Well, this isn’t right. The right to rule needs to be earned. People should vote and choose…” Seiki trailed off as he saw blank faces staring at him. “Never mind,” he said. “Do we have any weapons?”
“We have sharpened bamboo sticks,” said Saburo. “And a few hunting arrows.”
“Okay. Gather them,” said Seiki. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”
There were about twenty usable bamboo sticks, three old bows and about a dozen arrows, all marked [Instance Items], which Seiki guessed that meant they were to be used. Learning from what the Shinshioka Nobles had done with the world event, Seiki divided the able villagers into three groups: the first two led by Rumi and Genta with bamboo sticks, and the third by Saburo—since the villagers told him the young man was a good shot.
“The rest of you, go indoors and stay with the children,” he said. Rumi nodded in approval.
Seiki’s two Slides would be enough to kite the demon about halfway toward the pit, and his plan was to position groups of villagers in at regular intervals to cover the rest of the path.