Sakitchi's Rejection

Mount Nanga in spring was bright.

The new buds of the trees, the Kirkree among them, had only just opened.

Nothing blocked the warm sunlight.

The undergrowth hadn't grown thick yet either, so walking was easy.

One would only occasionally spot Fukujaa flowers and Fukkinot peeking out from the ground.

Snow still lingered in the shade, and the wind that gusted now and then was cold, but it was peaceful enough to make one forget this was a demon realm.

Across that Mount Nanga, two humans were walking.

One was the Yamaok Village hunter, Gonpeter.

A big, square-faced young man with short hair.

His thick eyebrows seemed to symbolize both his strength of will and the simplicity born of growing up in the mountains.

And the other was the girl who had just saved Gonpeter's life.

A beautiful cursed child who had slaughtered an Assault Chiwanwan with extraordinary strength and devoured it in an instant.

Her name was Emi.

◇ ◇ ◇

The abnormal behavior of greedily eating a hunted beast raw.

Add to that her superhuman strength and beauty, and at first Gonpeter had judged Emi to be a “monster in human disguise.”

And yet, it was an undeniable fact that his life had been saved by that monster.

What did this ghastly yet beautiful monster think of him?

To her, was he the next prey, or merely an insignificant insect?

He couldn't really tell, but once he had recovered from his confusion and could think calmly again, a thought came to Gonpeter.

To run off from her now without doing anything.

That, he felt, would go against the law handed down in Yamaok Village, ‘Return kindness with kindness’, and be a shameful act, as a hunter and as a person.

Therefore, timing it for the moment Emi had finished eating even the Assault Chiwanwan's bones, Gonpeter bowed his head to her and expressed his gratitude.

“Thank you, very much. Thanks to you, my life was saved.”

This, to him, was what was right.

Even if the other party might not understand words at all, he had to show every courtesy.

“It's fine. Just part of my hunt. Don't worry about it.”

“............Huh?”

The answer to Gonpeter's thanks was those curt words from the girl.

“?”

“Y, you...... can talk? No, I mean, are you, able to talk?”

“Obviously. What do you take me for.”

Astonishingly, the monster before him not only mimicked human form, but could apparently even talk.

“I, I have heard that monsters who have lived long can master the art of taking human form, so, so I thought you might be the renowned lord of some mountain......”

“Makes no sense. I, am human.”

Astonishingly, the girl before him was apparently no monster in human disguise at all, but a genuine human being.

“Fo, FORGIVE MEEEEEEEEEE!!!”

Gonpeter pressed his forehead into the dirt with great force and apologized.

◇ ◇ ◇

Now, the one who had saved his life was a human.

In that case, to say a word of thanks and part ways, that would be poor manners.

Gonpeter had insisted that he would prepare a feast and that she simply must let him host her in Yamaok Village, and Emi had accepted, which was why the two of them were now on their way to the village at the mountain pass.

Incidentally, Gonpeter was carrying two birds on his shoulder.

This bird, with faintly green-tinged grey feathers, was called the Uguuso.

It was a flightless bird about the size of a swan on Earth.

It cried “Hoohoke! Hokekyokkyo!”

Emi had hunted these birds on the side while the two of them walked to the village.

Along the way, Emi would glance to the side, leap off at a speed even the sharp-eyed Gonpeter couldn't follow, take the head off a distant Uguuso in an instant, and come back.

Emi had eaten the first one up before Gonpeter could stop her, so he had asked her to keep the rest uneaten from then on, since they would go into the welcome feast.

Although he had rested a bit and recovered some strength, and his wounds had closed thanks to the village's secret medicine, it was impossible for the exhausted Gonpeter to head out on a hunt again today.

He wondered if it was right for the guest to be the one catching the prey, but since Emi didn't seem to mind, Gonpeter decided not to mind either.

Or rather, he wondered if the reason he hadn't caught any prey today was because Emi had been overhunting the creatures around here, but he decided to put a lid on that thought as well.

“Nn, nn, nn......”

As for Emi, she was walking along with the wound of the fourth Uguuso, whose head she had just lopped off, held in her mouth, sucking up its blood as casually as if she were drinking water from a canteen.

According to her, this was ‘a rational way of draining the blood that also quenches her thirst’.

......Just as he thought, she was no ordinary being.

(......Is this child really, human............?)

Glancing back at Emi following behind him, Gonpeter harbored that doubt once again.

But, wiping away his cold sweat, he thought this too.

(Whatever the truth is, the fact is, Emi saved me.)

And if so, then he had to show his gratitude through action after all.

That, for a proud hunter such as himself, was the right way to live.

Gonpeter was...... a good-natured man.

If he had been a suspicious man, at least one doubt would surely have welled up: ‘So this Emi is a monster after all, hiding what she really is and having me show her the way to the village so she can slaughter everyone in Yamaok Village, isn't she?’

But he never even thought of such a thing.

He was only trying to act rightly, following the village's code that had been handed down.

......In truth, having absorbed a vast amount of magic power from the remnant of the Time God, Emi these days felt far less hungry than before.

So she certainly wasn't thinking about devouring the residents of the place she was being guided to, or anything like that.

Without thinking very deeply about it, she had simply, gratefully, taken up the offer from this thick-browed guy called Gonpeter or whatever.

◇ ◇ ◇

From the spot where the Assault Chiwanwan had attacked Gonpeter, they crossed several streams and walked on for about an hour.

“We're here. This is Yamaok Village.”

Gonpeter, no longer using the polite speech he wasn't used to, prompted Emi, busy ‘blood-draining’ her tenth Uguuso, to look ahead.

“............”

What leapt into Emi's view as she looked up was a wooden wall stretching along the mountain slope.

To keep monsters out, Yamaok Village was ringed all the way around by this wall.

The surrounding trees had been completely cleared, providing a very good view.

Naturally, the figures of Emi and Gonpeter emerging from the forest were immediately discovered from the watchtower, and by the time the two reached the village gate, a large number of gawking villagers had gathered there.

“Hey, Gonpeter! Stop, stop!”

Sakitchi, the gatekeeper, his homemade spear at the ready, stopped the hunter who had come back to the village with a girl of unknown origin.

“What is it, Sakitchi.”

“Don't ‘what’ me! That's my line! What is that? That filthy kid.”

Sakitchi rudely pointed his spear at Emi, eyeing her suspiciously.

“She is my, savior! Don't be rude!”

Gonpeter grabbed Sakitchi's spear from the side and shouted with visible anger.

“............”

Emi, meanwhile, remained expressionless.

Her face never moved much to begin with, but for a girl who had been despised as a cursed child all along, this sort of thing was nothing new.

Neither angry nor sad, she simply watched the exchange between Gonpeter and Sakitchi.

Though in her mind, Sakitchi had been ranked as a human she would ‘leave to die if anything happened’.

“S, savior? A hunter like you, by a kid like that, got saved?”

“That's right.”

“I can't believe it! Besides, that child has black hair and black eyes! She's a cursed child!? There's no way we can let something that ominous into the village!”

“But, she really did save my life. I was about to be killed by a monster, and she helped me. And still, leaving her without so much as a thank-you, that goes against the village law! It'll sully the soul, of Yamaok Village!”

“Letting a cursed child into the village is what'll sully the village's soul!”

“Not only did she save my life, but as you can see, she hunted all this meat and gave it to us!”

Gonpeter placed the nine Uguusos he had been carrying at Sakitchi's feet and continued.

At the sight of so much meat, a stir ran through the villagers.

As for Emi, she hadn't meant to give anything away; she had only left the meat with Gonpeter because he'd told her ‘they're for the welcome feast’......

Well, Emi these days wasn't as tormented by hunger as before.

She gave only a slight twitch, and with a ‘well, whatever’, let Gonpeter's words slide.

And to Gonpeter, born and raised in Yamaok Village, meat wasn't the property of whoever hunted it; the moment it was caught, it belonged to the whole village.

So as he saw it, even meat Emi had hunted was, the moment it became meat, something for all the villagers to share.

Of course, he did mean to give Emi an extra-large share, as part of her welcome.

In any case, he certainly didn't mean any harm by it.

“Strong, and merciful! That is who she is! By the soul of Yamaok Village, we must show her hospitality!”

“......No! Still no! There's no way I'm letting a cursed child into the village!”

“There's no such law, Sakitchi! ‘Return kindness with kindness’!”

“Listen, Gonpeter. Stop inviting unnecessary trouble into the village! You understand, right? Right now, everyone's on edge over Oyukipa, you know?”

“Even so......”

“Hey, everyone? You hate it, right? Letting a cursed child into the village, you hate it, right?”

Arguing with stubborn Gonpeter was getting them nowhere.

Sakitchi turned around and put the question to the villagers.

“Well, yeah......”

“It's creepy, black hair and black eyes......”

“Come back to your senses, Gonpeter. You've surely been bewitched by that cursed child.”

“We'll need a curse-breaking ritual.”

“Anyway, hurry up and get that cursed child out of here! What'll happen if the village gets cursed!?”

While watching the residents of Yamaok Village reject her one after another, Emi let out a small sigh.

Well, figures.

However cruelly she was treated, Emi was so used to it that this was all she thought of it.

With <Unforgivable!> and <Let's kill every last one of these people!>, the voice in her mind was raging like mad, but Emi soothed her with a ‘Now, now’.

Still, she would have them give back that Uguuso meat, at least.

It was just as Emi had started to think, along those lines,

“......What's the harm?”

that those words, in a man's voice, came from deep within the village.

The villagers who had been making a fuss all fell silent at once, turned around, and made way.

After a short while, the one who arrived at the gate was a man with a long, narrow face and stubble.

He had a weary expression, and there were dark circles under his eyes.

“What's the harm? Just let her in.”

The man walked up to Sakitchi the gatekeeper and said this.

“But, Sabrown...... no, all right. If you say so, then fine......”

At the man...... Sabrown's words, Sakitchi made way without a fuss, as if his resistance a moment ago had been a lie.

Then Sakitchi leaned his spear against the gate, crossed his arms, leaned his weight against the wall, and sighed.

“Oh, thank you, Sabrown! Thanks to you, the village's soul stayed unsullied!”

With that, Gonpeter gave Sabrown a light hug.

“It's fine. Yeah...... it's fine.”

Sabrown, for his part, answered in a small voice, in a low mumble.

But his gaze was not, on Gonpeter as they talked.

Sabrown's eyes had stayed fixed the whole time on the girl Gonpeter had brought, on Emi.

The mystery of black hair and black eyes, loathed whatever the country, however deep in the mountains.