CH 7

Having annihilated the bandit village, Kurosu went to retrieve his hidden sword and returned to where he had slain the first five bandits.

Though they were bandits, they deserved a proper send-off after death. Kurosu decided to give them a funeral with their comrades and went back and forth several times to bring their bodies to the village.

Using deer antlers that had been used as building materials for the dwellings, he dug graves and carefully washed and arranged the severed heads of the victims with bamboo-supported water before cremating them.

He gathered and burned the bodies of the bandits as well, creating simple memorial mounds for each of them. Though the mounds were just large rocks placed nearby, it was the best he could do under the circumstances.

He didn’t know their names, but he prayed for their peaceful rest by closing his eyes and putting his hands together in front of the lined-up rocks.

“Phew…”

Kurosu exhaled his fatigue with a deep breath and patted the dirt off his soiled kimono with his hands. His disheveled hair stuck to his sweat-soaked forehead like seaweed, causing a slight frown to form between his eyebrows.

He felt like taking a bath somewhere, but there were no water sources nearby, and he had used up all the water from the bamboo tubes. Resolving to visit a bathhouse once he left the forest, he put his hands on his hips and looked up at the reddening sky.

“It’ll be dark soon.”

Transporting the bodies had taken up a significant amount of time, and he noticed that the day was fading as the curtain of night began to descend.

He wanted to find a place to rest and recover from his fatigue as soon as possible, but he couldn’t do that in the village. As a result of his unrestrained rampage, the area was now a sea of blood. The smell might attract animals, and there was a chance that some villagers who had been away might return.

Looking around, Kurosu spotted a magnificent tree that would be revered as a sacred tree in a shrine.

Having had a terrible experience with a pack of wild dogs while sleeping outdoors in the mountains a few years ago, he preferred to sleep in high places in such locations. Although it wasn’t the most comfortable place to sleep, it was much better than being rudely awakened by an attack. The tree also provided a good vantage point to keep an eye on the village, in case of any surprise attacks.

He swiftly and skillfully climbed the tree, straddling a thick, stable branch with the trunk against his back. By securing himself to the trunk with a rope, he was able to sufficiently rest his body.

・・・

Kurosu’s consciousness was awakened by the annoyingly loud chirping of birds, and he wordlessly lowered his gaze.

Although he hadn’t noticed it when he climbed the tree last night, there was a bird’s nest on a branch just below Kurosu, and the mother bird was desperately trying to protect her chicks by threatening him.

“…”

Feeling the irritation that was unique to being woken up by someone else, Kurosu considered scaring the birds away, but then he imagined himself yelling at them and thought better of it.

Although he still felt drowsy, his desire to stretch out on the ground overcame his sleepiness, and he slowly climbed down the tree, squinting at the warm morning sun shining on his face. His back and buttocks were sore from spending the night on the hard tree.

The previous night had been quiet without any attacks. He couldn’t say he had slept well, but considering that he was in the forest, it was good enough.

After reaching the ground, Kurosu stretched both arms towards the sky to loosen up his stiff muscles and then warmed up his sleepy body with his daily sword-swinging routine. As he swung his sword, he checked his body’s condition and, finding nothing wrong, sheathed his sword with satisfaction.

Although he knew he hadn’t sustained even a scratch in yesterday’s battle, he couldn’t shake the habit ingrained since childhood, and he felt that his day hadn’t begun unless he did this exercise.

As the surroundings had grown brighter, Kurosu decided to search the dwellings in the village. The smell of leftover food attracting flies and scattered feces and urine made him want to wrinkle his nose, but he thought that there might still be some belongings of the victims left behind.

Hoping to find something that could identify the victims so he could return it to their families, Kurosu rummaged through the dwellings for a while and discovered several items.

Biting into a grilled serpent skewer that had proven harmless after a night, he carefully inspected each of the items he had found, one by one.

First, there was a small leather pouch filled with what appeared to be coins. There were many clinking coins inside, and upon examining them, Kurosu noticed that they were divided into three different designs.

Each coin featured a beautiful woman who seemed to be the same person, but each had a different facial orientation.

One faced forward, another showed her profile, and the last had her back turned, hiding her face.

Kurosu had never seen coins with such designs before, but they seemed too intricately made to be something created by bandits for amusement. As Kurosu didn’t care much about money, he wasn’t even sure about the types of currency currently in circulation, so he simply assumed that they were either old coins from before his time or perhaps some new coins issued by the government without his knowledge.

Next, he found five simple necklaces made of small iron plates with leather straps threaded through them. Although they all had the same cheap construction, the patterns engraved on the iron plates were different for each one.

While they appeared to be an arrangement of meaningless symbols, the fact that they were made into decorative items suggested that they might be something like family crests or personal seals, indicating one’s origin. Many family crests were incomprehensible to outsiders, and deciphering a personal seal at first glance was virtually impossible.

Kurosu himself had inherited a complex personal seal from his ancestors, and even now, he occasionally made mistakes when writing it. When signing documents, he always made sure to include his real name as well.

In any case, these items might be connected to the victims’ identities.