Chapter 108 Resting Souls
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
TL Summary:
The MC returns to the occupied Isumi Town; he is emotionally confronted by his nemesis, Ichimatsu, and discovers the truth about Ichimatsu’s possible connection to his own past. Finally, he seeks private closure by visiting the bodies of Kaede-san and Kiri-san in a makeshift morgue.
—
I was back in Isumi Town.
There’d be a thousand things to sort out after this: the final disposition of Himawari, the handling of the three surviving nobles, and all the rest of the post-battle cleanup. But mostly, I wouldn’t be involved. My interactions with the Kujukuri Town side would be limited to receiving a reward and debriefings; they certainly weren’t going to volunteer any unnecessary information. Still, thanks to the sheer triumph of having cleared the Dungeon’s Third Layer, I was apparently due some serious cash prizes and official recognition.
Doesn’t matter much, though. There wasn’t really anything to spend the money on. Even with wealth, Kijin¹ are closely supervised and can’t exactly use their fortunes to ruin themselves. For instance, I’m strictly forbidden from eating rich, fatty foods. And it’s not like I had any interest in the jewelry or finery most men go for. Maybe I’ll look through the national catalog of Mystical Objects. Oh, right. I should hand out some bonuses. A winter windfall for everyone.
I had to amuse myself with silly fantasies like that, or I felt like my mind would just give out.
”Ugh.”
I couldn’t help but groan aloud.
It was two days after we’d settled into the confiscated manor. I was walking with my bodyguards down a small path next to one of Isumi Town’s fields when I ran into a face I desperately wished to avoid. My health was fine, I’d already confirmed that much. I’d been wandering around, taking in the scorched scenery, a little antsy to get back to Kujukuri Town, mostly to test how much stronger my body had become. Then, I noticed a group of people walking toward us who weren’t moving aside, which felt odd.
Initially, I mistook them for morning stroll, or perhaps one of the town’s other nobles. But the figure approaching from the entrance of the town was a fellow noble—a Kijin of the same status—and quite possibly the one person I disliked most.
”Hmph. It’s you, is it?”
”Ichimatsu. What in the hell are you doing here?”
The haggard, elderly-looking middle-aged man snorted. His hair was mostly white, his lips were dry, and the cold air seemed to irritate his lungs, causing him to shiver and cough. He was as spectral as ever, only worse. He looked like he was about to collapse, as if death were finally close at hand. This was a man who absolutely shouldn’t have been in this location.
”This is a warzone. There’s nothing good for a male to be involved in. It’s cold outside, it smells like ash, and it’s even snowing.”
The illness he suffers from—kibyō²—is a type of mental ailment. It’s the same one that plagued the Psionic Power master who created the Horned Owl, that suicidal force… come to think of it, how did we beat that thing? Anyway, kibyō is a blanket term for a severe, deepening depression, where the will to live slowly erodes, eventually breaking the mind and body. It was quite possible that Ichimatsu was headed down that same path.
”Do you need something?” I asked.
Ichimatsu drew himself up in his characteristic haughty manner.
”Even if I did have an errand, why on earth would I need to inform you of it?” he rasped.
”I just asked. If you don’t want to tell me, fine.”
I surrendered immediately, raising the white flag.
Ichimatsu instantly looked displeased.
”Well, look at the little fool, so readily backing down today. Why aren’t you flying into a rage as is your usual custom?” he demanded, his voice a dry whisper.
”You’re always the one starting the fight. And anyway, I’ve decided I don’t need to get angry over little things like that anymore.”
”Is that so? Good. Then I won’t have to suffer a child’s stubbornness first thing in the morning.”
Even after all this time, Ichimatsu couldn’t resist a barbed insult. The last time we’d met was before the dungeon infiltration strategy, and his habit of making snide remarks hadn’t changed at all.
”You’re right,” I admitted, looking him straight in his hollow eyes. “I was stubborn.”
I felt a sense of weary acceptance, something close to surrender. Ichimatsu looked taken aback by my unexpected compliance.
All the same, his presence in this chaotic Isumi Town was a real mystery. The town was still partially burned, the battle just concluded. It was hardly a safe place. Even setting that aside, wartime is the nobles’ busiest season for tea parties. I was due to return to Kujukuri Town within the next day or so. Frankly, a male noble is nothing but a hindrance on the front lines.
Whatever his business, I couldn’t imagine why his female guards hadn’t stopped him from leaving the safe residential districts.
”Did you perhaps come to mourn Kaede-san and the others?” I asked, skeptically.
Losing two of his Exploration Squad was a massive blow to his finances. Kaede-san, who had already left the Imperial Guard, and Kiri-san, the veteran gunner. Considering the last remaining member was Natsume-san, who just liked to send her consciousness flying with Mystical Objects, his income from exploration was essentially zero.
I said it, but I genuinely didn’t believe he’d come for a funeral.
For a man who holds women in such contempt, replacing them would be an easy solution. The recruitment market for Imperial Guards is an extreme buyer’s market. He could simply hire some talented new women, cultivate them for a few years, or scout for candidates already excelling in the training schools.
”And if I said that I had?” he challenged, his voice cracking.
”Like hell you would… wait. Huh? Excuse me?”
I must have looked utterly idiotic.
If I hadn’t misheard, this man was claiming he’d come to mourn the deaths of Kaede-san and the others. It was utterly unbelievable. Had the dungeon’s illusions somehow damaged my hearing?
”Maybe I’m still affected by the illusion. You came for that? And your accompanying Imperial Guards, too? Seriously?” I stammered.
”Why should the actions of my female retinue matter?” Ichimatsu scoffed.
”Because I just wouldn’t have imagined you’d do such a thing.”
”There is no logical requirement for me to consider your imaginings before I act, boy,” he growled, leaning on his cane.
”That’s true, but I still can’t believe it…”
Ichimatsu didn’t seem to be joking. He was the cold-hearted man who had sent Kaede-san and Kiri-san off to what he probably hoped would be their deaths. He despised women and clearly resented the Psionic Power awakening in his own Exploration Squad. While my actions led to their ultimate fate, the underlying cause was his own chilling indifference.
But I couldn’t find the energy to be angry about it anymore. The women themselves had regretted nothing about serving Ichimatsu, despite their sorrow. They reminisced about their good relationship before their Psionic Power awakened, but they never spoke a single word of hatred. And I felt no desire to avenge their misfortune. I’d thought it was impossible for him to ever acknowledge their effort, no matter how much I tried to convince him. But, perhaps I should have tried.
They were both dead. And their bodies were here in town, retrieved by the Isumi Town residents from the uncanny valley before the monsters could consume them. I was planning on offering incense today.
”You are a gloomy spectacle. That downcast face is as constant as the northern star,” Ichimatsu sneered.
”So what? Just leave me alone,” I snapped back.
He always seemed to think I was depressed. But the truth is, it wasn’t that I happened to be down whenever I met Ichimatsu; it was that meeting him always twisted my expression into a frown. I loathe misogynistic men. Conversely, Ichimatsu despises men who are friendly toward women. It means we can’t bond over the one thing nobles supposedly enjoy—trash-talking women. We are fundamentally incompatible.
”This is just how my face looks,” I retorted. “It’s exactly the same as your face, Ichimatsu—always so perpetually healthy-looking.”
I figured I’d fight back a little, since I was always on the receiving end. He was in no position to criticize anyone’s complexion. He looked like a patient in the final stages of a terminal illness.
”You look far less miserable than I do, and I envy you for having fewer worries.” I laced the statement with spite. Given my various grudges, I felt no need to show mercy just because he was ill.
But the man didn’t lose his footing.
”Of course. The burdens of others are ever the lightest things to behold,” he countered sharply.
”You just looked so carefree, I was jealous, not depressed.”
”Then look in a mirror. Seeing a more wretched specimen than yourself is sure to soothe your spirit.”
He had an answer for everything. I could feel his fierce determination not to lose the argument.
”Your mouth is as quick as your legs, then. I’m glad to see you’re still so lively.”
”Unlike you, who has no sense of caution, I do not suffer injuries. Are you aware of the logic that one does not fall if one does not walk? By your comportment, you are not. Commit it to memory, then.” Ichimatsu exhorted.
Was he a crotchety old man from a Victorian novel?
Behind him, his middle-aged Imperial Guards looked strained, and Sow-san, my bodyguard, had a tight expression. When a verbal brawl breaks out between men, the women can only stand aside. Ichimatsu’s guards, like ours, likely endured a long, difficult journey to reach this town, and deep fatigue was etched into their faces. I truly felt sorry for them. All Imperial Guards seem to have a dreadful lot in life.
The only one of my bodyguards not caught up in the unpleasantness was Vocal Slut-san, the tallest of us. It wasn’t that she didn’t grasp the insults, but she was either oblivious to malice or just not letting herself be drawn into the toxic air of the dispute.
”But seriously, you came all the way to this dangerous place just to offer incense?” I persisted, my disbelief returning.
”What nonsense. If you wish to ask the same thing repeatedly, go converse with a parrot instead,” he scoffed.
”Well, fine, but… oh.”
”Now, open the way. A narrow path is not the place for those who have forgotten how to walk to stand about. I believe your proper place is by the roadside, is it not?”
Ichimatsu shoved me aside with his cane, like an old man poking a dog out of the way with a stick. It was truly awful.
However, my improved body was sturdy, and I didn’t stumble. For some reason, Ichimatsu seemed satisfied, snorting and grumbling when I neither cried out in pain nor fell.
”Your injuries appear to be mended. Good, good.”
What the hell was that all about?
* * *
After they passed, we spoke by the roadside. Sow-san stared after their retreating backs with a grave demeanor. The strain of fatigue was still visible on her profile, making me want to reach out and stroke her head. If anything, Sow-san looked more like the one recovering from an illness than I did.
”That made no sense. Sow-san, do you truly think he came for a funeral?”
”I cannot speak to that, Young Master. However, there might be a circumstance in which he came because he was concerned about your condition,” Sow-san stated in a measured tone.
”Me? Concerned? With that attitude? You mean, like a hospital visit?”
”Yes, that is what I mean.”
It was an incredible notion. How did shoving me aside with a cane qualify as a visit of concern?
”Why would he care about the state of my injuries, even hypothetically?”
It was true that Ichimatsu had always taken an interest in me, checking in at every turn. He’d been consistent since we first met. He interfered constantly, yet whenever we actually met, he was aggressive and hostile. It made no sense. It wasn’t like he’d suddenly grown a conscience and regretted forcing me into that traumatic act with Kaede-san.
He was a withered, twisted old man, warped to such a degree that he was literally dying of a stress-related sickness caused by his own excessive perversity. I couldn’t stand him, and frankly, I didn’t want his concern.
”We do have a hypothesis regarding why he is so concerned about the Young Master,” Sow-san said, speaking a truth she’d clearly known for a while.
What she said next was a revelation.
”After exchanging opinions with his Imperial Guards, I can summarize it simply: Lord Ichimatsu may be the male who fathered the Young Master.”
”He is?!”
Wait, what? Ichimatsu was my biological father? “Oh, no… that’s just… disgusting.”
”At the very least, he seems to believe it himself. We have no way to verify it, however…” Sow-san murmured.
”Ehh… is that actually true?”
My reaction was simple: I hated the idea.
In Kazusa Province, all boys born in a town were taken by the central Ichihara Town and then reshuffled and relocated. A male infant was the most powerful political hostage, which meant parents were lost to the children. But there were other reasons beyond mere politics. When two generations of men coexist in one town, thorny problems tend to emerge.
I recalled a story Shigerou had once told me—an anecdote about a father and son conspiring to dislike the husband. Even if a father tolerated interacting with women, he sometimes didn’t want his son to endure the same difficulties.
Conversely, some men who wanted their sons to grow up into respectable figures would compel them to fulfill their male duties, ultimately destroying their hearts—a classic sign of a toxic parent justifying his own trauma by inflicting it on his child. Putting aside all that, two generations of noble men in one town always led to administrative headaches.
”Ugh, I don’t like this. Isn’t there anything that can be done?”
(It’s worth noting that an increase in inbreeding within a single town is not considered a problem in this world. This relates to the skewed gender ratio and other systemic issues… but never mind that; the current priority was this awful, newly revealed fact.)
”Young Master, you need not worry. It is only a possibility, nothing more,” Sow-san assured me, turning the tide.
I couldn’t change my parents, I thought, but Sow-san offered a different angle.
”It is merely that his age matches that of a boy born to a female who was affectionate toward Lord Ichimatsu. Lord Ichimatsu, it seems, deeply regrets that the former provincial government took away his son. We believe he is simply projecting that lost child onto the Young Master.”
Sow-san deliberately left the rest unsaid. This information likely came from his Imperial Guards; they cared about their master’s movements more than we did.
”So the only commonality is that we’re the same age group?”
”Yes. That much is certain.”
That was a relief. If the basis was that flimsy, there were dozens of boys my age in Kazusa Province. “So, he thinks the state stole his son, and now he’s compensating for the love he couldn’t give by focusing on me?”
”That, we cannot say ourselves…” Sow-san averted her gaze, looking embarrassed.
If that were true, what kind of father would treat his own child with such hostility? And I was pretty sure it wasn’t true; we didn’t look alike. It seemed this entire nuisance had such a messy background. The truth had apparently come out after my Imperial Guards reconciled with Ichimatsu’s.
Sow-san shared one more piece of gossip. “Lord Ichimatsu is said to have approached other boys with a similar attitude in the past. It did not escalate and was not recorded, according to his Imperial Guards.”
”He’s pretty messed up, huh?”
”He is a pitiable person.”
What a truly troublesome man. Hypothetically, I think he would have seen his son in any boy who arrived in the town other than me. Ichimatsu was that ill. He had so few comforts in life. He had a biological aversion to women and felt no respect from the male-dominated society. Within all that misery, the stolen son was one of his last remaining emotional anchors.
Vocal Slut-san, who stood beside us, utterly disconnected from this delicate conversation, was gazing up at the high, cold sky, tracking the clouds. Just in case, I asked her as well.
”Vocal Slut-san, what do you think? Do I look like that man?”
”I don’t know!” she responded instantly, her voice bright.
”R-right. I see. By the way, why have you been staring at the sky?”
”Look at those clouds! Don’t they make you want to eat a mugimanju³? They look just like one!”
It was an immediate, unironic answer. She wasn’t fooling around in the slightest; she was genuinely serious. I couldn’t be angry at her; that carefree, even air-headed cheerfulness in no way compromised her as a bodyguard. She was operating at her usual level of normal.
Vocal Slut-san’s life was blissfully simple; no darkness in her upbringing, she was somehow still close with the family she was supposedly separated from, and she was always utterly direct with her master.
”Still, it was a bit of a mystery,” the older sister with the sports instructor’s physique mused.
”Even though he always has a harsh expression toward the Young Master, I never feel any actual malice behind it.”
”Really?”
”I can tell things like that.”
Vocal Slut-san possesses an almost animal-like instinct. Moments of sharp perception occasionally flash through her usual gentle demeanor. She’s like a dog that can read the subtlest emotional shifts without any logic. It’s a nice way of saying she rarely thinks deeply about anything.
”By the way, what does Ichimatsu think of you, Vocal Slut-san?”
”He absolutely hates me!”
I asked out of curiosity, and the answer was unfortunate. It seemed that being an innocent person didn’t exclude her from being an object of his contempt. Vocal Slut-san’s eyes welled up slightly. Male animosity truly does take a toll on a woman’s mental state.
”I’m sorry, Young Master. He hates me, even though I’m your friend.”
”It’s fine. It’s actually reassuring. I’d be upset if he liked you. And we’re not friends.”
In any case, his hatred of women was completely genuine. The realization only deepened my conviction.
* * *
”I hope Natsume-san is okay. I heard she’s alive, but I don’t know what state she’s in.”
I thought of the lone woman who had stayed behind in town. We had cleared the Dungeon’s Third Layer, offering a tremendous contribution to the town through our efforts. She, however, had finished her assignment without any real achievement. Had she followed the others to the uncanny valley, it would be different, but she had merely stayed in town, waiting to be freed. That could easily be interpreted as dishonorable and insincere.
Natsume-san had received a letter from Ichimatsu instructing her to present herself to him. When they met, she would have no choice but to explain how she had failed the mission and stayed put instead of protecting the captured noble. He would inevitably ask. She’d stayed because prioritizing Ichimatsu’s orders was paramount, but I doubted he’d be understanding.
Was he so impatient that he couldn’t wait, visiting this place just to mete out some terrible punishment to the woman who never left Isumi Town? It was a nasty feeling, but I couldn’t shake the premonition that he might condemn her for the very decision he’d ordered. I resolved to be there to protect her when she was summoned.
Without much preparation, I came face-to-face with the bodies of Kaede-san and Kiri-san. The doors of the repurposed manor stood wide open, letting the cold wind rush through, and wooden slabs were arranged in a line. Two bodies, covered by straw mats, lay upon them.
The whole town was too busy, and with the season, there were no flowers to lay on them, but Imperial Guards are high-ranking, so their bodies had been cosmetically restored to some extent.
Fortunately, being midwinter, the bodies hadn’t badly deteriorated. They were laid out alongside other war dead from Kujukuri Town, resting on a bed of snow. Some slabs were empty, marking the spots where bodies had already been claimed.
A platform was set up for Chōjuzen⁴, small coins placed there for mourners to take home, a custom meant to share the good fortune of women who had a long connection with men.
”You’re cold. I’m sorry, I have no flowers to offer.”
I asked my guards to leave me, then leaned in and kissed Kaede-san’s burned face. Her gentle features were unrecognizable. She had lost her Psionic Power in death, and the unburned skin was etched with wrinkles appropriate for her age. The woman lying there was fortyish, her face not beautiful but marked by hardship. Yet, in a strange way, I was glad to see Kaede-san’s true form revealed.
I cried a little, holding her cold hand for a long time. Could I have handled things better? Why did I have to interfere? These thoughts ran through my mind. And time just passed.
After this farewell, the formal funeral would wait until the war was over. She would be buried before spring arrived and the body decomposed, so this would be my last chance to see Kaede-san’s face. The thought made it impossible to leave. I touched her body again and again, kissing her, or just sitting beside her, holding her hand. I told her about the things that happened in Isumi Town. I sat down and tapped my feet, looking nowhere in particular.
Every time the slow, agonizing realization of her death crept back, I touched Kaede-san’s body to flee it. But she was so cold. My body heat was all being sucked away by her hand; I could no longer receive anything from her. I didn’t care if others walked in and found me creepy. She didn’t move at all, and the list of Psionic Power names made no sound.
Kiri-san, just as Himawari had said, had her head utterly crushed, replaced by a wrapped cloth and covered with a clean white sheet. Her missing hand was also covered with a cloth. I thanked her profusely and wet the cloth covering her face with water, wishing I could offer her a final drink, but she had no mouth. Kiri-san was Kaede-san’s important colleague and friend, tragically caught up in the mission.
In the end, I stayed in the morgue until dusk. Leaning close to them, I finally understood the meaning of phrases like ‘gathering the bones’ or referring to a deceased body as ‘returning home.’ Looking closely, they didn’t resemble their living selves at all; they were nothing more than two strange, still dolls. Yet, when their images and conversations resurfaced with the passing sorrow, I felt certain that she was there. That’s why the body was necessary.
Again and again, the cycle of realization and unreality repeated, leading to belated regret and grief, until a kind of vacant numbness set in. There was no progress, but no ending either. I only left the freezing morgue when a concerned Imperial Guard walked in.
* * *
After that, I made sure to complete everything I could in Isumi Town. I appealed for leniency for the surviving women who had pleaded for Trash-san’s life. I offered thanks directly, not just in letters, to the rescue squad members. I paid my respects to Shigerou and his Imperial Guards, who were ironically safe because they were too weak to fight.
Everyone treated me with genuine warmth. The terrifying members of the First Rescue Squad seemed as flustered as teenage girls when I offered my thanks. Even the older sister whose body was mostly machine was moved to tears, covering her mouth with her hand, barely able to speak. She said she had assumed I’d long ago lost the capacity for emotion. My words seemed to melt even a mechanized heart. Indeed, the male noble is always the exception to every rule.
It was a surprisingly dense schedule for one day. Busy-ness provided a slight anesthetic for my grief. As I finished walking through the town, I realized that the fields, surprisingly, had not been completely burned.
”Isumi Town is going to disappear, isn’t it?”
”Yes. It will formally become a section of Kujukuri Town in Nansou,” Sow-san informed me.
Isumi Town was erased. Aside from a small faction of nobles who defected early, the noble families were wiped out, and the residents would become citizens of Kujukuri Town, burdened with heavy taxes. The necessary reprisals and purges had already concluded while I was in the dungeon. This place was now Kujikuri Town, Isumi District. Along with the change, half of the uncanny valley now belonged to Kujukuri.
The only reason the thousand-plus residents on the surface weren’t massacred was purely administrative. To the nobles, townspeople were like ground maggots sheltering in the shade of a large tree; there was no point in killing them just to replace them with Kujukuri Town citizens.
It was simpler to let the remnants of the old local noble families who knew how to collect taxes manage the collection. Nobles don’t care where the townspeople were born, as long as they can be squeezed dry. Furthermore, the new Isumi District would become a forward base keeping an eye on Kamogawa Town on the southern front, which required keeping some people for conscription.
The war was far from over.
”I guess that’s all I can do here.”
”You have done well, Young Master. You will return to Kujukuri Town starting tomorrow. Please rest for a while.” Sow-san bowed, having accompanied me all day long.
The reason I hadn’t returned to Kujukuri Town immediately was apparently due to the scheduling of the bodyguard unit assigned to escort me. All the other Imperial Guards were busy with post-battle administrative duties.
”What about you and the others, Sow-san?”
”We will likely be reassigned to the rear of the northern town’s battlefront starting tomorrow. We will continue to be engaged in the war effort. The Young Master is strictly forbidden from involving yourself in the state of the war, including gathering any information, from this point forward.”
”Understood. Thank you for your hard work.”
”Your words are too generous.”
The work for women is relentlessly hard. No rest; straight back to logistics support on a different front. When the Isumi Town battle ends, the war with other towns resumes. Everyone risks their lives.
There’s no room for excuses like ‘I’m too tired to work.’ Especially my Imperial Guards, who won’t die doing office work. The order is clearly: Do it, even if you’re dead on your feet. Not even one day of celebratory leave to enjoy my return.
I could finally go back to that white room life. I intended to take the advice and rest for a while. I needed time to not think, time to distance myself from the war and death. I felt awful for the women who were constantly, inescapably drawn back into it.
”Well, all that’s left is Natsume-san’s business.”
”They have agreed to the attendance. We are to appear at the old office building in front of the former town hall at five in the morning⁵ tomorrow.”
I thanked Sow-san.
I would be present as an observer for Natsume-san’s meeting with Ichimatsu. I had secured permission through my Imperial Guards. Fortunately, Ichimatsu had only just arrived in Isumi Town, so the confrontation hadn’t happened yet. I had no official reason to be there; I simply asked to stand by.
Natsume-san had been on the verge of losing herself during her captivity, having lost two of her closest friends, but she had kept her mind intact in the backroom cell by holding onto Ichimatsu’s command as her mental anchor. To an Imperial Guard, the master is irreplaceable, even if he neglects them, just as Himawari proved.
Depending on the outcome of the meeting, her relationship with Ichimatsu would change. Tomorrow morning, it would likely be the final conversation in their current relationship as master and Imperial Guard.
If I couldn’t interfere with their master-servant relationship, the least I could do was ensure Natsume-san’s mind wasn’t utterly broken. She couldn’t endure a scolding on top of everything else. The two who passed away would surely forgive me for this small intrusion on behalf of their colleague. With that, everything I could do for those three women would be finished. I couldn’t change the reality: they were, after all, someone else’s Imperial Guards. The only person who could have truly saved them was their own master.
—
Notes
1 Kijin: The term for ‘Noble Male’ in this setting. Used as a proper noun to emphasize the unique societal status and distance from commoners. ↩
2 Kibyō: A Japanese term meaning ‘strange disease,’ here adapted to specifically refer to the severe, stress-induced psychological decay suffered by Ichimatsu, representing the toxic pressures on the noble male. ↩
3 Mugimanju: A type of sweet steamed bun made from wheat flour. A very simple, rustic food, which perfectly reflects Vocal Slut-san’s simple tastes and distraction. ↩
4 Chōjuzen: A cultural reference to a local or historical Japanese custom where coins are exchanged or taken from the funeral rites, literally ‘Longevity Coins,’ often to pass on the good fortune of the deceased. ↩
5 Five in the morning: The Japanese time notation ‘朝(あさ)五(いつ)つ’ translates to roughly 8:00 AM, following the old system where ‘five’ refers to the fifth hour after the midpoint of the night or day. The English rendering ‘five in the morning’ is an adjustment for teen readers (A2-B2) to maintain the sense of an early, formal meeting. ↩
Notes:
• Ichimatsu – A high-ranking figure associated with the Imperial Guard, mentioned as having spineless guards around him, with no further details provided.
• Kaede – A female psionic explorer known as Necksplitter, is a veteran assassin and messenger of Lord Ichimatsu. Her appearance is both young and old, with gray hair streaked through black and vibrant, unlined skin. She is graceful yet carries the fatigue of a long life in war, resembling an old hunting dog. Her psionic ability is mysterious and potentially dangerous.
• Kiri – A female sniper and member of Kaede-san’s team, white-haired with sleepy eyes, wielding a disguised sniper rifle, known for her quick hands and slow speech, often joking in dire situations.
• Himawari – A one-eyed black oni girl/aberration-type psionic; town leader/face; asks for promotion help; apologizes for killings; sets 2‑day deadline.
• Psionic Power – Mental energy concept in Chapter 35’s lecture. Trash-san teaches it to strengthen the protagonist’s mind after dungeon ordeals.
• Natsume – A female companion and younger sister of Kaede-san, cared for by Kaede-san during their journey through the dangerous valley, at risk of infection from the parasitic creatures.
• Kazusa Province – A region cited in Chapter 29 dungeon records defining unreturnable dungeons. Serves as a geographic and academic reference for explorers.
• Shigerou – A middle-aged man from the Katsuraura family; talkative, clueless about the war, enjoys a comfortable life.
Please bookmark this series and rate ☆☆☆☆☆ on here!
Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
Leave a Reply