Minamoto’s declaration was something that I had grown to expect. In a way, I could figure out that the once jovial and kind man turned into something more focused and determined when gods came into the picture. It was a pretty dangerous situation, so I could understand the strategy within retreating. However, for this once kind, old man to just completely disregard the villagers seemed… callous.

Still, I had no idea what was happening besides the fact that the once super powerful Nishimuro had died and that there was some sort of “sacrificial ceremony” going on as well. The latter was just dangerous sounding in general, but the knowledge that Nishimuro, a man who killed the previous Oni in just a blink, had died terrified me. If we were going against a monster that could kill that man, then running away was a viable option.

Of course, with such an instant and cold order to leave their loved ones, there was bound to be some– er, quite a bit of objection actually. Even discounting the villagers wearing tattered clothes and gaunt faces there were still reactions coming from the soldiers around us. Several clenched their fists, glaring down at the ground.

I was honestly baffled by the amount of people who were basically willing to throw themselves to their deaths. Though, I didn’t really have much to comment about when that was what I was doing before I figured out my chances of survival had changed from plausible to nigh-impossible.

My gaze was focused more on the woman leading the Samurai and Exorcists. She was biting her lip hard, trying not to look Minamoto in the eye as well. It took several moments before she took a breath and nodded sharply. “We will… follow along with your decision.”

“I’m sorry, I can’t listen to this.” The biggest shock so far was that Yasuda stepped out to speak. He hadn’t changed from his usual calm demeanor, but I felt that he seemed different. “I apologize if I am being rude, sir, but leaving all those people there– in a sacrificial ceremony of all things just does not sit right with me. They’re just-”

“Sawano!” The woman said harshly, and I saw her eyes flash red. Yasuda flinched as she continued softer this time. “We know… We understand. Minamoto understands the enemy and what we can do. Going there would not save everyone here.”

Yasuda’s teeth clicked closed as he stepped back. The Samurai and villagers mixed together as Minamoto took most of the lead, and the female Samurai walked next to him, looking around with her head on a swivel like something would pop out of the shadows at any moment. We moved downstream at a pace much slower than before, but I realized that the villagers were much slower than even me.

Did they not have Life Energy to help them? I frowned as I remembered how Minamoto unlocked my own Life Energy. Minamoto did say that there were two ways to do so; a safer way and my own more dangerous one. So, did that mean that they were not brave enough for the more dangerous way or unable to go through the safer way. It would make sense that they regulated such a supernatural energy, but then that just made me more confused with Minamoto’s original actions. He really was a saint, huh.

I pushed those thoughts to the back of my mind. Life Energy was a necessary resource, so realizing that normal people might not have it was a little relieving.

My main focus was more on copying the female Samurai’s actions of scanning the area. Understandably, I found nothing. Which was both expected and gratifying. I was panicking now that I knew there was something that could maybe threaten Minamoto just lurking out of view, so the fact that there was nothing was nice.

Sadly, my actions allowed me to witness the sideways glances from a handful of Samurai and all of the villagers. My body stat elevated my hearing enough to hear them cursing me, blaming me for the situation. I didn’t really know them. There was no connection that we had other than we were in the same shitty situation. That should have meant that their words shouldn’t have dug as deep as they did.

I shook my head, trying to zone them out as I scanned through the treeline surrounding us. I found Yasuda stalking around the back of the group. With my lips pursed, I watched him for a second before slowing down to his side. He looked at me with a weak smile.

“Hey.” I said, suddenly feeling lame about the lackluster starter.

“Leader. How are you?”

I raised an eyebrow. “Shouldn’t I ask you that? You got rather emotional back there– just like back in the dungeon. I figured you wanted to, you know, talk.”

“I suppose you have questions.”

“Uh, if you wanna talk about it.” I said sheepishly.

Yasuda shook his head with a smile. “No, no, its fine. I just…” he paused to look at me as we walked. “Why do you get stronger, leader?”

“Huh? Why do I-” I froze at the unexpected question. Why did I want to get stronger? Wasn’t it obvious? Sure, there was my goal to make something of myself, but really that was more of a nebulous thing that might happen. Getting stronger was just a necessary thing that I did. “Well, aren’t we all trying to survive?”

Yasuda smiled. “I see… I don’t agree with that, leader.”

“Wha- what?”

“I am fine with dying. I just want my death to mean something.”

There was a pregnant pause as I took in his words. Suddenly, I remembered just what he had said before we confronted the Face Stealer Centipede. I’d rather die tired than wait for death to come. It was a rather insane line to say right before a fight, but I had chalked it up as an odd way to bring up morale.

I only had one question on my mind, “Why? Do you really have to die?”

“Its not like I want to die.” Yasuda shook his head. “It’s my father– truthfully, I never really knew him. All I remember from him were the apparent achievements he had before he died. Apparently, he saved a bunch of people before he died… I just want to know why he did that. Is it really worth leaving his family for?”

“So, you’re going through this by… doing the exact same thing?”

Yasuda chuckled mirthfully. “Sounds dumb, I know. Sorry if you were expecting some epic story where I am trying to save a dying family member or something. But, even if I didn’t want to figure out my father’s thoughts, I would not want people to go through the sacrificial ceremony. Especially those kids– they don’t deserve that fate.”

“Ah, that thing is… very bad.”

“Bad is just– right, I forgot. Yes, a sacrificial ceremony is a horrible thing. It was a horrid ability used by the first Gaijin that is used to grow as feared as he was. Obviously, they don’t tell us everything, but everyone just calls it the sacrificial ceremony because it forcefully gathers and converts Life Energy of living people into whatever energy is used to increase Life Ranks. There is no difference to it from torture.”

My thoughts spun in my head as I listened. Life Energy can be converted into something else? Do we kill things and the system automatically converts Life Energy for us? It would make some sense considering I killed things and my Life Rank increased. “So, it runs on some demented form of the first law of Thermodynamics?”

“Thermo-what?”

“Its uh, energy can't be created nor destroyed, you know. Did that not teach you guys in the academy or whatever?"

"No, they did not. I doubt it was anything like your academy, leader. I suppose you were in one, yes?"

"Ah, yeah... never mind that. Anyways, why is this ceremony torture aga-” I remembered the sacrificial node shaped like an urn within the dungeon. I shivered as the same image of stitched together bodies filled my mind. “No wait, I… don’t really want to know.”

“Probably for the best, leader. Though, I don’t know much and even then, it is not pretty.” Yasuda said, closing his eyes. “Its why I don’t want to let it continue.”

“And that’s why you want to get stronger?” I asked, looking around again. We had traveled a little ways away from the place where they had fought the Oni Variant before. On the bank of the river, I found a small mound made of stones stacked on each other.

It was a makeshift grave. A strange one that attracted my attention. I knew what it was for, and I could only assume that that Shuten Doji guy would get angry if they did anything else. On a whim, I started walking over to it while Yasuda followed.

“Sure, after all, we still have to survive this.” Yasuda patted my shoulder hard enough that I stumbled, and I caught myself by placing a hand on the piled stone grave. And promptly froze when a screen popped up in my vision.

[Do you want to you copy the physique of “Oni - Variant” into one of the Mask of Flesh(F) slots]

Huh… this is neat.

Before I could react further to screen, my sixth sense flashed before me. We were surrounded by an army of monsters, enclosing us in a small circle of space. However, my attention shifted straight to Minamoto instead of the sudden monsters. I had felt this before, so I knew immediately what was happening.

We were being surrounded. Or the enemy might be doing that, but currently the monsters were not surrounding us. This was that Nurarihyon's presence reacting to my sixth sense.

Minamoto was acting long before I even had a chance to understand what was going on. He had whipped out the white branch, holding it out towards the phantasmal army that surrounded us. His face was set into a grim line as his gaze followed the edge of the forest. Yet, I felt that his attention was missing something. His gaze was on the edges, following exactly where I had sensed the army of monsters. It was a confirmation that Minamoto could view something similar to my sixth sense, but I quickly realized his was different as he continued to look at what I assumed was the army.

The old Exorcist waved his branch as thousands of brambles burst from the ground around us in a semicircle with our backs to the river. The thorny vines quickly entwined around themselves to form a large, chest high wall of thorns and writhing vines. It would definitely stop smaller yokai and monsters, but would do little against things that were larger.

Everyone else seemed to slowly realize that something was happening. The villagers screamed or whimpered as they retreated till their ankles were almost touching the river behind us. The Samurai and Exorcists seemed to be looking around, trying to find the danger that caused Minamoto to set up such defenses. My gaze followed the female Samurai who, instead of doing anything to actually lead people, she was focused on Minamoto's back.

A terrifying thought hit me all of a sudden. We had been led by the nose this entire time, and the enemy seemed to be ready to counter Minamoto. If they were dragging his attention outwards, then the actual attack naturally had to be on whoever had the highest combat strength of us.

I squinted my eyes at the shadow behind Minamoto, trying to find something that the female Samurai might have noticed. However, I found it too late. I acted too late as well. It might have been an easy thing to figure out after having all the pieces placed in front of me, but I still was too slow.

After staring at the same spot as I moved, I caught the blurry figure of a small statured humanoid standing behind Minamoto. Its head was abnormally large, and it wore nice robes of black satin embroidered with skeletons. In its hand, it held a single edged sword that was sailing towards Minamoto's head.

I felt helpless. Life Energy pumped through my body as I flew towards Minamoto, hoping to save him before the sword impaled him. I was too far away from helping my friend. My heart thundered in my ears as I shot passed the dazed Samurai and villagers who were just now noticing that something was wrong.

Time felt weird. Like every second was extended into minutes. I could feel a flow of Life Energy going through my [Presence Correction] skill. It was doing... something. I had no idea as I was focused on the fact that I knew I could save Minamoto. There was no doubt in my mind that I could reach him.

Yet, a hand caught the blade before I arrived. The sharp edge cut deep into the owner's hand, spilling red blood down the edge. I followed the hand up to the vicious grin on the female Samurai's face.

"Ya think you can pull this shit again, bastard!" She yelled, using her other hand to unsheathe her sword and try to cut its head off.

The Nurarihyon easily let go of its weapon, dashing backwards at a speed I knew I couldn't match. I didn't really mind it; I still had the confidence to beat the monster.

"Oi, Gaijin. Turn off that skill- its affecting your thoughts." I blinked at the words of the female Samurai. She was still keeping a close eye on the Nurarihyon while the rest of the Samurai had surrounded the villagers. While I was confident that I could handle things if I used my [Mask of Flesh] skill and my Life Energy, the female Samurai seemed to know more, so it wouldn't be bad to adhere to her words.

I stopped the flow of Life Energy to the presence in my head and-

"Ah shit." I realized how dumb I was. Like holy shit that could have gone bad. I knew my [Presence Correction] skill could affect me with it, but I had expected that there would be some disconnect. This had just like I had been injected with pure confidence even at the cost of my life. Was I affected by Yasuda's previous words?

"Are you alright, mister David?" Minamoto asked with a smile.

"Uh, yeah. Perfectly fine. Are skills supposed to... be that weird?"

"Ya, skill jades with mental skills are like that." the female Samurai said. "Annoying for everyone. Now get ready. That Nurarihyon definitely moved faster than the majority of its Hyakki Yagyo, so it was probably pretty confident in this little plan."

I stared at the creature. "So this is the best time to attack it?"

"No, because-"

I covered my head as a roar shook my eardrums. My face paled as I recognized that sound; a sound that I hadn't thought I would hear in such a short amount of time. Sure, I remembered the female Samurai mentioning it earlier, but I hadn't thought things would find us so fast. A pang of fear traveled through my heart, and I suppressed the urge to use my [Presence Correction] skill to get rid of it. I had no idea if my idiotic confidence might send me into the belief I could fist fight that creature.

"Even if the Nurarihyon attacks us without the rest." The female Samurai started, glaring in the direction of the roar. "It has an Oni with it."

"It appears we cannot run anymore." Minamoto said. "I fear that the Nurarihyon has a tracking skill of some sort. This might be out best chance to turn things around- I can't see any other enemy even close."

"Gaijin."

"Yes? uh... I don't think I got your name. I can't just keep calling you Samurai, right?"

"It doesn't matter." the female Samurai waved her hand. "Can ya handle the Oni? Or at least distract it."

That was quite a bit of faith. Honestly, I felt like I had a better chance getting stuck between its teeth than fight it head on. Didn't more of these guys fail at hunting a single one? "Will I get help at least?"

"A Nurarihyon is the bigger threat overall. Just distract it." I was getting the feeling that she might be a bit heartless.

"I- okay." I said, and suddenly a mass of flames ten feet tall walked over the bramble wall Minamoto set up. The red-hot fire condensed into darker red flesh; muscles flexed against scarred red skin. Dark red pupils stared at me with unconcealed hatred. Why? I feel like these things just hate me on principle. Maybe they are prejudiced against Gaijins? "Have I mentioned I hate Oni. Because I do."