Once again, I found myself staring up at the Inverse Ocean above. What I had once thought were stars were either a stone called Glitterock or the luminescent eyes of monsters that could shine through the deep waters. It was such an odd thing to think about. That I could be locking eyes with a monster that could eat me with one mouthful. However, I found the sight rather beautiful.

Whether it was the moon that never changed from a full circle to the twinkling lights in the deep. There were obviously no galaxies or planets that painted the black sky, but the whole picture was calming and peaceful in a way. At least, it was a better peace than our campsite currently.

“Shit! What are you going to do with us?!” I shifted away from the night sky to look over at the group of bandits who were tied up. We had used most of the rope that was scavenged in the previous village as well as the one Shizuka and I had helped save, but we were just barely able to wrap up the bandits such that their hands, arms and legs were fairly restrained.

Of course, I was the one who had to figure out how to move and manage them since I had technically been the one who told them I wouldn’t kill them outright.

“Shut it!” I yelled at the man, and he flinched at my glower. The rest of the men around him who were being riled up also quieted down immediately. “People are trying to sleep, bastards.”

Honestly, I had tried the kind route, but I found they responded better to me cursing them out. Two days of them complaining about their bondage being too tight, their food being too tough and just their plain horrible personalities had grated any goodwill I could have scraped together for them in my kind, pure heart. I felt they were more of a nuisance in general since they slowed us down phenomenally, so my nerves were becoming frayed once again. Something that didn’t endear me with the villagers who were saved from the bandits. And those guys were another matter entirely.

While they weren’t as antagonistic as the small number of survivors from the first villager, they were still very wary about me. Gaijins were obviously a source of apprehension, and my appearance and actions of punching a guy’s head off didn’t win me any points. Though, they were more wary than scared and seething with empty rage.

Small mercies, I guess.

I stifled a chuckle as I sat up. Now that I was fully awake, it would take me a while to go back to sleep, so I figured I had to make the most out of my sudden extra time. Instinctively, I let Life Energy flow through me, letting it drip into the presence in my hands.

[Life-Death Soul Weaving] activated silently as I felt the juxtaposed currents of cold and warm run through my body. Almost immediately, I found a strand of the cold current spindled out from my right hand’s fingertip.

My right hand had been warped up in another layer of bandages after I had gotten back, and sticks were used to brace my broken fingers in place. The hand looked more like a white mitten stained with splotches of red at this point. However, I found my eyes locked on a blue string that exited from where I felt was my right hand’s pointer finger. It was ethereal as it danced around in a nonexistent wind, twisting and coiling as it rolled out from my finger. After it extended to about a foot in length, I felt a physical resistance from my fingertip; almost like something was being pulled out from the inside.

I sighed and cut it off. That was about as much as I could get out. Any further was impossible.

As much as I felt that my [status] window was too stingy on details, I could still figure out certain details without it explaining every little thing. It would have been dumb if I didn’t realize that I gained the ability to make these weird blue strings after killing two people. Specifically, half a foot for each person.

The answer should have been obvious. Death was in the name of my technique, and I remembered the bodies of the people who weren’t included in the sacrificial ceremony back in the village. I had just thought that they weren’t needed for the ceremony. Apparently, I had been thinking too optimistically. They were just sacrifices for more string.

And now…

I let the blue string coil out of my fingertips again. It was such a similar method that I couldn’t help but remember what it could be used for. Just looking at it made me wonder who I would be in a year– no, a month from now. Would I become something like what I saw in Minamoto and Shizuka’s souls? I wanted to know just what I was carrying on for.

“Um, uh– excuse me.” I turned to the soft voice that spoke nearby. I half expected it to be Shizuka as she had been speaking to me whenever she was free.

Instead, I was surprised to find the young boy, who I saved from the Face Stealer Centipede, shifting awkwardly in front of me. He was looking a bit better than when I had last remembered, and the diet of meat and soup from Shizuka and Minamoto’s constant hunts had served to put some meat on his bones. His hair was cropped short, and I found it looked slightly like mine. I chose to say nothing as he turned away from meeting my gaze.

“Yes? Can I help you?” I asked, trying not to seem too standoffish. This was the boy who had watched over me in my sleep after I had been attacked in my sleep; he might have accused me of causing his mother’s death at one point, but I couldn’t stay mad at someone who tried to help me.

“I uh– I… how did you get so strong?” he asked quietly.

I was floored. A reflexive response got stuck in my throat as I looked at the boy again. His ruddy face was growing into a deeper red as I didn’t answer immediately.

However, I couldn’t just answer his question off the top of my head. I couldn’t just say that we were all pretty weak. Even if I could fight off a couple bandits and monsters, I didn’t have the confidence to say that I was strong. In fact, I felt that what I accomplished was just not enough. Inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.

The boy wrung his hands as I continued to think of a way to answer and stuttered out again, “I just… I want to be as strong as you. I don’t care if you’re some monster like all the uncles said, I don’t care if you want to eat my soul, I just want…” I watched as the boy’s hands tightened till his knuckles became white. “I want to be strong like you.”

But, I’m not strong. I held my tongue as those words came to me. I thought back to when we were rummaging through the burnt down village. It wasn’t uncommon for one of the survivors to break down when they found a body of someone they knew.

The boy in front of me was one of them. He stumbled through the wreckage, cutting himself as he tried to get over taller pieces of material. Soot blackened his limbs as he made his way to a specific part of the village.

I had been helping another Samurai move something, but I had seen the boy staring at a burnt corpse. A woman’s body. She had died not by the flames but by a red blade that struck through her chest. Her hands were in a deathgrip around the neck of one of those red cloaked Aka Mantos. At the time, Minamoto’s words where normal people could use bursts of Life Energy in times where they desperately needed it; to survive against a monster or a fall from a waterfall.

Or a mother who wanted to save their child.

Tentatively, I brushed the boy’s hair, pulling back as he flinched. He looked up at me with large black eyes, and I swallowed heavily. I felt I was running in the dark. This was not just about getting stronger. I had no idea how to comfort someone who lost their most precious people, so I gestured vaguely for him to sit down next to me. When he did so, I tried to settle my thoughts.

“Why do you want to get stronger?” I asked softly.

“Because…” he muttered, lowering his gaze. I sat there silently, waiting for him to speak first. In a way, he reminded me of myself. He was stumbling around, looking for direction. Yet, he didn’t seem to find anything no matter how long he waited. “Because. I don’t want… to be useless again.”

I watched as the boy bit his lip, and panicked a bit as tears began to spill from his eyes. However, I held back my reply as I listened to him continue.

“I don’t want to be saved.” He said through tears. I couldn’t tear my gaze away as he looked at me with reddened cheeks and piercing eyes. “My mommy she’s… I know she’s not coming back. And mister helped kill them. Please– please help me be as strong as you!”

I swallowed my emotions. If it was me before, I knew I would have probably ignored his plea. I would have deluded myself in some other scenario, and then I would have ignored him. Even then, there was no reason to help him. I had no attachment to the kid. Sure, it was cruel to ignore him, but I was barely a functioning member of society myself. Did I really want to drag a kid into my life?

However, I wasn’t that callous. I knew Minamoto and Yasuda would not abandon a child who was crying in front of them. Could I handle their disappointment more than I could handle training a child?

The answer was an easy one. In the end, I was easily swayed.

“I can help you.” I said. “Though, I have to say that I am not the strongest, nor am I the most knowledgeable. In fact, I am probably the worst person to ask here. I can probably ask Minamoto to help you-”

“No…” the boy mumbled, grabbing the sleeve of my shirt. “I… I want to learn from you. Please.”

I sighed. At this point, I felt his motivations were beyond getting as strong as possible. Wouldn’t you want to get help from the strongest person around if that was the case. However, interrogating him wasn’t what I was going for.

“Okay… okay. I’ll teach you everything I know.” I said, getting a hesitant nod.

That seemed to serve as an end to the discussion as the boy got up quickly and ran off to where the rest of the villagers were sleeping. I felt a heavy weight rest on my shoulders as I stopped for a moment and turned back to me. He came back, looked me in the eyes, and gave a small smile.

“A- and you’re not weak, mister.”

I blinked. Once again, he said something that juxtaposed the cemented notion that I was weak. Minamoto and Shizuka were also there as a comparison, so I never really thought of myself as strong. I was always struggling in fights, giving my all despite things not working out.

Then, I punched someone’s head off. It was such a comical yet disturbing image that was solidified in the back of my thoughts. I had always gone for the vitals. After all, every fight was a different labor, every moment we were under an unbelievable amount of pressure and it was only recently that I realized there could be people weaker than me.

I had unknowingly been comparing myself to Minamoto and Shizuka. Sure, I was weak. To people like the young boy, I was probably strong. I just never took a moment to let that sink in. Once again, I had been overthinking everything.

I chuckled as the boy looked at me oddly. “Hey, what’s your name?”

“Akisame.” The boy bowed. “It’s nice to meet you, mister. Please don’t eat my soul.”

“I’m not gonna do that.” I groused, shaking my head. “Just call me David.”

Akisame bowed again. “It’s nice to meet you, mister David.”

I sighed and watched Akisame run back to the rest of the villagers once again, I felt something brush against my chest. It was a small marble. The [March of the Dead] skill jade that had stayed within my pocket this whole time. I touched it briefly before looking back to the boy who earnestly tried to go to sleep.

He was moving forwards in his own way despite everything. For some reason, I didn’t want to disappoint that innocent outlook.

“I see you have picked up an unlikely protégé, my friend.” Minamoto walked next to me, sporting a grin on his face.

I gave him a silent look as he chuckled. “I don’t suppose you have any advice?”

“Mister David, I can still drag more!” Akisame yelled from behind me. I ignored him while listening to the curses of the bandits who were on the receiving end of Akisame’s actions.

Honestly, I was stumped on how to teach someone to get stronger. In the end, I let Akisame just drag around some bandits as I had too many to handle. Was I shoving my responsibilities to a young and impressionable child? Yes, most definitely. Would that stop me? No. There were around twenty bandits and while I could drag them around with a combination of Life Energy and the Oni – Variant mask whenever they chose to be stubborn, the addition of Akisame let me only need to drag around ten bodies.

Not because Akisame was some super strong freak but because the Samurai and Exorcists who woke up took a liking to the kid. The soldiers jostled the bandits whenever the unkempt men dawdled around, trying to drag down the group. This caused the bandits to trip and roll over themselves as they tried to keep away from the Samurai prodding them with the sheathes of their swords.

The once morose Samurai laughed and joked at the expense of the bandits, and I even caught some of the villagers who walked around smile and chuckle at the sight. It was a scene I didn’t really expect. I didn’t know how they could smile so easily after everything that had happened.

“Impressive isn’t it.” Minamoto said, watching the scene with me. “People can adapt fairly easily. Despite everything that happened, they can still wake up, they can still eat and they can still laugh.”

I felt my tongue grow heavy in my mouth. “It just seems… so easy.”

Minamoto tapped my shoulder, pointing in another direction. I followed and found a mother and son grieving over a corpse. They were one of the villagers we had picked up from the village destroyed by the bandits, and since they had nowhere else to go, they agreed to follow us back to Ikshiizu.

“Happiness isn’t something that comes easily, my friend.” Minamoto said. I watched as the mother kneeled down to her crying child. She cleaned up both of their tears and forced a smile that I knew was only a moment away from breaking, hugging the boy like he was a life buoy in the middle of a storm. “However, it is not as hard to achieve as many believe it to be. People adapt to their circumstances by moving on– by pushing through the bad times. Then, we find our happiness. Whether that may be a small respite or,” he gestured vaguely towards the mother. “A happiness for someone else’s sake. Whatever form it may take.”

“I don’t see what you’re trying to get at.”

“I am asking as a concerned friend– when was the last time you tried to move past the bad times?”

I froze at his question. It struck me particularly deep as he was spot on with his sentence. Because I never did. I always just ignored them, letting the problem grow until it became critical. “I… don’t know.”

“That’s fine.” Minamoto said simply, causing a different kind of shock to be sent through me.

“What?” He asked, seeing me confused. “I am not going to continue to berate you. We all have our own ways of moving forwards. I am happy that you are finally out of most of your slump. Take things as they come, or so they say. I will just have to make sure to be there whenever you get caught up in your thoughts again.”

“You…” I blinked, eyes growing wide. It was such a simple sentence, but I knew that Minamoto meant it. A smile pinched at the corners of my cheeks as I nodded.

Back in my other world, I had gotten used to people just standing around and doing nothing as I broke apart. Maybe it was because I never reached out to them first, or maybe I just failed to realize their advice. However, Minamoto had been the one to help me, the one to pull me out of my thoughts, and the one to give me the strength to live. I guess I just needed a little help.

“Thank you.” I whispered.

“Think of it as repaying your expectations.” Minamoto said, slapping my back with his hand. “You deserve it, after all. Though,” he leaned closer to me, and I felt the air grow a bit thicker. I looked at him puzzled, finding the white branch in his hand. A conspiratory smirk was held on his face. “What did you say to the little fox that made her so…”

He trailed off, glancing in said Queen’s direction. I saw Shizuka butchering one of the wild boars she had apparently hunted this morning. Her actions were as fast as ever, but there was something off about how she seemed to violently twist off its limbs.

[Shizuka Kumiho is looking at you]

I looked away as her head snapped up in our direction. Minamoto suppressed a laugh as he waved her gaze away.

“You see what I mean.” Minamoto continued.

I thought back to our last couple interactions. After the whole situation in the bandit-attacked village, I had gotten a little colder to her despite her help. I just felt too annoyed at how easily she used what was basically mind control to get the answers I didn’t want to say.

“It’s not… that bad. Is it?”

Minamoto shook his head. “Kitsune are long lived races, and they mentally mature slower than most. Shizuka more so. Her technique always let people see the most beautiful and enticing thing they wanted, and she basically got everything she wanted when she was growing up. You being anything less than adoring of her is probably perplexing and maybe aggravating to her.”

“Is it?” I almost sneered. So she was just a spoiled princess, then? While I could feel sorry for her being constantly seen as someone she was not, I still felt like my rights to my thoughts were violated. “Then, what about all the other people who are not affected by it? Doesn’t that include you since you trained her?”

“I am a different case.” Minamoto waved his hand. “I don’t have what people would consider a normal, human body. And my student’s case is not as happy as you think it would be. I won’t spill any of her secrets, but she probably feels horrible about her technique affecting you as badly as it did; after all, she hasn’t been one to understand the importance of control.”

“She didn’t seem to mind as much when she used it on me.” I groused, slowly losing the heat in my argument. In the end, I just wanted to vilify her in my mind, but Minamoto was making it a point to tell me not to judge her too badly.

“It’s hard for her to control herself sometimes.” Minamoto shrugged, knowing that I wasn’t getting convinced of Shizuka’s qualities anytime soon. So long as I wasn’t influenced by her technique, my feelings towards her were neutral at best. “It’s in her nature as a Kitsune.”

“I’ll try to understand.” I said, ending the line of conversation.

Minamoto always knew when to stop pushing it, so he politely pursed his lips. The two of us settled into a comfortable silence as I listened to the cries of the bandits behind us drown out the sounds of nature around us. Dried leaves and sticks crunched underfoot as I stared up at the sun that blazed in the sky. I still wasn’t sure how that was a thing yet, but I was becoming increasingly clear that the moon might be just a reflection. Still, it was a mystery I wanted to unravel at some point.

As my thoughts wandered, I found myself looking back at the hard working Akisame. The kid resolutely continued to drag the bandit behind him, and I couldn’t help but be a little moved at his persistence. Sure, the Samurai were helping to lessen the load, and they seemed a little too comfortable with child labor, but Akisame was putting in everything he had to get stronger. In a way, I admired his simple-minded pursuit a bit.

However, as I watched on, I found one of the bandits who I recognized. They were one of the more reluctant ones who hadn’t taken to murder like a fish to water. He was the one who cursed at me for not “being there before.” Those words stuck with me as I pieced together what he meant.

The little details of the villages played back in my head, and suddenly I felt a bit dumb for not noticing immediately.

“Minamoto,” I called urgently.

“Yes?”

“What are villages in the border regions?” I asked seriously. “They have no merchants traveling between them. You have bandits and yokai seemingly unrooting them easily, so they aren’t stations for claiming more land. Why are they even out here? There’s seemingly nothing out here.”

Minamoto looked conflicted for a bit, scrunching his face up as he didn’t respond immediately. His shoulders dropped as he exhaled. “I guess you would not be the first to notice it. The border regions were basically the lands the kingdoms, sects, empires, and whatever organization that came here first stripped clean. I had heard it took thousands of years for vegetation to grow back after they left, and because of that, no one used to live out here. Dungeons, being run by gods and their contractors, followed their sources of interest: the people.”

“So that’s why there’s not many people like you out here?” I asked.

“Right,” Minamoto confirmed. “I myself am a different case, but those who rise to Life Rank D normally head back towards the main cities after living here in the border regions. Dungeons sometimes form here. Though, they’re too few for kingdoms and empires to actually spare the effort to occupy them. The villages become self-sufficient just by living off the land, so not much support is offered after a certain point. Wandering Exorcists like myself are dispatched sometimes to educate them as well as take care of potential problems.”

“But, they are still vulnerable to overwhelming threats.” I said, feeling horrified as I listened in. These villages in the border regions were just… training grounds, in a way. They shoved a bunch of weak people out here, and only when they got stronger did they realize that the border regions were more like a proving ground. Whether it was by choice or not, they basically sent their citizens here to either become stronger or become fodder to someone else’s Life Rank.

“It’s not as bad as you’re thinking.” Minamoto hurried to clarify my thoughts. “Most people move out here because they want to get away from the… craziness of the cities. You’ll see it when we get to Ikshiizu. And besides, it’s not like we restrict them from coming back; some even prefer to live out here. Most who get stronger, gain their strength through a god who created a Dungeon nearby, and they enjoy that feeling of adventure and strength.”

“What about the Hyakki Yagyo?”

Minamoto sighed heavily. “That is… a different thing. Border regions are not really the places to attack. They are a neutral zone for most parties since nearly everyone with a bit of strength realizes that they can’t gain much from attacking weaker villagers en masse. It’s better to let some people grow strong enough to decide to come back on their own. A god instigating a Hyakki Yagyo is something that hasn’t happened before.”

“And the fact that this wasn’t the only place they conspired against is also a thing.” I added, getting a nod from Minamoto.

“That’s something you shouldn’t have to worry about.”

I nearly scoffed. Whoever had targeted Minamoto had done so with such meticulous planning that if they just let us off, there would definitely be loose ends. I had no doubts that they might even come back and try to finish me off for just helping Minamoto. Especially since we were friends.

“If you say so.” I said, keeping my thoughts to myself. Minamoto was already dealing with enough, and I didn’t want to ask him for more help. I owed the man too much to do that without any shame.

“Yes, ah,” Minamoto looked ahead, and I gasped when I saw it too.

I had to crane my neck up to see two massive red pillars rise up into the sky. I doubted ten people put together could wrap their arms around its base. Another red pillar was positioned horizontally across the structure with a curved, blue-tiled roof above it. A white rope so large I thought it was a giant snake was wrapped around the horizontal pillar with white string that hung small, rectangular crystals off it. They shimmered within the wind as I wondered just how I hadn’t seen such a massive structure in the horizon. Bluish white fog curled around the edges of the torii gate, and what seemed like a wall of fog swirled menacingly behind the massive structure, making it seem like it was a gate into another world.

“That should be our transportation to Ikshiizu.” Minamoto said, and I knew he was getting joy from seeing me shocked.