Yamiyo no Hotaru

Chapter 32

I was in a dark, dank room. On a crude chair, my limbs were tightly constrained with rough ropes, and at the same time, numerous charms were tightly attached to my body. It functioned as a kind of boundary, binding me not only physically but also spiritually.

"Ugh... Ah..."

I moan, my consciousness clouded by sleepiness and intense pain. How many days have passed since then? It feels like a month or more, but on the other hand, it seems like only a few days or hours have passed. Without a clock, without daylight, without food... or even water, in fact, I had completely lost my sense of time. Maybe I had been bewitched by some kind of sorcery. I could not rely on my perception at all.

"Hmm, you're pretty tough for a mere servant. Even though I have to take it easy on you... you still won't talk even after all that torture. Maybe I should take a peek into your memory. It's the best way, isn't it?"

"Idiot, that's worthless as evidence. After all, it's not that hard to plant false memories if it's an expert. Besides... tsk, I don't know who did it. The memories are very meticulously sealed. It's not easy to open them up."

I could hear two blurry shadows talking to each other. I understood, but my mind could not comprehend what they were saying. I was so weak that the conversation sounded almost like a noise.

(What is it...? It seems I need to remember... something, yeah, something... important...)

I try desperately to gather my thoughts that are not coherent. And I hold on to my fading consciousness and think. Yes, I'm forgetting something. Something very important. Something I shouldn't forget. Something, something I have to protect!

(What... what am I doing? What have I been doing? What... what's going on? Remember. 

Remember it! I think it was... it was...!)

And then, in my blurry, shaky vision, I see it. A frightened girl with blond hair. The child, who is looking at me as if she is desperate, comes into view. At the same time, my eyes widen in shock. As soon as I see her, my vague memories come flooding back into my mind.

(Yes... I'm sure that was...)

Then, I started to recall the events leading up to this point...

* * *

The sky was cloudy and snow was falling silently. The small powder snowflakes melted as soon as they fell on the ground, wetting the ground.

"...It's so cold."

The first thing I felt was a chill that almost hurt me as I stepped over the gate, the main gate that controls the entrance and exit of the capital, where people and vehicles come and go in and out with great intensity.

While the inner walls of the capital are kept cool in summer and warm in winter by a vast amount of spiritual power, the outside of the walls is the very harshness of nature itself. It is the month of the New Year, the time when winter is in full swing, and in mountain villages, communication with the outside world is completely cut off by the snowfall.

In many mountainous or remote island villages, the entire village try to survive the winter by gathering food together, but when the snow melts, it is not uncommon for travelers or peddlers to find that the entire village has been wiped out. Or it could happen that youkai who were starving like human beings attacked them, and all of them ended up in the bellies of the monsters.

Unfortunately, this was nothing but a common tragedy. A common story in pioneer villages built by the city's starving vagabonds, people with a hidden motive, the second and third sons of poor farmers, and others who "had no problem dying". For the court and the ruling class, it was a good thing if the village succeeded because it would reduce the territory controlled by youkai and increase tax revenues, and it was a good thing if the village was wiped out because it would reduce the number of mouths to feed. It may not be important, but the cold village where I was born was one of such pioneer villages bordering on the youkai's territory.