| Author: Carrot Sauce | Original Source: SFACG | Word Count: 2107 characters |
| Translator: LazyButAmbitious | English Source: Re:Library | Word Count: 1321 words |
| Editor(s): Robinxen | ||
Several damaged warships had toppled over the coast of a village next to the sea in the northwest region of Tanba. The decks and masts of these warships were covered in a layer of frost and burned in between the cracks of the wreckage.
“The Tanba Pirates are willing to surrender to you, Lady Uesugi!” A bunch of dark-skinned men lowered their heads to a tall, silver-haired samurai woman while kneeling down.
“Hmph! We’d rather die than surrender if it were Shuten Doji in front of us and not you, Lady Uesugi! Feel free to order us as you want from now on!” said Kuki Mitsukai, the full-bearded pirate captain who had his hair styled into a bun and wore a tattered crimson vest.
“Yeah! We’re willing to surrender if it’s you, Lady Uesugi!” The pirates followed after Mitsukai.
Uesugi Rei had already gained the allegiance of the western Tanba forces that had surrendered to Shuten Doji, and this included most of the wandering samurai, bandits, and pirates who were rebelling against him.
Although these forces were just a puny mob that were scared of dying, they were pretty skilled at fighting.
A blue-skinned imp appeared behind Rei at this moment and caused the pirates to frown immediately. They knew that Rei was acting under Shuten Doji’s orders, so surrendering to her instead of him was just an excuse for their actions.
The wretched-looking imp arrived beside Nioh’s foot and said, “Lord Shuten is pleased with your performance in the west, Ms. Uesugi, and wants to make you one of the new demon enforcers. He has ordered you to return to Mt. Ooe along with the samurai unit you’re leading so that he can personally award you!”
Rei’s calm and arrogant gaze paused on the imp for a while after she turned back. She then said indifferently, “All right.”
Rei turned to the kneeling pirate captain, Kuki Mitsukai, and said, “Do what you were doing before. I’ll pass down an order if I need you to do something for me.”
“Yes, ma’am!” Mitsukai and his pirate crew bowed to her.
Rei could not help but touch her waist and pulled Nioh’s reins after sensing the tattered piece of paper inside her sash. She urged Nioh to turn around and made him take her into the woods at a lightning-fast speed.
A relatively young-looking pirate kneeling beside Mitsukai asked in a small voice after seeing Rei disappear, “You’ve sailed the seas freely all your life, father, and never feared neither sea monsters nor the court’s navy, so why did you surrender to this woman?”
Mitsukai looked at the distant silhouette of Rei and said with a nostalgic expression, “It’s because… Lady Uesugi looks just like her1…”
“Her?”
Mitsukai remained silent and recalled the sight he had seen more than a decade ago, a time when he was still a nameless sea pirate.
…
…
Kuki Mitsukai had fled into a region where even the bandits did not dare to enter in a moment of desperation so that he could escape the bandits pursuing him on that day.
He had collapsed in the woods from fatigue, but a deafening explosion woke him up.
The sound resulting from the explosion was not something that was within human imagination.
It was as if the Heavens had split apart, leading to the world’s collapse.
Mitsukai, who had stumbled into these woods accidentally, saw a nightmarish scene unfold before his eyes.
The sounds from the lush woods ahead of him had long disappeared before he knew it and a huge shadow loomed over him.
He saw a bunch of black-armored cavalrymen stride across the roiling black clouds and swoop down fast.
The mountainous demon cavalrymen looked scarier than the demons from the legends and were in the midst of a destructive battle with their foe.
Mitsukai just looked at the scene dumbfoundedly. He had lost the will to escape and would have let one of these demons stomp him to death without doing anything because he found it useless to escape in face of this judgmental carnage.
The world before him was beyond his understanding.
The black-armored cavalrymen diving down from the Heavens, as well as the towering demons striding across the clouds, seemed to have the same target, though—a celestial maiden with swaying silver hair who wore a white celestial raiment that fluttered in the air.
The blade-wielding celestial maiden looked pretty small in comparison to the mountainous demons as she shuttled past the skies, yet she shot through them like a shooting star.
Mitsukai could not follow the white shooting star’s movements because he was just in the Awakened level back then and could only see the celestial maiden’s visage from afar whenever she stopped or got struck down. Although he could not see her face, he could still see her charming figure shoot past the skies with terrifying momentum.
The mountain-sized demons kept perishing whenever the white shooting star shuttled past them, and it had even broken apart the unit of black-armored cavalrymen who had swooped down.
It was a truly terrifying sight and had left Mitsukai so shaken that he had even forgotten about escaping.
A terrifying black lightning bolt flashed through the skies the next moment and struck the celestial maiden battling the demons, turning the entire world dark for a moment, following which the celestial maiden fell from the skies.
Bam!
Mitsukai failed to react in time and felt the earth below him quake from the crash, a cloud of dust rising up in front of him.
He saw the fallen celestial maiden in front of him when the dust cleared.
Although she looked injured, her raiment tattered from the lightning strike, a poignant aura akin to the end of times oozed out of her as she stood up stalwartly. Her breathtaking face had a heroic expression on it, making it seem as if she was the last stand against the end of the world.
The black-armored cavalrymen descended from the skies as she raised her head arrogantly and surrounded her on all sides.
The celestial maiden glanced at Mitsukai at this moment, finally taking notice of him, but the demons surrounding her attacked her simultaneously, making the earth below them quake.
Mitsukai felt the world before him spin and black out the next moment, forever losing the qualifications to know how the battle ended.
He found himself lying on a coast several hundred kilometers away from where the battle took place when he woke up and had no clue how he had ended up here.
Mitsukai got up and discovered that he just had some minor injuries, seeming fine for the most part.
The sight surrounding him was filled with the coast of the Tanba that he was most familiar with, and the woods looked the same as well.
It was impossible for a mortal like him to figure out how he had survived that immense, judgmental battle.
The answer to whether it was his luck or the celestial maiden who saved him would forever remain a mystery2.
…
…
The samurai woman had finished laying out the defense in Honganji Temple by now.
Lily and Airi looked at the moon in the boundless night sky while standing on the thick wooden steps.
“What do you suppose Sister Uesugi is doing right now, Airi?”
Although Lily was worried about her, she had a feeling that Rei had not really fallen into Shuten’s clutches and was traversing these perilous woods on her horse even now.
As for whether Rei had betrayed the court, Lily naturally did not believe it.
“How much do you care about Sister Uesugi, Lily?”
“Huh?”
Airi turned her head aside and looked at Lily with glistening eyes, “Do you care about her the most?”
Her question left Lily flummoxed momentarily.
Although Lily cared about the safety of her sisters, even she held no answer to Airi’s question.
