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The girl rested inside the cave for some time, but as it was impossible for sunlight to reach there, she had no idea of the time.

After satiating her thirst with the water from the subterranean lake, she started searching for an exit. Even if there was plenty of water to drink there, she had nothing to eat so it was best to go out.

Using the light from the katana, she walked around the outer cave wall until she found a passage where one person could go through. She had no idea where that passage led, but from the moment she attacked that bandit, she had already made up her mind to take some risks to save her life.

Holding the katana in front of her, she illuminated the way forward.

The underground passage had many turns and twists, sometimes going downhill, turning around, then uphill again, and so on. After a long time of that, and with the girl completely disoriented, she reached a long stretch going uphill, with light at the end.

“Outside…”

The girl began running up, yearning for that light, until she saw it. The end of the passage was covered, with the light getting through only thanks to a small opening.

But that was not enough to stop her. She quickly put down the katana and used her bare hands to try digging around the small opening. She could feel dirt getting lodged under her fingernails, while scratches appeared all over her hands, but she did not care.

The feeling that she was about to break free gave her unstoppable strength. Or rather, she needed to believe she was about to be free.

Her hope seemed to grow together with the hole, which eventually was large enough for her to go through. Katana in hand, she crawled out with a racing heart. The bright sunlight blinded her for a few seconds, but as she slowly opened her eyes again, she was greeted by a refreshing scenery and a gentle breeze.

Standing up, she looked around to see where she was. It was a hillside, and the hole she had gotten through could be easily mistaken for some animal’s burrow.

“I did it…I’m free!”

There was no abusive father, no mean villagers, and no cruel bandits. Her life in another world was finally going to start.

“Where should I go first…are there any cities nearby…”

She did not want to live as some hermit in the woods, so she began descending the hill, in search of civilization.

The slanted hillside was slippery, so she had to keep a low stance to maintain her balance, while constantly holding onto the nearby trees for a secure foothold. It was a difficult descent, but thinking about the future ahead of her made her heart pound.

Eventually, she saw a path ahead of her, which brought a smile to her face. She had never left the village before, so she had no idea about the surrounding terrain, but it was easy to assume that following a path would lead her somewhere.

But before she could go far, she froze in place. There were a couple of figures ahead of her.

She instantly ran to the side and hid within the surrounding shrubbery to observe them. They were a group of mean-faced men, all armed with katanas. And one of them looked familiar, she had seen him amongst the bandits attacking the village.

“Where the hell did that kid go?”
“Do you think a child like that can survive in the forest for long? We searched all night, maybe she’s already dead somewhere.”
“The boss won’t be happy until we confirm that though.”

That exchange made it clear that they were bandits, and if she was found, then all her efforts so far would be wasted.

“Let’s just keep searching. We’re the ones in danger if she gets out alive.” They passed by while saying all of that, unaware of the girl hiding in the shrubbery nearby.

She just tried to hold her breath and waited for the bandits to leave. But she was too nervous, and a twitch of her feet made her step on a dry twig, making a snapping sound.

“Hm?” One of the bandits heard that and turned around, instantly spotting the girl.

Before her thoughts caught up with what was happening, her body had already jumped forward. Using that momentum, she pierced the bandit’s throat with her katana.

“Gha…ghh?!”

(If I want to live…) Slicing to the side, she left his head connected to his body through only a thin sliver of skin, while the blood stuck to the blade sent out a spray of droplets. (I have to kill you!)

“Huh?! It’s the kid!”

The other bandits tried to unsheathe their katanas, but the girl was faster than them. Running close to the ground, she closed in to the next target. Then she swung for a sure kill, decapitating him.

“Gyahh!”
“Ghuh!”

One after another, the bandits’ heads spun in the air before falling lifelessly on the ground. The bandits are quickly turned into headless bodies, and by the end, only the girl is standing, taking deep breaths.

“Hahh…hahh… I… I did it…”

As no one else was alive near her, there was also no one trying to kill her.

Soon, she managed to collect her thoughts, and realized that there was a high likelihood that more bandits would be searching for her, so she left the path.

After wandering aimlessly through the wilderness for a while, she found a brook, and a small cave that had been used as a home by some nearby animal. She sat there and began thinking of a plan.

While she had killed a number of bandits, they were only a small part of the whole group that attacked the village. It would not take long for them to find the bodies too, which would make them search for her even more.

“Maybe if I escape…but they’ll just keep following me…”

Even if she found another village or city, there was no guarantee that the bandits would not follow her there. And then they would either attack there too, or the villagers would just give her away to avoid trouble.

She had gotten rid of her father and village, her previous shackles, but now she gained a new enemy. And she would always be afraid of the bandits coming after her.

“I see…I just have to kill them all…”

There was one simple solution. She just had to get rid of all the bandits, and then no one would follow her anymore. She had to kill every last one of her pursuers before she could gain some true peace.

“I can’t leave any of them alive…”

In her previous life, there was a saying, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. It was time for her to take that to heart, and to truly follow the rules of this new world she had been reborn in.

So far, she had tried to live as the same person as she used to be. But if she had been reborn, it was time to live as someone new too. During her time in this world, she had learned just how lightly life was valued here. She needed to stop hesitating to kill others if it meant she would be safe.

After that, the girl started her survival life in the wilderness, bathed in blood. She would drink from the brook, hunt small animals and fish, and sometimes even ate grass, tree bark, and insects. And ironically all of that was better food than she had ever gotten in the village.

The rest of the time, she ran through the forest stalking the bandits, killing them one after another. It was like she had a natural talent for it, her small body having much more agility than her size would suggest, and brandishing her blue katana with deadly strength.

She also knew that leaving the bodies in the wilderness would lead them to be infested with maggots and other nasty bugs, so to avoid catching any diseases, she buried the decapitated bodies in the forest, but kept their heads, leaving them along the paths as a warning and distraction.

But there was something the girl had overlooked. She had no idea about the numbers of bandits that had attacked the village, and had no way of making sure she had exterminated them. So her search for safety of peace would only throw her into an endless murderous rampage.

Mt. Seppou stood between the Land of Kanon and the Land of Toyomi. It was not particularly tall, but also not small, and while going through it was the fastest way to get from one region to the other, the paths and roads there were in rather bad shape.

There was only one village there, which rather than repairing the roads, chose to steal from unprepared travelers instead. Some believed they were descendants from samurai who had deserted their posts during a previous war, and others that they were just bandits who had taken over the area, but there was no one who knew for sure.

Either way, there were other roads going around the mountain, so most people would choose to use those.

At some point, there came rumors about the mountain, with people claiming that there were human heads lined up along the paths. It was a rather bone-chilling rumor, which made even more people opt out of the direct path and go around the mountain.

But there were always people who were intrigued by such rumors, and one certain man decided to go check if the rumors were true, as a sort of test of courage for himself.

Some time after going up Mt. Seppou, he saw many more heads than he had expected. As he stood frozen in shock by that, he caught sight of something looking at him from the hillside ahead.

He could not tell exactly what it was, as the sun was shining behind, but it was a rather short figure. At first, he thought it was a wolf or some other wild beast, but it was standing upright, with a katana ready to strike.

By then, he was almost sure that the mysterious figure was a child, and he had a strong hunch that it was that child who had propped up all those heads. That was the sensation he got seeing that figure, and the bloodlust surrounding the katana.

Feeling like his head would join the rest, he turned around and ran as fast as his wobbly feet would let him, fearing for his life. Luckily for him, the child did not follow, and when he made it back to a city, he would tell the story and muse about what would have happened if he had remained there.

Some time later, another daredevil went to the mountain, and he too saw the heads, and he almost believed that they had increased in number. But he took the time to examine them more closely and concluded that they were all the heads of bandits.

That did little to change the gruesome sight, and the reason behind that remained a mystery. Still, they thought that it was much too harsh a punishment for thieves.

Overall, people became more afraid of that path, and nobody dared going through it again. And the unknown perpetrator became known as the Headhunter Child.