Leave a comment

The day following the attack on the village, a few bandits pursued the girl who had escaped, but they never returned. After a prolonged wait, the remaining bandits grew impatient and decided to sell off the children they still held captive.

When they returned, they stumbled upon the remains of those who had pursued the escaped girl. They had witnessed her kill one of the bandits during her escape, but they had not anticipated her turning to confront them with such defiance, leaving them unsettled.

Only their leader remained calm.

He still did not know who had killed his underlings. Guards would not leave the bodies in the open like that, and even if it was them, they would have left one bandit alive to warn the rest. There was the possibility it had been some random person trying to test their skill, or another group of bandits. But luckily for them, they had just sold off the rest of the children and had plenty of food to celebrate, so they could just hole up in the destroyed village and wait things out. Even merchants would seldom visit that place after all.

That had to be the safest option for them. But he had never expected that the girl who had killed some of his men would also stay in the mountain until she had killed all the bandits.

Any time a part of the group left to get more food or search for travelers to attack, they never came back.

Eventually, their numbers decreased so much that they could be counted on one hand. By then it was obvious that someone was targeting and ambushing them specifically. With no food left, the few remaining bandits decided to split up and try to leave the mountain through different routes all at once.

It was raining that evening when they decided to carry out the plan. Each took a different route, and the leader managed to reach the foot of the mountain without meeting anyone.

“I did what I had to do.” He had used his remaining underlings as decoys, all to save his own life. Now, he just had to cross the bridge in front of him, and he would be safe.

But then he heard footsteps approaching from behind, splattering amidst the rain. He knew those footsteps meant danger. He reached for his katana and turned around with determination.

A shadow passed by his head, so he instantly dodged. Barely a moment later, there was a blue glint where his neck had been. His heartbeat accelerated instantly while cold sweat ran down his cheek.

He jumped back and swung his own katana, but his opponent dodged effortlessly. Both put some distance between each other, and he finally managed to get a look at his opponent.

“A kid? It can’t be…”

It was a young half-beast girl. Her limbs were thin, almost as if she had hardly been eating, and her turquoise hair was disheveled, with her bangs giving way to a pair of bloodthirsty round eyes that glowed yellow like full moons.

The bandit leader recalled the girl who had escaped when they attacked the village. He could hardly believe that it had been her who had hunted them down all this time. Then he looked at the black shadow she had thrown first, and saw that it was the heads of his underlings that had gone out as decoys.

There was no room for doubt anymore. That little girl had destroyed his whole gang of bandits.

As the bandit leader readied his katana again, the girl dashed forward from a low stance. First, she slashed at his calves, throwing his body off balance. Then she jumped up and cut through his shoulder.

“Ghuh!”

‘This kid is too good, I can’t beat her!’ The bandit leader realized that the scrawny girl, who looked like she would die famished in a day, was somehow stronger than him. If they continued like that, he would soon join the rest of the bandits. ‘In that case…’

The girl continued attacking with beastly ferocity, and he did his best to avoid any lethal wounds. But he was being forced into the defensive, retreating until he was on the rails of the bridge.

By then, the girl was sure that it was over. And the cornered bandit leader…

“?!”

…grinned and jumped back.

‘I’m not letting you get me. I’d rather try my luck here!’ Realizing he couldn’t defeat the girl, he chose to dive into the raging waters below. Though injured, and despite the rain intensifying the river’s currents, he believed he had a chance to survive. But it was a grave mistake.

“What?!”

The girl followed him, jumping off the bridge and brandishing her blue katana. In the end, only the girl and a headless body fell into the river.

…

The Hassen River flowed through the Land of Kanon where Kotohime, the ruler’s wife, her daughter Ryuka, and their bodyguard Jinkuro were strolling along the riverside.

“Taking a walk after the rain lets up truly is the best.”
“Lady Kotohime, Lady Ryuka, please be careful and don’t get too close to the river, it can be dangerous when flooded.”

Kotohime was clearly enjoying the refreshing air after the rain, but the bodyguard Jinkuro remained serious. It was not strange for him to be overprotective when the young Ryuka was also present.

“Aww, you worry too much, Jinkuro. Ryuka, the river can be… Oh?”

Ryuka had been walking next to Kotohime, but at some point she had run off and gotten down to the river bank.

“Lady Ryuka!”

Jinkuro and Kotohime hurried to follow her, but thankfully Ryuka stopped a few steps away from the actual water.

“Mother, Jinkuro, there’s a person here. We should help her.” Saying that, she pointed at an injured half-beast girl who had washed ashore.

She was completely immobile so it could be easy to mistake her for a corpse, but Kotohime was a vampire, and Jinkuro a wolf demi-human, so both could feel the girl’s faint breathing and heartbeat. Ryuka could also feel that, which was why she ran there in the first place.

“We’ll need to treat her as soon as possible.” Jinkuro ran up to the girl and knelt next to her, taking out a small towel.

The girl’s face was smeared with blood, and one side appeared severely battered. However, her hand was still firmly grasping the blue katana, indicating she was still alive.

Ryuka also wanted to move closer to help out, but Kotohime raised her voice and stopped her. “Don’t get any closer!”

Ryuka and Jinkuro stiffened up hearing that, and Kotohime quickly eased her tone. “Ryuka, we vampires… well, we should never touch that katana.”

…

When the girl woke up, the first thing she felt was pain, as always. Her vision appeared narrow, but she quickly realized she was somewhere unknown, so she got up in a hurry.

“Ah…ugh..!”

However, she was quickly assailed by a sharp pain as if her head were being drilled into, nearly causing her to black out.

As she touched her face, she felt bandages on one side, but the eyelid and eye beneath her hand didn’t seem to move. This brought back a flood of memories and a likely cause: She had jumped into the river following the bandit leader, then couldn’t fight the current and was dragged down, smashing her head into a rock before passing out.

“Try to take it easy; you need rest.”

Hearing this, the girl noticed another young girl next to her. She had lustrous, long, straight black hair and black eyes, and her dignified appearance, paired with a splendid kimono, suggested she was of high birth.

“We’ve prepared some food for you… but maybe you should try to get your bearings first.”
“Ah…no, I’ll eat!”

Despite the persistent pain, she responded decisively. She wanted to ask where she was and who the black-haired girl was, but between the splitting headache and her empty stomach, she couldn’t bring herself to ask.

The black-haired girl seemed hesitant at first but eventually called for a servant who swiftly brought a bowl of porridge. Taking the bowl and some chopsticks, the girl began to eat eagerly.

It was a plain porridge, devoid of any seasonings that might upset a convalescent, yet it was the first actual dish of cooked food she had encountered in this world.

“…Thank you so much for this.”

After swiftly consuming the entire bowl, she put down the bowl and chopsticks and thanked the black-haired girl profusely.

“You were terribly hurt, but it seems you’ll recover rather quickly.”

The way she observed and spoke suggested the black-haired girl had been the one to rescue her. Her attire and the room’s decor indicated her high status, which made the girl nervous, wondering if she had intruded upon someone important or behaved rudely.

“My apologies for my late introduction. I’m Urado Ryuka, daughter of Urado Tatsumasa, the current lord of the Land of Kanon.”

As expected, the black-haired girl was someone of significant importance, almost like a princess one from the countryside would never see. Someone unfamiliar with nobility might not grasp her status, but the injured girl’s memories from a previous life heightened her unease.

“I found you on the riverbank, so I had you brought here for treatment. Your body wasn’t severely injured, but your eye… it was completely crushed…”

Ryuka spoke as delicately as possible, but the girl had already surmised as much when she touched her face. It was still hard to accept, but it was the result of her own recklessness, not something her savior needed to feel guilty about.

Considering she had been dragged by the river, her appearance must have been quite disheveled when Ryuka found her. Ryuka’s decision to help regardless spoke volumes of her kindness.

“So… would you mind telling me your name as well?” Ryuka continued, gently probing for information.

“I’m…” Before she could reply, hesitation took hold. “I… I don’t have a name…”

With a trembling voice, she declared this. She had been given a name at birth in this world, but it was a name her parents and the despised villagers had used, so she refused to accept it as her own. She didn’t want someone so kind and caring to address her by that name.

“I see… But not having a name to go by is rather inconvenient, isn’t it?” Saying that, Ryuka paused, then spoke again. “How about… Ruri? It just came to mind seeing your beautiful hair. I hope it’s not too basic?”

That name seemed to fill the void in the girl’s heart. Warm tears began to stream from her remaining eye. She had been reborn in a harsh environment surrounded by malevolence. Even after leaving her village, she lived in constant fear, battling bandits and feral beasts daily. But that day, at that moment, she finally became Ruri.