3 bar menu

Return of the Fallen Volume 2 Chapter 17

Author: Blue_Rat

ch17

The light from the morning sun began to peek over the horizon and the sound of morning birds chirped their daily songs. A calm breeze rustled the leaves on the nearby trees and a thin layer of frost reflected the day that was to come. All should have been calm in such a setting but the mood and tension in the air was stretched like a rubber band.

A moment or so after Kazuki, Asuna, and Shen dragged the village chief and the other villagers into the cave, Danny as though he had just remembered, started asking Tsura a few things he had let go earlier.

As Tsura held Mei closely, she gently rubbed her head and hummed in tune with the chirping birds.

“Tsura, there’s something I’m curious about.”

With a tilt of her head, Tsura’s humming ceased and she asked nervously.

“Wh…What is it?”

“I’m just curious, you said that your husband was forced out and died. You said the villagers caused his death but you never actually said how he died.”

“Why does that matter?”

Crossing her arms, Kimi seconded Tsura’s question, a tad of annoyance was detected in her tone.

“Yeah, why does that matter?”

“I said it before, if I have a question I will ask it. Why does it matter, hmm, I don’t know yet that it does, still, why would a little more information be a problem?”

Kimi snorted.

“Hmph, it becomes a problem when you become insensitive to someone else’s situation, especially if that person is trying to grieve.”

“Maybe so but I still want answers. If that makes me insensitive or whatever so be it. Now, Tsura, about your husband’s death.”

Kimi grit her teeth and was going to butt in further but Tsura waved her away.

“It’s OK, I’ll answer him. My husband died in the forest yesterday. A wild boar got him and he couldn’t make it back to get help. The villagers sent him out alone and because he had no support he died, therefore they caused him to die.”

Every word she spoke was filled with hatred for the other villagers but Danny and the others found something odd in her words.

“A wild boar you say, and how do you know it was a boar?”

“Eh, um…”

“Also, where is his body, did you bury it or is it still out in the wild rotting up a stink? Was it you who discovered his corpse or were you with someone, tell me?”

Tsura’s trembling got worse and worse but still, she answered Danny.

“His body it…It was left when I…I mean me and Mei found him. We discovered him 5 miles away from the village. We were going to bury him but we didn’t have shovels so we decided to go back to the village and when we returned we buried him.”

“Really? are you sure?”

Tsura nodded her head.

“Yes, how…How could I forget such a horrific sight.”

“Tell me, did you find him during the day or at night?”

Tsura felt something was off with the question and looked around at everyone else. They all seemed to have eyes full of doubt for some reason.

“I found him during the day.”

*Silence*

“Now that is interesting, I wonder though, how you found him. You say he was 5 miles away, which direction could that have been I wonder. Mei is only around 7 or so and you say she trekked through 5 miles of dense forest and rough terrain?”

“No, I carried her.”

“Oh, so you carried her 5 miles, discovered the body, carried her back 5 miles to get shovels and then carried her and shovels 5 more miles back to your husband’s body. I’m curious as to how not a single predator sniffed him out and consumed him. Hell, even if not a single other predator found him, why would the wild boar leave his body alone. Wild hogs love a free meal. Not only that, wild boars don’t travel alone, they travel in large packs and there’s one more key detail that you don’t seem to know about wild boars.”

Little Mei could tell that her mom was upset but she couldn’t really understand why. All she knew was that Danny was the one making her like that.

Little Mei stood up in front of her mother and shouted at Danny.

“Leave my mom alone, you big meanie!”

“No no no, you misunderstand Mei. I am not being mean, I am just making sure that I can trust your mother and right now it seems that she is lying and I don’t quite get why.”

Tsura pulled Mei behind her.

“It’s fine Mei, they just want to make sure mommy is telling the truth. Danny, was it? Maybe that wild boar was alone because it was lost, I’m sure you’re not going to stand there and tell me it isn’t a possibility, right?”

“True, I’ll admit that is a possibility but there is one more thing you should know about wild boars, they are nocturnal, which means they are active at night, not during the day time.”

Kimi didn’t understand.

“That doesn’t make any sense. We hunted a few boars yesterday and that was during the daytime.”

“The keyword you just used was hunted. In other words, we sought them out and found them. When we found them most of them were quite passive and hardly moving, the reason being is because we had just woken them up and before they could make a move we slaughtered them. So, yeah, they are indeed nocturnal. So I could maybe concede the first point that one might have been lost but to say it killed your husband during the day. For the wild boar itself to not eat or at least pick at your husband’s flesh. For no other predator to come around at all. All of these are more than enough reason for me to doubt you but the number one reason of all is the demonic bird. You mean to tell me it’s been hanging around these parts and yet it did not attack your husband, nor you nor a tiny child. Each one of you could be a fine meal to one of those birds and yet you and your kid could hike back and forth through the forest without incident, nah, things aren’t adding up.”

Tsura’s body trembled harder and harder, she couldn’t help but retreat a few steps with Mei in her grasp.

Everyone as well could tell that there were holes in her story, the question though was why. They were already on her side and Kazuki had already agreed to help them, so why lie? Danny knew she was hiding something, but he still wasn’t sure what it was. So he continued to press.

“Something else that I found off, why were you and Mei out and about so late at night.”

“I…I…We.”

“Nunully, do you remember the wound you helped heal on Tsura, it was a chest wound, right?”

Nunully didn’t know where any of this was going but she nodded honestly.

“Does no one else find it strange, the men that attacked last night, none of them had any weapons, only a bit of rope. Tell me, Tsura, who was it that stabbed you.”

Something suddenly clicked in Danny’s mind.

(Limiter tattoo’s are used to suppress strength. These villagers all have one but none have an Enhancing inscription tattoo, there should be no reason to do this unless these people already started with a superior strength.)

“It’s fine if you don’t answer, I believe I’ve already figured it out. Those birds and you, you share some type of connection, don’t you?”

Tsura took another few steps backward. Kimi and Nunully were now suspicious and doubtful of her but in the end, she and her daughter were still attacked last night. Whatever the truth was, the two were sure Tsura and Mei were victims and went forward to help.

Their approach though only scared Tsura into retreating more.

“Stop! Don’t come near!”

Tsura’s sudden shout caused the two to pause. Kimi tried her best to reassure her and spoke as calmly as she could.

“Tsura, I don’t know what’s wrong but you’re not in any trouble. Ryuta already agreed to take you out of here and even if he goes back on his word I definitely won’t. Danny is suspicious of everyone, so just ignore him. Don’t worry everything will be ok so try to breathe easy, it’s gonna be ok.”

Kimi’s words fell on deaf ears for every step Kimi and Nunully took, Tsura took another in retreat. Danny as well could feel something was off and yelled at the two.

“Stop! Don’t go near her, something’s not right.”

Sam as well felt something was off and went to Kimi’s side but with his approach, little Mei suddenly screamed.

“GET AWAY FROM MOTHER!”

“My people, from the youngest to the oldest, every single last one of us is a Mangshi and little Mei, she is a King Mangshi.”

These words fell upon Kazuki and the other’s shoulders like a bolt of lightning.

Kazuki took those words in and stared at the hundreds of people inside the cave. He along with Asuna and Shin were surrounded on all sides. Asuna and Shin immediately took up defensive positions, waiting to be attacked at any moment. The words the chief spoke were unbelievable but he had no reason to make that shit up.

Asuna and Shin couldn’t understand how Kazuki was remaining so calm in this situation. To defeat one of those birds was incredibly difficult and took basically everyone ganging up on it to defeat it. Yet now, they were in the midst of hundreds of them and Kazuki didn’t even bat an eye.

Kazuki could find no falsehood within the chief’s expression, this made things much more clear.

(If all of these people are Mangshi whatever birds, then why would they need our help to bring down a child?)

Kazuki’s curiosity grew and with monster cores in sight, there was no way he would refuse so easily without hearing the details. First thing was first though.

“What’s the reward?”