Chapter 357: Little Girl and Baby
Shirou stepped out the door and continued searching for clues. When he reached the entrance on the other side of the village, he found over a dozen more corpses. Beside them lay farm tools like pitchforks, sickles, and hoes; it seemed these were the people who had rushed out of their homes intending to resist, only to be cut down.
Shirou examined a villager who was still clutching a hoe; his heart had been pierced clean through by a single blade strike. The perpetrator was a master—efficient, precise, and possessing great strength. Looking at the other bodies, though the wound locations varied, every single one was a fatal blow. The villagers here hadn't even been able to put up a fight before being killed.
There were no hoofprints on the ground, suggesting the killers had arrived on foot. Judging by the houses that hadn't been burned, the motive wasn't wealth. The disparity in strength between the two sides was so vast that it wasn't even a confrontation, making a vendetta unlikely as well.
'Could it be a murderer who slaughtered the village on a mere whim?'
Just then, a commotion from outside the village interrupted Shirou's thoughts. He went forward to look and discovered several dark, beastly shadows dragging a corpse away. Beside them, a larger shadow was crouched over a body, its frame twitching.
Upon closer inspection, they were two beast-shaped demons. One was two meters long, and the other was nearly three meters, sturdier than a bear.
With large tails held high and crawling on all fours, they looked like wild dogs or wolves, but their bodies were covered in thick, shaggy fur. Red pupils glinted through the hair, and two long tusks protruded from the sides of their mouths. Sinister black miasma rose from their bodies, partially obscuring their complete forms.
The monster opened its fanged maw, bit through the corpse's abdomen, and began devouring the internal organs.
"Hiss-grunt..." The monster sensed Shirou's presence and lifted its head, letting out a threatening snarl as pink intestines dangled from its mouth.
"Roar!!!" The other monster dug its front claws into the earth and arched its back, lunging toward Shirou.
"Demons!" Furious, Shirou charged forward. He threw his hands out, projecting the black and white twin swords (Kanshou and Bakuya). An instant before the monster could pounce, he appeared before the two hound-like beasts. Two arcs of light flashed, and the monsters' heads were sent flying.
Then, he heard the sound of a baby crying from outside the village hedge. The sound quickly stopped.
Shirou searched in that direction and found a vacant cowshed. Outside the shed was a well surrounded by several large water vats. It seemed thanks to this water, the air here wasn't as dry and parched as elsewhere.
Inside the cowshed, there was nothing but a few buckets and some hay. Shirou looked at a large pile of straw in the corner and reached out to pull it aside. He discovered a small hole behind it, and inside huddled a little girl clutching a swaddled infant. She was staring at Shirou with wide, wide eyes.
"Bad man?! You kill Atsu, just don't hurt Tasuke!" The terrified little girl pulled the baby tighter into her embrace, her small body trembling as she shouted at Shirou.
"I'm not a bad man. It's safe outside now, come out. What is your name, little sister?" Shirou took two steps back and gave the little girl a reassuring smile.
The girl scrutinized Shirou for a long time without speaking.
"Ya ya!" The baby in her arms turned to look at Shirou and let out a tiny smile.
"My name is... Atsu..." Seeing that Shirou truly meant no harm, the little girl finally answered timidly.
"Atsu and Tasuke, is it? I'm Shirou. Let's get out of here first." Shirou smiled lightly and reached out his hand.
The little girl placed one hand in Shirou's, using his strength to climb out of the small hole.
"How could this... the village is burned..." The girl stepped out of the shed and saw the tragedy outside.
"Waaa... waaaaaa! The village is gone! Papa! Mama!" Now that Shirou was by her side, the tension she had been holding snapped. Tears flowed uncontrollably.
"Don't cry! Don't draw those things here. For now, think about how to survive. Here, eat this first." Shirou pressed some dried rations and water he had found in the houses into the girl's hands.
The girl took the food but didn't eat. She just stared blankly at Shirou and asked, "Who were those people?"
"Did you not see what happened yesterday?" Shirou asked.
"I don't know. There were just very scary screams outside. Papa and Mama carried Tasuke and me here and told us to stay and not make a sound. Then Papa ran out with his hoe. After Mama blocked the hole with straw, she ran out too," the girl shook her head, her voice thick with tears.
"After that, there were more scary screams, and then it went quiet. It got very hot outside. I was scared, so Tasuke and I stayed inside and didn't come out. Who were those people?"
"I see. It's better that you don't know." Shirou didn't answer. He went to the well, drew clean water, boiled it over a fire, let it cool, and poured it into a bamboo tube for later.
"Who were they?" Atsu asked again.
Shirou hesitated for a moment before changing his answer: "Bandits. Dark, shadowy bandits—bad people who only come out after nightfall. They're gone now."
"Gone..." Atsu's stomach let out a growl. She had been huddled in that hole since last night and was starving. She took the hard bun Shirou gave her, poured some water into a cup, and soaked a piece of it, waiting for it to soften so she could feed Tasuke. Only after doing that did she begin to gnaw on another bun herself.
Seeing the child eating obediently, Shirou stood up and used Projection Magecraft. He clad himself in white clothes and gloves suitable for labor, and a shovel appeared in his hand.
Shirou pulled down the wooden fence behind the cowshed and walked into the nearby woods, using the shovel to dig pits one by one. If he had come down the mountain last night instead of lingering, perhaps he could have saved the people of this village...
In any case, he couldn't just leave the people of this village like this, exposing their bodies to be scavenged by wild beasts.
Next, Shirou found a wooden cart. He dug out the bodies from the burned ruins and loaded the corpses from elsewhere onto the cart, pushing them into the woods to be buried in the pits.
He stacked stones to serve as grave-markers, ensuring they were finally at peace.
"Papa, Mama, don't worry. Atsu will take good care of Tasuke from now on." Atsu, holding Tasuke, kowtowed three times before her parents' grave, wiped the tears from her eyes, and stood up.
"Do you have any relatives nearby?" Shirou asked.
"No. Everyone fled to this area together. The people who didn't escape were said to have been taken away by the army. Now Papa and Mama are dead too..." the little girl shook her head, answering piteously.
"Is that so..." Shirou nodded and looked at the two children in silence. Two children, lonely and without kin. The small one still in swaddling clothes, the older one at most the age of a first-grader.
There was no way they could survive on their own, especially in such dangerous times. Even if they had relatives to turn to, they wouldn't necessarily be safe. Shirou made a decision: he would adopt them for the time being. Once he resolved the danger in this world, he would find a way to ensure they could live properly.
Shirou looked at the little girl and the baby and said, "Then I have a proposal. Would you like to come live with me for a while?"
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