[After you became acquainted with Mikuzume, she wouldn’t leave you alone]
[The Yakan apparently had literally nothing else better to do, so she decided that you were interesting enough to continue observing]
[Yokai didn’t have any racial abilities that concealed them from ordinary humans.
Instead, what allowed her to stay invisible to your retainers was her own set of mysterious and unique powers]
[Powers which she refused to explain as she simply turned the question back on you whenever you asked, demanding to know how you were able to see her in the first place]
[That being said, she wasn’t constantly at your side as jackals were prone to boredom.
During your time together, she mostly appeared to you only during the evening up until dusk, after which she would excuse herself.
There were even occasions when she’d disappear for weeks on end without the slightest warning, only to return as if nothing happened]
[Nevertheless, you steadily grew to tolerate and even enjoy Miku’s presence]
[It couldn’t be denied that this silly jackal girl had become your first companion in this world…]
I immediately noticed that there wasn’t a year 7 indicator, meaning that the next scene still took place within Michizane’s 6th year of life with probably a few months having passed.
It was set in the Sugawara Clan estate, with Michizane hunched over a table, writing what appeared to be his usual poetry.
The window was wide open, revealing the silver moon that hung in the night sky.
Cool winds rushed in from the outside, and the sound of wild crickets could be heard in the background.
Michizane was completely focused on his writing.
A hobby he seemed to have inherited from me considering I liked writing too.
He didn’t notice the shadow that snuck up on him, which had crawled in from the open window.
Suddenly, a pair of hands reached up from behind him, grasping his face as his eyes were closed shut, enveloped in darkness.
Startled, his hands moved rapidly, knocking the parchments away from his table.
“Hehe, can you guess who it is, Michi-kun?” The Yakan’s voice resounded with a teasing tone.
Miku had a broad grin that displayed her white teeth.
Her snicker made the amusement she had all the more obvious.
“You shouldn’t sneak up on me, Miku.
I might grow complacent and think it’s you when a real assassin tries to do the same…” Michizane muttered in exasperation.
The jackal girl pouted as she heard her own name leaving Michizane’s lips, “Hey, how many times do I have to tell you to call me Miku-chan?”
Her hands left his face as she took a few dramatic steps back and rested them at her hips.
“Tsk, tsk.
Aren’t I supposed to be your best friend?
You’re making it sound like we’re distant!”
Michizane’s eyes drifted to her as he gazed at her current clothing, completely ignoring her statement, “New kimono?”
She was garbed in a somewhat fancy blue kimono with various colourful patterns depicting auspicious fish and flowers.
In this moment, she looked no different from a little noble lady, an impression that became unmistakeable when taking into account her utterly clean and glamorous appearance.
But for us who had witnessed her first hand downing a Six-Fingered Toad, she might as well be a pauper in stolen clothing.
…She probably did steal it, actually.
“That’s right, aren’t I pretty?” She smiled, showing her earnest dimples as she then glanced down at the papers that had fallen from the table earlier.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Miku reflexively apologized as she went down to retrieve them under the table.
Sighing, Michizane planted his fingers below the table’s edge, shielding her head from any accidental impacts.
A few seconds later, she came up with the papers in hand, grinning as she gave them to the four-armed boy who didn’t show nearly as much enthusiasm in his daily life as she did.
“You wouldn’t have needed to do that if you just knocked and came in from the door like a normal person.”
“Come on, where’s the fun in that?” The jackal girl whined. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“You’re always so tense and somber, relax a little…”
Miku yawned before she walked up to his bed and settled there, resting her head on the colder side of the pillow as her gaze remained on the noble.
“So what happened next?
What did Wukong do when he met that Sanzang monk?” She lazily asked, munching on a raw mackerel fish she had seemingly pulled out of nowhere.
I widened my eyes at the random mention of the Monkey King’s name.
‘Uh…
is he some kind of storyteller now?’ I glanced incredulously at Michizane who shook his head at her remark.
“Nevermind that, why did you come so late?” His eyes wandered over to the moon outside, then back at her.
“You’d usually be leaving right about now.”
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” She giggled and stood up…
on the bed.
“Unfortunately for you, I’m not telling!” Miku revealed as though she was dropping a bombshell, grinning ear to ear.
“Uh-huh?
Good for you, I guess.
Get down from my bed.” He responded, thoroughly unimpressed.
Pouting, the jackal girl firmly sat on his bed and refused to leave, “Don’t wanna!”
This girl…
“Please get down from my bed, Miku-chan.” He said slowly and politely, emphasizing that last part as it seemed to be the exact thing she wanted.
The Yakan immediately rejoiced and leapt forward from the bed.
“Good boy!” She praised the four-eyed boy, who nearly choked from that so-called compliment.
I smiled at the sight of this scene.
How wholesome.
It was very refreshing to have this kind of thing after that whole bullying sequence.
I just hoped the next scene would be something similar.
[Year 7: Your plan to refine your Gu was set into motion]
My brain was still processing the earlier wholesome scene as I remained smiling.
Yet that smile quickly vanished once I read over those words.
‘Huh, where’s the rest?’
In all the previous scenes, there would at least be 2 or 3 paragraphs of narration to explain the situation.
But there was only 1 paragraph now.
Furthermore, it only contained a single line!
Such a set-up immediately made me hooked as I stood up straight and focused.
The corresponding scene for year 7 was set in the forest outside, much farther from Sugawara estate than the scene of last year.
I squinted my eyes and made out what appeared to be a Japanese settlement down the hills.
It must be the same Miyama from that New Year’s Ceremony scene.
From what I knew of Heian era Japan, the nobles of this place had the tendency to live in the capital rather than their own territory.
Miyama didn’t really look like any sort of capital, so either my family was an anomaly, or we were too insignificant to live in the capital.
I certainly had no trouble with this, not in my current state as a disembodied observer.
I’m sure Michizane would have preferred a comfier life in the capital, but better adventures were found out here in the frontier…
Acting out my role to the fullest, I observed a pair of soldiers frantically shouting within the forest.
“Damn you, Sato!
How in the Yomi could you have possibly lost our Young Master, he literally has four arms!” One guard cursed the other as they searched far and wide for the supposed missing noble.
“H-Hey, you were supposed to be watching him too, don’t shift all the blame to me!” The other guard complained with an uneasy expression.
“The lord will have our heads if he hears of this!”
Meanwhile, the missing noble in question reclined upon the upper branches of a tree, overlooking the two guards with a quiet snicker.
It appeared that with his four strong arms, climbing up such a tree became easy even as a little child.
That might be hard to believe.
However, this was the Heian era, which was Japan’s Age of Heroes.
In this era, humans were naturally a lot stronger even without magical abilities.
Maybe not as strong as those from the Age of Gods, but certainly far stronger than the frail humans of modernity.
“People really should look up more…” Michizane muttered as his four eyes followed the guards until they eventually made it far enough for him to come down without alerting them.
He did so by scaling down the thick trunk of the tree before leaping off once he determined that the resulting fall wouldn’t hurt him.
I watched as Michizane grinned and retrieved what appeared to be a scorpion from the inside of his clothes.
Its tail and pincers had been severed off, ensuring that it couldn’t resist his handling, yet it remained alive.
‘Damn, this kid kind of looks like a crazy psychopath now…’
His abnormal appearance and creepy grin as he gazed at a dismembered animal really gave off the worst kind of impression.
Especially since he’s probably the one responsible for dismembering the scorpion’s tail and pincers in the first place.
Michizane’s grin faltered as he continued to observe the scorpion struggling under his grasp, “I just hope this is enough.”
He pocketed the little creature back into his clothes, and for just a second, I saw a sight that shook me to the core.
Under this little boy’s clothes were all sorts of venomous and poisonous creatures.
All of them had their natural weapon, such as their fangs or claws, removed and dismembered.
The larger ones were bound by thick rope.
There were even small writhing snakes that he had wrapped around his torso like some kind of belt, with each snake tied around each other as though they were nothing but living knots.
Their mouths were tied shut by small wires, preventing them from making any hissing sounds and their lethargic movements suggested that they hadn’t been properly fed, ensuring that they wouldn’t have the strength to escape.
I was stunned by this scene.
Was I really capable of such blatant animal cruelty?
Even insects with lower levels of awareness shouldn’t be treated like this…
From the shadows, a familiar figure emerged holding an even more familiar object.
Mikuzume held the heavy black chamber pot in her hands, seemingly struggling to carry it as she hoisted it upon her shoulders.
It was the same chamber pot that had been given to the Sugawara Clan in order to concoct Michizane’s blood remedy, the exact one given by Abe no Seimei.
“I’m ready!” Mikuzume shouted with a resolute smile.
“Great, let’s go…”
The scene then gradually ended as both Michizane and Mikuzume left for the deeper forest, leaving me with a potent sense of mystery.
‘What’re they planning?’