Chapter 199
This is an event that took place long ago.
Smoke rose into the evening sky and was carried away by the wind.
Normally, it would be from households cooking rice for dinner, but this time, it came from the burning houses around the castle town. Soldiers from the neighboring countries, many of whom were originally burglars, were looting the area, killing entire households and setting fires.
The same was happening in the Ichinose castle, which stood on the north side of the town… Amidst the angry and anguished screams, the castle continued to burn.
“F-father…”
“Princess, you must hurry.”
“That’s right, please leave while you still can.”
How are you still saying this?
Although my mother and the others managed to draw the pursuers from earlier, I wouldn’t be able to do anything even if I escaped safely to the neighboring ally’s territory. It might have been a different story if I was born male instead, but it’s impossible to change the gender I was born with.
For a moment, I remembered the explorer and the boastful blonde-haired, blue-eyed woman who visited the castle last year.
Rosa Valeria, who had traveled from the far west, was also a great warrior who defeated the samurai in our household in a friendly match by skillfully wielding two blades, a shortsword and a longsword, which were made in a country in the west. She was a woman with a dynamic personality, and I have a feeling that she would smile fearlessly at such adversity.
While thinking about such nonsense, I escaped with my bodyguards and headed east to the Forbidden Forest, but we were caught before long.
“Guuh!?”
“D-damn you, gahah, uu…”
Near the keystone which was said to be the place where our ancestors had sealed a great demon in the ground hundreds of years ago, several men who had been lying in wait in the bushes jumped out with their crude bamboo spears and stabbed the two bodyguards.
“No… why?”
It was not the enemy soldiers who had rushed to the castle fortress, but only the poor lords who lived in the village just beyond the forest.
“Hey, there’s a woman here.”
“Heheh, yer a pretty lil’ thing, ain’tcha?”
“Gubuh, p-please… run…”
The guards coughed out blood as they told her to run, but the daughter of the daimyo was unable to move her legs due to the horrible scene in front of her and was soon held down by the group of men.
The two thugs seized her arms and forced open the front of her kimono, and a large man with a vulgar smile on his face forced her legs open.
“Noo! Sto– guuh!”
“Shaddup! Hey, hold her still!!”
She frantically struggled, but a single hand was pressed to her throat, stifling her voice and depriving her of any strength to resist. The last thing she saw as a human after being severely tortured by her captors was her dazed expression which was reflected on the deadly blade that swung down on her.
“Kafuh…”
As she harbored resentment towards the fools who only cared about fulfilling their desires while their own country was facing a crisis, her dying consciousness noticed something beneath the ground.
It was very weak just like her, but its will to survive was so strong that it appeared to shine… and her soul was drawn to it as soon as she drew her last breath.
After a while, the two souls merged, and a new life was formed.
“Wh-wha– an earthquake!?”
“… C-calm do– guuuuuh!?”
“Uwaaaah, guh, uuugh…”
“Wh-what’s, this…”
A silver thread appeared on the ground and captured the men who were stripping the clothes and possessions of the people they had just killed. And then, the earth shook intermittently and split, and a giant spider that was at least 3 meters tall crawled up from the depths of the earth with wounds all over its body.
(I’m hungry… Huh? I’m… No, hungry, must eat… can’t stay awake…)
Driven by an uncontrollable sense of hunger that bordered on starvation, its restless red eyes looked around until it found the prey it had captured.
“Hih, a d-demon spider… stop, it hurts, it hurts, DON’T EAT ME, GIYAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
“Ah, a, aaaaaah, h-help, HIIIIIIIIIH!!”
It gobbled up the men who were begging for their lives without reflecting on their actions, and, along with their bodies, it also consumed their souls.
(Not enough, not enough, more, more, I want more…)
The demon spider, who felt hungrier even after half-heartedly eating several men, drooled as it was attracted by the smell of blood that was mixed in the wind and headed towards the castle town where a massacre was about to take place.
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