Chapter 635 - 622: Deception is tedious

[Realm: Álfheimr]

[Location: Dominion of Oz]

[Winkie Country]

Goiim suppressed a sigh as her heel sank a little too deeply into the grass.

The ground beneath the vegetation was softer than it had first appeared. What had seemed like an ordinary stretch of plain gave way under the narrow heel of her shoe, allowing it to sink into the earth until the surrounding stalks bent and gathered around it. She paused, shifting her weight carefully to avoid driving it in any farther. Then she tried to lift her foot.

It did not come free immediately; she remained standing with one leg slightly behind the other. She adjusted her balance, eased her weight away from the trapped heel, and pulled again. This time the shoe came loose, though not without a little resistance from the damp soil.

Goiim set her foot down and continued walking beside the oni.

Her expression had barely changed, but there was a small trace of annoyance in the way she moved. It was insignificant enough that someone less observant might have missed it entirely. Shuten-dōji, however, noticed.

"Hm, high heels are hardly suitable footwear for walking across such grassy plains," the oni said with some amusement. Her gaze dipped briefly toward Goiim’s shoes before returning to the path ahead. "They may serve their purpose elsewhere, but out here they seem determined to make every step more troublesome than it needs to be."

"I hadn’t noticed," Goiim replied, almost dryly.

The words were delivered with such a straight face that they could have been mistaken for a sincere response by someone unfamiliar with her manner. Shuten-dōji was not so easily fooled. Goiim’s tone carried enough flatness to make her minute annoyance clear.

"You’re better off going barefoot," the oni supplied.

Goiim’s eyes shifted toward her for a moment.

"I’d rather not risk the various diseases I could catch," she murmured. "Even if I am more resilient than the average person, I see little reason to expose myself. There’s no particular benefit in exchanging uncomfortable footwear for the possibility of stepping on something unpleasant."

Her gaze returned to the ground ahead, where the grass grew in patches over the rough terrain. She continued forward with slow steps, evidently intending to be more careful about where she placed her feet.

Shuten-dōji regarded her with mild amusement.

"You pick very odd moments to be cautious," she noted. "You so easily choose to join us on this dangerous journey, knowing full well what we intend to pursue and what sort of beings we may encounter along the way. Yet now you’re worried about something as trivial as walking barefoot through the grass."

Goiim did not immediately respond. She kept walking, her expression still the same, though her attention remained on the oni’s remark.

"We all have our dislikes..." she murmured.

The words trailed off as her pace slowed.

Something had caught her attention farther ahead: her gaze settled upon a point beyond the grass, her head turning just enough to bring the object into clearer view. Shuten-dōji noticed the change and followed her line of sight.

"Hm?"

The oni’s amusement faded as she, too, became aware of what stood before them.

There were two large, tall wooden stakes embedded in the ground. Their surfaces were worn and weathered, the wood darkened by exposure. They stood some distance apart, rising conspicuously above the surrounding grass. At first glance, they might have been mistaken for crude markers or remnants of some structure.

But neither woman was looking at the stakes themselves.

It was what had been impaled upon them.

Two skeletons had been fixed to the wooden posts, their remains hanging in a state of terrible disrepair. Old, decayed garments still clung to their bones. The clothing appeared traditional in style, though age and exposure had reduced it to tattered remnants that hung loosely from their frames. Strips of fabric draped over exposed ribs and shoulders, some caught on the wood, others hanging in limp folds.

The skeletons themselves were far from intact.

One was missing limbs, leaving empty spaces where arms or legs should have been. The other had suffered similar damage, its remaining bones arranged in a posture that made it difficult to tell how much of its original form had been preserved. Their jaws were absent, leaving the lower portions of their skulls incomplete. Whatever had happened to them, the damage had not been limited to the passage of time.

The wind moved through the grass around the stakes.

Neither woman spoke for a moment.

Shuten-dōji’s gaze travelled over the remains, taking in the decayed clothing, the broken bones, and the manner in which the bodies had been displayed. Her expression became difficult to read.

"How unnecessarily brutal," she murmured.

Goiim turned her eyes toward the oni.

"I did not strike you as the type to be bothered by such things," she stated.

"Not bothered, precisely," Shuten-dōji clarified. Her gaze remained on the stakes for another moment before shifting back to Goiim. "I have seen violence before, and I am hardly unfamiliar with what people are capable of doing to one another. But even I can recognize the uselessness of excessive violence. Whatever purpose someone might have had in killing these people, leaving their remains in such a condition serves little purpose beyond making the cruelty of the act unmistakable."

Her voice remained calm, but the earlier amusement had entirely disappeared.

"But I am curious as to what occurred here."

Goiim considered the scene before answering. Her eyes moved across the surrounding plain, taking note of the absence of buildings, roads, or any obvious signs of habitation. The stakes stood alone in the grass, and the land beyond them remained quiet and empty.

"I gather these were the Winkies, the natives of this land," she informed. "The reason we’ve not encountered any form of civilization could be attributed to what occurred here."

Shuten-dōji’s attention returned to the skeletons.

"Meaning?"

Goiim shifted her gaze toward the distant landscape before continuing.

"I suppose you’re not well versed in the happenings here, hailing from the east," she noted. "A powerful and tyrannical witch once ruled over these lands. From what I heard, she was vanquished, and this place was liberated."

The explanation was delivered matter-of-factly. Goiim merely seemed to be repeating what she had heard, it seemed to be the most likely explanation for the condition of the land and the absence of its people.

Shuten-dōji listened without interrupting.

Her eyes moved from the stakes to the empty plain beyond them. The information did not seem to settle the matter for her. If anything, it gave her more reasons to question what they were seeing.

"Hm," she murmured. "Yet the Deseruit Beasts run rampant, a Progenitor calls this place home, and we find the natives in such a state."

Her gaze lingered on the remains.

Each detail seemed to clash against the account Goiim had given.

Goiim regarded the stakes with an impassive expression.

"That would most likely be because said witch was resurrected," she clarified. "And vengeance seemed to be an interest of hers."

The words fell into the silence between them.

Shuten-dōji remained still for a moment, her attention fixed on the remains impaled before them.

"Vengeance is quite the useless practice," Shuten-dōji eventually said.

The words came after a stretch of silence, delivered in a tone that was neither particularly emotional nor entirely dismissive.

"One should move past their grievances, lest they become stagnant and empty once they’ve accomplished it. Revenge can give someone a purpose when everything else has been taken from them, but that purpose doesn’t leave them with anything worth having afterward. They may spend years pursuing the person responsible, convincing themselves that settling the score will make things right. And then, when it’s finally done, what remains? The pain that started it all."

She paused briefly, her expression unreadable.

"That is what makes it such a useless practice. They become so focused on what was taken from them that they forget there might still be something left to live for."

"Much easier said than done," Goiim stated.

Her pale eyes shifted toward the oni. Her expression was still difficult to read, but there was a firmness in her response.

"When one’s tragedy comes at the hands of another, you cannot simply expect them to forgive and carry on living as though nothing happened. You cannot tell someone who has lost everything that they should put their grievances aside and expect those words to mean anything. Perhaps, from the outside, vengeance appears pointless. Perhaps it does become an obsession that leaves a person empty when it’s over. But it hardly erases the issue."

She looked ahead again, her voice remaining the same.

"The world does not function that way. People don’t simply recover because someone tells them that holding on to their anger will accomplish nothing. And forgiveness is not something you can demand from someone who has been wronged. Some wounds are too deep for a few sensible words to make a difference."

"Do you speak from experience, I wonder?" Shuten-dōji mused.

She looked back at Goiim, her red eyes resting on the young woman’s face. There was a trace of curiosity in her expression, though she did not press the question with any particular insistence.

Goiim’s response had carried more conviction than the oni might have expected from someone who usually approached matters with such a detached attitude.

"I choose not to speak of myself casually, so you would forgive me if I do not answer that."

That was all Goiim offered.

Shuten-dōji regarded her for a moment before relenting.

"Fair," the oni said.

She accepted the refusal without argument, allowing the matter to rest rather than trying to pry further into Goiim’s past.

"But if you want to know my view, then you can say I’ve had success in achieving vengeance once."

Goiim’s attention returned to her.

"And you were not satisfied?" she surmised.

"I was. I am."

Shuten-dōji stated it without hesitation.

A smile appeared on her beautiful face, softening her features in a way that might ordinarily have suggested warmth. But the expression did not reach her eyes. There was no corresponding light in them.

"Though I am trying not to be."

Goiim’s brows furrowed slightly.

She looked at the oni more carefully, attempting to understand what she meant. Shuten-dōji had answered the question plainly enough. Yet she was also trying not to be satisfied. The distinction seemed odd, but Goiim could not immediately determine what lay beneath it.

For a moment, she considered the possibility that the oni was speaking metaphorically. Perhaps the satisfaction had come at a cost she regretted. Perhaps she was dissatisfied with what the act had done to her, rather than with the outcome itself.

But those were only possibilities.

Goiim still did not understand.

"Why did you take vengeance in the first place?" she pressed.

Shuten-dōji’s expression changed only slightly. The smile faded, leaving her face calm once more. She drew a small breath before answering, and for the briefest moment her gaze seemed to turn toward a memory she had no particular wish to linger over.

"To avenge a foolhardy student," Shuten-dōji answered with a small sigh.

The admission was concise, but she did not offer details about the student, nor did she explain what had happened or who had been responsible.

"But that’s neither here nor there."

She dismissed the subject with a shift of her attention, as though she had already said more than she intended to.

Shuten-dōji raised an elegant hand to the side of her neck. Her fingers settled lightly against the skin as she tilted her head, then rolled it to one side. A crack sounded from her neck. She repeated the motion in the opposite direction, loosening the muscles.

"This has been quite fun," she continued, her voice regaining some of its amusement, "but unfortunately, I have no love for deception."

The remark was delivered lightly enough, but the meaning beneath it was less so.

Before Goiim could question just what Shuten-dōji meant, the latter’s leg suddenly lashed out in a clean kick.