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A white mist manifested within the old and dusky mirror space, following which a big, white dog appeared in the corner of the octagonal room.
The white demon hound adjusted the size of its soul which was about a meter tall since it couldn’t move about inside the room and adapted its size accordingly.
Yuki-Onna was immersed in the memories of her romantic love within the room while Kagura practiced sword arts via Nanako’s body.
“Where did this dog come from?” Kagura exited the item storage room that she had dedicated for practice.
The demon hound didn’t flare up because of this statement and answered rather calmly, “My dormant soul inside Lily’s cursed katana was roused up because of the battle against Haihime’s white tiger projection and she has allowed my soul to travel between the mirror space and the cursed katana.”
“Are you Lily’s shikigami too?” Kagura asked.
Yuki-Onna fiddled with her pretty hair at the corner and seemed uninterested.
“Uh. I can’t be considered a shikigami right now since I only have a soul and can only manifest in this weird mirror space or via Lily’s grudge manifestation, but that’s actually not my soul and just grudge that I control via my will,” The demon hound stated.
“Oh? Why have you shown up here then?” Kagura questioned.
“I am actually a white dog raised by Lady Fujiwara no Ayaka of Kansai. I caught the scent of a very familiar soul’s aura just now.”
“A familiar soul aura?”
“Too much time has passed. I
 need to ponder for a moment and recall where exactly I got in contact with this exceptionally unique soul aura. It’s mortal yet somewhat different from a mortal’s
” The demon hound grinned.
Around the same time, the village girl picked up the pike from the ground powerlessly and laid back against the old mud wall.
“This village is located inside a vast underground space and although it has several tunnels running outwards, most of them are extremely deep and interlinked complicatedly. You’ll discover that dreadful monsters lurk in these tunnels as soon as you enter inside to look for the way out and the only passage leading to the ground is also guarded by monsters. The monsters guarding it are so unimaginably powerful that any one of them can destroy our village pretty easily, so there’s simply no way for us to leave this place!”
“Since those monsters are so formidable, why haven’t they invaded this village?”
“What are you saying? Do you want those monsters to eat all of us up?! Are you saying that we have no lifeline left in this dark underground space?” The girl stated somewhat emotionally.
“No-no. That’s not what I meant,” Lily grabbed her hand to calm her down, “Tell me, what are you called?”
“Yoriko,” The girl stated with a short breath.
Lily observed the desolate and empty circumstances of the village, “How is this village surviving when there’s no sunlight here all year round?”
“There are some plants that don’t need sunlight growing within the caves in this underground space. We harvest their stems and pass our days difficultly by eating fruits or beans. The men also hunt beasts lurking nearby, but the food and prey have been decreasing more and more and quite a lot of people are facing the threat of famine with no food to eat.”
“Thus, we are forced to go farther and deeper into the tunnels to look for food and a lot of the hunters fail to return oftentimes, with only a few returning back with injuries from the attacks of monsters. Furthermore, the monsters have also begun to attack this village recently and capture teenagers and children to eat them up after returning. My little brother was also
” Yoriko’s expression dimmed further and further.
Yoriko’s shuddering hand gripped the pike firmly, “I did my best to train and learned the ancient martial arts passed down in the village, but unfortunately, no one in this village possesses the ability to make a sword and can only make a crude pike like this. I also have average talent, so I wasn’t able to learn most of the ancient sword and spear arts passed down in the village, or else, I would’ve subjugated those demons long ago!”
Lily shook her head internally and thought, “It’s impossible for this girl to defeat the monsters above no matter how hard she tries with her foundation under such an environment.”
Lily knew their true strength.
However, the ancient martial arts which this girl had mentioned had actually caught Lily’s interest.
“Yoriko, can you let me take a short look at the ancient martial arts of this village that you’ve mentioned?”
“
They absolutely aren’t supposed to be divulged to outsiders originally, but we have means to leave and who knows how long this village will be able to hold on, so I might as well let you look at them. However, we need to obtain the village chief’s permission for that,” Yoriko stated.
“Thank you, Yoriko.”
“Yoshika. Go back to play in the house by yourself. I’ll take this samurai woman to the village chief.”
The little girl sprinted back inside the house and Yoriko led Lily through the utterly dried dirt road, passing through the dilapidated village that had gone through the vicissitudes of time. Lily also realized that this village wasn’t that huge and most of the houses seemed to have been abandoned for many years already.
Yoriko brought Lily to a shabby yet relatively bigger mud house inside the village and announced her arrival with Lily.
“Grandma Chief, it’s me, Yoriko. I’ve brought a samurai woman from above who wants to meet you.”
“Come in,” A dry and rough old lady’s voice arrived from within the house.
Yoriko pushed the wooden door open and since she had a considerable height, she and even Lily had to stoop down to enter this house. The floor inside the house was a lot lower than the outside, so the duo entered inside and discovered an old lady dressed in a dirtied white robe who held an old, worn-out yet exquisitely made crutch inside the simple and crude dilapidated room dimly lit by an oil lamp.
“Hello, Grandma Chief. I’m called Lynne, a samurai woman from Kamakura of the East,” Lily bowed towards this old and wrinkled lady respectfully.
The old lady was slightly astonished after seeing Lily, but she didn’t react that exaggeratedly, possibly because of her age, “Why have you come to this land, samurai woman of the East?”
Yoriko stated, “She said that she arrived here after getting lost.”
From Yoriko’s tone, it seemed that she still didn’t trust Lily completely.
“Perhaps I wasn’t clear enough before. I have no need to hide it from you. I escaped from the hands of the monsters above but fell into this underground space after walking into a trap accidentally.”
“Is that so?” Yoriko came to a sudden realization, “Why didn’t you say that earlier then?”
“I didn’t have enough time to tell you in detail before
”
“Samurai have fallen here a few times previously as well. However, this space is pretty deep, and we only manage to discover the skeletons of most of the samurai that fall down. However, there was one samurai who managed to survive the fall with heavy injuries after falling down.”
“You mean there’s a samurai of the East still living in this village?” Lily inquired.
“No,” Yoriko shook her head, “That samurai seemed pretty strong and was on the brink of death after falling down. He possessed a pretty tenacious vitality and told us that he was a Genji samurai and wanted us to try taking him back and that he would pay back the favor, but none of us had the ability to take him back, so we could only heal him within the village. However, he still ended up dying because of the vile conditions and lack of medicine.”
“A Genji samurai?” Lily was stunned, “What’s he called?”
Yoriko pondered for a moment, “If I remember it right, he was called Minamoto no
 right! He was called Minamoto no Kenki.”
“Minamoto no Kenki? D-Did this happen recently?”
“No, it happened about three years ago. He was pretty tall and handsome samurai and a good person too, but unfortunately, he passed away after spending half a year inside the village. He’s now buried under a rock pit in the western end of the village.”
Lily felt puzzled after hearing this.
She had seen Minamoto no Kenki a few months ago during the battle to subjugate the Hojo and he was also the chief general who represented the Genji forces1. Although she hadn’t associated much with him, he did possess a stately appearance and left some impression within her, so it wasn’t possible for him to have died in this place after falling down here three years ago.
She guessed that there was perhaps some misunderstanding regarding this, but she didn’t pursue it any further since it was unrelated to her.
“However, you’re quite fortunate to survive the fall without any injuries, Miss Lynne,” The village chief stated.
Lily planned to look for a chance to inquire about the ancient martial arts, but the demon hound sent a voice transmission to Lily suddenly from the mirror space at this moment.
“Lily, I finally remembered it. I’ve seen this village chief before! Although she’s become a lot older, I still recall this soul fluctuation.”
Lily was taken aback and sent back a voice transmission to the demon hound, “You say you’ve seen this village chief before, Demon Hound?”
“Yeah! But it was a really long time ago. I saw this village chief as well as a lot of the old men living in this village in my master’s, Fujiwara no Ayaka’s, house back in Heian-kyo. She’s from the Mirror Girl branch clan that Lady Ayaka helped back then!”
“What?!” Lily was shocked, “Are you serious, Demon Hound? If this village chief is from the Mirror Girl branch clan, then isn’t this village
”
“Although her looks have changed greatly, I still remember this soul fluctuation. Let me return back to your blade, Lily. I’m not strong enough to see the outside world via the mirror right now.”
Lily did as the demon hound requested.
The demon hound’s anima returned to Lily’s blade and Lily unsheathed it slightly without drawing much attention, allowing a slight silver light to flash through.
“How is it? Are you able to see clearly?”
“Forgive me. My vision is pretty dimmed right now because I’m lacking in power. However, I remember that crutch, those garments as well as her facial structure well. Although she’s aged a lot, she’s undoubtedly a member of the Mirror Girl clan that Lady Ayaka helped back then,” The demon hound stated with absolute certainty.
Lily’s bosom heaved up and down heavily as she was never expecting to find the descendant of the Mirror Girl clan here. However, after recalling the condition of the dilapidated house, weakened and aged village chief, as well as the abandoned state of the village, Lily felt pained that one of Mirror Girl branch clans had actually fallen to such a degree.
Lily bowed towards the village chief deeply all of a sudden.
“Lady Lynne, what are you
” The village chief was also a little surprised by this.
“Grandma Chief, Lynne likes martial arts. I heard from Yoriko that ancient martial arts are passed down within this village. Can you let me take a look at them?”
“Well
” The village chief seemed to hesitate a little and pondered for a good while before answering Lily, “Fine. Anyhow, we are all trapped here and have no way to leave. There’s no harm in letting you see them.”
“Thank you, Grandma Chief!”
The village chief stood up by leaning on the crutch and Yoriko went forward to lend an arm immediately, “Grandma. Let me show her the way.”
“Don’t worry. I need to work these old bones a bit or else I fear I really won’t be able to move them any longer.”
The village chief arrived at the back of the huge house together with Lily and Yoriko.
A thick wooden door locked up by huge iron chains existed over here.
The village chief used the crutch to unlock the door with a flash of spirit power.
This action, however, left Lily stunned as even though it was a very basic arcane spell, it absolutely wasn’t something that an old lady from a dilapidated village could use.