I don't know if it's because of the upcoming festival, but the weather is very cool today, and there are faint dark clouds gathering in the sky.

"It must be the great fox god who feels our sincerity!"

"After the successful sacrifice, the great fox god will definitely descend divine water!"

Yae Ji held Yae Sakura's little hand, and the brother and sister walked past the villagers.

"Ji-sama!"

"Sakura-sama!"

Because it is a formal occasion, everyone also uses some formal titles, which are not as casual as usual.

It was the first time Sakura had come to participate in the festival, and when she saw that the villagers who were usually kind had become extremely serious, she could only keep a small face. In fact, she was very unaccustomed to this kind of occasion, and even a little afraid, and her petite body curled up slightly, even if she was held by her brother's hand, the little girl was still half a position behind the younger one, so that she would not look so obvious.

The rituals in the village were far less cumbersome than those that rose to the national level, and the people were just dressed in black with fox masks. Yae Sakura, who is an alternate shrine maiden, wears a shrine maiden costume.

On the altar, a little girl knelt on it, her little head bowed, and her two little hands tightly crossed together to her chest.

There are still a few drops of water on the floor.

The god of Yae Shrine first appeared, and then the gray-haired, gaunt old woman praised the fox god who protected the village.

The process was very simple, Yae Ji silently put on a fox mask.

From the slit in the mask, the field of vision was extremely limited, as if the whole world was distorted before my eyes.

There was a complete silence around the altar, and the body of the girl kneeling on the ground trembled slightly, and more and more water dripped from the ground. Yae Ji seemed to have thought of something, and scanned back and forth among the villagers with a fox mask.

Daisuke didn't come!

Perhaps he was still being held in the village warehouse.

"Now! Dedicate sacrifices to the great fox god! ”

Looking at his father, who wore a fox mask and held a sharp knife on the altar, Yae Ji's body shuddered, and he couldn't imagine that he would become like that in the future.

For the continuation of a village, to pay for a person's life, it seems...... Well worth it?

Can......

"Boom~"

The dark clouds in the sky were even worse, first slashing an electric snake in the distance, making the katana that was ready to be sacrificed even more cold, and then thunder sounded, as if a god had descended.

The villagers wearing fox masks knelt down one after another, and although they couldn't see their faces, Yae Ji knew that they must be very fanatical!

The parents of the sacrificial girl were kneeling in the first row on the outside of the altar, and as if they were enchanted, they were saying these nonsense words, but their heads were pressed to the ground again and again, to show their humility to the gods.

"Ugh! ——”

There is no other precursor at all except the electric snake!

The black-clothed man on the altar raised his knife in his hand, and the hot blood splattered from the cool body into a half-moon shape, and the scarlet that slipped from the knife body gradually converged into a point at the tip of the knife, gradually dripping.

Yae Ji covered Yae Sakura's eyes, and she silently lowered her head, no longer looking at the girl who went to "worship the gods".

Yaeki felt Sakura's body tremble, and her little hands gradually lost their temperature, as if she was the corpse that fell to the ground on the stage.

He pulled Sakura's shoulders over, took the little girl into his arms, and patted her back gently.

"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid, my brother will bear these for you in the future."

Although Yaeki said this, he also knew that the rituals in the village were generally presided over by the god lord, and it was the shrine maiden who could communicate with the gods and offer sacrifices to the gods.

So...... In the future, the only one with innocent blood on her hands will be Sakura.

Even if he wanted to change his approach, the village would never allow him to break the ancestral teachings. The reason why the Yae God Lord of this generation did this by himself was entirely because the previous shrine maiden had already died in battle, and the alternate shrine maiden was too young.

"Foolishness! What foolishness! ”

Yaeki had this sentence popping up in her head, just like when she first saw Sakura Blowing Snow before.

He could swear that none of this was what he came up with! Before that, he didn't even know what the words "bells and whistles" and "ignorance" meant!

The wind blew, and the red blood droplets on the knife dripped more quickly, and the villagers did not feel the chill, but worshiped the gods even more fiery.

Electric snakes and thunder came one after another, and the dark clouds in the sky gathered more and more, as if sweet rain would fall at any time.

But......

The thunder in the sky became more and more muffled, farther and farther away, and some villagers raised their heads in confusion and looked at the sky.

The dark clouds that had gathered together quickly drifted away, and in the blink of an eye, the dawn broke, and a ray of light happened to shine into the village.

Then, the sun in the sky began to exert its force, and a mysterious force dispersed the clouds in the sky, and there was a tendency for the sky to be cloudless and the sun was shining.

Sure enough.

The wind stopped, the clouds were gone, and the thunder was gone.

There was silence around the altar.

They didn't send a flood and ask the gods to dispel the clouds. Instead, because of the drought, he wanted to pray to the gods to control the clouds and rain to save the village.

What's going on here?

Even Yae Ji was dumbfounded.

According to the records of the Yae clan, even if there was no rain at the time of the sacrifice, it was a dark cloud that began to gather and begin to change into a cloudy day, and then a heavy rain came to make up for the vitality before the dark clouds dispersed.

This...... Not to mention the thunder and rain, not even a drop of rain! The sun is shining directly and the temperature is soaring!

Yae Ji, who was standing on the side, took off his mask, and he found that the old woman under the altar had an extremely ugly face, as if she had swallowed a green-headed fly alive!

"She must know something!"

Yae Ji stared at the old woman, and the old woman seemed to feel the gaze, and glanced at Yae Ji, and then looked away with a weak heart.

Looking down further, the couple who were originally kneeling in the first row also lifted their masks, their faces were full of horror, as if they were overly frightened, and when someone next to them accidentally touched them, their reactions were extremely strong.

"It's not me, I'm not me, it's not me! She was the one who wanted Liang to serve the gods! ”

The woman was emotionally broken, and there was a lot of inexplicable information in her nonsense.

Yae Ji patted Sakura on the shoulder, and Sakura, who was hiding in his arms, opened her eyes timidly, looking at everything that was happening in front of her in confusion.

"Wait for me here."

"Hmm."

Yae Ji squeezed through the crowd, all with panicked expressions on their faces.

"We ...... Did you anger the gods? ”

"Didn't Daisuke say yesterday that he and Ryoshi were married to each other? Later, I asked my mother-in-law to go to identify ......"

When the young man saw the crowd looking at him, his voice grew lower and lower.

"Is Liang a pure daughter?!"

"Mother-in-law! You have something to say! ”

"I can't go wrong!" The old woman's face was gloomy, "It must have been something went wrong last night!" ”

The old woman and Yaeji's eyes met, and they quickly moved away in an instant.

......