Dead bodies all over the ground.

After a night of raging fires, this thriving village, once comparable to a town, was left with a huge charred ruins, silently telling of the glory of the past.

Built over a period of more than half a century, the settlement, despite its tattered and dirty, is home to thousands of people.

But just like that, overnight, it was wiped off the map of the Moon Country.

More than four thousand people were killed, of varying ages, genders, and occupations. The ashigaru broke many spears, cut off many swords, and even the samurai's arrows were consumed. After a night of searching and cleaning up the dead, the ashigaru were driven by the samurai the next morning to search for salvage bows and arrows from the dead bodies of civilians.

Their supreme commander still planned to continue the pursuit of the survivors, and without even counting the corpses, the corpses of the people killed were scattered in the streets and alleys, and the mighty crowd of more than 2,000 people was ready to continue to march.

The adjutant tried to make further arguments to avoid any further expansion to avoid affecting the real operation, and mentioned the fact that the army of more than 2,000 men was undersupplied. But the red-eyed red-armored warrior just glared at the other without saying a word, and then re-emphasized and ordered the team to quickly organize and pursue.

Hundreds of corpses floated above the river, frozen purple.

"They did come here. "The elite ninja troops who accompanied the army found dense horseshoe prints hidden beneath the messy footprints along the river. The samurai did not stay where they were for so long, so their horseshoe prints were all in single or double rows, and the style of the shoes was also in line with the horses used by the samurai who had disappeared before.

They also found some black oil stains floating up from the bottom of the river in the water near the horseshoe prints, presumably caused by the drowning man struggling to turn over something that sank to the bottom of the river. After repeated attempts with the tether hook, the object that had been stained with some mud was suddenly a little peeling off from the makeshift black paint, mottled to reveal the bright red samurai armor underneath.

"They're here, they're here!But they must have fled!" roared the red-armored warrior who, in a fit of rage, had lost his ability to think, "There are more than a thousand people who have escaped, more than a thousand, how did this make them escape." Where is all your reserve, more than 2,000 people have let a group of unarmed untouchables escape so much!"

No one dared to contradict him, and the samurai of Ashigaru and the lower ranks stood in silence and listened to their leader's reprimand.

They actually had a lot to say, such as the lack of preparation at the beginning of the operation, which should have encircled them from all directions to ensure that they were truly airtight, or the fact that the more than 4,000 dead bodies had only been roughly calculated and had not been verified to check whether the villains were dead.

It's just that "some people fled for their lives and didn't kill them all", so "the villain who killed my brother must still be alive". Even if this is really the truth, it is not the answer determined after calm thinking and investigation, but the conclusion of overly simple logic that is as clear as that of a child.

He was no longer qualified to be a leader, and he was now completely carried away by revenge. If he followed his orders, not only would the lack of supplies for the 2,000-man march cause a large number of non-combat attrition, but it could also threaten the larger plans of the Northland vassal kings.

The more level-headed samurai could recognize this, but none of them spoke to the Red Armor Samurai.

It's not that I don't want to, but I can't.

"The king wants his ministers to die, and the ministers have to die. ”

In the Moon Country, where the concept of class is so strict, even if the leader really makes a mistake, even if the leader leads them in the direction of a sea of swords and fire, they will jump down one after another without saying a word.

It's like a civilian who would rather be killed than resist, and would prevent others from rebelling against the samurai.

Compared to the death of themselves or their wives and children, they believe that the nature of the following acts is more serious.

It may seem ironic to outsiders, but even if it is a rebel who intends to rebel, the internal rules are still so strict that they are more important than life.

"How many people have been attribution. The hot-headed red-armored samurai was still urging Ashigaru to collect arrows in the distance, while the lieutenant consulted with the ninja in charge of intelligence.

19 Killed in battle, nine of whom were killed by mistake in the fire or by their own side. The extra 10 are ......." the ninja spoke, and the adjutant raised his hand, "Needless to say, I know, and then what?"

"The whereabouts of five more people are unknown. ”

"Hmm. The adjutant's face was a little solemn, and then he sighed: "Very few casualties, but not without casualties. ”

The cold wind blew through the charred wreckage, and the charred hands contorted toward the sky exposed by the hole-opened roof, as if calling for help from a non-existent god.

The cold air could not suppress the stench of charred corpses and the smell of charcoal that filled the sky over the entire swamp village, and seeing that the Ashigaru who had scattered to collect bows and arrows had finally completed their mission and returned, the Red Armor Samurai hurriedly raised his long sword again:

"March!!"

So shouted.

————

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The mountainous Crescent Island is a long and narrow land plate that is an area of extreme geological activity.

The perennial fog on Kirishima Island, where Henry and the others passed when they came from the world of Rigal, was an add-on to the volcanic landscape. The narrow Crescent continent is connected to some isolated islands on the sea, and has the largest number of large and small volcanoes in the world.

Although the continent of Rigal has similar landscapes, the people of the Land of the Moon are truly living with the volcano. If one of the three huge volcanoes erupts in the Honshu region, where the nation's capital is located, at least half of the population of the prosperous imperial capital will have to migrate.

The overwhelming magma is enough to destroy all human civilization within its reach, and even the bravest warriors wearing the finest armor will melt their armor into ashes. Even if you don't count the magma itself, landslides and earthquakes caused by drastic geological changes alone can have a huge impact on people's lives.

And people's houses are always composed of light paper windows and wooden frames, which are inseparable from frequent earthquakes.

Stone houses are certainly more stable, but once they are trampled, the heavy stones that fall are enough to kill the occupants. In contrast, lighter wood and paper windows greatly increase the likelihood of surviving a collapsed house, as well as the convenience of excavating and rescuing after the fact.

Although the country has a strong unified government and a history of 4,000 years without external enemies and internal strife, it does not mean that there are no disasters.

Human life is like a mustard, and a civilization that it thinks will survive for a long time may be wiped out in an instant. Based on the successive natural disasters, the people of the Land of the Moon have a far deeper understanding of crisis and time than the people of Rigal.

Humans are a race in a hurry, and in the eyes of the longevity species, humans always seem to be worried about things not being done in time. And the harmony of the Moon Country is the most extreme embodiment of this aspect among human beings.

Because they can be destroyed at any time, they prescribe all aspects with strict requirements that are almost paranoid, and because they can be destroyed at any time, they are always in a hurry to try to polish every aspect to the extreme.

"Leaving no regrets" is something engraved in the bones of this nation.

"Don't make mistakes" is the pressure they put not only on themselves, but also on the whole country.

It was a repressed people, and under the great pressure of survival they had to maintain unity, which gave rise to a harsh class concept. Otherwise, in the face of sudden natural disasters, it is impossible to even organize an efficient escape and evacuation.

Life is easy to die, and what I thought was plenty of time may end up being completely insufficient.

This is a viewpoint that permeates the spiritual culture of the Japanese people.

In this way, it is no wonder that people are fond of cherry blossoms, which are unique to Crescent Island and bloom for only one week.

Gorgeous, but prematurely senile.

Clear water flows. By the time Henry and Mira fled with the Oiran during the night, the easy-to-find boats had already been taken away by the fleeing people.

But having someone from a local background means they have another choice. Oiran pointed out to them the shallowness of the nearby river, and the three of them waded quickly to a long beach overgrown with weeds, and then walked for most of the night, and only stopped to light a fire and recuperate after coming to the relatively dry and hard ground, away from the tributaries of the Yongchuan River.

It's not easy to find something dry to make a fire in a damp swamp, and if it's autumn, you can pick up some lint from the top of the weeds, and in the spring you can only use it for anything.

Mira finally found some paper in the saddle bag of the horse she was riding, with words written on it, in the language of the Land of the Moon. She couldn't fully read it, but she did understand roughly that it was a letter from a samurai who had been killed by a sage to his family.

These details are always a reminder of the fact that they are killing living people, over and over again.

She didn't try to justify herself in her heart, even if she could find many reasons, such as having to do so, otherwise she would have died.

It's just a disguised evasion, shifting the blame to force majeure and trying to alleviate the guilt of killing strangers you have never met.

The truth is that they could have turned and fled, but it was her and Aya's determination to save Oiran and the return of the sage that led to the re-encounter and the death of the strange samurai, whose name was unknown.

It is one's own choice that leads to this result.

Face the facts, instead of finding a reason to excuse and justify your actions.

Oiran watched in silence as the girl looked at the letter and hesitated for a moment, then rubbed them loosely, and then lit them with a fire sickle and flint.

She looked at this foreigner girl who was about the same height as herself, with white hair.

She could tell that Mira had endured a lot of hardships, and if it weren't for that, the kind of perseverance and decisiveness that might not necessarily be seen in Japanese samurai would never exist.

But this courage to face the truth and the clarity that has not been stained after that, she does not feel that this experience has given her.

Take this step.

Indomitable.

"Smack—" Oiran removed the crushed silver hair ornament from the top of her head, and her waist-length black hair swayed in the wind. She took a closer look at the hair ornament engraved with the coat of arms of a certain adult, received it in the pouch around her waist, and then walked over and stretched her hand at Mi.

"Knife, can you lend me a knife?"

The girl lifted her face, and the flames that were burning at this moment lit up her eyes.

When the sage returned from collecting the ingredients nearby, he saw the long black hair and precious cloth that drifted away with the stream, and the Japanese beauty who had torn off her long skirt and cut her hair short.

"If you don't throw it away, you can still use it to bandage your wounds. Although your wound is shallow, it is still necessary to prevent infection. The sage shrugged his shoulders and said.

"Poof. The other covered his mouth again and chuckled, and then stretched out his hand to both of them.

"I'm Sakura. Here's how she introduced herself.

"Henry. ”

"Mira. ”

And the two shook each other's outstretched hand back.