Lily employed her domain with the intention of supporting her feet using the flood of sakura as she plunged into the vast darkness, but she felt an invisible force pull her towards the depths of the darkness.
Thus, she was forced to use her spirit defense to deal with the fall. Light gradually neared from the bottom and Lily felt herself fall into quite a spacious underground space.
Lily looked around quickly as she swivelled down and saw a little underground village with fires lit sporadically underneath, so she took the Sakura Parasol out from the mirror promptly and slowed down the speed of her fall by a huge margin after unfolding it1.
Although she was still falling pretty quickly, it wasn’t much of an issue for Lily with her strength, so she manipulated the Sakura Parasol to fly away from the village first and landed at an empty corner.
“Phew… I was really too complacent after retrieving the mirror that easily and failed to keep my guard up against the two kunoichi that I knocked out…”
Lily observed the underground space that spanned a few kilometres and discovered several tunnels beside the village she saw before. She then hid behind a huge rock and stripped her clothes off first before relieving herself. After all, she had been tied up inside that room for a long time and couldn’t relieve herself under such circumstances…
She then stepped on a slightly taller rock and changed into a purple kimono patterned with ice-blue flowers. She had discovered this garment within the womenswear room inside the mirror space and it actually looked the exact same as the garment she had donned when she first arrived in this Heian world, so she wore it promptly.
“I’ve arrived at a new world, I guess,” Lily soliloquized mockingly.
Naturally, she knew this wasn’t the case and that this was probably the depths of the mountain and was likely an underground space beneath the foot of the mountain. However, she wondered why such a huge space existed within the depths of the mountain and also had a village in it.
The next question that came to her mind was whether the inhabitants of this village were humans or monsters.
At the very least, Lily couldn’t feel any eldritch energy from that village.
Lily first thought of trying to go up and returning to the surface or outside the mountain, but there were too many underground tunnels in this space and even she didn’t dare to tread through them blindly as there was no guarantee that she would be able to return to the surface via them and might even lose her way underground.
Although Lily possessed an excellent sense of direction, there were no markers underground and she also didn’t have a map, so no matter how good her sense of direction was, it was useless right now.
Lily directed her gaze towards the dilapidated village illuminated by sporadic fires.
“I might as well make some inquiries in the village,” Lily decided, and then walked over towards the village under the shade of the parasol so that the inhabitants wouldn’t find her in case they were monsters.
Around the same time, Haihime’s impeccable hands were actually washing the feet of the little demon inside her temple. With her status as the queen of the Endless Demon Mountains’ Hundred Demons faction, this was a pretty humiliating action for someone like her.
However, this little demon was actually Amanojaku, the leader of Endless Demon Mountains’ Hundred Demons.
No matter when anyone looked at them, Amanojaku’s scarlet eyes gave off the impression that they were blood crystals formed from the condensation of a sea of blood and fiendish energy, and these pair of eyes were staring at Haihime’s gentle, beautiful and mature body as if they were appraising an item right now.
“Haihime,” Amanojaku called her Keiko at times and Haihime otherwise randomly depending on his mood. He looked down towards her and said, “In a few days, sixteen years will have passed since the day we got married.”
Haihime felt a shiver pass through her when Amanojaku stated this and her bountiful bosom heaved up and down deeply, “Indeed…”
“It’s time for you to truly fulfill your marital duties and become my woman when that day arrives! Hahaha! Just thinking about it fills me with delight.”
“We Golden-Horned Demon Tribe members become adults when we turn 518 years old and have to protect the true spirit energy of our bodies until then. If it weren’t for the fact that we cannot indulge in the pleasures of the flesh until then, you would’ve birthed a dozen or so kids for me already, understood? Hahaha. Haihime, are you looking forward to this event between us husband and wife on that day?”
Haihime bowed her head and washed Amanojaku’s other foot silently.
“I’m asking you, Madam Haihime. Are you looking forward to becoming a woman of a member of the Golden-Horned Demon Tribe who are known as the strongest tribe amongst the evil spirits?” Amanojaku repeated the question in a displeased tone.
“Yes…” Haihime’s eyes turned a little blank.
Around the same time, Yumi was lying within a dark room inside one of the houses at the corner of the temple’s vicinities.
“Argh!” She woke up suddenly and seemed to have suffered from a nightmare and muttered with a hurried breath while drenched in sweat, “J-Just what have I done…”
She recalled how Lily had clearly got caught while she was bewitched, but she had no means to resist Haihime’s orders back then.
However, she failed to understand why she seemed to have been forgotten how and why Haihime hadn’t come to restrain her even though the medicine’s effect had passed.
In any case, Haihime hadn’t declared her punishment openly yet, so she was still the leader of the demon kunoichi in the Land of Hundred Demons.
The first thing she recalled after exiting the side temple was none other than Lily.
“Lily… W-Where are you? Haihime didn’t do anything to you, right?”
Yumi wandered through the quarters of the temple worriedly and sought Lily’s tracks.
However, she found several majestic evil spirits standing in front of the main hall of the temple when she arrived there and each one of them possessed strength that far exceeded hers.
“Halt!” An evil spirit with huge yellow eyes obstructed Yumi’s path while baring its fangs.
“I-I want to see Lady Haihime.”
“Haihime is with our lord Amanojaku at this moment. No one is allowed to disturb them,” The evil spirit threatened in a gloomy tone.
“What? Lord Amanojaku…” Yumi was taken aback.
I-Isn’t Lily in much danger if Amanojaku has arrived?
“Who else is in the temple?”
“How audacious! Didn’t I say that no one else is allowed to disturb them? Who else would be inside except Lord Amanojaku and Haihime who are spending the night together?” The evil spirit pushed Yumi away with its huge claw, “Shoo now! Scram at once!”
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Yumi loathed and dreaded a lot internally, but since Amanojaku and Haihime were married, it was normal for them to spend the night together even though they didn’t match each other at all!
“At least, it seems like Lily hasn’t fallen into Amanojaku’s hands yet, but where exactly has she gone to?” Yumi left for the other halls to find her.
As for Lily, she had entered the dilapidated and desolate village that hadn’t seen sunlight for years while holding the parasol up at this moment.
There were a few torches lighting up the village by crackling powerlessly and illuminated this desolate area with a faint light.
A few emaciated old men and women looked at her while crouching at the curbside under the illumination of the flames with skin that looked a bit ill because of the lack of sunshine all-year-round.
Although they were plagued considerably with illness and looked scarier than evil spirits, Lily knew that they were actually humans since they were able to see her and though this village had a musty smell, it didn’t have any eldritch energy.
“Why are these humans living here and how exactly are they surviving?” Lily felt puzzled.
“Who are you?!”
A considerably crisp womanly voice arrived from behind Lily at this moment.
Lily turned around and saw a woman donned in a mottled white dress who had a white cloth tied around her forehead which had a feather stuffed inside diagonally. This long-haired woman who possessed fairly good looks was staring at Lily vigilantly while wielding a crude pike in her hand.
Lily probed her with spirit power, but she showed no reaction and only then did Lily discover that this woman was just an early-stage samurai.
But from how she behaved, it looked like she was the guardian of this village.
Lily realized that there was no need to hold up the parasol any longer as others might think that something was wrong with her mind or that she was a monster because she was holding up a parasol in an underground space.
Lily folded the parasol and walked over towards this seventeen to eighteen-year-old staunch yet beautiful village girl while donning a gentle smile.
“Halt! Don’t come any closer!” The girl pointed the pike towards Lily vigilantly with her gaze fixed on the long tachi at Lily’s waist.
Lily stopped her feet helplessly and asked as gently as possible, “I’m lost and arrived here before I knew it. Can you tell me where this is?”
“Lost?” The woman revealed a vigilant sneer, “No matter where you go here, all that lies are the Endless Demon Mountains, the territory of the monsters, and you say that a woman like you has actually walked until here unknowingly after getting lost? Are you trying to dupe a kid or what? Speak. What kind of a monster are you? We have no money in this village and also have no treasure that you might fancy, so leave right away or else don’t blame me for making a move!”
Lily stated helplessly, “I-I’m really not a monster.”
“I might as well tell you, then. There’s simply no way out of this place. The only way out is guarded by a powerful monster and a pristine woman like you has actually arrived here unscathed. Do you really think we humans are as dumb as mountain imps?” The girl pointed the pike at Lily’s neck.
“All right. I fear you won’t believe me no matter what I tell you. However, as you’ve mentioned, this village doesn’t have anything worth taking, so there’s no need for you to fear me so much, right?”
“Hmph! Who knows whether you want to eat humans or not! Someone in the village gets eaten by the monster in this underground space each year!” The girl stated tensely.
Lily’s expression turned cold and a crimson gleam flashed through her eyes, “If there’s really a monster that eats humans, can you fend it off?”
“Kyah!” The girl’s body began trembling after getting stared at by Lily like this and the pike in her hand fell to the ground, her legs losing strength and making her kneel on the ground.
“J-Just… who are you…” The girl asked fearfully.
A four to five-year-old little girl rushed out from the corner of a shabby mud house at this moment.
“Don’t bully my sister! Retreat, you monster!” The little girl was only three feet or so tall, but she stood in front of her elder sister bravely and threw some beans from a small bamboo basket towards Lily.
The beans hit Lily’s kimono and fell to the ground with a patter.
Lily stooped down gently and picked up the beans from the ground before returning them inside the little girl’s bamboo basket, “Food should be pretty scarce here, right? You shouldn’t waste it.”
The little girl hugged the bamboo basket and hid behind the teenage girl.
“J-Just who exactly are you?” The teenage girl also sensed that Lily’s speech and aura didn’t seem like a monster’s.
“I am called Lynne. I’m a samurai from Kamakura. What about you? What’s your name and where again is this?”
“Y-You’re really a samurai? A human samurai woman?”
“Naturally,” Lily stepped forth and offered her hands towards the girl.
The girl was unconvinced and even though she hesitated a bit, she still held Lily’s hand in the end.
“Oh… Your hand’s so soft and warm…” The girl said.
“So you’re convinced that I am not a monster now, right?”
“I don’t know… The monster has taken the lives of too many villagers already. My little brother, Yoshimaru was also…” The girl’s expression dimmed, and she stopped talking.
“Since you’re fully aware that this underground space is below the lair of the monsters, why do you continue living here?” Lily inquired.
“What a strange question!” The girl stated emotionally, “Do you think we don’t want to go out? Do you think we want to continue living in this scorching underground space where there’s no sunlight all year round?2”