Calling of the Mark

“You lost that the moment you asked for my help,” Yumi delivered with a surprisingly cold tone. It was the truth, though. She couldn’t see it any other way. Fighting for them had brought the wrath of demons closer to their village. They were after her because she was asked to kill them. ‘They’re just picking and choosing things. Kill the violent ones and ignore the others. I’m surprised that sort of life lasted even this long…’

“Do you intend to leave or refuse to help?” Even with her poor sense for subtext, she could read the tone of his voice very clearly. It probably helped that he made no attempt to mask his intent. While he didn’t say it yet, his tone implied heavily that he planned to leverage the shelter and good will against Yumi if she threatened him.

Such a sight churned her stomach a little. It actually surprised her to see that surface. ‘He’s really going to try to strong arm me with Yuki?’ The elder turned out to be far more complex of a character than she expected. Being just a game essentially made her underestimate what she expected to see from this fake world. But it was just a game and that was why she could move forward. “Hypocrites, you might be. I’m already too involved now. Even if I left they’d still follow me. So it makes no difference where I go.”

Yumi looked back at the hut with Yuki resting inside. He hadn’t had very long to rest, but he should be getting better quickly. At least, that was what she thought. ‘The elder might be a bit two-faced, but it doesn’t really make things any different than before. I just know now that he can be shrewd when he wants to be.’

“I’m pleased to hear that, Master Yumi.” The sound of voice felt a little hollow compared to before, in which he had reverence in his voice saying her name. He seemed to feel like he had the upper hand on her.

‘If I had some actual purpose or objective, I’d probably have left at this point. But it’s just survival. And I’d rather do that in civilization rather than in the wild. It’s easier to protect Yuki like this and keep him out of harm’s way.’

Chapter 398 – Calling of the Mark

Swinging her energy blade down, demon blood sprayed in an arc over the ground. At her feet, the head of a wolf-like demon rolled up to her. Yumi leapt out into the forest in search of any more that had come for her. She could hear the sounds of one, but still was getting used to being able to use her hearing to seek out a target. In the forest, where sounds got messed up and misdirected easily, she had trouble figuring it out.

A crashing of a new demon came off her flank. She picked up on it quickly once it became impossible to ignore. Yumi disappeared before the spear touched her. The tree behind her took the full force of the strength from the demon. It split in two before exploding outward into splinters.

“Where’d she go?!” yelled the demon.

‘It can talk,’ she thought, starting to notice the differences. She could finally tell between the oni, the foot soldier type and others. Though with so many different types of demons, she doubted that she would ever remember the names of any of their species. Not that there was anyone around that could tell her the names.

With claws as thick as her fingers and hands that could wrap around her waist with ease, this demon looked more suited to a savage fight, despite its use of a weapon. It looked more animal than humanoid, something that the oni differed with, yet lacked the meaningful ability to speak intelligently.

White light pierced through the demon’s head and out its jaw. An instant later, the light split the head, similarly to the tree. Yumi landed on its shoulders riding it down as it fell to the earth. “Behind you.” She jumped off as the body hit with a thud against the earth.

She tilted her head back to look at the dead demon. “Fifth today already.” Checking her hearing once more, the forest finally felt empty again. It was a little unnerving not hearing even animals, but the demons had long since scattered them.

An empty forest was safe for now. She turned back to the village without having to jump to the canopy. “They trying to wear me out like this?” Darting between trees she quickly made it back to the village. With life a little more stable thanks to her protection, the late mornings found the village empty again. Only a few people stayed behind. One was the elder, who hovered around most days, like due to the occupancy.

He spotted her quick return. “Less demons today, Master Yumi?” Part of his formality disappeared that day with her. His words still outwardly carried respect for her, though there was an undercurrent to his words. She only noticed it because of talking to him so many times.

“No, there was more and they came in a group today. I think they’re realizing that sending just one at a time was a waste.”

“Your lethality is advancing.”

“I’ve no choice, but to kill them quickly.” She continued past the elder without breaking her stride. The old man was merely a checkpoint, not her stop. And she had no meaningful words for him. She had no questions for him.

However, he turned partly around looking at her back. “Certain the forest is cleared?”

“You can go double check my work, if you’re feeling uneasy.” Yumi stepped inside the hut and dropped down next to Yuki with a sigh. ‘He’s getting on my nerves…

Opening his eyes, Yuki looked up at Yumi from his straw bed. “That was a heavy sigh.”

“Long morning…”

“Tell me.”

Yumi knocked her head against the wall of the hut pondering it. “You’re still recovering. I don’t want to bother you.”

He shifted around pulling himself up to meet her at eye level. “I’m stuck inside this hut with nothing more than my imagination to entertain me. Anything you have to say will make my day better.”

“You’ve got a pretty active imagination though, can’t imagine you getting bored easily.”

“Do my ears deceive me, is Yumi teasing me?”

Her face immediately lit up red with embarrassment and forced her to look away. A few sounds staggered out of her lips with great difficulty as she locked up. It took her a full minute to loosen up her muscles to even limit the shaking. And still longer to get out a full word. “I-I’m so sorry, Yuki! I didn’t mean—It’s been a… I-I…”

Laughing with some relief to see that Yumi was still there, Yuki sighed to himself. “Don’t worry about it. It’s not a bad thing. Between friends a little teasing is natural.”

Yumi looked back at Yuki slowly. ‘…friends…just friends?’ She shook her head to lose the thoughts that started to gather.

“Yumi?”

“It’s nothing!”

“Alright…” He straightened up waiting for Yumi to turn back to him. Once she could look at him straight in the eye again, he resumed his questioning. “So what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“I might be stuck in here, but I’m not blind Yumi. I know what you’re doing. I’m not telling you to stop, just keep me in the loop.”

Hesitation still gripped her words tightly. ‘I took this path for you. Because it was necessary. I don’t want to drag you any further into things.’ Her mind replayed what happened with the snake demon again. It always ran in the back of her mind while she saw Yuki. Pushing it out as far as possible only did so much for her. And struggling only kept it returning.

“Yumi, you come back injured and I can only guess what has happened. You aren’t alone here.”

She looked back at him closely. The worry was clear on his face. ‘It’s hard to remember that this is not reality sometimes. I don’t even know what happens if we die here. Despite things being fake, everything feels real. Pain is real and everything hurts.’ Yuki knew this as well she assumed, but with pain being real that was more than enough. She knew that much.

“At the very least, I’ll listen to anything you want to rant about.”

“Th-thanks, I’ll keep that in mind.” She stood up and walked back towards the entrance. “But I’m fine. If I do have something I’ll be sure to tell you.” Yumi poked her hand through the threshold pushing out before Yuki stopped her.

“Yumi. Remember, I’m here for you. You don’t have to take everything on by yourself.”

“I know.” She pushed through back into the village and stared out at the forest. Her hearing had picked up another demon in the distance. ‘But I must. This is the way things are, Yuki…’

A few more days passed as their lives in the virtual world started to be more routine. Yumi found an awkward pattern dealing with the demons. Though surprised that nothing more than grunts seemed to be coming after her. She expected someone bigger to reveal themselves with how many she had already killed. Though with so many dead, she wondered how long the forest would survive.

Walking back from the forest, she took a little bit of a detour. She had walked past it so many times, but never really took time to actually appreciate it. The mountains rose in the distance partially hugged by the green fields of grass. Wind painted waves into the grass. “The wilderness actually looks pretty. I’ve been so focused on either surviving or ignoring it, that I hadn’t really looked to see that this is actually a beautiful place.”

She stared at it for a while letting the wind wash over her. Just staring out at it, she forgot where she was. It felt like she was home in a way. This was supposed to be Japan as best as they guessed. If she ignored the demons that roamed around, it looked almost normal. More so than the world that she lived in now.

Then Yumi turned away and faced the village. “It’s all fake. What am I thinking…” She began the walk back to the village. ‘Hope Yuki’s doing better. He’s been stuck healing for more than a week now. It shouldn’t be that long to be back on his feet, right?’ Yumi had no clue about the time it would take. She knew his injuries were bad, but she just assumed that he had fixed up a lot of it thanks to his powers. Yet he remained bedridden still. ‘It’s not something worse is it? Or the virtual world is preventing him from getting better…’

It wasn’t the first time she had such thoughts. She tried to keep them away from the front of her mind, but in solitude it was hard not to think about it. Yumi wanted to see him back on his feet.

As she entered the village, she saw familiar faces and waved politely to them. She would have bowed, but they had dropped formalities a while ago now. ‘I wonder what will happen to them when we leave?’ Though she had no clue when that would be. She still hadn’t seen a map of the area or even a clue of another village. That seemed almost intentional, knowing the old man.

However, said individual didn’t seem to be hovering in his usual spot today. She didn’t see him anywhere while she walked in. It left her wondering where he had gone, but not enough to give her pause. She made her way back to the hut as was her pattern now. Though she had no injuries for Yuki to heal. She really had nothing to do if she wasn’t killing demons.

“I’m back, Yuki,” she sounded off as she entered. Despite him often appearing like he was sleeping, he tended to be awake most times she entered. It was something she picked up on after a while. He really had to be bored.

But there was no reply. She looked down to see the straw bed empty and the fur blanket tossed aside. “Yuki?!” Yumi jumped out of the hut quickly to look around on the off chance he finally found his legs. But he was nowhere in sight. “Yuki?! Where are you?”