183 times
Get out of our yard!
183 ? Get out of our yard! #3
Swish.
Luna woke up while curled up in my arms and sleeping.
“There’s someone outside.”
Luna often had moments when she had a sense of wonder. This was one of those times. When she heard the sound of a bear trap going off, she looked out the window, thinking that maybe a raccoon had come.
Waggle, waggle-.
It wasn’t just raccoons, it was a fair number of people invading our yard.
There must be about ten of them. It’s hard to tell since they’re all wearing masks, but they all seem to be of different genders and ages.
Who would have thought that there would be people trespassing on the fence of a private house?
Why on earth?
Is this like a gang of robbers who don’t ask questions?
Or are they just thugs trying to beat up me, a successful adventurer these days?
Or is it the personal grudge crimes of those who were involved in the collapse of the underground market?
I was terrified that there were people in my yard, their identities hidden by something like black robes. All sorts of bad thoughts ran through my head.
Whatever it is, I don’t have a good feeling about it.
So I held the club tightly in my hand, stuck my face out the window, and tried to figure out what the hell those guys were doing.
First of all, it was clear that they were the worst bastards in the world who would ever enter someone else’s house without permission.
Perhaps the only fortunate thing is that they didn’t seem particularly armed?
Of course, since he’s wearing a wide robe, I can’t relax because there might be a poisoned dagger or something inside.
“Hassan, who is it? Who is here? Who is out there?”
Luna asked quietly as she watched me looking out the window. She also seemed to be terrified, as she was trembling.
It would be natural for her to be afraid, since the intruder was not just a wild beast like a raccoon. It would be unacceptable for Luna to be scared.
So I shouted at the window like I was some kind of extremely threatening lion.
“Hey, shit! What the hell are you doing coming in here without permission, you little shovelheads! If you don’t get out now, I’ll destroy you all!”
The content itself was too vague to be called a threat, but since I was confident in my ability to speak loudly, I was able to growl in a way that sounded pretty plausible.
“There are a lot of traps here.”
“There are a lot of pitfalls, every year.”
“Can I just wait here?”
But as if my cries of conversion had no effect at all, the intruders in the yard were busy laughing and talking beneath their masks.
I was so embarrassed by how he acted as if he hadn’t heard me no matter how loud I was talking.
No, you really didn’t hear?
Is such a thing possible?
“Hey, dog guys!”
So I shouted loudly again. I could vividly feel Luna trembling even more behind me, perhaps because she was scared of my harsh words.
“Look, there are potatoes here.”
“Potatoes. They’re delicious when steamed. I didn’t know there were potatoes in Naruto.”
“Are there potatoes across the river?”
“I don’t know. But I really want to go this year.”
But what was strange was that this time, the intruders didn’t even pretend to listen to what I said.
At this point, rather than feeling angry at the intruder who had invaded the yard, I began to feel fear and a creepy feeling at the strange atmosphere.
I don’t know if I’m really thinking that funny.
I had a feeling those guys weren’t human.
If not human, then what else?
I don’t know. Something that has a human form and speaks like a human, but is not human.
Goosebumps run down my spine and memories from the past come back to me in flashbacks.
I often went hiking with my father who picked medicinal herbs.
It was really hard because the herbs and ingredients that my father wanted were deep in the mountains without even a map, in a place where there were no people and only wild baby animals would go.
When climbing a mountain like that, there were quite a few times when I couldn’t find the right time to come down and ended up camping.
When it got dark and the night was filled with the sounds of animals howling, my father used to tell me stories to comfort me from the loneliness of the campsite.
He told stories in a quiet voice, like the crazy shaman he said he saw when he was young, or the story about a haunted tree, stories you would only see on YouTube in the summer.
San-ah, the world of ghosts and the world of living people are different. However, sometimes the waves of the world overlap. This father, when he was young, he saw a lot of things that looked like ghosts, probably because he was weak.
You saw a ghost? A ghost in a world where convenience stores are open 24 hours a day.
Honestly, I didn’t believe a word my father said.
I’m a veteran now. What kind of ghosts are ghosts? I was only scared of those things when I was in elementary school.
I just thought it was meant to scare and tease my younger self, and it seems that was true.
But the ghost stories my father told in the deep forest or dark mountains were strangely scary, and I had a feeling that I would never get used to them even as I got older.
That damn ghost story. Ugh, I don’t want to hear it.
Kid, who do you take after to be so fearful? Anyway, listen. Since you are my son, you might be as fearful as I am and be able to see ghosts.
Because of this, some stories are still engraved in my ears and remain as quite impressive memories. For example, this one.
Just as we can’t see ghosts, ghosts can’t see us. However, there are ghosts that we can see from time to time. Those ghosts even try to talk to the living.
Ghosts talk?
Yeah, but you should never answer their questions. They try to get you to stick around. My father had a hard time when he was young. He couldn’t tell people apart. Now, I can tell them apart.
You saw a ghost? And you’re talking about it so seriously.
Thinking back now, I think my father had some kind of mental illness. But that night, it sounded particularly plausible, so I couldn’t help but ask him.
Then how do you distinguish between ghosts and living people?
You can tell just by looking at them. When you see a dog, you think, “Oh, it’s a dog.” When you see a cat, you think, “It’s a cat.” Likewise, when you see a person, you think, “It’s a person.” But, there are things that aren’t true. When you see a person, you wonder if that person is a person.
At that time, my father’s face, illuminated by the campfire, was unusually shadowy.
Just like how it feels awkward to see a cat pretending to be a person or a dog pretending to be a cat, it feels awkward to see a ghost pretending to be human. Haven’t you ever felt that way?
How can I feel that way? Where in the world are there ghosts?
San-ah, you need to cultivate your perspective with a broad mind. If you cultivate your perspective, you can see both medicinal herbs and ghosts.
That pretty much ended the conversation.
The reason why the trivial scenes from that time are still vivid in my mind is because the atmosphere of that day and the content itself were quite impressive.
If you don’t get the feeling that someone isn’t human when you see them, then they’re a ghost.
After that day, I looked closely at the people passing by, but they were all just people. It was my father who was teasing me.
I’ve been fooled again.
That’s what I thought.
“So, when is the leader coming?”
“I don’t know, let’s wait until just before the sun rises.”
“I think I’ll be upset if it’s a waste of time this year too.”
I never thought that looking down at the yard now, memories of that time would come flooding back. Even I thought it was strange, but no matter how I looked at those masked people, they didn’t look human at all.
I just have that feeling.
An eerie feeling that sends shivers down your spine.
It’s a feeling that something that is taken for granted doesn’t feel natural.
Is this the feeling my father was talking about?
So I called Luna over.
“Luna, come here. Look at those people over there.”
If Luna also felt the same way as I did, then it really was something other than human. Thinking so, I cautiously called out to Luna.
So Luna, who was shivering, pushed her face towards the window next to me.
“What do you think? What do those people look like?”
“How do you look, Hassan… ”
“Don’t you think it’s a little strange? What does it look like to you?”
Swish.
Luna frowned. Then she said something I had never thought of saying.
“Hassan, there’s no one in the yard. Who are you yelling at? Where does it hurt?”
“No, really…?”
It seemed that Luna was looking at me with fearful eyes, not the yard. Luna acted as if she didn’t notice the noisy and bustling yard.
“You really can’t see that?”
“What on earth are you talking about? Hassan, have you been dreaming?”
“No, they’re over there. There are people over there.”
For a moment, I thought that Luna was trying to deceive me. But I didn’t think that Luna would gain anything by deceiving me now.
So does that mean it’s only visible to my eyes?
Sval, I suddenly felt the need to go to the bathroom and my upper and lower teeth were chattering so loudly that I just wanted to close my eyes.
At that moment, Luna blurted out, “Ah-.” as if something had occurred to her.
“Just wait a minute-.”
Luna soon came rustling around in the corner, holding something in her hand. It was a helmet and Ideopheus amulet made from a cow’s skull.
“Why is that…?”
“If you wear a mask, it helps broaden your perspective on the world. Even things you normally wouldn’t see can look different when you look through something like a mask or glasses.”
So Luna put her bone mask over her head and stuck her head out the window. Then she shook her shoulders as if she was very surprised.
“Hassan, there’s someone in our yard!! What is this, what is this! Get out of our yard right now!!”
Luna grabbed the silence totem she had placed next to her and ran out of the first floor.
Luna’s agility stat was 10. Like my strength, it was in the superhuman realm, so there was no moment for me to stop it.
So, looking at his back, I was slightly dumbfounded and had to grab my club and run down to the first floor in a hurry.
“You guys! This is our territory!!”
Luna really screamed and swung her silence totem into the air.
The crowd that had been watching the garden until just a moment ago were so shocked by the sudden violence that they were in complete disarray and ran around in all directions.
“Hey, what is this!”
“I don’t know! I’ve never heard of a guy like this in Naruto!”
“Isn’t that the oarmaster Chiron? He’s holding the oar! The atmosphere is similar too!”
“But it’s not a paddle, it’s something like a club! Ugh!”
Eventually, the guys ended up lying on the floor with Luna’s Silence Totem breaking the pot. Just a moment ago, I was terrified, wondering if these guys were ghosts or not.
When I realized that these kids were also beings who would eventually be beaten to death by a club, anger consumed my mind as if my fear until just now had become a lie.
“You little punks, if you’re ghosts, can you come into someone else’s garden without permission!?”
“Gueeek!”
Luna and I swung our clubs and silence totems together and beat the heads of all the visitors who came at this time. They were busy running around and hiding their masks.
“Hey, what is this!”
“I don’t know, I guess the policy changed this year!”
“What’s the policy, policy! If you kids come into the garden, you have to pay to come in!”
I just said whatever came to my mind, trying to shake off the fear and anger in my heart.
As I watched the intruders rolling on the floor after being hit by my club, I wondered if these guys were really ghosts.
After subduing all ten or so guys, only one small guy was left in front of me.
“Huh, huh…!”
The scream sounded similar to a paranoia, and the body was similar too, so for a moment I thought of a nymph. Was she a young girl?
For a moment, I wondered if it was right to smash that guy’s head in. My club had no eyes, so I figured it wouldn’t matter.
“You little shit, you’re hitting me on the head.”
“Money! Money! I have money…! I’ll give it to you…!”
Then suddenly a young girl wearing a mask falls to her knees.
Then he held out a few coins from his bosom and trembled as if making an offering to me. Now I see that they are two coppers.
The other guys who were lying around him and groaning said.
“Kami, that’s the boatman’s wages. It’s just something I picked up on the ground, and without it, we won’t be able to cross the river this year either-.”
“Hassan, this guy is still conscious!”
Phew, bang!
“Geeek!”
The boatman’s wages guy was hit by Luna’s totem and fell flat on his face.
Luna is merciless to those who invade her territory and to those who let their guard down. She is truly the cruel goddess of the yard.
The girl who was kneeling before me at that sight, probably a masked woman named Keimi, trembled and sobbed even more.
“Hey, forgive me! We didn’t know this was the goddess’s sanctuary. We thought this was Naruto… .”
“What sanctuary? What Naruto?”
“I’m talking about the ferry crossing of the Acheron River. Isn’t this where you can cross the river of the underworld? There’s a skull and crossbones symbol drawn over there… I can feel the ominous aura of the underworld…”
In response to my question, the masked girl, Keimi, raised her trembling hands and pointed to the sign Luna and I had made.
There is a skull-shaped branding drawn there, softly illuminated by the moonlight. Am I mistaken because I am so good at drawing skulls?
“Goddess, please forgive me… I was wrong…!”
Soon, it was the masked girl, Keimi, lying flat on her stomach.
At that moment, Luna laughed and said,
“Hassan, this guy says I’m a goddess! Do I look that noble? Even though I’m wearing an amulet.”
Indeed, Luna, holding her club fiercely under the two moonlights, looked like a goddess in some ways. She looked eerie and mysterious.
“You said Camie, what kind of goddess do I seem to be? The goddess of the moon? Or the goddess of youth?”
“…Mo, the goddess of the club and the horn…”
“Get out of our yard!”
[Work Review]
I heard that I’ve reached the second stage of sincere serialization… I was so happy that the comments suddenly increased ㅠㅠ…
It’s already been three months since I started serializing… Time really flies… But I hope everyone has a fun weekend that passes by slowly…!!
