Though Gyoubu Oniwa had been physically convinced, the money still needed to be paid. Since it wasn't coming out of Bella's pocket anyway, she didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about spending it.
Two chests of gold, silver, and jewels changed hands, and the bandits' morale instantly transformed.
"Wolf, can you take them back to the Hirata Estate?" Bella asked.
"What about you?"
Bella gestured toward the depths of the valley. "I still have some things to handle."
Wolf didn't say anything like "be careful" or "stay safe." He simply nodded and led the group of bandits and the two toolmen back the way they'd come.
Fifty bandits would be a strong reinforcement for the Hirata Estate. Bella estimated they could hold out for quite a bit longer now.
She waited in place. Before long, the entire Snake Eyes clan gathered to rendezvous with her.
In addition to the original fourteen, there were now ten more bandaged figures in the group.
These ten had been stationed at a place called the Sunken Valley. Their leader was Snake Eyes Shirafuji, a female gunner.
Bella had them all sign contracts with the Flying Dutchman once more. The ghost ship absorbed their excess life force, and they gradually returned to their normal state.
Between the two groups, that made twenty-four gunners—all new crewmembers for the Flying Dutchman.
She thought the new and old crew should have a meet-and-greet, so Bella raised her hand and summoned Jason.
After recognizing that the outside world was truly dangerous, Jason had been working diligently. Every day he was either studying or on his way to study.
Even Bella felt a sense of "impressive progress after just a few days' absence."
When Jason arrived in the Hidden Forest, he immediately spotted the Snake Eyes clan. They had numbers on their side, but he wasn't intimidated in the slightest.
This time he abandoned his usual straightforward brawling style. His movements became elusive, like a rogue using Shadow Step. In a flash, he appeared behind Snake Eyes Shirahagi, raising his five-foot machete to strike.
Snake Eyes Shirahagi wasn't a pushover either. She rolled forward without looking back, then swung her rifle—thick as an iron rod—backward in a vicious strike.
The machete and rifle collided with a dull thud.
The two exchanged several moves. When Bella raised her right hand, they both retreated simultaneously.
Through his hockey mask, Jason stared at Snake Eyes Shirahagi. This enemy was strong! If he'd stayed at Crystal Lake his whole life, he'd never have encountered opponents like this!
But... why were these people covering their faces too? He wore a hockey mask, which was terrifying enough, but this group was even more extreme—wrapped head to toe in bandages, wearing straw hats, with only their eyes and mouths visible. Not a single patch of skin showing. Were they even more shameful than him?
Indeed, why was that? Bella thought of Triangle Head—that guy seemed "faceless" too. Why were all her recruits like this?
The Snake Eyes clan dragged a critically wounded bandit out from the bandit camp. The man had been hit by Gyoubu's poisonous sake spray, and the bandits had simply abandoned him.
Seeing that he was about to die anyway, Bella decided to make use of him. She pulled him close, quickly drew a summoning circle, and in the next moment, Triangle Head descended!
This summoning felt different from before.
Triangle Head had absorbed the Bound Apparition's heart. His attack and defense hadn't changed much, but the spiritual energy consumed to maintain him in the material world had decreased. Even without exchanging ordinary people's life force, he could persist for over ten minutes now. In other words, he seemed to have gained partial physicality—he was no longer purely a dream-born monster.
Jason pointed toward the depths of the mist. He sensed large numbers of undead within it.
Triangle Head also transmitted an unusually clear signal—there was something in the mist that interested him.
Both of her top lieutenants were interested in Mizushima Village. Bella was quick to accept good advice, so she immediately decided to attack!
She led her subordinates into a nearby thatched hut.
A monster with four arms and multiple tails of varying lengths protruding from its tailbone—currently engrossed in playing a flute—was shot dead by the Snake Eyes clan in a hail of gunfire. The mist shrouding Mizushima Village slowly dispersed.
Bella examined the area around the flute-playing monster's corpse. The body turned into something like water bubbles and vanished completely—a typical case of leaving no remains. This was one of the Okami clan nobles who had abandoned their human identities in pursuit of immortality. Now they could no longer be called human.
These creatures were far too weak to have any absorption value.
As the mist gradually cleared, a small path appeared at the eastern edge of the Hidden Forest.
"Let's go!" Bella waved her hand grandly and led the way forward.
Two meters wide, the path was lined with wooden memorial tablets of various styles. In Japanese Buddhism, these tablets were called sotoba—inscribed with the deceased's posthumous name and Buddhist inscriptions, expressing hope that the Buddha would guide the dead to paradise and away from earthly suffering.
Now this hundred-meter path was densely packed with tablets, each representing one dead person. From every angle, this village was clearly a village of the dead.
Thick corpse stench permeated every corner of the village. Their arrival awakened many slumbering corpses who thought themselves still alive, not realizing they'd died years ago.
Bella looked around. Her vigorous life force was like dropping a boulder into a lake—the entire village stirred restlessly.
This time she didn't plan to recruit new crew. The Flying Dutchman needed undead energy—lots of it.
"Kill everything in this village that can still move!" Bella commanded.
To better absorb the undead energy and let the ship absorb it more thoroughly, she spent nearly a third of her spiritual energy to summon the Flying Dutchman from the Caribbean to Mizushima Village.
The moment it entered the village's range, the hull began automatically absorbing the surrounding undead energy.
The Snake Eyes clan were old neighbors with Mizushima Village. They showed no fear now, each taking their rifles to eliminate the village's undead spirits.
How do you kill someone who's already dead? In the outside world, that might be an unsolvable riddle. But here, you just had to kill them again.
Bella sat on her flying carpet and headed with Triangle Head toward the village's deepest point—a shrine. There was something there that held considerable appeal for Triangle Head.
Jason, having nothing else to do, gripped his machete and wandered through the village.
Whenever he spotted something strange, he'd raise his blade and strike.
The villagers of Mizushima were extremely hospitable, waving kitchen knives, pitchforks, and wooden clubs to welcome the outsiders.
Jason killed them one by one, swinging his machete like a whirlwind. This kind of one-sided slaughter was his favorite combat mode. In a way, he was like Li Kui from Water Margin—he enjoyed cutting down mobs but lacked interest in dueling champions, because... he couldn't win those fights.
As he walked, a female ghost suddenly appeared in his field of vision. She was playing some kind of instrument, looking pitiful and helpless, as if she'd be easy to bully.