Of the starving trio, Kawamatsu had already gotten his BBQ. But Nekomamushi and Inuarashi, those two unlucky souls, had met an entirely different fate.
The two of them were bound by ropes, dragged along the ground by two samurai as they were hauled into the forest.
Nekomamushi's backside was already scraped raw. Whenever the mountain path got particularly rough, he'd also risk getting his tender parts jammed. If this kept up, his two little ping-pong balls were going to be ground right off.
"Let go of me, your great cat overlord!"
He howled at the top of his lungs, his voice as piercing as a night demon's screech.
"Shut up!"
The two bandits dragging them became visibly agitated. One of them angrily jammed the sheath of his sword straight into Nekomamushi's wide-open mouth.
Nekomamushi instantly went quiet. He genuinely hadn't expected the epidemic prevention policies in this strange country to be so strict. It was just that their method of conducting nucleic acid tests was a bit violent — they'd knocked his teeth loose.
Now Nekomamushi's mouth was full of blood.
He didn't dare complain. After all, at least they weren't charging a fee, right?
"First we got lost at sea, then our food ran out, then a giant carp nearly killed us, and now we've been captured by these weird monkeys — it's all your fault, Nekomamushi!"
Inuarashi said angrily.
"What does that have to do with me?"
Nekomamushi immediately took offense.
Sure, the food had been eaten by him. Sure, the carp had been provoked by him. And sure, getting tied up was because he'd run around wildly after coming ashore...
But at the very least, getting lost at sea wasn't his fault, right?
"That wasn't my fault either!"
Nekomamushi said stubbornly.
"Both of you, shut up!"
Seeing their two captives start arguing, the two bandits immediately assumed threatening postures, which made both Inuarashi and Nekomamushi pipe down instantly.
Then they heard the two bandits whispering to each other.
"What kind of monsters are these two? They look like that, and they can even talk. Are they really yokai?"
"So what if they're yokai? Didn't we still catch them?"
"Don't worry about that. Just tell me — are you going to eat or not?"
The other bandit said dismissively.
When they used to hide in the mountains, they survived by hunting animals. Sometimes they'd even catch fish in the sea.
But recently, the military presence along the coastline had increased a lot, and there were too many monsters in the mountains. Their life had become pretty miserable.
"But... they can talk... it feels like eating people..."
The other one still hesitated.
"Eating people? I've eaten real people before!"
The other bandit sneered. He wasn't lying either. Back when Kuri was in chaos, he had nearly starved to death once, so he ate a villager.
The taste of human flesh... was truly... hard to describe...
Their entire conversation reached Inuarashi and Nekomamushi's ears without missing a single word. These two sheltered little Mink Tribe members were absolutely stunned.
Eating people!
How could such devils exist in this world?
After all, among their Mink Tribe, most people wouldn't even eat furry animals. The meat they normally ate was fish or poultry.
And this person had actually eaten their own kind!
"You... did you hear that, Inuarashi? They said they eat people..."
Nekomamushi was so scared his tongue was trembling. His broken teeth clattered noisily together.
Inuarashi, by comparison, was much more composed.
"I heard them. We need to find a way to escape."
He kept his eyes on the two cannibals while whispering into Nekomamushi's ear.
"It looks like we'll have to work together if we want to survive."
"So scary... eating people..."
Nekomamushi seemed to still be immersed in terror, completely missing what Inuarashi was saying. He just kept repeating those five words over and over.
"Hey, pull yourself together!"
Inuarashi urged in a low, forceful voice.
"...Eating people..."
Nekomamushi's voice grew quieter and quieter, but it gave Inuarashi a bad feeling. It was as if this silence was the calm before a storm.
Sure enough, with Nekomamushi's spirit completely broken, this hapless fool instantly went berserk.
"———AH!!!"
"I don't want to be eaten!!!"
Nekomamushi started screaming at the top of his lungs. Not only Inuarashi, but even the two bandits were startled.
"You damn cat, shut up!"
One bandit threatened, simultaneously hitting Nekomamushi's body hard with his sword sheath to make him behave.
But Nekomamushi was terrified of being killed. How could he possibly care about a little physical pain?
"Don't eat me———"
"I'm a cat! Cat meat is sour — if you're going to eat someone, eat this dog! Dog meat is the best!!!"
Inuarashi: ???
"Nekomamushi, what the hell are you saying?!"
Inuarashi never would have imagined that Nekomamushi's 39.5-degree body could produce such ice-cold words.
Right then, he even forgot about his own predicament and immediately turned his head to start biting and tearing at Nekomamushi.
"You damn stinking dog, don't bite my ear, meow!"
The commotion here was getting louder and louder.
One of the bandits grew anxious and quickly said:
"Make these two shut up! If this keeps up, we'll be found!"
The other one increased his grip, but Inuarashi and Nekomamushi were tangled together like a pair of star-crossed lovers and a fire demon. The two of them were rolled into a ball and couldn't be separated at all.
"Just kill them!"
The two bandits drew their blades without a second thought. The metallic scraping sound of the blades being pulled from their sheaths made Inuarashi and Nekomamushi shudder, and they immediately clung to each other.
Inuarashi & Nekomamushi (in tears): "We're sorry! We'll be quiet! Please don't kill us!"
But the two bandits clearly didn't want any further complications.
"I originally wanted to bring the ingredients back to camp to prepare them properly. That was my mistake. Die, you two monsters."
"Clang!"
A flash of white light streaked past. In Inuarashi and Nekomamushi's terrified eyes, the bandit's notched katana suddenly became free.
No — only half of it became free.
The front half of the blade had gone flying, spinning rapidly through the air before landing right between Nekomamushi's legs, making this foolish cat's golden orbs retract in terror.
Only the bandit remained, holding the broken half of his sword, his face filled with panic.
"Made it just in time. A cat and a dog..."
"Looks like Enel was right. Lord Ren really is looking for you."
A pleasant voice rang out in the ears of all four people present.
"Who... who is it? The daimyō's army?"
The two bandits huddled together nervously, on guard against enemies that could appear from any direction.
They hadn't even seen what happened — their swords were just suddenly broken.
Just then, another young voice spoke up.
"Not the administrative district. It's your Uncle Buggy!"
[
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