“I will be taking charge of the vanguard in this expedition!” Takamune got up and declared proudly.
“We feel honored to follow you into battle in the vanguard, milord!” A bearded samurai said.
“Hmph. I believe that you should have been the commander, milord!”
“Yeah. Nothing good is going to come from making a widow a commander! It’s just going to bring us bad luck! Women are just an accessory to men. It’s their job to serve men, give birth, and cook food. Letting them join the battlefield is just ridiculous! It’s no wonder that Heian-kyo has been rife with chaos recently!”
“Hey, man. How could you say that? We have a woman here, you know?!”
“Hah. So what? That’s not going to stop me!”
The boorish Dewa spited in fury when someone mentioned the commander.
“Shut up!” Ida got up and berated them, “While it’s true that the commander-in-chief is the most influential person among the Genji, he needs to remain behind in the capital to protect it, so it’s natural for the role of the commander to fall to the Ashikaga. Mistress Ashikaga was made the commander of the army in light of the Ashikaga’s status, not because she is a woman! How many people do you think would fight alongside you if you were made the commander instead?”
“Tch!” The bearded samurai clicked his tongue in disdain.
Takamune also did not criticize his generals. “I will show that old hag how amazing I am! I will storm Mt. Ooe and win the first class merit by slaying Shuten Doji!”
“That’s incredible, milord!”
“It’s an honor for us to follow an ambitious man like you into battle, milord!”
“As expected of you, milord! You’re the hero of this era!”
The morale of the generals seemed pretty high, and judging from their appearance, it did not seem that these boorish people were intentionally fawning on Jujiro, and actually believed that he could slay Shuten Doji.
“Shuten Doji is just a womanizer who indulges in vices all day long! I’m gonna snap off his neck when I see him! Men must rely on their strength, not appearance!” Takamune looked at Lily as he spewed nonsense in an attempt to show off his manliness to her.
Lily felt helpless internally. She did not intend to say anything initially, but she felt uncomfortable under his blatant gaze and said, “I get that you intend to storm into Mt. Ooe, milord, but do you even know where it is?”
Although it was a pretty sensible question, it still left Takamune and his generals dumbstruck for a while.
No matter how arrogant Takamune was, his confidence was no use if he did not even know the enemy’s location.
The Heian period was different from the era in which Lily used to live. There were no accurate maps or navigation systems in this era.
The Tanba province was quite vast and filled with deep, primitive mountains and woods. Mt. Ooe was just a mountain from the legends in this era. Although it was possible to guess that it existed in the depths of Tanba, no one actually knew which direction it was in.
“Hmph! It doesn’t matter even if we don’t know where it is! Let’s just kill every monster we come across until we find Mt. Ooe! I’m not afraid of them!” Takamune’s obese cheeks rippled as he declared his plan loudly.
“That’s so wise, milord!”
“Yeah! We Dewa samurai are simple people! Who gives a damn about the enemy’s location?! Let’s just follow Lord Takamune and kill our fill!”
The boorish samurai expressed their agreement.
Lily just lowered her head in silence, though, and even sympathized with Lord Kamakura. She found it unbelievable that the son of a shrewd, intellectual strategist like him was so foolish, and even felt that Juzaburo was better than Takamune1.
“Let’s go!” Takamune had his servants put on his showy helm for him and pulled out his katana before pointing it forward. He then kicked over the seat and marched forward in large strides. His generals also boosted their morale with battle cries and followed him into battle.
“Hey! Hey!”
“Oh!”
Lily could only follow behind them silently.
The group mounted their warhorses and galloped towards the cold, misty mountains ahead of them while yelling battle cries.
Lily also felt her pulse race when she saw the tall mountains ahead of her while riding the horse. Although she knew that Shuten Doji was far from them, she still felt an invisible pressure when she looked at the mountains.
The boorish samurai were not as perceptive as Lily, so they marched into the first mountain of Tanba without fearing the dangers that lurked within it.
Their heroic morale lasted just a few hours, though.
The mountain was covered in mist because of the continuous rain even in the afternoon. Although the Dewa vanguard troops had charged forward with high morale, they had yet to encounter even a single monster after spending almost the entire day in the mountain.
The muddy paths they traversed ended up decreasing their morale instead.
“How far do you think we are from Mt. Ooe, sir?” Takamune asked while riding his horse in the middle of the ranks.
“Well…” Although Ida was the only intellectual man among the Dewa troops, even he did not know the answer to this question.
“Haahh! The damned monsters must have been frightened out of their wits when they saw me and hid somewhere! This is so damn infuriating! This leaves me with no chance to show off my skills!”
The Dewa troops continued marching forward into the mountain.
The trees here towered up to the skies and had pretty thick trunks which required at least ten people to surround it. The roots passing through the paths were as tall as humans and even had age-old moss, as well as vines, covering them, making it difficult for the horses to cross them.
As the group had rushed forward too much, Lily found no trace of the army behind them when she turned around and just saw endless mist.
“Oh, no. I hope we aren’t lost.” Although Lily knew that all of Tanba was filled with such labyrinthic mountain woods, she never imagined the group would lose their way right after entering the Tanba mountain range.
Lily was not the group’s leader, though, so she had no right to make the troops stop and confirm the directions. All she could do was follow behind them silently.
“Hmm? Is this eldritch energy?” Lily sensed that the eldritch energies were getting stronger ahead of the group and feared that a massive nest of monsters lied in front.
Lily urged her horse to gallop forward, but the bearded samurai chided her when she passed by the center of the ranks, “What are you doing here, woman? Do you want to die, huh? You are just going to be in the way if we run into monsters, so scram to the back now! Women should always be behind men. Got it?!”
“…”
Lily just wanted to warn them about the dense eldritch energies ahead of them so that they would proceed with caution but getting chided made her realize that none of them would heed her warning. As such, she slowed down silently and returned to the back of the ranks on her horse2.
The mist had turned denser before anyone had even realized it and an icy, rotten odor filled the surroundings of the deep mountain woods. The massive trees almost looked like eldritch shadows within the mist and Lily even heard a few ghastly cries of unknown origin occasionally.
Lily did not intend to expose her existence, as she knew that Shuten Doji had ill intentions towards her. She had suffered attacks from his subordinates and even fallen for their schemes in Mt. Izumo before, narrowly losing her life.
Lily had seen Shuten Doji before, so her heart quivered in trepidation whenever she recalled his massive figure. She had not joined the expedition because she was arrogant enough to believe that she could slay him and just wanted to find Rei. Her current strength was still far from enough to battle against him.
This was the reason she was so fearful and vigilant of Tanba and followed behind the Dewa troops while just employing a small-scale domain.
The spearmen and the few cavalrymen among the troops walked ahead of her.
“GRRRR!” A sudden, monstrous cry from nearby made the troops tense up.
“It’s a monster!” A samurai yelled.
Takamune saw a group of shadows within the dense mist after hearing the samurai in front of him yell and saw blood splash around along with the howls of the samurai and monsters.
Whoosh!
A claw passed through the samurai in front of him, causing blood to spray around in the mist.
“Argh!” A hand holding a katana fell in front of Takamune following a scream.
The sudden crisis took Takamune aback. It took him time to catch up to reality with his unfocused eyes.
“It’s a monster attack, milord!” Ida took out his blade and pulled the reins of the restless warhorse vigilantly.
“Kill them at once! Kill them…” Takamune mumbled while looking at the battle taking place in the mist, feeling utterly lost.
The bearded samurai also caught up with him and asked, “It seems like the troops ahead have suffered a monster attack, milord. What should we do?”
“Mmm… Do you know what happened in the front?” Takamune spoke slowly as he searched for words to speak. Although he was not inexperienced in battle, he always had the troops protecting him in Dewa and only faced weak thieves, rebels, and monsters on flatlands where the view was pretty clear. The mountainous terrain here, on the other hand, was pretty uneven, and made it possible for only a few horses to march in parallel. The sky was also pretty dark, making it hard for him to realize what had happened ahead of them.
The massive shadows ahead of him were still moving around, resulting in death cries.
Takamune knew that his troops were dying with each passing second.
“How about we send the middle guard and the rearguard to aid the vanguard, milord?!” The bearded samurai urged.
“That won’t do! The middle guard should protect the lord until the situation ahead of us becomes clear!” Ida interjected.
“Milord!”
“Uhm… All right. Charge ahead!” Takamune unsheathed his blade hesitantly.
Boom!
A massive shadow leaped in front of Takamune’s warhorse, allowing everyone to finally see what had attacked the group. It was a dark, five-meter tall, mountain chimera.
Takamune’s steed raised its front legs and neighed out in fear from the sudden appearance of the chimera, throwing its obese rider off him.
The mountain chimera clawed at the warhorse the next moment, severing its neck in one blow. The chimera then picked up the warhorse’s head and ate it slowly right in front of the Dewa troops.
The samurai were all frightened by the mountain chimera’s appearance as they had never seen such a monstrous creature in Dewa. An ordinary mountain chimera was just a child-sized chimeral ape in comparison to the creature ahead of them.
“Attack it!” The bearded samurai yelled out as he unsheathed his blade and charged towards the mountain chimera.
The mountain chimera tossed the half-eaten horse’s head aside and swung its long paw when it saw the samurai move towards it.
Bam!
The bearded samurai flew back with his horse after getting struck by the chimera’s paw and crashed into a thick tree’s trunk.
Both the samurai and the horse had become a mangled, bloody mass of flesh from the blow3.
