My Demon Pet System - Chapter 296

Not many days before his arrival at Oakenfair, the place seemed to Yoichi so far away as to be beyond his reach. Now, however, his eyes were really witnessing the interior of the stone city, the supposed hiding place of the blacksmith Shusaku.

Besides the narrow tunnels and tiny spaces between buildings, something else welcomed the two southern travelers: homeless people were lying side by side on the side of the road. Their hygienic conditions were poor, and their stench permeated the air.

One of them was snoring blissfully, holding in his hands a large clay jug, probably empty. On the other hand, the other was sitting on the floor with his back against the wall and looking down between his half-open legs.

Yoichi walked over to the bums and tried to interact with them with total nonchalance and his usual friendly manner. “Good morning, gentlemen,” the Goldhaven warrior greeted, smiling. No response came to his hearing, nor to Takuma’s, who watched the scene laughing up his sleeve. “Can any of you tell me where I can find Kinnojo-Sama, the spice merchant?” he inquired.

Once again, no answer. One of the bums continued to snore with his mouth open, while the other kept on staring at the rocky floor smeared with vomit and mud.

“Okay, we better get off the horse,” Yoichi thought aloud, lifting himself onto Ichiro’s back and then jumping to the ground. “Hop!” – The impact between the soles of the young tamer’s boots and the floor startled the homeless man and drew his gaze to him.

The man was sporting a long, black, gray beard and long, dirty, tangled hair. Perhaps he hadn’t washed in months or years, and his hair had naturally become long dreads in perfect Jamaican style. His eyes were open just wide enough to make out the shadows in front of him.

“Yoichi, I don’t think that man can…”

“Good morning, my friend!” – the young tamer paid no attention to Takuma’s words, and before he could finish his sentence, he crouched before the homeless man and spoke loudly in front of him, causing him to flinch. “Can you tell me where I can find Kinnojo-Sama?” he repeated insistently, not wanting to give up until he had received an answer.

Oakenfair’s bump’s eyes widened more, and his arms rose out of his control like weak twigs in the wind. That movement pushed the stench of his filthy body toward the Goldhaven warrior, who had to hold back a puke.

After Yoichi’s insistent request, the bearded man with a face smeared with some sticky substance pointed his finger in the direction of one of the alleys leading away from the entrance. His trembling hand remained steady in the direction until Yoichi’s gaze went beyond his fingers, and he knew which way to go.

*pat*pat* – Showing a rather mindless kindness to a man who didn’t even have cognition of time and space, Yochi rested a hand on his shoulder in a friendly sign. “Thank you! Have a nice day!” he exclaimed, turning away from him and returning next to Ichiro.

The homeless man brought his own hand close to his face and began to look at it as if it were an ancient relic from another dimension. Beneath that simultaneously comical and sad scene, Yoichi walked towards the alley he had just indicated.

“Did you see that?” he spoke, smiling at his companion. “Anyone can give you information. Even a man who can no longer pronounce his name,” he added. Takuma chuckled, marveling at his team leader’s stubbornness.

The road indicated by the man was very narrow and irregularly shaped. It branched inside two large stone columns inhabited by who knows who. The ubiquitous windows pierced in the wall were always pointed at every corner of the street.

“Hiii!” Ichiro neighed, calling the attention of its tamer a few feet ahead of it. Yoichi turned to his Inoshuma and noticed that the side bags of its saddle were touching the walls of the narrow alley. “Um. I think I should continue on my own, Ichiro. Wait just a moment,” the young tamer said, speaking to his demon pet.

He opened one of the saddlebags and pulled out the box containing the precious Tetsuiasa. The metal dropped in the Blackvault Mines was the real reason that had driven Yoichi so far north.

After carefully stuffing it into his backpack and making sure the Tear amphora and Ryutaro’s old tomes were in their safe place, he closed Ichiro’s saddlebags. “See you later, buddy. Thanks for escorting me this far,” he spoke, petting the head of his demon horse. “Azron” – Pronouncing its name in a low voice, Yoichi recalled Ichiro inside its Demon Tooth.

Unlike the Inoshuma, Takuma’s horse was smaller in stature, and its bags were not so bulky as to impede its passage. The Grimbrook warrior was able to continue through the tunnel while holding the reins of his steed.

In a narrow space like that, the humidity and the stench of mold would have made even the least sensitive people turn up their noses: the only source of light in those narrow streets were torchlights hanging inside them, at the top of the columnar buildings.

The corners of the tunnels were dirty with urine and garbage of any kind, including old wine and sakè bottles, food scraps, and other unidentified objects. In those narrow dumps, groups of rats almost as big as cats filled their stomachs by eating piles of rotten food.

The doors that lined the alley were short and narrow, as if they were built for dwarves. From within them, some imperceptible noises and a few voices. Suddenly, after more than five turns in the darkness, the road Takuma and Yoichi followed in single file split into a fork.

“Oh, shit…” Takuma gulped when, from behind Yoichi’s back, he saw what was on the fork wall: in a macabre scene, a small wooden chair was clinging to the corner wall between the two roads. On it, a skeleton of a human being was holding something in its hands.

Between its ribs and in the eyes of its skull, dozens of tiny creeping insects moved undisturbed.