BTOG 137 – Village head, Hakuyo(White, Day)

It was a large mansion with a Japanese-style touch.

Kokuyo led me not to a large room where the chief usually be, be to a plain-looking room.

Through the paper door, I could vaguely see a figure behind it.

“Chief, it’s me, Kokuyo. Pardon my intrusion.”

“yeah, just come in~~.”

What came back in response to Kokuyo’s formal words was a very relaxed reply.

“Thank you, Sukuna. Let’s go in.”

“Excuse me.”

I opened the paper door and stepped into the room, following Kokuyo’s lead.

This is the first time I’ve ever felt tatami mats in this world, and perhaps because WLO is a game from Japan, one of the more subtle elements in this game is the ability to remove your footgear when indoors. {tln1}

Of course, that’s just for appearance’s sake; in reality, they’re still equipped. Because in my case, I my whole red wolf set will become unequipped if remove even some part of it.

I was subconsciously bothered by the feeling of my feet, but then I set my sights on the person who was probably the village chief.

There lay a girl with white hair in kotatsu, peeling a mandarin orange. She looks like Kokuyo, with the only difference being the color of her hair and eyes.

It’s so cute to see her in her hanten. …wait, it’s almost summer in this world, isn’t it?

“Eh? a guest!?”

“That’s right, sister.”

“Idiot! If you have a guest, you should at least tell me! Oh, my God, to think they see me like this …”

The village chief, a silver-haired girl started to throw her complains to Kokuyo as if she wants to say, “seriously, spare me.”.

Careless, very careless.

That was my first impression of the village head.

“Please wait a minute. I’m going to get ready.”

“Very well. Sukuna, I’m sorry, but would you like to go outside for a moment?

“Oh, okay.”

Kokuyo took me out of the room again.

Did she expect this to happen? She had an extremely calm expression on her face.

“She’s your older sister…?”

“Yes, my unfortunate older sister.”

“That was surprising. Are you a twin?”

“As you had guessed, we are twins.”

Somehow she said it in a harsh tone, but not to the point of hate. Perhaps because of their personality differences and the fact that they were sisters made her stricter on her than the others.

So, Kokuyo comes from the village chief bloodline.

I thought I understood her position well enough because she is Kohaku’s master, but even without that, she must hold a quite high position in oni tribe.

Her position is probably one of the reasons why the residents respect her.

“You may enter.”

 I heard the village head’s voice from inside, and we entered the room again.

 She was still dressed in her pajamas and hanten, but the kotatsu had been put away somewhere, and two good quality cushions had been prepared in its place.

“Please sit down. It’s not like I’m not busy at all, okay? And don’t suddenly bring in travelers like that. I hope you understand.”

“It’s sister’s fault for dressed like that until dusk. You are the leader of the oni village. Please act more dignified.”

Kokuyo said that while slamming the desk. Hakuto could only scream ‘Hieee’ at that moment. Well, at least their hierarchy is very clear.

“I hope my little sister is gentler to me… Uhm, Sorry, sorry. Let me welcome you to the oni village. What’s your name?”

The village chief, having enough fun messing with her sister, turned her warm gaze towards me.

I thought she was a sloppy person, the gap between her previous and current self has caught me off guard, and for a moment, I was lost for words.

“I-it’s Sukuna.”

“I see, so you’re Kohaku’s beloved apprentice.”

She nods in acknowledgment, just as Kokuyo did earlier.

“I am Hakuyo, an older sister of Kokuyo and the ruler of this oni village. As you can see, I don’t like formality, so take it easy.”

As soon as her words ended, she immediately relaxed her leg and got into a comfortable pose.

☆

I’m going to leave my seat for a while. Kokuyo said, and she went out. She then leaving Hakuyo and me alone.

“Kokuyo is a good girl, even though she is my sister. She’s strong, smart, and kind, and I’m very proud of her.”

Perhaps because she wasn’t there, Hakuyo suddenly started to boast about her sister. And certainly, even though I was only involved with her for a short time, I could tell that she was well-liked by the people of this village.

“Yes, I can see it when I look at her.”

“If it was only about ability, she could have been the village head. But she had too much talent as an oni. She had a talent for divination… or in your language, magic, skills? I don’t know much of the outside world, not as much as Kohaku at least.”

Hakuyo might mean that she had a skill for divination magic.

That’s why Hakuyo became the village chief in her place.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the oni race has no pure magician.

Aside from players who can freely allocate their bonus points when leveling up, for NPCs, the allocation of bonus points is based on chance, and their talent determines the weight of this allocation.

However, the lack of magic skills also means that the other stats, namely physical skills, are higher.

And the demon race is a race that specializes only in physical skills by nature. That’s why Hakuyo said that Kokuyo had too much talent as a demon.

“On the other hand, as you can see, I had no special talent at all.”

“But you’re still stronger than most people, aren’t you?”

“Maybe so, maybe not. I’m not sure. Our status is a whim of god after all.”

Hakuyo laughed mischievously. She didn’t seem to be concerned about her status value.

“Now, let’s get down to business. It’s not unusual for Kokuyo to bring people here, but it seems you are different. I knew from the moment I saw you that you were under a terrible curse.”

“Well, it is do standing out…”

With Hakuyo’s consideration, she started the small talk.

“Does it hurt?”

“No, I’m fine.”

As if he was a doctor making a diagnosis, Hakuyo traced the black crack with her finger. At the moment she touched it, her finger sizzled and burned.

But Hakuyo herself didn’t seem to mind at all and slid her fingers into the crack ignoring her burning skin.

After touching a few cracks for about a minute, Hakuyo released my body.

“I see. You’ve committed a taboo.”

“You know about this?”

“In the last two hundred years, I’ve seen two of biggest fools ever to be consumed by a taboo. The first was a fairy queen consumed by her greed, and the second was a murderous oni consumed by jealousy.”

A fairy queen and a murderous oni. Greed and jealousy. Greed and jealousy are names of deadly sins, along with the Rage I was almost swallowed by.

“The two never returned from the curse until the moment they were defeated. In the end, their whole body was dyed with this darkness, and all that was left was only something that resembled a body. …Sukuna, you almost didn’t make it in time.”

“Yes, Kohaku… no, everyone stopped me.”

The only one who fought me directly was Kohaku. But Melty and the other players worked together to prevent any damage from occurring.

What would have happened if I had lashed out in a fury in the middle of the town? Even if it only lasted for five minutes, I could never imagine it.

But one thing I could say with certainty, thanks to the last remaining second of that moment that I’m able to enjoy WLO again.

“The deep darkness that is eating away at your body contains a lot of the negative power of the Kishin. I can think of a way to purify it, but it’s not possible right now.”

Maybe something was missing, either material, a person or perhaps…

“…the time is not right?”

In response to my question, Hakuyo nodded silently.

“In the north of this village, straight into the depths of the Lost Forest, there is open land with a large tree. When the moon’s power is at its peak in the night of the full moon, a certain monster appears there.”

“A certain monster…”

A monster that appears only on the night of the full moon. It sounds really exciting. It must be a special monster if its time and zone where it would appear is specified.

As my heart was racing with the gamer’s spirit, I was greeted with words far beyond my imagination.

“Its name was [Nocturne, the Moon Wolf of Beyond]. Sukuna, do you dare to challenge the moon incarnate?”

The seriousness in Hakuyo’s eyes sent shivers down my spine.

[Nocturne, the Moon Wolf of Beyond] it has a name, in other words, a named boss monster.

A nostalgic memory comes back to me. It is the memory of the hot and fiery battle that fascinated me when I first came to this world.

Aria. Our battle is still pushing my back until this day.

Feeling the excitement of warrior welling up from inside, a tremble and smile surfaced so naturally, that surprised even me.

Tl note:

comment section is working again, so comment if there’s something I messed up. or just comment if you want to.

anyway, after 1 month of rummaging through the plugins, I finally realized it was on the server-side, so I need to contact my host to turn it off, again sorry for this, I’m fairly new to this, so expect more strange cases like this popping up.

and as usual, thank you to all patreon and ko-fi supporter, this month quota is increased to 17 for public release, and it’s all thanks to you. I can also lay down some of my part time job thanks to this. So I’m really really graful to all the support you gave me.

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https://ko-fi.com/liejinsan

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ok back to normal TL note:

The oni tribe names, interestingly, based on certain color

Kohaku(Amber) is red

Kokuyo(Obsidian) is black

Hakuyo(White) is white

It might or might not mean something to this story, but I think its cool to at least be aware of this.

Tln1: removing footwear, does the author have foot fetish?

Night of the full moon?? Sailor moon!?, on a side note, that wolf is not the while wolf Sukuna had to beat, I double-checked.

Kotatsu, I believe this one is common enough, but just in case…

Hanten, cannot think of appropriate English words to replace it, so I leave it as is it.

Hanten: