The Four Natures could be sensed from a person’s aura, but the easiest way to tell was a person’s eyes. When seen under the light, a ring crest was faintly visible in the iris of those with a Nature. The shape and color of the crest differed depending on the person. Some were shaped like flower petals, others like interlocking rings, and others like diamonds. Some were complex and others simple. They functioned somewhat like family crests, and those of blood relatives looked similar.
Natureless people, however, didn’t have one. Yae had perfectly normal black eyes. Well, now he knows. It wasn’t bad that she was Natureless, but hiding it deliberately would be dishonest. The Four Natures were very important in this world, especially when it came to getting married.
The man clearly scowled as he stared at her. He didn’t take back his hand, but Yae thought she saw disappointment and doubt in his green eyes. She couldn’t decide if that was just paranoia on her part or not. In his irises, she could see a ring crest of three interlocking circles.
“What are you doing?!” another man shouted angrily, coming over to grab Yae’s arm and yank her to her feet. He then saw her eyes as well, and his anger was replaced by surprise. He peered into her face as if to get a closer look. “Are you Natureless?” he muttered.
Yae’s breath caught in her throat. She hesitantly started to nod, and just then, a woman screamed loudly.
Yae turned toward the scream and saw the stick-insect shade raging after having a few of its arms cut off by the men. Its howling tore through the air. It waved its arms about, gouging tree trunks and sending bark flying. The women nearby were screaming with fear.
The man holding Yae’s arm shoved her aside and raced for the women. The green-eyed man quickly grabbed the reins of the agitated horse before it ran off and jumped onto its back. He gave the horse a short command and a kick in the side to make it run, drew the katana on his back with one hand, and sliced off one of the shade’s arms.
“There are more coming from farther back!”
“We’re at a disadvantage guarding the women! We need to retreat!”
The men shared a brief exchange and chose to retreat without hesitation. They sent the women who were comparatively skilled at riding ahead alone. The women who had fallen off or fainted were placed on horses with the men.
After more than half of them had left on horseback, the green-eyed man turned toward Yae as if just remembering her. She was still sitting on the ground helplessly. She wasn’t frozen in fear—she couldn’t get up because of the pain in her back from falling off the horse.
“She’s Natureless! Leave her!” a man yelled. It was the one who had grabbed her arm earlier. He ignored Yae and looked at the green-eyed man. He had Oshiro on his horse and had been about to leave. “Hurry up! Another one’s coming!”
Oshiro opened her eyes wide and murmured Yae’s name, but her voice was drowned out by the horse’s hooves once they started moving. The green-eyed man spurred his horse on after them. Yae, dumbfounded, watched the horse’s rear as it galloped off, kicking up grass and dust into the air.
They hadn’t just left her behind—they had used her as a decoy so the stick-bug shade they had failed to kill and the new one approaching wouldn’t pursue them. Yae grit her teeth to hold down the strong emotions welling up inside her. It was essential that she remain calm. What could she do, though? She could barely even hold a weapon.
The new shade the men had mentioned arrived before she could make any kind of decision. It was also shaped like a stick insect and was a size bigger than the wounded one. Yae was so frightened that she forgot to breathe, and she watched in shock as the two shades began to gnaw at each other. The newcomer consumed the wounded one in a flash, not even giving Yae time to run.
The surviving monster had bloodred skin and one head. Its unsettling face was limp and distorted like an old clay figure. It was bald, but in place of hair, the back of its head was covered in moss. Its four long arms dragged on the ground. There was a torn skirt around its waist—the presence of clothes meant it was originally a villager of some province. That was a shock to Yae.
It was possible for elebeasts to contract deformation, though much rarer for humans who didn’t have beast features. Once the condition got this bad, there was no charm that could restore a person’s humanity. The soul was completely transformed.
The shade looked down at Yae blankly. She heard its shallow breaths, like the hollow whoosh of wind through a cave. After staring at each other for a good while, the shade suddenly grabbed hold of her. Its giant, sinewy hands lifted Yae’s body as if she were no more than a doll. She struggled for breath as its powerful hands applied intense pressure to her stomach, and she felt a pounding headache behind her eyes.
“Ow! Let go of me! That hurts!”
Unable to bear the pain, Yae groaned and scratched at the back of the monster’s hand. Rotten skin tore off and caught in her fingernails, and the stench of humus filled the air. The shade’s body was already decaying.
Yae lost the will to resist. The shade readjusted its grip and carried her deeper into the mountain. It walked silently up a sparsely wooded slope, heading for a cavern in the cliffside ahead of them. There was a hole the shape of a smiling mouth, or a crescent moon laid on its side, underneath a rough ocher-colored wall. The pitch-black gap was small enough that an adult would have to crawl to get through it.
Yae noticed something dark extending languidly from the hole like a tongue. She looked closely and saw that it was a deer skin. It looked black because the ground around it was soaked in blood. The flesh, entrails, and even the bones had been extracted from the torn abdomen. Unable to look away, Yae saw the carcasses of small birds scattered around the deer. The shade likely consumed its prey inside the crescent-shaped cavern. Either that or it was using the cavern as a temporary place to store them. This ominous thought filled Yae with disgust, and even more than that, with fear.
“No, let me go! I don’t want to go in there!”
Yae bent backward and swung her arms and legs violently, but the giant shade seemed indifferent to her resistance. It glanced down at her once and showed no further reaction.
Damn it all! I will never marry a Wild-Natured man! The men from Miya Province obviously hadn’t wished for the shade to appear, but Yae had to curse them for what they’d done. Deep down in her heart, she had thought that if the people of Miya Province were willing to accept a Natureless woman, she might happily live out her life there. But that small hope was gone now.
Kadaru had told her they were struggling with a surge of deformation incidents and could use her knowledge. The joy of being helpful to someone was like a drug to people who lacked self-confidence. She had even allowed herself the naive hope that she and her future husband might grow to love each other. In her current life, Yae was a teenage girl, and she had had a decent amount of romantic experience in her previous one. She knew firsthand how love could enrich one’s daily life. But even if she miraculously survived, could she ever love a man who had abandoned her? He wouldn’t even be starting from zero—he’d have to work his way up from the negatives.