Blissfully unaware, our horse was still parked at the foot of the hill, opposite from where Nobushige’s blood now coloured the earth. Though my head was clear again, I didn’t want to take any chances, and so, with painfully slow steps, I made my way back to my mount, hoping the wind would bring me swiftly on my way back to the hidden village.

But then I stopped.

How do I prove I killed him? I suddenly thought to myself. Sure, I had his spear, but I could’ve stolen that. I needed undeniable proof of my deed. Fortunately,[1] concrete proof lay spectating the bloodred warrior in his crimson pond. The kind of proof that no one in this World would be able to scoff at.

Sunflower watched in horrified fascination as I picked up the severed head and attached it to the horse’s saddle. A distant part of myself wondered if I was doing this because of the blood-hungry Mushi’s influence on me or if this was who I had become.

When I put my hand on the saddle and made to mount up, I had a realisation, a bad one.

I turned towards Sunflower who was standing next to me, waiting.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I have no idea how to ride this thing…”

“What do you mean? You rode it on the way—” she started, but then suddenly cut herself off. “Oh my god… did you seriously forget how to ride a horse??”

“It would seem so,” I replied.

“That’s really bad! Memories sacrificed to the Watcher don’t return, don’t you know?”

“I’m sorry, what!?”

With the ‘proof’ dangling from our saddle by its long black hair, we set off from the No Man’s Land, heading towards the Azure fields of flowers that ebbed and flowed with the hills, looking just like I imagined the waves in the sea far beyond the vast mountain range would.

The trophy left a crimson trail in our wake, which was particularly noticeable in its stark contrast to the blue flowers underfoot[2], and it continued dripping from the neck as though supplied by an endless fountain of blood from within.

What a sight this must be… I thought. Although, this was perhaps customary in these lands during times of war. “Bring me the head of my enemy,” was probably a common enough phrase that I wasn’t considered a grotesque monster for my obvious display of who I’d slain. Though it was safe to say that the wrong eyes were best kept away from this particular face, lest I wanted to incite a thousand bloody oaths of vengeance from this man’s brothers-in-arms.

It felt strangely humiliating as I clung to Sunflower’s waist, trying my best not to slide off the back of the saddle. After a few fledgeling attempts, it had become quite obvious that I’d utterly lost the ability to control the horse, no matter how insistently I tugged on the reins or yelled at the animal. I’d also fallen off the saddle about a half-dozen times, before Sunflower’s patience eventually expired and she told me to let her ride.

For some reason, I didn’t like the idea that I was now beholden to her, which I figured was some kind of internalisation of my own insecurity and need to feel independent from others. As a result, our entire journey away from the No Man’s Land felt incredibly awkward to me.

As we were riding, I suddenly noticed something on the back of Sunflower’s neck. It looked like two twin tattoos. Each was an upside-down triangle, with a circle inside. Within the circle itself was a horizontal line, like the pupil of a goat.

“Why do you have tattoos on the back of your neck?” I asked.

Sunflower, who’d been immersed in her task of guiding us to the Hidden Village, suddenly jumped in her seat out of surprise. Granted, I’d also spoken directly into her ear.

“Is it a triangle with an eye inside?” she asked.

“Yeah…” I wondered how she even knew what it looked like, considering it was on the nape of her neck.

“That’s the symbol of the Watcher. It shows up after you use a Watcher ability. There should be two of them, right?”

“That’s right. Does that mean you’ve used your ability twice then?”

“Yea.”

I looked at the tattoos again and noticed that one was directly in the centre of her neck and the other was to the right of it. If she used her Watcher abilities enough, eventually she would have a necklace of the things… Then realisation hit me.

I should have one of these marks too…

Without even having to look, I knew where it would be. I kept my right hand on Sunflower’s waist and lifted my left wrist up before me, straining my eyes to see it clearly in the waning light. Sure enough, the ‘Eye of the Watcher’ sat directly in the middle of my wrist between the two arteries.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

I already have an ugly scar on my shoulder, and now this too…?

“You know, I was wondering where my symbols would show up. I tried looking everywhere on my body, but I guess it makes sense why I never found them. I wonder why they’re on my neck though.”

I had an uncomfortable guess to her question, though I didn’t voice it. She suddenly fell silent as she no doubt put two-and-two together herself.

This Watcher is a sadistic piece of shit…

When familiar territory came into view, I relaxed a bit. Sunflower deftly slowed the horse to a casual trot. Amusingly,[3] the severed head of Nobushige still drippled thick droplets of blood with every few beats of the hoofs upon the dirt road. Anyone keen enough could easily track us down by simply following the red dotted line across the landscape.

People moved out of our way as we neared the Lady’s mansion, and when the gate was the only thing blocking our path, Sunflower dismounted the borrowed horse and helped me down. Wanting to regain some of my authority, I released the severed head from the saddle and dragged it with me by its hair, walking in front and letting Sunflower scramble to keep up.

At first, the Samurai guardsmen approached me, likely trying to halt my passage, but then they noticed who I was and what burden I was dragging with me. Without a word, nor as much as an exhale of air, they hauled open the gate and let us both pass on through.

Within the mansion compound, I released my burden on the white gravel and knelt down on the stone path, waiting. Sunflower mimicked my posture as well, though she seemed unsure as to what we were doing.

Perhaps thanks to a Shinobi spotting our arrival in the distance, the door opened shortly after my entrance into the compound, and Lady Seiryū, with Hayato at her side, emerged into the temperate air, where even the breeze seemed to slow to a halt at her presence.

“I come bearing gifts,” I announced sarcastically.

“I hear it is quite the gift you have brought me.”

Darkly, I grinned from ear to ear as I lifted Nobushige’s head from the gravel, so that the Lady herself could see. A moment later, her grin matched mine.

“Magnificent! The Crimson Demon himself! Said to be undefeatable, and yet, you have proven those rumours false. Finally, the main obstacle in our path has been cleared away, and our destined return to the City may finally commence.”

“What are my orders?”

“Tomorrow, at the first light of dawn, join our army as we take back Kakon-shi.”

“As you wish,” I obeyed, uncharacteristically. In this particular moment, I didn’t feel bad for following orders, as her ambitions were exactly the sort of thing I could understand. The Lady was someone who knew when to exploit an opportunity, and her ferocity would get me on my way to the next Stage in a hurry.

Afterwards, Hayato took the head of Nobushige and disappeared, though to what end I never found out. After selling Nobushige’s spear to a vendor in the village for the minor fortune of four Ryō, I made to return to the room I’d previously occupied in the mansion. However, on the way back, a chime in my ear alerted me to the fact that Sunflower had left my group.

I turned to look at her. She was wearing her kimono again.

“I’m gonna go back to Koike,” she announced.

Part of me had assumed she’d join me for the next Stage as well, but then I remembered that she’d only asked for help for the Duel.

Before I could say anything, she embraced me in a hug. I just stood there, slightly dumbfounded and my arms by my side.

“Thank you so much, Aiko. For everything.”

She started scrolled through her menus and then I suddenly heard a ba-ding[4]in my inner ear. I looked at her, puzzled.

“What did you just do?”

“I added you to my Friendlist,” she replied.

I hadn’t seen any kind of menu for that, but when I performed the Menu Access Gesture, suddenly it was there.

“What does it do?”

“It makes it so you can always invite someone to your group and view them on the map, if they have enabled it and are in the same World as you. If they are in a different World, trying to view their map will only alert you of what World they are currently in.”

“That seems useful.” I wish I’d known this earlier so I could have added Jakob. Maybe then I wouldn’t have forgotten he was my friend…

When I opened the ‘Friendlist’ menu, a new window with a mostly-empty list appeared. Just one name appeared at the top: ‘Sunflower’. Like the Group menu, it told me what Stage she was on, and allowed me to: remove her using a Red button; view her location on the map using a Blue button; and invite her to a group using a Green button. Part of me was glad that Kerebor hadn’t gone through this section of the realm’s mechanics when he’d given me his tutorial after I awoke. I wondered why he hadn’t though, especially considering his eagerness and puppy-dog I-miss-who-you-used-to-be attitude.

I turned the ‘View on Map’ feature on within my ‘Friendlist’. I was fine with Sunflower knowing where I was, since she seemed trustworthy.

“Are you going to stay and do the next Stage?” she asked.

“That’s the plan, yep.”

“Well, good luck.”

“Thanks…” I felt an uncomfortable tightness in my chest. I wasn’t a fan of departures like this. It felt like I was being abandoned, tossed away once my purpose had expired.

“Do you mind if I take the horse back to the City?”

“You might as well,” I replied. “Not like I can get it to listen to me…”

I thought about what she’d said and how the memory of riding a horse was now permanently lost to me. It was possible I could teach myself how to ride again, but that’d be quite a lot of training I figured. I’m sure this won’t come back to bite me in the ass… I thought to myself darkly.

After waving goodbye to Sunflower, I spent the next few hours relaxing in the bath and all around just doing as little as possible, in order to give my body the rest it needed. Though I wasn’t proud of it, I spent half an hour or more just looking at her location on the map, using the feature within the Friendlist. Despite normally not being able to view the map outside my own ‘sphere of influence’, that restriction did not apply to spying on your friends.[5]

After dinner, I went to sleep, anxious of what the dawn would bring.

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[1] Note the ironic use…

[2] Or rather, ‘Underhoof’.

[3] Darkly so.

[4] I know, I know, but I’m doing my best to describe these sounds for you, so please bear with me.

[5] Quite a creepy feature, if I had to say so. Yes, I am aware this stance also means that I’m calling myself a creep… Self-awareness is a terrifying thing.