I learned quite a bit in jail. The fact that I didn’t know how to speak Japanese for one. That maybe the village I was in was perhaps racist towards outsiders, and that maybe, just maybe, I was mostly fucked.

Not completely fucked, mind you. That’s only if I was crippled and being cooked in a large pot by my demon companion of yesterday. I had apparently regained the feelings of my limbs a little bit after the shock of staring at my [status] screen faded. That was still a fairly large shock, though. Was I the only one with a [status]? How did I get one? What does everything mean? A multitude of thoughts were racing through my head, but the largest one was perhaps: why am I in jail?

Apparently, the second I started showing signs that I didn’t understand Japanese or whatever language they spoke, the man who I presumed had saved my life had gotten someone to take me to their jail. It was rather odd if I had to say so. Why did you save me if you were just going to throw me in jail, man?

Still, I had no choice but to follow. The five people who came around to send me to their best cell were outfitted in some leather armor that reminded me eerily of a samurai, and each of them were equipped with sharp, metal-tipped spears that looked perfect for stabbing a clueless sap like me.

However, what confused me the most was that the people who I assumed to be soldiers were rather wary of me. They stood at a distance, screaming something in a language I didn’t know while pointing their spears at me. Understandably I freaked out a bit, and then tried my hardest to let them know I surrendered. Which, oddly, seemed like the complete opposite of what they expected. Their faces pinched in confusion even as they timidly handcuffed me with large, heavy manacles that weighed down my arms before bringing me to my personal room.

The whole situation was weird. I had literally nothing but my thoughts, so I tried to piece together the clues of why they reacted that way, and the closest that came to me was that I wasn’t the first ‘Gaijin.’ There was no way of knowing if my predecessor had come from Earth as well, but they seemed terrified of him or her. It was a stigma that weighed heavily on my mind as they brought me through the town.

My own worries were amplified as I saw the rundown, wooden buildings supporting thick, yellow straw roofs. The buildings themselves were placed in long rows with an uneven dirt path that separated them in the middle. There seemed to be other parts of the village as I saw one alleyway lead to another street similar to this one, but the soldiers standing awkwardly around me prevented me from exploring. Twisted trees branched over buildings every now and again, adding a bit of green to the image as we walked through the streets.

However, I was more preoccupied with covering my nose. The place stank. I couldn’t really explain it, but it smelled like someone decided that manure was the perfect thing to use as perfume and then proceeded to spray it everywhere. The only thing that kept me from overly reacting was the fact that everyone else wasn’t reacting to it. I figured it wouldn’t help my situation if I started to criticize their sense of smell, too.

I was actually surprised how many people were living here. Tons of villagers stared out of open windows or gawked openly in the streets with wide eyes. There seemed to be some who opened up small wooden booths to sell the odd trinket or food item. However, all of them gave us a wide berth as we passed.

I supposed they had never seen someone as beautiful as me…

“Argh,” pain shot through my back to interrupt my moment. I was beginning to feel all the nicks and cuts I had gained from sprinting through a forest, and the whole fall down a waterfall hadn’t done my body any favors. There was also the whole injury on my back that I didn’t even know to check.

The soldiers surrounding me were the first to find something wrong with me, but apparently my sudden actions put them on guard as they gripped their spears with white knuckles. Their faces were set in grim determination like they were ready to lay their lives on the line for something.

I didn’t speak as the pain was rather distracting. Plus, I didn’t know if talking would make things worse on my end. But still, I understand that you guys are fearful of whoever this previous ‘Gaijin’ was but can you please not react so badly? Seriously, I am less dangerous than tripping over a rock right now.

In the end, my telepathic attempts to alleviate their concern failed to get through to them. Instead, I was brought to what seemed like a nicer building among the wooden shacks around here. There seemed to be stone pillars acting as a frame around it, and the entrance even was decorated with little paper cutouts of smaller soldiers. They were rather cute, really. These guys suddenly seemed like a bunch of big softies who hung up artwork that children in the village had given them.

Of course, that didn’t stop them from putting me into a small, box shaped room. There were no windows whatsoever, so the only light I had was a small lamp that shone through the crisscrossed, wooden bars that served as an entrance into the cell. Now, at first I thought that wooden bars were rather useless to use as cell material. However, these were more like squarish logs that were shaped such that each log passing through was snuggly locking onto the other. It was a rather impressive amount of woodwork that I found myself passing the time with.

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Still, I knew nothing about woodworking and that grew boring after a while. Like ten minutes, really. That brought me to the craziest decision I made yet. All in the pursuits to evade boredom. My actions even caused the trembling guard outside my cell to start trembling like crazy.

What did I do, though? Well, I was checking the wound on my back.

“Ow.” I said reflexively, touching around the edges of the wound. Whatever hurt meant that it was the wound, my mind supplied.

“Shit. ow.” I winced as I pressed a particularly tender part of the wound. My hand was now stained a bit red from my prodding, but I had determined that the wound wasn’t that deep. In fact, it seemed more like a shallow scrape that had only taken off most of the skin on my back. Still bad and painful, but not horribly life threatening.

The joys of traveling, I guess.

“Just what in Yomi possessed you to do such a stupid thing?”

I froze. My head snapped over to the newcomer to find an aging man staring at me with unconcealed contempt. His face was set in deep wrinkles hidden partially by long, white hair tied up in a messy ponytail. Another long, white beard and mustache extended from his chin and upper lip in a way I had only seen in movies about stereotypical old masters.

Long, baggy-looking grey cloth was wrapped around his body like a sort of poncho that extended all the way to his shins. The rest of his legs were also covered by pants of a similar color, and his feet looked absolutely comfortable with some sort of slip-on shoe. Which wasn’t saying much, considering mine were falling apart. He was dressed better than anyone I had seen in the village. A very important fact since his clothes seemed rather expensive, too.

“You can understand me?” I asked tentatively. Perhaps it was a little dumb when the man spoke perfect english, but I was a little flustered at his sudden entrance.

The well-dressed man scoffed after I spoke. “I figured you wouldn’t be able to speak our language like other Gaijin. I can’t understand you, by the way. My Shikigami is doing the work for me.”

As he said so, he pointed to his neck where I could see some black tattoo had been drawn on his neck. It looked like a simple tree branch that wrapped around the entirety of his neck, but every once and awhile I could see the thing shift a bit as if it were moving in some nonexistent wind.

“That’s cool.” I whispered to myself, looking at him. He seemed to tell what I was asking with my eyes as his attitude cooled down a bit.

“I can give you a Shikigami to help you translate later. All I need is for you to answer a couple questions. Nod your head for if you agree.”

I nodded quickly. Magic google translate, yes please!

The man was apparently amused as his lips curled into a smile. He reached into one of his baggy sleeves, pulling out some sort of white, wooden stick with a couple of small leaves and buds along the end. I stared at it as it started to emit a white glow. “Great. First off, are you familiar with the Toshiki Kingdom? Nod for yes and shake for no.”

I shook my head, and he nodded as if he expected it.

“Next, are you a Jorogumo?”

I paused. A what? Tentatively, I shook my head. That caused the man’s head to tilt a bit. I felt a bead of sweat begin to build on my brow as he frowned.

“Do you perhaps not know what a Jorogumo is?”

I nodded quickly, afraid that he would misunderstand. Please mister wizard, you gotta believe me. I am as confused as you are!

He frowned further, mumbling, “That rules out that he’s a Kitsune, too. Though male ones are only seen in six tails and higher, so there’s no way he would be injured by a young Oni.” The man looked me over, staring at my shoulder as he wondered something. “Can I see your back? I promise I won’t do anything. I have my professional courtesy of a traveling Exorcist from Toshiki.”

I had no idea what that meant, but I showed him my back anyways. The old man had been only dismissive of me at the beginning. He had mellowed out for some reason as we progressed, so he had my trust. Though, I might just be rather excited for his magic and the fact that I could understand him.

“Hmmm,” I winced as I felt something hard poke into the softer side of my wound. “That’s definitely Oni Life Energy. Probably newly born, too. How troublesome. I’ll need to request backup to sort it out before it becomes a problem. Tell me, Gaijin, I’m sensing your Life Rank and it seems pretty low, but I can support you in your time of need. Can you remember where the Oni was?”

I paused a bit. I probably could figure out where the demon or Oni was, but I had no idea where to start. Instead of directly answering, I pointed to my neck. There was no way I was going to chase down the Oni bastard without some explanation of what was going on.

The old man nodded, saying, “I can give you the Shikigami whether you agree or not. It will help to further explain your situation. Forgive me for taking so long, I had to make sure you weren’t disguised.” he reached into his sleeve again to pull out a paper cutout of a black tree branch. “Here, just put it on your neck and input your Life Energy. My Shikigami will do the rest. Ah, and no need to worry about a spell put on it, either. You can check it if you want.”

I blinked, realizing that yes, I had overlooked that maybe he might do something to the magic google translate. And now I was suddenly very wary about accepting it. If I didn’t desperately need the Shikigami or whatever, I probably would decline no matter how nice the old man seemed.

However, the biggest problem was: what the heck was Life Energy and how do I use it?

As if realizing my predicament, the old man saw I was hesitating with the Shikigami in my hands. “You… Do you know how to use Life Energy?”

With a wry smile, I shook my head.

“Well… This complicates things.”