It took me till we were getting ready to rest for the night to get over what Minamoto was talking about. I tried to focus on how far we traveled instead of Minamoto's annoying insistence that that old man was probably a yokai just pranking me. Apparently, they just did that occasionally, so it wasn't that useful to freak out over every single one.

Though, now that I had paid attention to it, I had drifted further than I think I did. The sun above was dipping over the horizon long before we had made progress, but I was told that we had found the path pretty easily thanks to someone's skill. That didn't mean we would recklessly travel during the night.

We had only traveled what had to be a couple miles out of the village before we were walking through a sea of trees. The river we were following was the only break in the scenery of monotonous trees and the various shrubbery. Of course, with such a large force, we hadn't experienced any attacks by whatever was out here. I had heard that some wildlife would attack hapless travelers, so I was trying to see if I could make out any while I had the safety of such a large force.

Still, my search had been fruitless so far. Instead, I just looked like the weird guy who placed himself at the edges of the group as they set up tents and fires. The soldiers had taken off most of their armor and were crowding around someone passing out rations as they joked around and jostled each other with rancorous laughter. Personally, I had no idea how they were having that much fun, but that curiosity didn't give me the courage to go over there and ask. There was no way I fit in there.

As I bid my time rifling over my [status] and what I had briefly learned through Minamoto, I never noticed the figure coming up and sitting right next to me. I jumped a bit when I noticed him, trying to get a grip on my beating heart.

"Want some?" The man offered some thick soup within a small wooden bowl and a piece of bread.

I held back my gag, shaking my head. There were many problems with coming to a new world, and one of those included a change of diet. For the first week here, I had tried to get used to the absurdly hard bread, but all I got from it were stomach pains and a nearly chipped tooth. From then on, I strayed away from the breads I found being sold in the village. It was a hassle to even find someone who would sell to me anyways.

The man wasn't perturbed by my refusal. He simply shrugged and began eating the rations alone. "So, what are you doing out here?"

His words hit me with whiplash I hadn't even known was there. I had kind of assumed that it was a mutual thing where I stayed away from the group because I was an outsider. I didn't belong. "W- well, I uh, I'm just watching for animals."

"Uh-huh," the man nodded, using his molars to tear into the bread. "Found any?"

He could definitely see through my lies. "N-not yet."

A sort of awkward silence filled the area between the two of us, but the man bulldozed through it easily. "So, how do you like Niamizu? I don't think you know, but most Gaijin never really say whether they like this place or not."

"Niamizu?"

"The island you're on." He said, frowning. "You didn't know?"

I sheepishly looked away. Learning the names and geography of the place I was randomly sent to was something I had neglected in lieu of Life Energy. "I-it never really came up, I guess. And, I'd say the views have been… nice."

The man barked a laugh. "That's one way to say it. I don't say I understand, but you were probably a noble or some sheltered child, right? I can see it in how you marched earlier. This place is probably no different from Yomi itself."

I winced. "No, I mean, I've had support from Minamoto, so it hasn't been too bad."

Other than the ostracization, nearly dying to an Oni, being sent to a jail the second I reached civilization, and the honestly unpalatable food that I have been forcing down my throat. Yeah, other than those things, this place is basically a paradise.

"Minamoto?" the man's eyes bugged out a bit, looking over to the tent where Minamoto had expired for the night. "You call the Exorcist of the Sleeping Woods by his first name? You his bastard son or something?"

"No… he just has helped me quite a bit lately." I said, rubbing the Shikigami that I had gotten to merge into my neck. The only traces that it was there were the black tree branch tattoo that wrapped around my neck. Still, I already knew Minamoto was pretty important, but actually hearing that he had a title was something I hadn't expected.

"Really? How in Yomi did you manage that? I had heard rumors about the Exorcist's friendliness, but a ton of them I know all have some stick up their ass." He grinned, thumbing over at where the Exorcists of the group were huddling away from the samurai. "Ah, but I guess you don't know all that since you're new here. Let me just say Toshiki was basically founded by the strongest Exorcist who ever lived, so we get a bunch of them who think they're superior or some shit. Don't mind them."

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I nodded. If I got into an unnecessary fight with someone like Minamoto, they would definitely kill me instantly. I prefer my insides on the inside. Thank you very much. "I'll keep that in mind. Thanks."

"Don't mention it. Though, since I've spilled a bit about Toshiki, tell me about where you come from. What's the land of Gaijin like?"

"Well, it's… not much different than here, I guess." I lied. Honestly, I had never really thought about how to describe what my original world was like. If I said I was from a different world, how would they even react? "We're a little weaker than the people here on average." An understatement of a century. "Though, I mainly stayed inside the cities, and I guess I didn't travel much. I just," stopped doing anything after I dropped out of college. I wanted to say, but I knew that I would have to explain that, too. Dropping that baggage on someone I didn't even know sounded unfair. "Though, we don't have Exorcists or Samurai."

Of everything, my last sentence threw the man through the most confusion. "No Exorcist or Samurai? I had thought there were different classes for different places, but actually hearing it out loud is something weird."

"That's the thing," I said, feeling a bit embarrassed. While I had tried to tell mostly the truth, I still had to lie for the more drastic differences. "Not a lot of people in the cities have classes or anything. We just kind of leave that to the government to deal with."

"No classes? Are they dumb or something?"

I must've shown the confusion on my face as the man began ranting. "Classes are all us humans have over most of the races out there. Jorogumo gain stats just by eating someone stronger, Tengu are born with skills or techniques or both and don't even get me started on Oni. Without classes, how can you stand up to creatures like that?"

"I'm not… too sure." There was just no way of answering that question without revealing too much about myself. I mean, sure, I could say that I was from a different world entirely, or that we just didn't have monsters like that where I lived. However, explaining that without accidentally letting something slip was impossible for me. Who knew how bad it would be if I tried to explain everything.

Most importantly, it would be awkward as all hell.

Finally feeling the conversation struggling to hold, he stood up after finishing off his soup in one big gulp before patting the dust off his pants. "Well," he began lamely, probably feeling awkward like me. "If you finish your lookout, you're welcome to come join us. Sure, a bunch of guys dislike Gaijin like yourself on principle, but just ignore them. They're becoming a minority since Miss Roth came... anyways, name's Matsumura Takeo."

"Ah, um, my name is David. Nice to meet you." I was caught off guard by how friendly Matsumura was to me. However, I realized that I only tried to memorize his face after he had long gone.

A pit of guilt wormed its way into my heart once more. I didn't even consider the person in front of me an actual person worth remembering until he had reached out to me. It brought back memories of my time in the village. I ignored pretty much everyone, and didn't even try to help improve my image in their eyes.

All because I wasn't accepted. Because, unlike Matsumura said, it was hard to just ignore the words that I heard.

I sighed with more force than I meant to. "I hate complicated things like this…"

----------------------------------------

Sleep was a trial in and of itself. Every sound in the night had woken me up, and I was only able to get a small respite when my purely exhausted mind finally won out over my fear. When we were all forced to march at dawn, I had the sudden urge to fight Nishimuro in a duel.

Of course, I didn't. I would lose before I even knew what was going on. However, I was exhausted enough to consider it.

The march, compared to yesterday, wasn't anything too long. The people using their skills had found the waterfall I had dived down from, and everyone took a moment to look up, up and up to the floating mountain in the sky. A long ribbon of blue, rushing water extended down from the mountain like some kind of massive pillar. How it kept its shape instead of dispersing with the wind, I had no idea. I was busy wondering how I even survived from that fall.

"Probably through Life Energy." Minamoto interjected into my thoughts.

I squinted at him, thinking hard. Stop reading my mind, old man. I know you can.

Minamoto laughed, definitely hearing my thoughts. "Sometimes people can unconsciously use Life Energy in a time of great need. A mother getting the strength to save their child, a knight gathering the courage to slay a beast, or," he pointed to the massive waterfall. "The body and soul instinctively wanting to live."

"Instinctively, you say…" I mumbled.

"Hey, Gaijin, is this the place?" Nishimuro turned to me, and abruptly, I felt several more eyes land on my figure.

Trying to ignore the panic and nerves I got through so many people watching, I shrugged. "Probab-"

A familiar roar cut me off, and I was forced to look up. Everyone was already doing the same before I had even started. Immediately, I saw something in the sky and my face lost all color.

"Scatter now!" Nishimuro's voice broke me out of shock as I turned and scrambled to get out of the way of the falling figure.

I felt something wrap around my waist, pulling me to the side before the loudest explosion I had ever heard occurred behind me. The world lost its sound for a second as all I heard was the thunderous bang that caused the forest to shake. My feet hit the still shaking ground, and if I wasn't being actively propped up by something, I would have struggled to stay upright as my vision shifted left and right rapidly.

Finally, as I was slowly gaining coherence, I caught sight of a massive plume of dust that coated the air like a film. Gritty particulates grinded against the inside of my mouth, forcing me to spit repeatedly. I grimaced as I looked at the large slabs of earth that had risen up at the point of impact and the spiderweb cracks that spread out from the epicenter of the thing that had literally dropped down on top of us.

Coughs and yells echoed in the back of my head as the sound of my heartbeat drowned out most of the noise around me. My eyes were locked on one of the large portions of raised stone and dirt, and I flinched when a large white hand with dirty, uneven fingernails broke through. The hand propped itself against the stone and dirt and tore it to pieces, revealing the one thing that had terrified me more than anything in this world.

The Oni glared at me with angry gold eyes and milky pupils.

Well… shit.