The First Woman, Shigamamo 2
* * *
A touch-and-go situation.
An unsettling tension hangs in the air of the peaceful, rural town’s main street.
Kalamaruyu doesn’t even try to hide his hostility towards Shigamamo, and the two adventurers acting as guards don’t lower their fighting stances.
The few residents who were on the street, sensing danger, quickly hid inside their houses.
The three town guards, who should be the first to protect Kalamaruyu, began to distance themselves from him, nervously.
“Kuku, ‘Barbarian’, huh? Those are harsh words, brother-in-law, for your brother’s wife.”
However, in that tense atmosphere, only Shigamamo remained calm, smiling quietly.
“Who’s your wife!? Our country’s law doesn’t recognize your marriage to my foolish brother!”
“But according to our clan’s rules, my husband, Wakiteryu, and I are already married. Unfortunately, he passed away before I could bear his child…”
“Don’t say such ridiculous things! What clan rules!?”
“Kuku, that’s right… there’s only one of us left in our clan. It’s hard to talk about rules in such a situation… Even I understand that.”
Kalamaruyu was furious, shouting, while Shigamamo didn’t seem to care about his anger at all.
Their conversation, going nowhere, echoed clearly through the windless street, with no one there except for them and the guards.
“But as the last Shigamamo… I have decided to live according to the rules… Therefore, brother-in-law—“
Here, Shigamamo erased the smile she had been wearing, no matter what was said to her.
And looking at Kalamaruyu with her straightforward eyes, she said clearly, in a gentle voice, like a mother admonishing her spoiled child—
“Stop ‘ravaging’ the Great Grassland of Beginnings.”
…
A breeze blew through the street under the blue sky.
That cool breeze, carrying the scent of the grassland, incongruous with the atmosphere between the two, ruffled Kalamaruyu’s coat and Shigamamo’s reddish-brown hair.
For a mont, there was silence.
“…Haa! What would a barbaric woman who knows nothing about politics say!?”
And the one who broke the silence was Kalamaruyu.
“Do you even know!? I doubt you do! …How much our First Viscounty is looked down upon—as a backwater! We… need to change! How many hundreds of years have we been stagnant!? We need a revolution!”
Kalamaruyu, his face flushed red, shouted, trembling!
He continued spitting out words, driven by his emotions!
“And you barbarians… are always getting in the way, talking about rules! If you don’t want to suffer the consequences—“
“Brother-in-law.”
Shigamamo stopped Kalamaruyu’s angry words—
With a single word, spoken clearly, a troubled, wry smile on her face.
And then, she stretched her left arm straight out.
And then, the vine wrapped around her left arm—
Started growing rapidly, and in an instant, wrapped itself around one of the adventurers guarding Kalamaruyu!
“Wha…!?”
The adventurer, taken by surprise, was helpless!
And then, with an unbelievable force, he was pulled—flying towards Shigamamo…
“GYAAAAAAAAH!?”
And he was easily—cut clean in half… by her cleaver—like a blade of grass!
“P-Partner!?”
The other adventurer scread in shock and grief, but he should have taken so action, instead of just standing there, dumbfounded.
Because the next mont, Shigamamo’s vines completely wrapped around him!
“U-Uhyaaah!?”
And he too, screaming pathetically, was pulled towards Shigamamo, and cut in half!
Blood gushed out from the severed parts of the two adventurers’ bodies.
And then, surprisingly, the pool of blood that spread out on the street—quickly turned into green moss, from the edges inward.
The bodies, cut into four pieces, also quickly turned into lumps of moss, and grass started growing from them… and they transford into small bushes.
The traces of the carnage were quickly transford into a peaceful thicket.
“…………!!”
Kalamaruyu, seeing the sudden carnage, and the supernatural phenonon, his face turned pale.
He desperately gritted his teeth, and didn’t scream.
“H-Hiiih!”
“Please spare ! Please spare , Shigamamo-samaaa!”
“Shigamamo-samaaa!”
The remaining three guards, trembling, prostrated themselves on the ground, their foreheads rubbing against the dirt, desperately begging for their lives.
“Brother-in-law, I really didn’t want to do this.”
Shigamamo spoke gently to Kalamaruyu, watching the n.
“But there are rules. Those who break the rules will not be forgiven… Even if it’s you, brother-in-law.”
She said that gently, gently, with a smile.
“Stop ‘ravaging’ the Great Grassland of Beginnings.”
And then, she emphasized that one last ti, and—
Shigamamo turned on her heel, and disappeared into the shadows of the buildings.
* * *
“…Haa! …Haa, haa, haa…”
A few seconds after Shigamamo left.
Kalamaruyu resud breathing, which he had forgotten, gasping for air.
“Tomandon… Jemizogu…”
And then, not caring that his clothes were getting dirty, he knelt on the ground, and called out the nas of the two adventurers who had turned into bushes.
They were two trustworthy people whom Kalamaruyu had known for a long ti.
Whenever Kalamaruyu went out on field work as a researcher, he always asked them to be his guards.
They were serious, and good-natured people.
And yet…!
“…………”
Kalamaruyu looked up and glared at the direction where Shigamamo had disappeared.
He stared, and stared…
And there was a pair of blue eyes, watching him from the entrance of a shop facing the street.
At that point,
He wasn’t aware of that.
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