Demba ran straight toward the target.
Another arrow flew out from the thicket.
He easily deflected it with the spear he held in front.
Dodging would have been easy too, but there was a risk it could hit Irika behind him.
—Before the next arrow comes.
Just as he sped up, an arrow came from not the thicket ahead but from the left front at a diagonal angle.
—What!?
He barely managed to twist his body to avoid it, rolling onto the ground from the momentum.
“Irika, get down!”
Irika threw herself forward.
An arrow from the front whizzed past her head.
“Are there two enemies!?” Irika shouted while lying prone.
Demba was momentarily confused too.
He got up and started running again.
This time, an arrow was shot from the right front.
He deflected it with his spear.
Something clicked inside Demba.
“We’re charging in!”
“It’s dangerous! There are three of them!”
Irika shouted, but Demba increased his speed.
The full strength of the Mahi tribe’s legs rivaled that of carnivorous beasts.
The distance closed rapidly.
The thicket ahead stood up on two legs and started running toward the mountainside.
He saw several vines falling from the hands.
Demba understood everything.
“Trap arrows! There’s only one enemy! Irika! Shoot!”
“—Yes!”
Realizing it instantly, Irika swiftly drew her bow and nocked an arrow.
She shot at the fleeing thicket.
It hit the right thigh.
The thicket with arms and legs tumbled and rolled toward the mountainside, disappearing into the trees.
Demba quickly pursued.
He raised his spear and circled around the trees.
Demba’s right leg shot up.
“Whoa!?”
He fell on his back.
One leg was suspended in the air.
“Demba!”
Irika ran up.
“Don’t come near! It’s a trap!”
By the time he said that, she had already stepped into the trap with one leg.
With a rustling sound, one of Irika’s legs was also lifted into the air.
“Ah!”
Lighter than Demba, Irika was hoisted upside down up to her waist.
It was a snare trap set with a springing branch.
Still lying on the ground, Demba quickly looked left and right.
At the edge of his vision, he saw Kanga, who had handed his shield to Emariya, start running.
From the mountainside, a bundle of grass dragging one leg was approaching with an eerie wailing sound.
He saw a dagger held in a reverse grip.
From this position, Kanga wouldn’t make it in time.
He moved his head to look for the dropped spear.
It was just a little ahead of him.
A creepy laugh was heard nearby.
This is bad, can I reach it?
He could clearly see the glowing eyes hidden in the grass.
The dagger was raised.
Demba clenched his teeth.
“Eek!”
The enemy let out a strange cry.
Their head turned downward.
Demba looked at their feet too.
A snake with a chain pattern had bitten into the enemy’s foot, which was wearing straw sandals.
“Ahhhhhhh!”
The enemy, who had one leg pierced by an arrow and the other bitten by a snake, fell toward the river.
In an instant, with a rustling sound, something fell straight down from above.
It was a stake.
The unpleasant, damp sound of it hitting and a voice saying “Gebeh!” were heard simultaneously.
Demba and Irika could only watch.
Kanga also stopped in his tracks.
The surroundings fell silent.
Only the crackling sound of the burning hut echoed in the wilderness.
Kanga approached.
Irika pulled out a machete from her waist, skillfully bent her upper body, and stood on one leg, cutting the snare entangling her foot.
She also cut the vines wrapped around Demba’s leg.
“That was close. —Was that a snake?”
He spoke while raising his upper body.
Perhaps startled by the commotion, the snake was no longer there.
“It was a viper. They’re rare, but they’re venomous snakes in this country. If bitten, you’re done for.”
Although surprising, snakes do inhabit Ezochi (Hokkaido).
Due to the environment, there are fewer species compared to the mainland.
The viper is the only venomous snake among them.
It mainly appears in the wetlands of mountainous areas.
“Either way, it didn’t have any luck. We were saved though.”
Kanga said while circling the tree.
Emariya caught up too.
The four of them approached the stake driven into the ground.
A wooden stake about six feet long and as thick as a hand was deeply embedded in the chest of the enemy who lay on their back.
Kanga frowned.
“They intended to lure us in and finish us off. —They probably didn’t expect to die by their own trap.”
“Panicked because of the snake. Understandable, but I can’t feel sorry for them.”
Kanga and Emariya exchanged glances.
Demba approached the enemy’s head and crouched down.
The enemy had wrapped a dark yellow cloth around their face and camouflaged it with leafy vines to blend into the thicket.
Bloodshot eyes peeked through the cloth.
They died with their eyes wide open in surprise.
Blood pooled at their mouth, staining the cloth red-black.
Demba removed the vines from the face and lifted the cloth from below.
“Ah!”
“—Huh?”
Irika and Emariya gasped, covering their mouths with their hands.
Underneath the cloth was the face of the old woman who had spoken to them by the river.
“No way—this person?”
Irika’s voice trembled slightly as she spoke with her hand over her mouth.
“Yes. This is ‘Hikokyu the Monkey.'”
Demba said nonchalantly. Irika looked at him in surprise.
Kanga also showed no expression at all.
“You realized?”
“More or less,” he muttered. Kanga nodded too.
“When? How?”
Irika looked at them in astonishment.
“When this person approached by the river, there was a faint smell of blood. Kanga noticed it too. —That’s when I remembered.”
“Remembered what?”
“Sutemi. —He never said ‘Hikokyu’ was a man.”
“Ah,” Irika was speechless.
“They deliberately approached us to set a trap… But—didn’t this person speak Ainu? Aren’t they Ainu?”
Demba looked at Emariya.
“If Sutemi’s story is true, that’s the case. —How they obtained Ainu clothes and spoke Ainu is now something no one can know.”
Indeed, no one can know.
Demba mused to himself.
A woman who lived by hunting people using cunning and despicable traps.
Judging by her strength and speed, she was probably not as old as she appeared.
He knew there were such people.
He looked down at the face of the corpse.
—What kind of life did this person lead?
Though he felt he had no right to question someone’s way of life, Demba couldn’t help but ask himself.