The search around the village gave no positive results except for a series of footprints identical to those found by the villagers. These footprints left the oil barrel warehouse and headed for the nearby forest. However, at some point, the footprints disappeared completely as if they never existed in the first place.
"It's strange. If they wanted to hide the fingerprints, the culprit would do it right away. Could it be a misdirection attempt? Or is it a trap to induce eventual hunters to enter the forest? Or, is there another message behind their actions? " Souma pondered the various possibilities behind the series of footprints.
He judged that it wasn't possible that footprints had been accidentally left that way. And if it was a trap, there was no point in stopping; they might as well lead any onlookers straight into the trap. This consideration was also valid for the hypothesis of misdirection. If the culprit wanted to direct people elsewhere, it would be better to lengthen the footprints. Finally, Souma was left with the possibility that the culprit wanted to communicate something even if he didn't know exactly what.
With no other trace left, Souma finished investigating and waited for night to fall. Then, he would ask the culprit directly about his doubts. To avoid complications, the villagers, as requested by Souma, stayed in their homes. In reality, the inhabitants were hesitant because they wanted to capture the culprit as soon as possible and didn't think that a single man could do it. But Souma was a Yokai Hunter in the end, so they decided to trust his abilities.
Souma hid not far from the warehouse, waiting for the culprit to show up. He used his dark cloak to blend in with the night and even went so far as to cover himself with soil to mask his scent. Unfortunately, he didn't possess Dark Magic and therefore couldn't fully blend in with the shadows. Souma could only hope that this was enough for the success of the mission.
Hours passed, but there was still no trace of the culprit. Then, finally, it was past midnight with the moon high in the sky that Souma noticed noises coming from the warehouse. He had been awake until then, but the sleep had made itself felt, and his attention had dropped by a lot. Fortunately, as soon as he heard the noise, he woke up completely and focused his attention on the warehouse waiting for the culprit to come out. And it finally happened.
A squat humanoid figure with a big ugly head like a potato or a stone. In height, it didn't exceed that of a child. It wore a raincoat made of straw that covered its small body, leaving its large head uncovered. In order not to trip on the ground due to its clumsy movements, it held a wooden stick in its left hand. At the same time, with its right arm, it was holding a barrel of oil larger than its own body.
"A yokai," Souma whispered as he narrowed his eyes to try to visualize its physical characteristics better. But, unfortunately, none of the yokai traits were familiar to him, and he had no information in his book relating to the type of yokai in front of his eyes. It wasn't strange, however; after all, it was an investigation mission, and for hunters who had been operating for a short time, it was normal to encounter species of yokai unknown to them.
Souma let the unknown yokai continue on his way, starting to follow him from afar. As a hunter who lived mostly outdoors, having to procure food and water on his own, Souma was adept at stalking his prey. This ability, therefore, proved useful on this occasion, where no force intervention was required.
Indeed, Souma decided to follow the yokai to its lair. In this way, he hoped to understand why the yokai had left those footprints, and if this turned out to be a trap, he could kill the yokai and its possible companions, acquiring their yokai cores. In any case, for him, it didn't change at all, whatever the reality of the facts was.
The squat-bodied yokai walked awkwardly through the night. Its cane was the only thing keeping it from falling, but it still didn't seem to be tired of carrying the barrel full of oil. The yokai continued like this for a long time until it reached the forest. At that point, only then did it begin to take a good look around. Then it nimbly jumped over a tree and started moving from tree to tree using the branches.
Souma was surprised to see such agility from that yokai who had so far shown anything but being agile. But he decided not to pay it much attention now. Instead, he continued to pursue the yokai from behind without wasting any more time, ensuring he kept enough distance. Thankfully, the moon wasn't obscured by any clouds that day, making the moon's rays illuminate the forest properly. Otherwise, following the yokai while maintaining enough distance to avoid detection would have been impossible.
Eventually, after a long chase, the yokai arrived at the entrance to a cave. There, a human was sitting leaning against the wall as he stood guard. As soon as the yokai showed itself, the man raised his voice to address the companions within.
"Hey! The Abura Sumashi is back. It has another barrel of oil with it." the man informed as he stood up.
"What? Only one?" another voice answered.
Soon after, a group of men came out of the cave. In total, including the man who acted as a night watchman, there were a total of five men. Among them, the chief was a middle-aged man with short green hair and a light beard. And it was the latter who spoke.
The Abura Sumashi then put down the barrel of oil it had stolen and laid it on the ground so that the man with short green hair could examine it. But the man didn't even look at the stolen goods and instead kicked the yokai violently, sending its squat body flying.
Cough! Cough!
The yokai began to cough violently. It was at the wanderer level, and his stage was low as well. Considering his small body, it wasn't strange that it had taken so much damage. However, the Abura Sumashi attempted to get up immediately using its cane to support its body.
"Dirty creature! I told you you have to steal two at a time. What are you doing? Are you taking it easy?"
The green-haired leader kicked the stick the Abura Sumashi was using and sent it flying. The poor yokai fell to the ground again and began to be battered with kicks. The yokai curled up its body as much as possible to reduce the affected surface, shivering with pain. The only thing it could do was hold out helplessly until its assailant got tired of beating it.
And so it was. After a beating that lasted several minutes, the man got fed up. The yokai had been holding its lips together all the time, even at the cost of biting its lips until blood came out. However, in doing so, it hadn't even uttered a cry of pain.
"Bah! Stupid creature. It's not worth wasting my strength on you. Let this be a lesson to you, or we'll let your friend taste the blows you took today."
Upon hearing this, the Abura Sumashi put on an expression of terror and struggled to say no with its head, "No ... please ... I'm wrong ..."
The fact that the yokai could speak was surprising, considering it was just a wanderer level. Even though its pronunciation sounded very guttural, you could still understand what it was saying. However, at the same time, it wasn't something that special when you looked at the whole landscape of yokai society. Many yokai already had their own language systems and learning the human one wasn't different from learning a foreign language. Even if it was difficult, it wasn't impossible.
'So the one responsible for the thefts is the Abura Sumashi, but it is nothing but a pawn in the hands of these men.' So Souma sensed as he continued to look at the situation. Since he kept his distance so as not to be identified, he couldn't hear the words that the yokai and the man said to each other. However, Souma could still guess that the real culprits were none other than that group of humans.
'It doesn't look like they would give up if I asked them. I have to kill them.' thought Souma as he began to crawl towards the group's watcher. The other men had returned inside the cave carrying the barrel of oil. The Abura Sumashi had also entered with them, hardly being able to walk from the wounds of the beating taken before.
As for killing other humans, Souma had no complaints about it. He already knew that many humans were nothing more than despicable beings, even worse than yokai. At least the yokai were easily distinguishable as enemies, and many attacked humans just because they considered them a source of food. But spotting scum among humans was difficult because people could lie and disguise themselves as good people. Luckily, Souma had no doubts this time about the true nature of those men.
Whoo, whoo!
Souma emitted a series of animal-like whistles as he moved. The guard rose from his seat and observed his surroundings to understand what had originated that noise. Then, suddenly, he heard the noise in the grass next to him. So, the guard drew his sword and went to check.
Slash!
The sword cut the grass cleanly there, but there was no trace of animals. Puzzled, the man continued to look in the vicinity of that point in case his strike missed the one responsible for those sounds.
Stab!
A cold sensation invaded his throat, followed by a warm one as a hand with a strong grip blocked his mouth. Souma had, in fact, created a series of noises to attract him to a specific point and attack him from behind. At that moment, a dagger was stuck in the guard's throat as Souma's hand closed the guard's mouth to keep him from making sounds.
'The first is gone. There are four left.'
Souma then moved on to his next move. He tied a mixture of tree bark and leaves together, using some flower roots, and gave it a circular shape. So he created 10 balls of bark and leaves which he set fire to using his magic. Then using the Mudra, he adjusted the intensity of the flame and the trajectory of the balls towards the inside of the cave.
The balls immediately caught fire and began to produce smoke in no time at all. Obviously, they had no offensive power, but as a distraction, they were more than excellent. Souma then rushed inside immediately after sending his flaming bark and tree balls.
The reason was that he didn't know how big the cave actually was, and there was a risk that the smoke wouldn't cover the entire space. If so, then the four men inside would be surprised, but he would soon recover. If he attacked immediately after his diversion, using the Light Magic to blind the men, he would have a better chance of taking out as many enemies as possible.
"What's going on?"
"Fire!"
"How is it possible?"
The men inside were taken aback, not understanding what had happened. But before they could formulate a logical thought, a dazzling light blinded them.
"Arghh! My eyes!"
Those closest to the light put their hands to their eyes as the smoke generated by the fireballs only made the situation worse. Souma was quick to act and took advantage of this circumstance.
Slash!
His sword quickly cut through the throats of two of the men. Then the young hunter quickly moved on to the third target. He was more distant from the light, and therefore he wasn't blinded by it. But he had breathed in some smoke and was coughing as he shielded his nose with his hand.
Slash!
Souma aimed at the man's knees with a horizontal cut. The man felt his body give way as he fell with his butt to the ground. Soon after, a sword blade struck him, splitting his skull. With this, four of the men occupying the cave had died.
'All that is left now are the chief and the yokai.'
Souma wasn't worried about the yokai; it posed no danger to Souma. Instead, the biggest concern was the human still alive. If he were a normal human, then there would be nothing to fear. However, if he had awakened his spirit power, then Souma had to pay close attention.