Ever since he said goodbye to Yul and the others that morning, Hajime had been riding on the back of the wolf. His back and butt cheeks began to ache from sitting for too long. He had changed positions countless times throughout the morning, but nothing seemed to help, and now every time the baby moved in his belly, his back pain became worse, and he felt like his chest was going to burst. He knew that the baby was moving too much, probably because he hadn't eaten anything since the morning. Hajime thought the reason the baby kept moving might be because he must be hungry, so Hajime decided to look for a shady place to rest, had lunch, and then continued towards Dongxue Village.
Hajime touched his belly and whispered, "Baby... be good, daddy will eat soon." He felt another powerful kick, which he could feel on his hand. Hajime felt discomfort around his chest and grunted. "You...little...devil." Hajime took a few deep breaths.
"Are you sure this is the right way?" U-ri asked, turning his face to his right and looking at Hajime, the wind whistling past him.
"Yeah..." Hajime softly groaned. "I'm sure they're heading this way."
U-ri asked, "Why don't we use your eagle so we can catch up with them faster?"
Hajime said, "My eagles can see, but they can't track scent. Besides, I don't know where Dongxue Village is."
U-ri said, "That's a reasonable explanation."
When his bladder started to fill to the point where he felt uncomfortable; Hajime knew he had to stop and rest quickly because if the baby didn't stop kicking, he might not be able to hold his bladder. As an adult, if Hajime loses his bladder control in front of U-ri, he will not be able to face U-ri in the future.
"U-ri," Hajime said, and the baby moved again. Hajime took a deep breath, trying to ease the pain and holding his bladder. "We need a break."
"It would be nice for you to take a break. We've not taken break since this morning," U-ri said, starting to worry when he saw the uncomfortable look on Hajime's face. "Hajime, are you alright?"
Hajime bit his lower lip and said, "I'm fine. The baby just changed his position and accidentally kicked me in the ribs."
U-ri said with worries, "Let's find a place to rest before we continue. Your wolves can track their scent so we can rest until you feel better."
U-ri quickly got off the wolf and helped Hajime down. He returned to the wolf and began to take food out of one of the bags while Hajime went behind a rock to urinate.
After Hajime finished urinating, Hajime walked back to the other side of the rock and suddenly felt that his vision became blurry. Hajime squinted his eyes and gently shook his head from side to side, trying to refocus. He felt that his head was a little heavy, so he shook his head again, sat on the ground, raised his head and looked at U-ri's back. Hajime suddenly felt nauseous, and then he started to see tunnel vision. His vision continued to zoom in and out as he continued to stare at U-ri's back. He began to hear ringing in his ears. The ringing gets louder and louder from nearer to farther away. He covered his ears with his hands, but the ringing continued.
"U-ri..." Hajime whispered, and the next thing he remembered was hitting his head on the ground.
"What?" U-ri said, reaching out and holding the water bag. The wolf standing in front of him suddenly disappeared, causing U-ri to turn around and see Hajime pass out on the ground.
U-ri quickly rushed to Hajime's side, poured water into his hand, and wiped some water on Hajime's forehead, trying to wake him up.
"Hajime! Hajime! Can you hear me?" U-ri asked worriedly. "Come on... wake up. Hajime!"
"Kenji..." Hajime murmured.
"What?" U-ri asked, putting his left ear close to Hajime's mouth.
"Kenji..."
"Kenji...?" U-ri was surprised when the name he heard from Hajime was not Yul's but someone else's name. "Who is Kenji?" U-ri asked.
"I don't want to go back," Hajime murmured.
When U-ri heard Hajime whisper that he didn't want to go back, U-ri thought he must have heard Hajime wrong. U-ri took out a handkerchief, poured water on it, and began to wipe Hajime's forehead. "You must be talking nonsense right now. Kaizen isn't here. No one will take you back." U-ri sighed.
U-ri continued to wipe Hajime's forehead when he suddenly noticed that the branches began to move. "Hajime!" he said sternly. "You have to wake up now. We have to go."
Hajime slowly opened his eyes and looked at U-ri. "U-ri? What's wrong?" he asked weakly.
U-ri said, "There's something in those trees."
Hajime turned to look at the woods behind him, and saw the branches shaking violently, as if something was fighting fiercely with the branches.
Hearing fighting sounds coming from the tree branches approaching them closer, Hajime quickly stood up with U-ri's help. U-ri bent down to grab the medicine bag, when a furry black ball flew out of tree branches and landed a few feet away from U-ri and Hajime.
U-ri grabbed onto Hajime's arm. "What's that?" He asked frighteningly.
Hajime looked at the back of the furry black ball and thought that the furry black ball looked like a monkey. "It looks like a monkey," he said.
As the black furry ball tried to stand up, Hajime and U-ri suddenly saw a severely injured little black gorilla. The baby gorilla fell to his knees, then fell to the ground motionless. Hajime and U-ri saw blood slowly flowing out from under the baby gorilla's lower body.
"Hajime, time to go," U-ri said, slinging the medicine bag over his shoulder. U-ri knew that the baby's mother must be nearby, and it would not be a good thing for them if the mother saw them with her dead child. U-ri grabbed onto Hajime's wrist. "We don't want to be here when the mother comes."
Hajime and U-ri started to move away from the dead gorilla when four large furry black men jumped from the branches and landed twenty yards away from them. Four naked, furry men, each holding a wooden spear in their hands, slowly approached Hajime and U-ri, while Hajime and U-ri slowly backed away from the four furry men, Hajime's His hand slowly reached into his cross bag.
"Hajime," U-ri whispered. "I think, according to the hunter, we need to hold our ground and not look away. Falling back shows that we are the weaker link." Although U-ri proposed this idea, due to human nature, U-ri's feet began slowly backing away faster than Hajime's.
Just as the four furry men were approaching the two Tanzanies, the mother gorilla jumped down from the branch and waved to one of the furry men. Knocking the furry man to the ground. The mother gorilla clawed her fingers into the furry man's neck and pulled out the flesh of the furry man's neck. Then the mother gorilla jumped towards the other three furry men and started attacking them.
Seeing that this was their only chance to escape, the two Tanzanies quickly ran away, leaving behind the mother gorilla and the three furry men without looking back. However, before the two Tanzanies had gone far, they saw five other furry men jumping from the bushes and began chasing them.
As U-ri run for his life without looking back, U-ri quickly reached into his robe, took out a red talisman, and sent the talisman into the sky. He knew that if the others were nearby, they would know that he was in danger and needed their help.
Wen was disappointed when only six men followed him back to Dongxue Village. He hoped that Budi would allow more monks to help the villagers. He sighed and realized that six people joining forces could not defeat the large number of the savages.
Yul, who was sitting across from Wen, noticed Wen's disappointed expression. "You don't look happy. Why?" Yul asked.
Wen said, "My face was too obvious?"
Yul nodded.
Wen sighed and said, "I should be grateful but..."
Michio asked, "What makes you unhappy?"
Wen said, "I was thinking, how can you six people face two or three hundred savage men. You six people are no match for an army of three hundred savages."
Yul said, "We promised Master Budi that we would help you bring back the kidnapped children, and we intend to keep our promise."
Abrafo said, "We are not here to help your village waging war with the Taka tribe."
Yul said, "Master Budi asked us to make peace with the Taka tribe."
Abrafo said, "Therefore, we are just peace brokers, not helping your villages conquer the Taka tribe, so there is no need to bring troops."
Wen said, "You don't understand, this method no longer works, because the current leader is no longer the leader of the past. Their new leader is more ruthless and even uses children's blood for."
"What is that?" Michio said, standing up.
"What?" Abrafo asked, chewing on his food.
"That thing... seems to be our distress signal" Michio said dumbfoundedly.
Yul quickly stood up.
Abrafo stood up and saw the red butterfly signal in the distance. Abrafo said, "A marker? Is that U-ri?"
Yul gritted his teeth and said, "It's Hajime." He grabbed his sword. "Michio, stay with them."
One of the monks said, "We are fine, you three can go."
Wen stood up and said, "No, you can't leave. We just came from there, so those savages may already know that we are entering their territory." He saw that Yul was already on the horse. "Someone stops him."
Abrafo patted Wen's shoulder lightly and said with a smile, "Now, no one and nothing can stop him from going back." He looked at Michio. "Let's go."
Wen asked in shock, "Are you two going too?"
Abrafo said with a smile, "Don't worry. We will be back soon."