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Chapter 33: The Country of Yu, a strange village, a new template (Land of Yu = Land of Hot Water)
Snap! Snap!
In the crisp sound of horse hooves, accompanied by the shouting.
"Whoops! Boss, whoosh! Haven't we arrived yet? I, I feel like I'm going to be exhausted!"
"You've just dismounted and walked a few steps and you're already exhausted. It seems like your usual training volume is still not enough. Why don't we double the amount of your training after we go back?"
"Ah?! I, I'm not tired! Who said I was tired!"
Yahiko, who was walking on foot, was breathing heavily as he talked. In comparison, Kumokawa and Nagato, who were riding horses, were much more leisurely.
Three days have passed since they crossed the border and entered the territory of the Kingdom of Fire.
"Idiot, stop complaining. If my brother hadn't attracted the people from Konoha, we wouldn't even be able to cross the border of the Fire Country. Then we would have to take a boat and take the waterway to bypass the Fire Country."
"However, with your useless physique, you will definitely vomit and collapse after sitting on the boat for several days. It is really a pity to think of missing that scene."
Maybe it's to vent the pressure, or maybe it's because he can't stand Yahiko.
Nagato rode alongside Yahiko and made sarcastic remarks, causing Yahiko to glare at him.
Just didn't wait for him to reply.
Accompanied by the neighing sound of the horse, Kumokawa, who was wearing regular clothes, tightened the reins, and the horse under him also stopped.
Seeing Kumokawa who was leading the way suddenly stop, Yahiko subconsciously raised his head and looked ahead, suddenly showing an expression of tears of joy: "Wow! After walking for a day, I finally encountered a village!"
Not far in front of them, there was no longer an endless forest of weeds, but a path stretching into the distance.
You can vaguely see some building outlines, all thatched houses, with earth and stone walls and thatched roofs to protect them from rain, giving them a unique sense of simplicity from the past.
The most conspicuous and unconventional thing was a tall building with huge vaults and buttresses, all made of masonry, which made Kumokawa take a second look.
With his powerful vision blessed by his "Pure Eye", he could see a sign on the building.
Which seemed like a circle with a triangle inside?
In addition, there are large deserted fields on both sides of the path, and a few short and thin figures can be vaguely seen.
The men were all wearing short shirts and holding a shovel in their hands, as if they were filling the ground with soil.
As soon as Kumokawa and the others walked onto the path, they looked up.
"Hey!" Yahiko jumped up and waved to them, shouting, "Uncle, can we borrow a room to take a rest?"
Kumokawa did not stop his rash move, he just squinted his eyes and looked at the people in the distance.
As if hearing the sound, three people came over.
"I am the mayor of this village. May I ask, where are you from?"
The leader was an old man, holding a cane in his hand. He seemed to be forty or fifty years old. His old face was covered with wrinkles, but his smile was very kind.
However, when he saw them, Nagato frowned.
The condition of this group of people seems to be much better than that of the refugees in the Rain Kingdom.
All of them have rosy complexions, unlike normal refugees, who are sallow and skinny.
However, based on what they saw and heard along the way, it should be the border of the Country of Yu.
Neither protected by the Country of Fire nor favored by the Country of Yu, can they actually still have enough to eat in the current chaotic situation in the ninja world?
"...."
Although Nagato has a lot of doubts, he didn't think his brother didn't notice it. Since his brother didn't say anything, he tacitly chose not to say a word.
"Old man, we are from the Country of Fire and want to go to the port of the Country of Yu."
Kumokawa patted Yahiko who was about to speak, and said with an apologetic tone in his gentle tone: "This child's character is very reckless. I hope you don't mind his rudeness."
"Excuse me, how far do we need to go to get to the port?"
"The port is far away." The old man shook his head, pointed toward the east, and sighed, "It will probably take you a day or two to get there on horseback, and the nearest village will take another half a day to walk, and the road is not very good."
After that, he paused, looked at Kumokawa and the others, and said with a smile: "I think you are not a bad person with two children. If you don't mind, you can stay at my house for one night and leave early in the morning."
Can I stay overnight?
No more sleeping on a tree?
Hearing this, Yahiko's eyes lit up.
However, the recent training has been quite effective. Instead of responding as decisively as before, he looked up at Kumokawa expectantly.
He's just easier to get into, and he's not so stupid that he can't distinguish priorities.
"We can't let the old man's good intentions go to waste." Kumokawa didn't even look at him, but said with a smile on his lips, "Then we will trouble you."
In this case, the four people and two horses walked towards the village.
"Old man, why are all the fields here abandoned?"
"Sign, there used to be tea trees growing here, but the weather was bad and no one dared to pick them. If you pick them, you have to pay taxes. The land rent also costs 60% of the income. In the end, you have to pay a lot of money."
As soon as these words came out, Yahiko, who originally had no idea about these things, looked at Kumokawa on the horse again.
Especially the old man's endless complaints made his perception of Kumokawa change.
Greedy landlords dare to demand 60% of their income for land rent!
For a normal landlord, land rent costs 40% of his income.
In comparison, Kumokawa only needs 30% of his income, so he is simply a philanthropist.
Moreover, almost all landowners used big buckets in and small buckets out. They lent farmers grain, using small buckets to contain it, and when collecting rent, they used larger buckets.
Even if you are lucky and encounter a benevolent noble and still if his underlings are corrupted, in the end there won't be much difference.
It was the first time that Yahiko felt Kumokawa's "kindness" so deeply.
"By the way." The old man walked slowly and asked intentionally or unintentionally, "May I ask, why are you going to the port?"
"Oh, it's a long story..."
Hearing Kumokawa sigh with emotion, I originally thought he was going to keep the story short. The old man made a listening gesture with a smile on his face, but then he heard Kumokawa's conversation suddenly changed:
"Since it's a long story, I'd better not mention it. What's your name, old man?"
As soon as he said this, Yahiko squeaked and stumbled with his left foot and his right foot, almost breaking his waist.
Immediately, he looked up at Kumokawa with a horrified expression, unable to believe that he could still tell cold jokes.
But isn't this way of changing the topic a bit too blunt?
"..." The smile on the old man's face also froze, and his wrinkled face looked very funny.
But he soon put on his face again, smiled and shook his head and said: "Your temperament looks like nobility at first sight, so don't tease an old man like me. People in the village call me Uncle Kayama."
Kumokawa smiled and didn't say a word and walked all the way to the village. They passed dozens of closed houses, came to a relatively clean courtyard, and Old man took them into a side room.
Apart from the two beds, there was nothing else in the room.
"Hope you enjoy your evening here."
The old man who opened the door turned to look at Kumokawa, with a sincere smile on his wrinkled face.
"I also hope you can have a sweet dream tonight." Kumokawa responded with the same gentle smile.
Watching the old man slowly disappear after closing the door, Kumokawa shook his head and looked at the room.
It seems to be a temporary residence reserved for outsiders.
Apparently they weren't the only outsiders to live here.
As for those who came before them...
"Sigh!"
Yahiko threw himself on the bed and rolled around with a look of satisfaction on his face.
But in the next second, Kumokawa pinched his collar and lifted him up.
"Can't you smell that rancid smell that even perfume can't cover up at all?"
Nagato sneered, then walked to the bed and gently lifted the bed.
Yahiko, who was still fluttering, subconsciously looked down, his pupils suddenly shrank, and his face turned pale due to the stench that hit his face.
I saw that there was an empty space under the bed.
It was filled with pale and terrifying skeletons. Some of the corpses were not even completely decomposed, and their shriveled and pale faces could still be seen vaguely.
"It seems that we have encountered a black shop."
Kumokawa chuckled and looked up out of the window.
I saw that the setting sun was sinking over the distant wilderness. Different from the sublime feeling brought by the hanging sun, the red sun above the desolate land was so big that it made people feel lonely at a glance.
The only background that sets it off is the boundless sky and the boundless land. The sun falling towards the village is like a huge tomb sleeping in the earth.
And that extremely tall stone building is the lonely tombstone on this tomb pit.
That sign...
"The Cult of Jashin?" (Jashin = Evil God )
Kumokawa murmured in a low voice, and with a thought in his mind, his consciousness sank into the depths of his mind.
[Defeat Tsunade [Youth], probability trigger, get new template]
[Name: Carnage [Initial Symbiote]]
[World: Marvel]