The town was surprisingly... desolate.

No, that’s not exactly the right word for it.

The streets were certainly bustling with activity; Seijirou could see vendors setting up stalls, children running between the stone lanterns, and men carrying heavy crates of supplies for the upcoming festival.

From a distance, it looked like a thriving hub of rural prosperity.

But as he stood there, watching the flow of the crowd, he realized that the energy was wrong.

It felt as if most of the people here were... mechanical.

It was very weird.

Their very movement seemed choreographed, and their every smile feels as if it was practiced, as if the entire population were actors on a stage performing for an audience that wasn’t there.

There was also a lack of spontaneous noise—no rowdy laughter from the bystanders, and no genuine chatter between neighbors, instead, there was a low, rhythmic sound of coordinated labor.

Especially the old people.

Although some looked relatively normal, but most of them that they have seen were the most unsettling of all.

They sat on porches or stood at corners, their eyes milky and distant, yet they seemed to track every movement with a precision that borders that of a predator looking at prey.

It also felt as if they knew something that others didn’t, and they were moving in a way that was so eerie and uncanny, shifting their weight with a grace that didn’t belong to bodies that aged.

Not to mention....

Seijirou felt something was missing in this town. It was like a conceptual void, a gap in the logic of the local society that his instincts were screaming about.

"Haruka," Seijirou stopped, his hand tightening slightly on hers as the warmth of the afternoon sun felt fake against the chill crawling up his spine. "This town is very weird. It’s like a clockwork toy that’s been wound too tight."

Haruka nodded, her eyes darting toward the shadows beneath the eaves of the traditional houses. "I feel it as well, Seijirou-sama. It’s very uncanny, as if something is wrong, but I couldn’t really put a finger on it."

At that moment...

"Young people these days are very rude."

The voice didn’t come from a distance, instead, it came right behind them, whispered with a dry, papery rasp that sounded like dead leaves skittering across a grave.

Seijirou and Haruka froze, their backs turning cold as if a snake had just wrapped itself over their bodies.

The presence that made itself known was silent, so silent that they haven’t noticed it even with their enhanced senses.

Without hesitation, they used their refined reflexes to turn around and jump back simultaneously, gaining several meters of distance in a blur of movement.

Then, they landed in a low, defensive crouch, their muscles coiled and ready to fight, their eyes scanning for a threat.

But their eyes blinked as they processed the sight in front of them.

It was an old man, his back hunched and his skin like yellowed parchment, leaning heavily on a gnarled wooden staff.

Beside him stood three other young men whose appearance were jarring; their features were melted and distorted, with droopy, mismatched eyes and receding chins.

They looked like they had undergone several generations of intensive inbreeding, their genetic code collapsing under the weight of isolated reproduction.

"Our town is very great!" one of the boys said, his voice a thick, wet slur as he took a step forward, his mismatched eyes fixed on Seijirou. "You city folk just can’t accept our culture! You think you’re better because you have neon lights and high rise buildings!"

"That’s right! How very rude of you!" another chimed in, his head tilting at an unnatural angle. "To stand in the street and whisper about our home. You have no respect for the God of the Mountain! You will surely be punished for your transgression!"

Seijirou didn’t let down his guard, but he stood up slowly, stepping forward to shield Haruka behind his larger frame.

He forced his face into a mask of polite apology, acting like a city boy who just arrived in the countryside for the first time. "Sorry for that, elder. We just aren’t used to this level of quiet since it’s very peaceful here. The city is very noisy, with a bunch of cars and bikes and constant screaming, so we found the silence weird. It was a compliment, really."

The old man stared at him for a long, agonizing minute, his eyes didn’t seem to blink; they just drifted over Seijirou’s face as if searching for a lie written in the pores of his skin.

Finally, he gave a slow, creaking nod, and without another word, he turned around and began to walk away, his staff thumping rhythmically on the dirt road.

The three young men didn’t follow immediately, but stayed for a moment, pointing their fingers at their droopy eyes and then at Seijirou, making a slow, deliberate "watching you" gesture.

Their expressions were vacant yet malicious, a terrifying combination of idiocy and intent.

Finally, they turned and followed the old man into the shadows of a side alley.

The moment they were gone, the oppressive weight in the air lifted just enough for Seijirou to breathe.

He looked around the empty street and whispered, "Geez, they look so fucking ugly. Are they breeding with their own mothers or what—"

He paused mid-sentence, his eyes went wide, and his jaw tightened as the missing piece of the puzzle finally clicked into place in his mind.

Haruka noticed his sudden strangeness, her hand moving to grab his arm in worry. "Is something wrong, Seijirou-sama? Did you sense something?"

"Women," he said, his voice low and sharp.

"Hm?" Haruka tilted her head in confusion.

"This village has a severe lack of women, Haruka," Seijirou said, his gaze sweeping across the town with a new, clinical focus. "Think about it. We’ve walked through the market, the main thoroughfare, and the residential zones, but I haven’t seen a single young woman. Not one. There were no girls playing, no teenagers shopping, no young mothers. And I haven’t seen any old ladies either, aside from your grandmother back at the mansion."

Haruka thought for a moment, her mind racing back through the last hour of their stroll as she processed every face she had seen, and every figure in the distance.

Instantly, her eyes widened as she realized the truth.

Indeed, that seemed to be the case. While they were strolling, Haruka finally remembered that there were barely any women in town.

The population was almost entirely male, ranging from the distorted youths to the eerie elders.

She hadn’t noticed it before because she had been so focused on what they had done in the alleyway and only now did she finally find out because Seijirou had mentioned the demographic impossibility.

In a town this size, where were the wives? The sisters? The daughters?

"What... should we do, Seijirou-sama?" Haruka asked, her voice dropping into a tactical whisper. "Although it is indeed very weird, but since no one seems to mention the matter, it might be normal here."

"...We should ask your grandparents," Seijirou said, his face hardening into a mask of cold determination. "They’re the local royalty or something aren’t they? If there’s a ’custom’ that involves hiding every female in the village, they might know something. Or at least, they might know what that temple at the peak is really for."

He turned towards the temple. Ever since he got here, he always find that temple very unsettling.

Haruka nodded, the peaceful countryside vacation officially over in her mind.

And with that, the two of them turned and began to walk briskly back toward the Midorima Mansion, their hands still joined, but their grips were now tight with the anticipation of a coming storm.

*

*

*

At this moment, in the shadows of the alleyway they had just passed, the old man who had spoken with Seijirou and Haruka suddenly stopped in his tracks.

He didn’t turn around, but he watched as the two figures grew smaller in the distance.

He furrowed his brows, his wrinkled skin folding like an accordion as the vacant look in his eyes vanished, replaced by a sharp, dark intelligence that was far too lucid for his fragile appearance.

"Go inform the high priest," the old man croaked, addressing the youth with the most distorted face. "Tell him that those two people are involved in the supernatural world. I felt the boy’s Ki, and it’s like a sun hidden behind a cloud. They might possess supernatural powers that could interfere with the Consecration."

One of the young man nodded, his droopy eyes flashing with a sudden, fanatical zeal. "Alright, dad. I’ll take the back mountain path. I’ll be at the temple in ten minutes."

The old man hummed, a low, buzzing sound that seemed to come from his throat and the air around him simultaneously as he watched Seijirou and Haruka reach the gates of the mansion.

"They are guests of the Midorima, which makes things complicated. But the Great God’s hunger is absolute, so we must get these two out of the way, or else the plan for the Miko might fail. If the boy is as strong as I think... we may need to use the ’incomplete’ vessels to stall him."

The youth grunted and vanished into the darkness of the mountain trail, leaving the old man and his two other brothers standing alone in the eerie silence of the town.

The old man looked up at the temple on the mountain peak and offered a creepy, toothless grin.

The harvest was coming, and he wouldn’t let two city children ruin a ritual twenty years in the making.