The hawks were still crying.
The so-called Golden Peak Mountain.
The so-called Spirit Rock Cave.
My eyes opened as they always had.
Still alive?
It seemed so.
Though barely—but in the end, I was alive. Still breathing, my heart still beating.
Yet this feeling was hardly a pleasant one.
Every time I fell asleep, I prepared myself never to wake again, but when I truly did awaken once more—
I was not all that grateful.
Well, at least there was a little secret delight.
But I was still afraid.
Fear of death was instinct, was it not?
Afraid that once my eyes closed, they would never open again—no matter who it was, everyone had likely felt that fear at least a few times.
It was somewhat naïve, but it truly was instinct.
What was laughable was not the instinct itself, but the fact that someone like me possessed such an instinct.
—After all, I was Musashi.
Shinmen Musashi-no-Kami Fujiwara no Genshin—the famed Miyamoto Musashi, the terrifying sword demon rumored to have begun cutting down others at the age of eleven. Whether in duels between samurai or upon the battlefield—
I had killed so many people.
At least, quite a few.
The exact number, I did not know.
Because there were too many to count.
After killing ten people, I could no longer be bothered to count, because at that moment, I knew that the people I would kill in the future could never be measured by mere numbers.
Ugh—
"Cough, cough—cough, cough—"
A dry, weak cough rang out.
This body truly was damned!
To make such a hateful sound of its own accord—
How—utterly unfunny.
Though the irony was rather fitting.
After all, to me, a mere human life was indeed the most meaningless thing of all.
My swordsmanship was