"Hahaha... These are all mine."
"Don't fight me for them. I found them."
"Beauty, don't run!"
The bandits carried torches and all kinds of weapons... cleavers and the like, rampaging through the village and looting everything.
Anything they could carry off, they took. Anything they couldn't, they burned.
Without exception, every bandit here had a huge scar on his face.
"Stop! This is the last of our food! If you take it, how are we supposed to survive?"
Life was already hard for the people of this era, and this year's harvest had been poor.
They didn't have enough stored food to begin with, and now bandits had come to rob them. Were they trying to kill them? All the villagers... young men and old, picked up tools and tried to stop the bandits.
"How you survive is none of our concern. You dare stand in our way... You die!"
Bandits weren't thieves. They took what they wanted by force, and anyone who dared resist got cut down with a single slash.
Of course, that was true of the men.
As for the women, any who weren't too ugly were simply tied up.
In this era, those killed by demons were actually in the minority. Most people died at the hands of their fellow humans.
War, the tyranny of rulers, and the bandits and brigands who ruled from the mountains.
Many powerful bandit gangs destroyed an entire village with every raid. And those with nowhere else to turn had no choice but to join the bandits and brigands.
It was a vicious cycle.
Demons treated people as food, but they only hunted once in a long while, taking just a few people each time.
There were even many demons who didn't eat people at all.
Evil bandits were different. They would plunder one village after another, slaughtering the elderly, men, and children alike. They didn't need slaves; slaves only consumed food.
As for women, if they were reasonably attractive, they were tied up like goods. Their fate was easy to imagine.
After a raid, few people in a village survived. Sometimes, none did.
"H-help... Someone, please save me..."
A girl of twelve or thirteen, with a delicate oval face and finely shaped features, wore a simple kimono. Her long, straight black hair was carefully groomed, and she was exceptionally beautiful—not like the daughter of an ordinary commoner.
Tears streamed down her face as she ran desperately toward the village exit.
Several bandits armed with weapons were chasing her.
"Stop! Don't run!"
"Keep running, and I'll cut your legs off!"
"Gahaha... Beauty, you can't get away."
The pursuing bandits were thrilled. They couldn't believe that in a little village of a few hundred people, they'd found such a beautiful girl. She looked just like a noble's "princess."
They'd never laid hands on a beauty like her before.
After they offered her to the boss, they could still get a taste.
"Ah..."
The village road was uneven, and the girl accidentally stepped into a dip in the ground, tripping and falling.
Oh no...
As she fell, all the color drained from her face.
She could imagine exactly what would happen if these cruel, vicious bandits caught her...
"Beauty, you can't run anymore!"
"Don't worry... We'll take good care of you."
The vicious bandits crowded around her. Staring down at the girl, one reached out with a filthy hand to grab her.
"Someone... please save me..."
At the sight of the bandit's filthy hand, the girl shut her eyes in terror.
"Bang..."
A sound like a strange firecracker rang out, followed by a scream.
What was happening...
The girl opened her eyes in confusion. The first bandit who had reached for her was clutching his arm and screaming. Blood poured from the wound.
The other bandits stared fearfully in one direction. The girl turned to look as well.
A shrine maiden dressed in white on top and red below... No, not a shrine maiden! A pair of long ears sprouted from her head. She was a demon...
A strange demon dressed as a shrine maiden.
The demon shrine maiden wore two swords at her waist and held a pair of strange objects in both hands. They looked like the matchlocks or handguns spoken of in legends.
The bandit who had grabbed her must have been shot by one of those matchlocks, right?
"A shrine maiden... or a demon?"
"The weapon in her hands is a matchlock. It only has one bullet, so don't be afraid. There are so many of us; she can only injure one more person."
"Right, I know what that thing is. It's called a matchlock. I once saw a noble use one. It looked a little different, but they're all pretty much the same. It can only fire once."
The bandits, who had been startled by the gunshot, immediately lost their fear after two of their "well-informed" companions explained things.
Looking at the beautiful Half-Demon before them, their lust overcame their reason. To have a woman this beautiful, even if she was a demon, would be worth dying for.
She was several times more beautiful than the girl on the ground.
"A matchlock? It only has one bullet?"
Matchlocks had appeared two or three hundred years ago, even as early as the Southern Song dynasty in Shenzhou. But because they were impractical, no one had paid them much attention. They could only fire once.
They had seen widespread use during the Ming dynasty, but were still little more than toys and collector's items.
As the bandits approached, Yae Sakura toyed with the [Moon God's Protection] in her hands and aimed at the men before her.
Judging by the murderous aura around them and the vengeful spirits clinging to them, they had harmed plenty of innocent people...
It was only right to kill them, wasn't it?
Yae Sakura kept making excuses to comfort herself. She had slain plenty of demons, but she had never killed a person before.
Even if they were vicious bandits...
"In this era... you have to kill sometimes!"
After hesitating for a moment, Yae Sakura pulled the trigger...
"Bang!"
This time, the shot didn't hit an arm or anything like that. It struck a chest... the heart.
"I... killed someone..."
But why didn't she feel the slightest bit upset? Instead... why did she feel a little exhilarated, as if she couldn't stop?
Yae Sakura was still thinking, but her hands never stopped moving. She fired again and again. In the blink of an eye, the charging bandits had all been hit by Moon God and killed.
"I... I'm not like this..."
This exhilaration... This isn't me...
Yae Sakura suddenly went limp... and sat on the ground with her legs tucked beneath her. Moon God slipped from her hands and fell to the ground. She clutched her head with both hands.