Hey, You-Mind If I Eat One of Your Offerings? / The Woodpecker's Nest Got Raided

The tavern owner hurriedly said, "Sir, you jest. I run a small business; where would I find freshly slaughtered chickens?"

"If you didn't kill a chicken, where did the blood on your face come from?" Yamabuki Chidori looked at the boss in front of her with a smile.

The tavern owner's expression suddenly changed, and he hurriedly reached up to touch his face.

The other members of the 11th Division had already noticed that something was wrong in the tavern, and each of them reached for their knives, ready to draw them and kill at any moment.

The members of the 11th Division are known for being the most combative group of people, and the neighborhood has been so safe lately that they haven't killed anyone in a long time!

"I... I... this might have been accidental..."

Yamabuki Chidori pushed the tavern owner aside and walked towards the kitchen.

At first, he didn't pay much attention, but when he noticed the boss's hesitant manner Yamabuki Chidori knew there was definitely something wrong here.

The members of the 11th Division, knife in hand, entered the back kitchen, and what happened next was terrifying.

In the kitchen, there was a piece of meat on a cutting board, and next to the cutting board was a human hand.

"Not only did you kill someone, but you also made a head full of minced meat! You're something else! I've seen plenty of perverts, but I've rarely seen one as perverted as you!" Yamabuki Chidori sneered.

The tavern owner, terrified, immediately knelt on the ground. "Innocent! Innocent! I really didn't kill these people!"

Huh? "These" people? And there's more than one dead?

Chapter 232: Hey you, you don't mind if I eat some offering food, do you?

Under Yamabuki Chidori's interrogation, the tavern owner tremblingly opened the cellar, only to find more than a dozen corpses lying haphazardly inside. None of the corpses were clothed. After examining the bodies, Yamabuki Chidori discovered that all of them had been killed with a single, clean blow, something the tavern owner could never have done.

"You have accomplices? Did you team up to run this shady business?" Yamabuki Chidori tied the tavern owner up and made him kneel on the ground to answer.

"No, no! I really don't have any accomplices. It's just that a group of people were fighting here yesterday, and a lot of people died. I thought it was such a waste to use these dead bodies, so... so I thought I'd turn them into meat-filled buns," the tavern owner said, trembling.

The members of the 11th Division all looked grim. They thought they were bad enough, but they never expected that someone was even more despicable than them.

"Chief Strategist, this kind of person should be executed on the spot, what do you say?"

Yamabuki Chidori looked at the tavern owner and couldn't help but twitch her lips. "He may escape death, but he won't escape punishment. Let's give him a beating."

The members of the 11th Division rushed up and beat the man black and blue. When Yamabuki Chidori saw that the beating was almost over, she asked the tavern owner to tell her the whole story.

It turns out that this tavern was the place where Ōtōgawa Utsugi went on a killing spree yesterday. After killing people, Ōtōgawa Utsugi left in a carefree manner. The owner felt that it was a waste to bury these dead people, so he decided to take advantage of them.

"So, your meat-filled steamed buns aren't actually finished yet?" Yamabuki Chidori asked.

"I failed, I failed! Please let me go this time! I'll never do it again! I promise I'll run my business properly from now on and never commit crimes again!" the tavern owner wailed.

"Also, did that person yesterday really say his name was Ōtōgawa Utsugi?" Yamabuki Chidori asked.

"Absolutely, I can't believe I heard you right." The boss practically swore on every single one of his fingers.

Yamabuki Chidori pinched her chin. Of the original thirteen Captain, twelve have now appeared. The last one is this Ōtōgawa Utsugi. Yamabuki Chidori has been secretly searching for these First Generation Captains, but she has never heard of him. Unexpectedly, she found him without any effort.

"Do you know which way that person went?" Yamabuki Chidori asked.

"I don't know, I really don't know, but..." The tavern owner hesitated, then cautiously replied, "I feel like he's an extremely stingy person, as stingy as can be! Seriously, you know, normal people come to a tavern to drink, who would come up and ask, 'Boss, what's free in your place?' Isn't that absurd?"

Seeing the tavern owner's complaining expression, Yamabuki Chidori twitched at the corner of her mouth. "Don't talk about him. You don't even plan to spare the dead. You're even stingier than him."

"Bring me a map of this area," Yamabuki Chidori said to her subordinates. Although there were maps of Soul Society before, they were only small-scale maps and not comprehensive ones.

Later, Yamabuki Chidori and her team drew up what was relatively the most complete map.

The tavern owner said this man was extremely stingy; after killing someone, he took all the valuables from the body, even the clothes.

They only drink well water when they come to the tavern, and they can't even bear to ask for a small dish of side dishes.

Where would such a person live? Inns and hotels are out of the question; taking a single penny from such a person would be worse than killing him.

Could he be staying at someone's house? No, an assassin should avoid contact with others as much as possible, otherwise his enemies will come knocking on his door sooner or later. So where else could he be staying?

Looking at the nearby map, Yamabuki Chidori suddenly noticed a temple in the village ahead, as indicated on the map.

Actually, when Yamabuki Chidori was recording this temple, she felt quite strange. The Soul Society was inhabited by the dead, and a bunch of dead people were actually worshipping gods.

Of course, Yamabuki Chidori comes to mind now is a scene: a person who is incredibly wealthy but stingy is unwilling to stay in an inn or eat good food, so he can only stay in a dilapidated temple, eating grasshoppers when he is hungry and drinking dew when he is thirsty.

Yamabuki Chidori really couldn't understand why such people wanted to make money. Isn't the purpose of money to improve one's life?

"Let's go to the village ahead. I suspect the murderer is in that village," Yamabuki Chidori said.

Before leaving, Yamabuki Chidori burned all the bodies and warned the hotel owner that if he dared to do such a thing again, he would cut off his head.

Then, he led his men through the rain to the village ahead. They didn't arrive until after noon. The rain had finally subsided a little, but the ground was very muddy and difficult to walk on.

"Chief Strategist, he's just a murderer, why bother with him? Wouldn't it be better to let him fend for himself?" one of the team members asked.

Unohana didn't clean up the Rukongai out of a sense of justice; she simply wanted to kill people and found an excuse.

The members of the 11th Division don't really have any sense of justice; they just want to fight.

If he were just an ordinary murderer, Yamabuki Chidori wouldn't bother with him. After all, in this world where Hollows frequently appear, can a murderer's petty actions even be considered a crime?

Look at the team around me. Without a dozen or twenty lives lost, who would be qualified to stand behind me?

Yamabuki Chidori values most is the result of collecting all the SSRs.

Before transmigrating, he played mobile games like his peers, such as Onmyoji, CFM, and Honor of Kings. Most people treat these games as competitive games, but Yamabuki Chidori played CFM, a shooting game, as a collection game. The greatest fun was not how high the rank was, but what kind of weapons he collected.

Even if this weapon is bizarre and has no practical use whatsoever, I'm still very happy.

Now, twelve of the thirteen First Generation Captains of the Gotei 13 have been "collected," and the fact that he is still missing one is making him very unhappy.

Yamabuki Chidori simply smiled and led her team directly into the temple.

At first, Yamabuki Chidori thought this was a dilapidated temple, one that had long since ceased to be a place of worship. But to her surprise, the temple was thriving, with the offering table piled high with all sorts of offerings.

When Yamabuki Chidori saw the deity enshrined in the temple, she couldn't help but laugh.

What appeared to be a gigantic eyeball was something bizarre and grotesque, but inside the eyeball was... a bent right hand.

Yamabuki Chidori understood perfectly well that this right hand was the Soul King's Right Hand, the very thing that later resided in Jūshirō Ukitake's body.

Although the strength of this right hand was already very weak, Yamabuki Chidori could still sense a faint Soul King's Power.

"We're all hungry, you don't mind if I eat some of your offerings, right? Brothers, let's eat, don't be shy." Yamabuki Chidori directly distributed the offerings on the altar to his teammates to show off.

Chapter 233: The Woodpecker's Home Has Been Stolen

Upon seeing the offerings before them, the team members hesitated somewhat.

One of the team members whispered, "Chief Strategist, I heard that the gods in this temple are quite efficacious. Are we just going to accept their offerings like this... isn't that a bit disrespectful?"

"It's okay, he's someone I know, no need to give him face, just eat whatever you want!" Yamabuki Chidori was already eating an apple.

Seeing their Lieutenant enjoying his food so much, the team members stopped paying attention to these details and started eating the fruit and pastries heartily.

They waited there for ages, but the person they were looking for never showed up.

After eating half her fill, Yamabuki Chidori syrup stroked her chin and muttered to herself, "Could my guess have been wrong? Ōtōgawa Utsugi not hiding here at all? Or is he like a cunning rabbit with three burrows, hiding somewhere else?"

Yamabuki Chidori pondered for a long time but couldn't figure it out, after all, he wasn't Shinigami Elementary Student.

It seems the Gotei 13 needs to recruit deductive reasoning talent. A thousand years from now, I'll go straight to Beika Town and kidnap Shinigami Elementary Student to work for me.

Wait a minute, according to what the tavern owner said earlier, Ōtōgawa Utsugi should be carrying a lot of money. In this era, money is made of metal, so carrying so much money to kill someone would definitely be very inconvenient.

As a professional assassin, Ōtōgawa Utsugi would definitely hide the money in a place where it would not be easily discovered.

What places are not easily discovered?

Yamabuki Chidori looked at the statue in the temple.

People in this era tend to be superstitious, attributing everything they don't understand to mysticism.

I've heard that this statue is very efficacious, so I doubt anyone would dare to offend it.

"I'll move you to a different spot and give you a massage while I'm at it. Consider it payment for the offerings I just took from you." Yamabuki Chidori directly moved the statue off its seat and casually tossed it aside.

The more superstitious team members hurriedly straightened the statue, bowed repeatedly, and muttered things like, "Please don't blame me."

After Yamabuki Chidori moved the statue, she was as happy as a child when she saw what was hidden underneath it.

Beneath the statue was a deep hole the size of a large bowl. Yamabuki Chidori reached in and pulled out the contents one by one: large bags of coins, many small gold bars, and some jewelry.

This amount of money is almost equivalent to half a month's revenue for my clothing store!

I once saw a video online where someone smashed a big hole in a tree where a Yamabuki Chidori was perched, and a lot of nuts fell out!

Yamabuki Chidori felt like the wicked lumberjack, Ōtōgawa Utsugi were like the pitiful woodpeckers who spent the whole winter filling the tree with woodpeckers, all for the benefit of others.

"Wow! Chief Strategist, we're rich now!" The team members shouted excitedly when they saw the money.

This is equivalent to several years' worth of their salary.

"The money isn't ours, we should be honest and return it to its rightful owner. Of course, we can't return it here." Yamabuki Chidori thought of a fun game. He took out a piece of wood, carved a few words on it, dropped it through the hole, and then put the statue back in its original position.

"Alright, brothers, let's go back." Yamabuki Chidori happily led her team back to the 11th Division.

The rain finally stopped in the afternoon, and a beautiful rainbow appeared in the sky.

As dusk fell, Ōtōgawa Utsugi returned happily, carrying a bag of money.

The mission went quite smoothly. The victim was a noble young master. He had thought his Guard were some kind of expert, but to his surprise, they were all killed in no time. He completed the mission easily.

The person who hired him paid a very generous sum of money.

Ōtōgawa Utsugi lavishly took out a copper coin to buy a bowl of wine, and then another copper coin to buy a small dish of pickles. They ate their dinner with relish before returning to the temple.

I must be like a hardworking Little Bee, accumulating wealth little by little, and one day I will become a rich person.

Ōtōgawa Utsugi chose the temple as their home for two reasons: first, it was free and inconspicuous; second, there were free offerings to eat.

He was just about to have some fruit after his meal when he discovered that the offerings for today were pitifully few.

There was only one grape.

Ōtōgawa Utsugi, believing in the truth that "free things are always the best," picked up the grape and popped it into their mouths.

Then he moved the statue aside, intending to deposit the money he had just earned inside.

But as he moved the statue, he noticed something was wrong. It seemed like someone had tampered with it. A bad feeling washed over him, and Ōtōgawa Utsugi quickly moved the statue aside and reached inside to touch it. And then...

"Empty... How could it be empty... How could it be empty... Empty..." Ōtōgawa Utsugi felt his mind was in complete chaos.

He reached out and slapped himself hard across the face.

"Dreaming! This must be a dream! Wake up! Or have I come to the wrong place? There's an identical temple in other villages, an identical statue inside, and an identical hole beneath the statue!" Ōtōgawa Utsugi trembled as they went outside, confirming that the temple was indeed the same, the statue was indeed the same, but the money beneath the statue...

"It's all gone!!!! All gone!!! My money!!! My money!!! Aaaaaaaahhhhhh!"

Ōtōgawa Utsugi knelt on the ground and roared to the sky. The pain was worse than being torn to pieces.

"Oh God! Why are you doing this to me! My money! I've worked so hard to save up for years!" Ōtōgawa Utsugi cried out in anguish.

He may have forgotten one principle.

Little Bee are indeed very hardworking, but the Little Bee they produce is ultimately taken away by cruel humans; they themselves can't eat much of it.

Moreover, while humans plunder the honey produced by the Little Bee, they also praise the Little Bee for their diligence and call them their good friends.

This is the ultimate way to kill someone by destroying their spirit.

At this moment Ōtōgawa Utsugi displayed the qualities of a top-tier assassin. He immediately went around the statue and began searching for clues, confident that he would find some leads.

Once I find him, I'll tear this damned thief to pieces! I'll rip his intestines out of his stomach and shove them back into his mouth!

No, even doing that wouldn't be enough to quell the hatred in my heart!

As he was groping around in the hole beneath the statue, he touched a piece of wood, and by the starlight, he saw words written on it.

"Aren't you angry? Aren't you desperate? Want this money back? Help me kill someone."

Chapter 234: The Assassin at His Dead End

Ōtōgawa Utsugi's eyes were bloodshot, and their long, slender fingers were already digging into the piece of wood. "You stole my money and you still dare to negotiate with me!"

Calm down, calm down, calm down! As the saying goes, "A small act of impatience can ruin a great plan." No matter what, I must get my money back first. As for revenge, that's a matter for later.

Ōtōgawa Utsugi continued reading.

"The person you're going to kill is named Yamabuki Chidori, the current Chief Strategist of the Gotei 13. After you kill him, I will naturally return all the money to you."