Without the [Magic Mirror], he was nothing more than an ordinary man on his last legs.
Under Shinji's interrogation, he soon broke down in tears and confessed everything.
His name was Yusuke Katagiri, and he had once been an honest, simple villager.
Because he was destitute, none of the women in his village wanted him. By fifty, he had still spent his entire life as a bachelor.
Then, one time while gathering firewood in the mountains, he came across a white-haired old man collapsed on the ground.
The old man asked him to help him down the mountain and offered some money as payment.
But greed stirred in his heart, because he could see that the old man had far more money than that!
So he gave in to his wicked impulse and simply killed the old man with the hatchet he carried, then took everything of value, including that seemingly ordinary bronze mirror.
Afterward, he spent many days on edge. After all, it had been his first time killing someone, and he had no experience. He had even fled home without daring to dispose of the body.
But he was lucky. Perhaps wild beasts in the mountains had eaten the body, or perhaps no one had ever come looking. In any case, he got away with it.
In the days that followed, he thought that now he had money, the women in the village would finally respect him.
But things turned out nothing like he imagined. Who would push their daughter into a living hell with a lifelong bachelor like him?
Besides, the money he had stolen through murder might have seemed like a lot, but it was only enough for a few months of extravagance. Once it was spent, it was gone.
He was dejected and full of