Led by their guide, Shinji and his companions gradually ventured deeper.
Colorful venomous snakes, fierce crocodiles lurking in the swamp, terrifying miasma that could cause hallucinations in just two seconds...
Any one of these many dangers alone was enough to cost an ordinary person their life.
Even the guide only dared advance slowly, exercising the utmost caution.
He was only doing this for the money, too. After all, money could make the devil turn the millstone-that saying was absolutely true.
With enough money, even smashing an entire ancestral shrine to pieces was negotiable!
But these minor dangers hardly amounted to anything in the eyes of Shinji and his companions.
They looked relaxed the entire way, almost as though they were on vacation, in stark contrast to the guide cautiously leading them ahead.
Finally, after several hours, they arrived at a dilapidated ancestral shrine that had long since been occupied by wild beasts.
"This should be it. I came here once as a child."
Blackie struggled to recall his childhood memories, sounding utterly certain.
Shinji, however, shook his head in disappointment. "The journey here was so dangerous. How could you possibly have made it here as a child?"
"It's true! I remember it very clearly. I secretly followed some people from the village here, then I got lost. In the end, my second uncle found me inside this shrine and rescued me."
Blackie protested loudly. It was unclear whether he was covering a guilty conscience or whether it had really happened and Shinji's doubts had angered him.
"All right, even if you came here once as a child, after all these years, how can you be sure the shrine in front of us is the one you stumbled upon back then?"
"I... I just know, all right! Are you trying to