A vilge was in sight. It nearly made her cry to see such a wele sight. She didn’t think it would make her so emotional to see something that should be expected, but she couldn’t help herself. Three days of being stu a virtual world without any sort of hope of life brought this on. After so long of being on the road, she had begun to doubt if there was actually anything to be found. To know that there was and she wasn’t wrong for following it was a strange sort of emotion that she didn’t know.

  Yumi looked back at Yuki and his injuries. They weren’t healing very quickly. He was able to walk mostly on his own, but slowly. Which probably affected why it took them so long to find the vilge. But it wasn’t really something that Yumi dwelled on. It bothered her more that he still ime to recover. It was slow for being aided. ‘I hope nothing’s wrong with him and this digital world. If another demon attacks he won’t be able to help. I’m going to have to protect him still.’

  Other thoughts came to her as she looked back at the vilge. Where they came from. She didn’t want a repeat of what happened before. “We should try to keep a low profile. her of us should use our powers.”

  “That’s probably for the best.”

  “This might still be a fake world, but we have to deal with it until Phoibe frees us.” Internally, she kept telling herself that it was fake. So she shouldn’t care about what happens, but the reality was she had to care to some degree if they were going to have a smooth experienbsp; There was no avoiding the world forced upon her. “I’m not pnning on developing a reputation as a demon.”

  “Just have to be careful.”

  “I know. I’m just not used to games like you are.”

  “I don’t really py games, Yumi. I’m just used to being in a different world than others.”

  ‘Maybe that’s it then…ever since he’s been here he hasn’t really been bothered by any of it. And it’s not even because he enjoys stuff like this and this is like a dream e true for him. It goes beyond that, that sort of thing wears off after a while. But he’s rexed and fortable here like he has no worries despite having er uanding of what’s happening or why than me. I don’t know how he be so calm about it all. So maybe that’s it…’

  It was a thought anyway. Yumi still didn’t uand it. She thought when it came to Yuki she knew some of how he worked and thought, but there was still plenty as she was finding that she didn’t uand. There was always going to be more for her to learn about him. But that excited her.

  Yumi took a step forward to resume their trek. The vilge remai least an hour away still, si was only her that could see it and not Yuki. But they had a defined end point to their destination finally and she weled that. “We’re almost there. Let’s go and see if we finally get somewhere o sleep for a night.”

  “There were a few nights in Atntis we had to sleep out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “Doesn’t mean I want to do it if I avoid it.”

  “I’m not sure we’re always going to have such luxury with the way our lives are going.”

  “You pnning on fighting your whole life?”

  “No, but our current situation isn’t going away any time soon and Japan’s pretty screwed up. That’s not a simple fix. I doubt that our future is going to be easy.”

  “I guess you’re right about that…”

  Chapter 391 – Vilge of Silence

  Did it take an hour? Or was it two? Yumi had no idea. She did question her inal assessment. She really had no good experience judging distance based off her new vision. So it was very likely that she got it wrong. Because it really didn’t feel like an hour. The ck of that watch sistently came back to hurt her. She couldn’t really get a grasp of time without one. The sun did only so much to tell her in the passing of time. But she felt certain it was like half a day of walking before they arrived.

  At the vilge entrance, which was really hard to even call aranbsp; It was merely a point that she made in her mind when she crossed a lihat matched up with the first house. The vilge was wildly spread out over the area with no real sense of pnning anization done. It just sort of felt like everyone just built their homes where they wanted and if it took a little walking to get around then that was what it took. She had trouble seeing it as a unity sihere was barely eveion of neighbors with such a yout.

  She looked around at people loosely spread around. Si was already te in the day, it looked like they stopped farming for the day. ‘I don’t even know where to start. I ’t tell who might be the one in charge. What am I supposed to even say? I hem to help us, but we’ve got no money or skills to offer them.’

  Yumi started to curse to herself that she had no forethought to pn ahead for this iability. She k was going to happen. She took the two of them to the vilge with the io find help a. But that was as far as she took the thought. Now she was kig herself for not having tihe thought. ‘I need a pn…’

  Their approach was met with some stares and silent judging. Though she didn’t know what they judged them on. They had nothing out of the ordinary about them apart from Yuki’s injured dition, which was less apparent now. It didn’t feel as bad as the st group of people that they faced. Given that they appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the farms, it only made sehat they would be treated harsher. Now though, Yumi struggled to uand their distrust.

  ‘Hesitating isn’t going to get us ahough. I’ve got to just start talking. They should be friendly, right? They’re just vilgers.’ That was what she hoped anyway. She took the first step and approached the person that came hem.

  It was a middle aged woman that looked tired from a long day of work and with harsh lines around her face from a less than ideal life. Her face had rough scowl carved into it, whiever really seemed to ge. “Excuse me, I’m looking for some help.”

  The assed Yumi without even giving her a gnbsp; Yumi tried calling out to the woman again, but it proved pletely pointless. She no doubt heard Yumi’s pleas, but didn’t care to even give her an aowledgement that she eveed. ‘Why did she ignore me? What’s wrong? Was it something I did?’

  Yumi turned baove forward to the person. A younger man walking with someone older. She guessed it was a son and father. No doubt in this sort of life, the family stuck closely together. “Excuse me! you help us? I need…” They ignored her again. She did get a momentary bit of eye tact from the father, but that was lost the moment she opened her mouth.

  She stared as they walked away without even missing a beat. ‘It’s almost like I’m invisible to them. Though I know they see me. I’m getting a rea from them. But what’s going on? Why are they unwilling to talk to me?’ Nothing made sense about it. ‘Thought they would be friendly. They’re just vilgers right? Aren’t they supposed to be weling and closely knit?’

  A few more failures left Yumi standing out in the vilge pletely lost aed. ‘No one’s listeo me. I ’t evehem to reply to me. Why? No one is even willing to listen to me. Almost no one will even look at me. What’s wrong with these people?’

  None of it made any seo Yumi. She saw them walking about helping out each other and talkiween others, but pletely ign them. There wasn’t even a sign of them gossiping or being suspicious about their words because she tried to talk to them. They just pletely wiped their presence from the vilge. It really was like they were invisible to everyone. ‘This is more than just strange. There is something going on here…’

  The lohat she stared around at the vilge the more she became vinced of it. ‘This isn’t right. They aren’t ag normal in any way. If they just distrusted me, then they should be ag in a way that seemed like they were suspicious of me. They would be looking at me. Or running away something that would make it seem like they wanted me away. But it’s not even that. This isn’t distrust at all. This is just ence.’

  Finding a mystery in the first vilge that they ran across after arriving in this world wasn’t what she expected. But she had pletely different expectations for the whole thing. And the more she thought about it, if it was a game this sort of made sense. She didn’t like it. But there might be some strange point to the whole thing. ‘Yuki seems to believe there’s a reason for this. Maybe he’s right… But I’m not sure what’s the point of it.’

  She looked around the vilge again trying to get a read on the pbsp; When she arrived she didn’t try to dig in too closely to what was happening. None of it was really that important to her. She expected to find help, not be ignored. Now she was having to dig for clues. Reasons for things happening and being the way they were.

  This meant she o watd read people, something she was already admitted to being bad at. So she struggled in finding anything of note. All she could see eople going about their daily lives as they might in a vilge that was so far ba time that their lives were very simple. It was the short cycle of work, eat and sleep. There didn’t really seem to be room for much more in their lives from what she could observe. Though part of that was just an assumption on her part. She had only been watg them for a few minutes. That was hardly enough time to learn all of that. But they did very little that she could see.

  ‘There’s not a lot I’m going to learn from just watg them. I o find something more useful…’ Yumi started wandering around the vilge looking for clues. It sort of felt like she was a detective iigating a murder. Though if she had been doing that she felt there would have been more clues to find. What hurt the most was her ck of knowing what she was looking for. There was something wrong in the vilge, but none of it stood out to her as being out of pce.

  All the people ignored her, but they otherwise went about normal lives. Their homes and what they did seem to fit into that. There was really nothing out of pce with the vilge. It was pletely normal as far as she could tell. Though her knowledge of what might be normal for a vilge was skewed as this wasn’t her sort of life. She grew up in a city and even vilges in the modern era of Japan didn’t really fit this sort of vision.

  Yumi parked herself out on a rock that rested he edge of the vilge. Only two other houses were close by, and by close she guessed that they were at least a hundred meters apart from each other. It was also getting te and the vilgers were starting to the st bits of whatever they were doing to turn in for the night. She was running out of time for them to get a pce to sleep that wasn’t the ground once more.

  She rested her on her hand and looked over at Yuki, who sat on the ground trying to keep off his legs she imagined. “Got any ideas you’re willing to share?”

  “It’s just as fusing to me,” he replied with his current trend of beihan helpful to her. She expected so much more from him and he suddenly started pletely g any sort of guesses or specutions. He had a wealth of experience from his reading that he always relied on for his theories. And they regurly paid off for him. She expected to be able to rely on his surprisingly useful set of knowledge to make things easier.

  ‘I’m really starting to wonder if he’s doing this iionally. He has a theory, but he’s keeping it to himself because this is supposed to be about me. But I don’t care. I just want answers!’ She really didn’t want to be stuck going in circles because she didn’t uand anything and he held all of the answers.

  Unfortunately, she was running out of time as she already knew. She o make a move. Sitting on the rock doing nothing but bemoaniroubles got her nowhere. So Yumi jumped off the rod rushed out to the first person she could find. ‘I’m done being passive…’

  She stepped directly in front of them, a middle aged man. In a vilge of so few people, she already started tnize faces. They seemed to be alone from what she saw from the different iions. The mao himself the eime she watched. He seemed to do very little other tha his dinner and then walk out of the vilge. Since she didn’t follow him, she didn’t know what he did outside, but none of it really mattered. She po get something more than being ignored from him, from anyone.

  “Excuse me, sir! I wao talk to you for a moment!” Yumi took a wide stance so that she could react to whichever way he moved. Sihey were all just ign her, she expected him to just walk around her. Which he did as she foresaw. He tried to go left, but she got in his way.

  A flicker of annoyance seemed to dig into the wrinkles of his face as she refused to make it easy for him. However, he kept pushing on by ign her pletely. They fought round for a minute before he just pushed straight through, giving up to just be polite and go around, since she stopped being polite a while ago.

  ‘No you don’t! I’m not letting you go that easy!’ As he brushed past her, she grabbed his arm to keep him from leaving now that it had e to this. “I said I wao talk to you! Stop ign me!”

  She got a rea from the man, just not the ohat she expected. A deep hatred carved through every wrinkle in his face creating a menag aura for her to witness. “I want nothing to do with your kind.” He then snapped his arm free from her loosened grip taken back by the pletely unfiltered hate directed at her.

  ‘Kind? What’s going on?!’ Unfortunately, Yumi didn’t have much time to pohe new mystery as she heard something behind her hit the ground with an awkward thud. She turned back to see Yuki on the ground breathing heavily for some reason. “Yuki?!”

  Yumi ran to his side, turning him over trying to uand what happeo him. “Yuki?! What happened? Are you hurt? Did something attack you? Yuki?!” He quickly became unresponsive as he passed out in her arms. “Someone help me!”