"Good morning. Did you two rest well last night?" Early in the morning, Shun and Theresa had already gotten up and ran into Yae Sakura in the courtyard.
Although it looked like everyone had only slept for five hours, for modern people who often stay up late, five hours was completely enough as long as it wasn't a daily reversal of day and night.
"Good morning, Miss Yae. Yae Shrine is very quiet. Although the bedding took some getting used to at first, Theresa and I still slept quite well last night."
Facing Yae Sakura's kind greeting, Shun replied very naturally.
It was true that the bedding was unfamiliar, and it was true that Yae Shrine was quiet; it was just that "slept quite well" was a lie. After all, in this dragon's den and tiger's lair, Shun didn't dare sleep too deeply—it was completely different from being at home.
As for whether Theresa had slept well, Shun didn't know. In any case, after sensing that Theresa had fallen asleep last night, he had deliberately given her extra time before waking her to switch shifts.
"That's good. May I ask what arrangements you two have for today?"
"We don't have any for now, but Theresa is quite curious about Yae Village. We arrived rather hastily yesterday, so we didn't have time to take a proper look at the village."
Hearing Shun suddenly shift the topic to her, Theresa immediately reacted and played along: "That's right. We didn't get a good look at the village when we arrived yesterday, so today we want to explore it together."
"Explore the village?" Yae Sakura murmured. Thinking of Shun's strength, she felt there was probably no need for her to worry about their safety.
She nodded to indicate she understood. "However, please remember to return before dark. There are wild beasts in the mountains near Yae Village, and it's not very safe here at night."
Shun nodded and responded: "Yeah, wasn't I worried about wild beasts in the mountains at night in the first place? That's why I decided to stay temporarily in Yae Village with Miss Yae."
But in his mind, he was actually thinking: If only it were just wild beasts. In reality, Yae Village itself is the most dangerous.
After the two returned to their room and confirmed that Yae Sakura was not following them, Theresa asked with some confusion: "Shun, didn't you say yesterday that there are no living people left in Yae Village, only the minions of the Herrscher of Corruption? The village is so dangerous—why go down there?"
"Is it possible that all the villagers down the mountain combined aren't as dangerous as Yae Sakura? Besides, we can't stay in the shrine forever. There's also a very important place inside Yae Village."
To be honest, Yae Sakura was the most unstable factor. Those villagers down the mountain were ordinary people after all. Even if controlled by Hellmaru to try to kill them, Shun was confident he could cut them all down without getting a single drop of blood on himself.
But the gap between him and Yae Sakura was in raw numbers. He was just an ordinary person right now, while Yae Sakura could still go all out and transform into a Pseudo-Herrscher.
Even though Shun now possessed swordsmanship at the pinnacle like Setsuna Sakura, he still had to be extremely careful in the face of absolute numerical superiority.
As a shrine maiden, Yae Sakura practiced swordsmanship every day. She had been doing so for five hundred years of endless cycles, so even if she was reinventing the wheel in isolation, she had trained herself into a sword master.
Even if she couldn't match Setsuna Sakura, she wouldn't be completely outclassed by Shun in technique. Moreover, the character "Sakura" had always possessed extremely high swordsmanship talent.
"Which place?" Theresa asked.
"Tenshu Pavilion."
"???" Theresa fired off three question marks in a row. This wasn't because she didn't know what it was—she was the big boss of this Far East region after all, so she wasn't completely ignorant of the territory under her.
She naturally knew what the Tenshu Pavilion was, but the problem was... why would a rundown rural place like Yae Village have a Tenshu Pavilion?
This godforsaken place where birds wouldn't even shit—how could it have a Tenshu Pavilion?
"Not only does it have one, but it's quite large in scale, no smaller than the ones still remaining in the Far East today." Indeed, Shun was also quite curious why a rural backwater like Yae Village would have such a well-maintained Tenshu Pavilion.
But it was probably just a setting gimmick from the original game. There was no need to delve too deeply into how reasonable it was; the key was that it existed inside Yae Village.
If you stood on the mountain where Yae Shrine was located and looked down, you could even see a building that was completely out of place with the surrounding low houses, towering several levels higher.
"It really does exist..." Following Shun's gaze, Theresa also spotted the Tenshu Pavilion that clashed so badly with the surrounding houses.
At this moment, she remembered that Shun had suddenly mentioned this place, so it must have something special about it.
"Is there something important stored inside that Tenshu Pavilion?"
"Important things? Indeed. Although Yae Shrine seems to be the center of the vortex, the key to breaking the situation lies inside the Tenshu Pavilion." Shun remembered that the main body of the Jizo Guardian Soul was placed on the Tenshu Pavilion, fused with the daimyo armor stored there, which later became the Jizo Guardian Soul that players fought.
This plot only appeared in the extra chapter of "Sakura Samsara." It was probably the biggest trouble Shun had to resolve on this trip.
There was Hellmaru, which had roughly the strength of an Emperor-level Honkai Beast, and the Jizo Guardian Soul, whose strength was unknown but definitely not weak.
Relying solely on his current ordinary human body to defeat them would be very challenging, to be honest...
But luckily, he had teammates... Shun touched the cross-shaped pendant that stored part of Kallen's and Judah's power, thinking of finding an opportunity to hand it to Theresa.
For now, while he didn't know whether Theresa touching it would directly trigger and waste the power, it was safest for him to keep it on him.
"When are we going to the Tenshu Pavilion?" Theresa asked somewhat impatiently. She really wanted to resolve things here and return to reality.
After all, this body made her very uncomfortable. Without her usual power, she had to rely on Shun to save her whenever danger arose. She really wasn't used to feeling like dead weight.
"No rush, no rush. Yae Village isn't big, so there's no hurry to scout the Tenshu Pavilion. As for now... let's not go to the Tenshu Pavilion yet. Yae Sakura should have left the shrine to fulfill her duties as a shrine maiden and clear out the wild beasts in the nearby mountains. Miss Yae Rin, you've been watching us for so long... aren't you planning to come out for a chat?"
Shun suddenly turned his head toward the tombstone under the huge cherry blossom tree in front of the house and spoke.
"Hahaha, Shun, what are you talking about? Yae Rin has been dead for five hundred years! There are no ghosts in this world—how could one appear!" Theresa forced a slightly stiff smile at the corner of her mouth as she comforted herself. She understood in her heart that Shun must have his reasons for saying and doing this, but deep down she was unwilling to believe that ghosts and such really existed in the world, so she could only keep reassuring herself.
Just as Shun had said, after confirming that Yae Sakura was not in the shrine, a pink-haired girl in a pink kimono stepped out as if from misty haze and suddenly appeared before the two. The girl seemed veiled in a thin layer of gauze, her entire body giving off an illusory feeling, just like the ghosts described in people's stories.
"Ghost!" Theresa let out a terrified scream. Her vision went black, and she nearly fainted on the spot.