章 38: Leaving The Graveyard
He walked and walked, through the small path that guides him through the graveyard. To the guard post he goes.
He reached the guard post and saw a guard there; he is sleeping comfortably on his simple platform elevated from the floor and got woken up by a person calling him.
"Hey, hey, wake up," The guard opened his eye and saw a man in the dead's clothing with dirt and all sort of things covering his body.
Not a mere seconds later, the guard blacked out 5 seconds later after making a face of seeing a person risen from the dead.
After the guard blacked out, he sighed and turns his attention to the gate to open it by any mean.
The gate is locked…
Leaving him no choice but to search for the key.
'Where would the key be?' Then he saw the light reflected by the silver things on the guard hip.
'Of course, he is keeping it with him, how dumb am I?' He started making an effort to grab it but the guard is too far from the window and the window is too narrow for him to climb through.
He wanted to try the door but soon saw it's locked from the inside with a wooden block that can be slided.
He has no choice now and needs to wait until the guard woke up.
Realizing doing nothing couldn't help, he decided to take anything he could from the guard post and there he found the guard clothes that haven't been worn and a key.
'A key? To where?' He thought to himself before looking around the graveyards and taking interest other than the wooden walls that surrounded the entire place.
At the other end of the graveyard, across graves. He saw a small wooden shack, just a little bit smaller than the guard post.
He decided to check that place out since that is the only thing he saw at the place surrounded by wooden walls and with only one gate for people to enter and exit the place.
He walked and walked, passing through more graves as he walks across the graveyard. Once he reached that building, he opened the door…
There he saw a bamboo that sticks out through the walls and connected to whatever it's connected to, a water tower maybe?
And there is a wooden bucket that collects the water going down from the bamboo itself and slowly getting filled.
It's clearly a place to clean your body, otherwise… what else? He cleaned his self there and there is even a block of soap waiting there for him to use.
Not long after he started, like 15 minutes or so, he finished cleaning his own body. He became clean like normal and even have some flowery scent.
With the guard's clothes he brought along with him to the shack, he used it as his clothes now rather than using the clothes for the dead.
He goes out from the little shack and made his way back to the guard post. There is a small bench made out of wood for visitors to rest after a long day of mourning.
So he used that placed to lie down and rest, not long after that, he became sleepy and sleepy and finally fell asleep.
The sunset without him noticing and it's suddenly become the night. Coldness slowly but surely starts entering his body and he got woken up by it.
He rubs his hand with his other hand to keep him warm and decided to make a fire. But no… there's rain earlier and there are no dry woods there, his last resort… wake the guard up.
He started calling him again, and the guard woke up from his black out. Now he sees the clean man standing in front of him and smell some of the flowery scents.
Not long after that, he saw and realized his clothes being used by others and started asking about what is Arden doing right there.
"What are you doing here?!?" the guard said with some language barrier between them, he responded back.
"So here is the story," He began telling him every detail about him being buried to him sleeping on the small bench.
At the middle of the short storytelling session they have. The guard offered him to enter the small post and made some tea for him.
After the telling all that happened, the guard seems impressed by all the things he has done just to escape from the grave.
He asked many things about it and they talked until midnight. Soon he learned that the grave is the grave of important people to the shogun and it's located on the hill nearby the city.
The hill itself is covered in the middle of a very thick forest and has a lot of wild animals and is dangerous to people that go there.
But it's surrounded by the guard for safety reason so most people didn't even know that the hill has a graveyard there and the one that walked from the city to mourn the dead need to disguise themselves.
And about the people that were going to bury the new person who would reside there. The guard would block the street to it and never let a fly to even get close and know about the location.
Now it's time for them to sleep, but the place inside the guard post could only be used for one person at a time and someone must sleep at the bench outside.
The guard offered to sleep at the bench, but Arden refused and made his way out of the post and then lie down at the bench.
Not long after that, the guard came out with a blanket made out of straws and hand it to him. It helped a lot as he slept a little uncomfortably that night.
At the morning, the guard woke him up and told him to get ready since they would go down the hill and leave this place.
He prepared his self as fast as possible and waited at the bench he used to sleep at last night. The guard finally came out of the post and they make their way down the mountains.
With his sword at his hip now that is rather dull but still sharp enough to pierce through an enemy's body and animal's too and the Katana of the guard, they had no fear going down the hill through the forest.
Not long after, a tiger showed up in front of them and with a loud roar coming out from his mouth. Both of them unsheathed their sword and made their fighting stance.
Not long after, the tiger jumped at the guard and he fell down. They wrestle and Arden began stabbing the tiger at the side of his stomach.
Before the sword could pierce its body, the tiger jumped to the side making his attack failed. He quickly helps the guard to get back on his feet.
The guard, enraged by the tiger, began charging at him and slashed whatever part he could slash. Most of it is dodged by the tiger and it roars one more time, this time even louder and it made the birds scatter.
The guard took a step back and now the tiger is focused on Arden and not the guard anymore. Once more, the tiger jumped to him without noticing the sword were aiming straight to its open stomach.
The can't control its own body at the air and the tiger's stomach landed perfectly on the sword, going through it and hitting any organs on its way.
The tiger just died and the guard admires him even more now, he is impressed by what he did to the tiger and told him to bring the tiger with him.
"It could be sold for a good price at the market or could be made as a decoration at your home," the guard said and they continued their journey after having some rest.
Getting down the hill is not easy. It took a lot of time since the forest was simply too thick and also slippery that the only way to go down the hill is using the path. The path itself is made purposely long but wide enough for people to carry coffins.
1 hour of walking and carrying the tiger with an effort of two people, they finally made it down and immediately got noticed by the guards guarding the location.
The guard recognized the grave yard's guard, and he began explaining what happened. At first, they suspected them to be imposters and began to lead them to the castle Mitsuo at.
They are given a room and waited until Mitsuo came. While waiting, they heard the sound of a man and woman fighting to each other using words.
Arden knew who they are, Mitsuo and his wife. He giggled a bit and calm his self down and waited until Mitsuo to enter the room.
He entered the room while still looking the other way and then closed his eyes in anger while closing the door.
Once he opened his eye back, he seems shocked and surprised. Happiness, anger and sadness mixed together at his mind.
His face was still red from all that fighting, but now some tears came out from his eyes and he opened his mouth to talk…
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