My Demon Pet System

"What the hell is a human skeleton doing sitting on a chair in the middle of the street?" Takuma asked aloud as if he wanted the whole neighborhood to notice what he had discovered.

Yoichi, who was closer to the skeleton than his friend, was forced to cover his nose with his hand to resist the stench emanating from the once-living thing. Taking a closer look at some of the details, the young tamer noticed that thin patches of rotten skin and even some pieces of fabric were attached to the skeleton's arms and legs bones.

"This person has been left to rot there for who knows how many years," he spoke, unable to comprehend its gender. "His insides, his flesh and all the soft parts of his body decomposed in the open air. Of course, the rats and insects sped up the process," Yoichi explained. 

"Why would anyone ever do something like that? Was this man or woman perhaps a villain?" Takuma asked again as if Yoichi should know all the answers. He took a step forward and tilted his head, trying to see if the skeleton's hands were bound with handcuffs or ropes. 

The skeleton sitting in the chair lay motionless, its mouth wide open, its elbows resting on its knees, and something in its hands. As if it were an ornament, it had probably been dragged to that place after having already been killed. Because of the dirt, it was not possible to tell if there were bloodstains on the ground or the walls.

"There's something written on that wooden plaque in its hand," Yoichi remarked, who couldn't read the handmade writing on the skeleton sign. Avoiding breathing in that flatulent air for a few seconds, the blond-haired young tamer grabbed one end of the plaque and pulled it toward him.

The skeleton's bony fingers were now calcified around the square wooden object, and if Yoichi had pulled too hard, they would have broken off along with the sign. To avoid desecrating what was once a corpse, Yoichi lifted the sign slightly, bringing the inscription under the dim light of a nearby torch. 

"What does it say? Can you read it?" Takuma inquired impatiently, standing up on the tips of his bare feet, the soles of which had turned black as coal. Gompachi had told so many stories about Oakenfair to his grandson that he could not last a second longer without knowing those details.

The pulsing light of the torch finally allowed Yoichi to read the handwritten message in black ink on the polished wood of the plaque. "Death... death to the Emperor," he stated, narrowing his eyes and making sure he read the right word. 

After those words, both adventurers looked into each other's eyes. Immediately, they looked at the skull's face, trying to figure out what the connection was between it and the message it had been clutching in its hands for who knows how many years. 

"Death to the Emperor? Do you think it refers to Emperor Shinzo or Tatsui?" Takuma spoke. Yoichi stood still and thought for a few seconds.

"I think this skeleton belonged to an imperial guard, Takuma," he replied after careful consideration. "Look, there's even a signature in the corner of the wooden plaque. Too bad, it can't be read because of the dust... let's see," Yoichi muttered to himself, using his fingertips to scrape away the excess dust on the wood.

"Tezuka Clan," he read, recognizing those time-discolored letters. "Who are they?" he asked, knowing Takuma would be able to give him an answer. 

"Tezuka clan? Um... I'm sorry, Yoichi. I've never heard that name, not even from my grandfather Gompachi's stories," Takuma replied, scratching his head and trying to dig into his memory.

"Well, whoever they are, they're not very friendly towards Emperor Shinzo's men," Yoichi repeated, letting the wooden plaque return in its position between the skeleton's hands. "We'd better be careful. Something tells me staying here won't be a cakewalk," he added. 

The message read by the two adventurers was clear: just like the people of Grimbrook, the citizens of Oakenfair were not loyal to Emperor Nishiyama. They hated him so much that they left a skeleton with such a strong message in the middle of the street, as a warning to anyone entering those fetid and dark alleys.

The two friends didn't know which direction to choose and were following the instructions given to them by an old bum. While the rats around them continued to eat scraps of food in the garbage, Yoichi and Takuma took the path to the right, which seemed slightly wider than the other. 

It was impossible to orient themselves among those narrow streets, so they would also need a good dose of luck to find Kinnojo and ask him some questions about Shusaku's whereabouts.

Moving with difficulty because of Takuma's horse and the bags it was carrying on its saddle, they had to proceed with caution in the narrow alley. A few meters ahead of them, artificial light was coming from inside a window. It was probably part of a dwelling.

Yoichi stuck his head out through the wooden window sash with no other choice but to walk past it. Suddenly, the face of an old, ugly, witch-like woman appeared in front of him, and in less than a second, the window was violently closed, not allowing Oakenfair's visitors to look in.

"Wow. The people of Oakenfair are nice, aren't they?" Yoichi joked, using the moment to downplay that tense situation. "We need more directions. We can't keep wandering blindly. Let's continue on this street and look for a place where we can ask a local," he suggested, walking past the closed window and avoiding passing too close to the door next to it. 

In a ghost town like Oakenfair, home to renegades of all kinds and Demon Hunters on their way to Hollowgate, Yoichi and Takuma would have to keep their eyes peeled to avoid getting into trouble. 

After another thirty meters through the narrow curves of that alley, the street opened into a small square between three stone buildings. In the middle of it, the first thing that caught their attention was a disused fountain.