"Found Yae Sakura's location, Joker! Follow me!"
After Ren made the decision to stay in this Palace, Hare hesitated for a moment before choosing to support his idea. Based on Ren's initial exploration of the Yae Village Palace, he judged it highly probable that Yae Sakura was the Palace Ruler. Even if she wasn't the ruler, Sakura definitely held a crucial, special position within the Palace.
If Akechi Goro intended to target someone in this Palace, the probability of that person being Yae Sakura was upwards of ninety-nine percent. Therefore, Ren decided to find Sakura and make contact with the sakura-haired miko once more.
Since Hare could fly, Ren asked her to ascend high into the sky and survey every corner of Yae Village. In no time, Hare flew back to Ren, who was sitting and recovering his stamina, bringing the good news that she had spotted Yae Sakura.
Following Hare's graceful figure guiding him from the sky above, Ren moved like a swift raven under the cover of night, flashing past the villagers of Yae Village. Like a divine wind, he leaped across the dilapidated wooden rooftops lining the streets. Under the stunned gazes of the villagers below, he transformed into a black phantom, racing towards Yae Sakura's location at top speed.
Ren paid no heed to the gasps and cries of the Yae Village residents in the streets below. Those villagers were merely cognitive existences, false beings born from the Palace Ruler's memories and perceptions. Furthermore, they all possessed only the strength of ordinary villagers, posing no threat or hindrance to Ren whatsoever.
There was absolutely no need for Ren to concern himself with them. The only person he needed to find was Miss Yae Sakura, whom he had encountered once before at the village entrance.
Moving at full speed according to Hare's guidance from above, Ren soon caught sight of the slender, graceful figure of Miss Yae Sakura. Her sakura-colored spirit blade was already stained with crimson blood. Strewn haphazardly around her lay the corpses of wolves, bears, wild boars, and other beasts, their bodies covered in strange markings – beasts warped into Honkai Beasts.
And besides the corpses of these demon beasts, the chaotic battlefield was also littered with the bodies of several villagers who had died with their eyes wide open in terror, their bodies covered in gruesome wounds from beast bites.
The dilapidated wooden houses lining the street were shattered and collapsed due to the shockwaves from the battle between Yae Sakura and the pack of demon beasts. The entire area had been reduced to uninhabitable ruins.
Unlike the calm and composed impression she gave when Ren first met her at the village entrance, Yae Sakura now seemed somewhat distraught and lost. Her head was bowed low, and her waist-length sakura hair seemed to have lost its luster, mirroring her owner's somber mood.
An old man with white hair and beard, leaning on a cane and looking ancient, dressed like the village chief of Yae Village, was currently spitting furiously, berating the bowed-headed Yae Sakura with righteous indignation.
"Yae Sakura, what exactly have you protected?! Why are there so many demon beasts in the village? Do you have any idea how much loss this attack has brought upon Yae Village?!"
"Setting aside the destroyed buildings, nearly twenty villagers have died! This is a grave dereliction of your duty as a miko!!"
"I know! You must have deliberately let the demon beasts in to wreak havoc! Because you still hold a grudge over what happened four years ago! You're taking revenge on us for a dead person!"
The village chief roared angrily at Yae Sakura, his teeth clenched. He placed all the blame for the demon beast attack squarely on the shoulders of the sakura-haired miko standing before him, the very one who had fought to shield them and slay the beasts.
The villagers gathered around the chief chimed in, echoing his words, hurling vicious accusations and curses at the motionless Yae Sakura.
When the village chief mentioned the keyword "four years ago," Ren, still moving at high speed, thought he saw a fleeting glint of scarlet flash through Yae Sakura's lowered azure eyes, like an illusion. And her tightly pressed, delicate pink lips seemed to curve upwards ever so slightly, as if forming a smile.
By the time Ren finally arrived on the scene, halting his rapid advance and looking closely at Yae Sakura's exquisite face, he found that what he'd seen must have been a hallucination. Yae Sakura hadn't smiled at all, and her pupils remained the clear azure blue of the sky.
"Was it just my imagination...? No way!"
In the perilous, unpredictable environment of a Palace, Ren wouldn't simply dismiss what he saw and heard as a trick of the eye. Even if it was an illusion, Ren had to treat it as a glimpse of truth and take it seriously.
Just as I thought, there's definitely something wrong with this Yae Sakura woman. Coming back to find her was the right call!
"A woman flying in the sky? And... Wh-What?! It's the man with the bird-beak mask?!!"
The arrival of Hare and Ren immediately drew the attention of the group of Yae Village villagers ahead, causing them to temporarily cease venting their anger and deriving morbid satisfaction from berating and cursing Yae Sakura.
Naturally, the villagers' gazes were first drawn to Hare as she slowly descended from the sky – her graceful figure, exquisite features, and elegant, almost celestial bearing captivating them.
As Hare gently landed beside Ren on the ground, the villagers' eyes followed her movement, inevitably landing on Ren himself.
The phantom thief suit styled like a black feathered coat, the white, bird-like half-mask... While walking down the street in this getup would naturally attract surprised looks, the reaction of the Yae Village villagers was disproportionately extreme.
Gazing upon Ren's dark, mysterious figure, the villagers turned pale as ghosts. Some even burst into tears, collapsing to the ground wailing, their bodies trembling violently like reeds in the wind.
"D-Don't kill us!! We haven't done anything!!"
"Y-Yae Sakura! Now is the time to fulfill your duty as miko! Hurry up and deal with that bird-beak mask man! Protect us!!"
"Run, run! This bird-beak mask guy might summon demon beasts to attack us too! We can only survive if we split up!!"