A few minutes later...
Now then, once the bulk of the enemy had been mopped up, the squad posted at the empty mansion found themselves with rather little to do.
Well, to fight here an enemy would first have to scale the earthen wall, and they'd been driven off with spears before ever managing that.
A few did make it over, but outnumbered as they were, they were bound up without much fuss.
"For now, looks like the alley's cleared out."
"Yeah, and the ones who spilled into the street are mostly rounded up too."
Peering over the top of the earthen wall confirmed it: the alley really was cleared out.
The squad on the far side seemed to be thinking much the same thing.
"Won't be long now before we pack it in."
"Quite the roundup, but glad it went smooth."
So they chatted back and forth with the squad at the mansion across the way, when...
A slow, sinuous sway...
Something stirred behind the very man he'd just been chatting with, across the way.
"Hey, what's that behind you?"
"Behind me?"
The man spun around to look, but there was nothing to see.
"There's nothing here."
"Huh? That's strange..."
Watching the other man tilt his head in confusion, he himself scanned the area, puzzled.
There was nothing at all, was there?
Truth be told, though, the grounds within the mansion walls were surprisingly dark.
Lanterns lit the alley, set up so the enemy there could be dealt with, but the grounds themselves had been left dim.
Dark as it was, with so many comrades moving about, you'd think anything stirring would be noticed at once, and indeed, something was noticed.
"Huh? Where'd the pond water go?"
"...Pond?"
"Yeah. There's a pond on this side of the mansion, had water pooled up in it and everything..."
And it was just as they were saying so...
Sploosh!
...that the man was suddenly engulfed in 'water'!
"AAAAAAAAAH!!!!"
The man across the way let out a scream at the sight, unable to help himself.
A few others, drawn by the scream, caught sight of 'the thing' and cried out!
"It's... it's JAŌ-KUZU!!"
Everyone who heard it could scarcely believe their ears, but it didn't end there.
"Gwaaaaaghhhh......................."
Fzzzzzzzz...
The man swallowed by the Jaō-kuzu couldn't even manage a scream before he simply dissolved down to bone.
Clack, clack...
The Jaō-kuzu spat the man's bones and weapon back out, clattering dryly on the ground.
At the sight, the Fire and Theft Patrol members stationed at the mansion cried out!
"Light it up! Somebody bring lanterns!"
Lanterns were hastily raised throughout the grounds to get a look at what they were dealing with!
And the instant the Jaō-kuzu's full, monstrous form came into view, every last one of them sucked in a breath.
It stood roughly ten feet tall, an imposing size by any measure.
An ordinary Kuzuyo was at most the size of a medium dog, but this Jaō-kuzu loomed several times larger.
And what made it truly dangerous, more than anything, was its body.
Attacks simply passed through it, and its dissolving power was so ferocious that any weapon used against it would melt away.
That made it fiendishly difficult to crush the core hidden at its center.
In other words, almost nothing short of hōjutsu could touch it.
With such a creature loose on the grounds, the squad froze solid where they stood.
Just as the squad out binding prisoners in the street caught wind that something was wrong, a messenger reached Onihei!
"Jaō-kuzu, you say?!"
"Yes! It appeared suddenly inside the mansion grounds!"
Hearing this, Onihei bellowed!
"The priests must move to intercept it, now! Iseki! Gather the priests!"
"Understood!"
The priests scrambled at once to move against the Jaō-kuzu.
"Chiho. You go too!"
"Got it!"
Ordered by Shinnosuke, who'd been fighting alongside her, Chiho headed off as well.
"Oh, come on..."
"This is no joke."
Even as he trussed up a thief, Yasutaka felt a chill at just how dire the situation had become.
The Jaō-kuzu was said to be the most vicious of all Kuzuyo, a creature that had survived decades as a Kuzuyo without ever being slain.
Once one reached that stage, it was nothing so simple as an easy kill: it boasted a savage, formidable strength all its own.
That said.......................
"Good thing we've got a whole crowd of priests on hand."
In this world, even bandit gangs not infrequently counted a defrocked, sutra-slinging monk among their number.
They'd made sure not to neglect that particular preparation, so it seemed things might just work out.
Or so he thought...
"It's a WITHERED PEACH GAKI!!"
"WHAT?!"
"Damn it!"
Yasutaka and Mōha froze solid at the news.
A Withered Peach Gaki was a withered peach transformed into a gaki, one possessing the power to seal off hōjutsu entirely.
A Jaō-kuzu that only hōjutsu could touch, and a yōkai that sealed hōjutsu away, had shown up at exactly the same time!
The two of them, grasping just how worst-case this combination was, moved at once!
"Let's go!"
"Right!"
They made straight for the scene.
Not that it was far. They circled round to the mansion gate and pushed their way inside.
What they found there was already a disaster.
"Gaaaaaah!!"
The hōjutsu-wielding monks were on the verge of being killed by the Withered Peach Gaki!
"Eeeek!!"
And Chiho, brat that she was, was right at this very moment about to be next!