Chapter 53: The Spoils of Scum
After about twenty minutes of climbing, they arrived at their destination: a small, poorly constructed cottage nestled in a hidden clearing. It was a dismal, pathetic sight. The structure was made of rough-hewn logs and mud, with a roof that looked like it would leak at the first sign of rain. It was surrounded by a few rotting tree stumps and the bones of small animals, giving the place a feeling of decay and despair. A faint, unpleasant odor—a mix of unwashed bodies, stale food, and something else indefinably foul—hung in the air. It was hard to believe that this squalid hovel had been the source of so much terror on the road below.
"W-we're here, master," the younger man stammered, bowing his head so low he was almost bent double. He gestured a trembling hand toward the shack. "This... this was their den."
Ren's eyes, sharp and missing no detail, scanned the area. His senses, heightened by years of training, stretched out, probing the silence. The place was deathly still, save for the buzz of flies near a trash midden.
"It's too quiet. Are you sure there's no one else here?" he asked, his voice low and laced with suspicion. An ambush was always a possibility, even from such pathetic opponents.
The older captive shook his head vigorously, a spark of remembered horror in his eyes. "N-no, master! I swear it! Those... those *monsters*... their tastes were so vile. No one would willingly follow them. They had no subordinates, no allies. They only had... us." He gestured to himself and his companion. "They used to keep more... more captives. But they... they grew bored. Or angry. Or the men would try to fight back..." He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence, but the meaning was clear. The fate of those who were no longer here was written in the grim set of his jaw and the hollow look in his eyes. "It's... it's just us now. We were the last. We were... next." The final words were a barely audible whisper.
Ren's lip curled in a fresh wave of disgust. The story only confirmed that his use of Amaterasu had been more than justified; it had been a righteous purge, a cleansing of a festering wound on the world. Their end had been quick, which was more mercy than they had ever shown.
"Hmph. Good. Then stop wasting my time with the history of this pit," he said, his voice dripping with disdain. "Where is their stash? The money, the valuables. Now. I won't ask again."
"Y-yes, master! Right this way! We know exactly where it is!" Eager to please their formidable and terrifying savior—and acutely aware of how easily he could decide they were more trouble than they were worth—the two men scurried into the largest of three shabby wooden huts that comprised the "den."
Ren followed at a more leisurely pace, his nose wrinkling as he stepped inside. The interior was even worse than the outside. The main room was dark, lit only by the daylight streaming through the open door. It was sparsely furnished with a rough-hewn table and two chairs, one of which was broken. The air was thick with the stench he'd detected outside, now concentrated and mixed with the smell of moldy straw and despair. In the corner, a pile of filthy blankets served as a bed. The whole place felt oppressive, a physical manifestation of the cruelty that had occurred within its walls.
One of the men, seeking to be helpful, began to explain, pointing a shaking finger toward the other two huts. "T-that largest one was their... their room," he said, his voice barely above a whisper. "The other two... they were just cells, for... for when they... when they..." He couldn't bring himself to finish, his face pale with the memory.
"I don't care," Ren cut him off, his voice like a whip crack in the gloomy hut. He had absolutely no interest in the sordid details of this place. His stomach was already turning, and he wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible. Every second spent in this pit of depravity felt degrading. "The treasure. Where is it? Those were my only words. Answer them."
The man flinched as if struck and nodded so frantically Ren thought his neck might snap. "O-of course! Forgive me, master! Forgive my stupidity!" He and his companion, moving with a sudden burst of frantic energy, hurried to a corner of the room obscured by shadows. With a great deal of grunting and straining, they dragged a heavy, iron-banded wooden chest into the center of the floor, where a sliver of light fell upon it. It was a stout, well-made chest, starkly out of place in the squalor, secured with a large, formidable padlock that looked like it could withstand a battering ram.
"Here it is, master!" the younger man panted, wiping sweat from his brow. "Everything they stole is in here. All of it! But... the lock..." He gestured helplessly at the thick, imposing mechanism. "The key was always on the bearded one, on a chain around his neck. And since you... since they're... well, the key is probably ash now..." He looked up at Ren with a mixture of fear and apology, worried that this obstacle would invoke their new master's wrath.
Ren didn't even acknowledge the problem. He viewed the lock not as an obstacle, but as a momentary inconvenience. With a dismissive snort, he knelt down. His fingers, deceptively slender, closed around the heavy padlock. There was a brief, almost imperceptible surge of chakra to his hand, reinforcing his tendons and muscles with the precise control of a trained shinobi.
He didn't pull with brute force alone; he applied pressure at the exact weakest point of the lock's mechanism. With a sharp, metallic ***CRACK*** that echoed like a gunshot in the small hut and made the two captives jump back in alarm, the entire lock assembly twisted and sheared apart as if it were made of dry, rotten clay. He tossed the useless, twisted piece of metal aside where it skittered across the dirt floor, and unceremoniously flipped the heavy lid open.
The interior of the chest was a stark, breathtaking contrast to the overwhelming squalor of the hut. It was a cornucopia of ill-gotten gains, filled to the brim with the spoils of countless robberies. Piles of gold and silver coins from various nations glittered in the dim light. A small fortune in intricately crafted jewelry—rings set with gems, heavy gold necklaces, delicate silver brooches—sparkled amidst the currency. Several thick stacks of crisp, high-denomination ryo notes were neatly bundled together. And beneath it all, the dull, weighty gleam of raw silver bars was visible, the foundation of this portable treasure hoard.
A slow, genuine smile finally spread across Ren's face, the last vestiges of his irritation and disgust from the earlier encounter melting away as he surveyed the considerable fortune before him. This was a language he understood. This was a tangible result. He reached into the chest, the cool, smooth metal of the coins a pleasant sensation against his skin, and picked up a hefty handful of gold ryo. He let them trickle through his fingers back into the chest with a series of satisfying, melodic clinks, the sound of pure potential.
"The harvest isn't bad at all," he mused aloud, a note of dark amusement and satisfaction coloring his voice. He sifted his hand through the coins again, enjoying the sheer weight of it. "I didn't expect those two worthless, disgusting pieces of garbage to have been so diligent and successful in their thievery. All this plunder represents weeks, maybe months, of terror on that road, all neatly stored away, waiting for me to find. It seems robbery, for all its filth and brutality, really is an exceptionally lucrative profession for those who survive it." The means to his greater goals—travel, information, resources—had just received a very significant, and very welcome, boost. The detour had ultimately been worth it. Now, he just needed to pack it all up and get far away from this cursed place.
𝗚𝗨𝗬𝗦, 𝗙𝗢𝗟𝗟𝗢𝗪 𝗠𝗘 𝗢𝗡 𝗜𝗡𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗚𝗥𝗔𝗠 𝗔𝗧 𝗚𝗘𝗛𝗥𝗠𝗔𝗡𝗦𝗣𝗔𝗥𝗥𝗢𝗪9