Chapter 12: Enma’s Blessings?
Chapter 12
His legs trembled, and his back ached as he lay on the hard forest floors. His eyes were sunken from all the crying, and right before him was a tree with three slanted marks on it. He still had the ashes of his loved ones held in a paper sack and had planned on making a makeshift grave for them, but ended up fainting from all the fatigue.
Now woken up, he wanted to finish things up and honor them before moving on to the neighboring village. He could easily make some money upon arriving there with his hunting skills, but that would still be difficult considering the current situation of the nation.
Most families, just like him, would probably be mourning their loved ones by now, and the emperor had personally sacrificed his last three children to make things worse. That was when the news about the request from the gods began, and every child between the ages of ten and as early as just being born was brought to be sacrificed.
They still had about two more years to complete the god's requests and though as thoughtless and disgusting as it could be, the empire decided to turn the women and girls in the kingdom into baby-making machines - this was the very reason why his mum decided to run away with him and his five-year-old sister.
It had already been three years since they had been living peacefully on the outskirts with nothing but a small farm and a forest to hunt in. And yet they still came looking for her without a single bit of sympathy in their hearts.
The reasons for their actions alone were what left him burning with rage; they wanted to appease gods for the sake of the god's chosen disciples and the sake of the nation's security. And yet he had bowed his head in his room every day since the day he turned four, praying that perhaps one of the so-called gods would bless him with their divine heritage.
He never got what he so desperately prayed for, and here he was, being forced to make such a daring sacrifice for the sake of those who ended up getting it.
" Don't worry dear sister, I promise I'll avenge you first." He mumbled, slowly engraving his sister's name onto the first stone before him.