My golden finger is not right

In 1477 AD, spring.

Not long after the Onin Rebellion① ended, the scorched earth had not yet turned into a green field, and a new round of battle for hegemony began again.

The daimyos from all over Japan competed for more land, and the war continued.

Under such a turbulent situation, thousands of people die on the battlefield every day. Due to the frequent fighting, it is too late to send people to clean it up. A terrible monster appeared.

They are shaped like beavers, and they like to suck grievances and breathe out disasters. Wherever they pass, large-scale plagues will break out for humans and animals, so they are called rot by the world②.

The Shenga Village under the night was far from the tranquility of the past. Except for the women and children who were forced to stay at home, all the men in the village held torches and entered the temple for sacrifices under the leadership of the village elders.

The interior of the temple is very spacious and can accommodate thousands of people to participate in sacrifices. Usually, fruits, vegetables and whole grains are placed here to hold some small harvest celebrations.

However, today's sacrifice did not place any offerings on the altar in the temple, but tied a monster that looked human but not human on it.

The monster on the altar is in a very bad condition now. Its fur has not been cleaned for a long time, and the blood that was attached to it has turned black and smelly. From a distance, it looks like a black pile of fur at this moment .

It curled up on the altar, panting weakly, under the tangled hair, a pair of rapidly shrinking vertical pupils swept across the faces of everyone in the front row.

The elder who led the way signaled the people around him to put the talisman paper in the correct position, then took off the beads around his neck, turned them one by one according to a certain pattern, and kept chanting Buddhist scriptures in his mouth.

His voice was not too loud, but it was like thunder to the ears of the monster on the altar.

It couldn't cover its ears to prevent the sound from eroding its mind, so it could only clenched its teeth, trying not to let out a painful moan, and then frantically moved its body on the altar, trying to break free from the shackles of the rope.

It's a pity that in order to prevent this monster from escaping, the ropes that bind it have been specially blessed with spells. The more it moves now, the tighter the ropes will be tightened until the trapped thing is forced to death.

After the elder who led the way finished reciting the Buddhist scriptures, the monster had already lost consciousness and was lying stiffly on the altar.

Seeing this, the elder guessed that the monster had already been killed, so he took out a simple and elegant dagger and walked towards the altar.

Unexpectedly, just as he was about to stab the dagger into the monster's chest, the monster that was supposed to die suddenly broke free from the rope and rushed towards him. The moment he fell to the ground, a pair of sharp claws passed through his body .

The men present were all stunned when they saw this scene, and when they came back to their senses, they rushed towards the door one by one. As a result, hundreds of people competed for each other at the two-person-wide door, and completely blocked the door.

The monster licked the blood on its paws, and looked at the men sarcastically, knowing that no one would dare to disturb it, so it turned the old man's body into a puff of smoke, and then smoked it. go in.

After a while, it let out a sigh of black mist comfortably.

The black mist grew rapidly after touching the air, and gradually filled the entire temple. Seeing this, the men showed expressions of extreme panic, and frantically rushed towards the door.

People kept being squeezed and fell, but never stood up again.

Just when the black mist was about to completely cover the entire temple, a white light suddenly broke through the black mist, forcefully squeezing the thick black mist into the corner, and fought against it.Under the influence of this white light, the black mist gradually showed signs of decline. When the white light finally dissipated completely, only piles of black powder remained in the temple.

The monster suddenly realized something, and looked into the depths of the crowd warily. At this time, the crowded crowd suddenly dispersed to the two sides, and a handsome monk in cassock was seen walking from the depths of the crowd with a mirror. , pacing towards it.

Its last memory is limited to the mirror that the monk slowly erected...

Abuna carefully put away the mirror that sealed the monster, looked expressionlessly at the villagers kneeling down to thank him for saving his life, and said, "Greed is born in the heart, and it will be in danger."

The villagers all looked ashamed when they heard this, knowing that the monk in front of them was warning them not to be greedy, until they were all ordered by the dead elder to do such a dangerous thing.

It turns out that everyone in the world knows that rot can spit disasters, and when it arrives, there will be plagues, but very few people know that if you catch a rot and kill it as a sacrifice, you can keep it safe from disasters for a hundred years.

The dead elder was a descendant of a long-decayed priestly family, and he had heard of some family secrets since he was a child.

Seeing frequent wars and disasters in this era, he has always wanted to find a way to avoid disasters for the village.And just at this time, a medium-scale battle broke out a hundred miles away from the village, leaving behind many dead bodies.

Although the number of those corpses cannot breed a Rot Scourge, it is a good place to attract Rot Scourge to feed.

If ordinary people knew that a rotten cat would attract a place not far from their village, they would definitely move the village away in fright, but this elder was different. He knew that if the rotten catfish was used properly, it could keep the village stable for a hundred years, so As soon as he was heartbroken, he set up a trap with the villagers, but who knew that the result fell short, and in the end, the place where he sacrificed became a place where his bones could not be left.

"Master, this is really none of our business!"

"That's right! That old man forced us! He is the elder in the village, we can't go against his will!"

"That's right, Master! At that time, we could only follow his advice and catch that monster. Many people in our village died because of this incident!"

"Master, now that old thing is dead, we will never dare to do such things again!"

Abuna glanced over the villagers who appeared to be the most "outraged", and said after a long silence: "Don't do it again."

The author has something to say:

① Onin Rebellion (おうにんのらん, 1467-1477): It was a civil strife among the feudal lords of the Muromachi Shogunate in Japan. During the tenure of the 8th general Ashikaga Yoshizawa, Hosokawa Katsumoto and Hosokawa, who were in charge of the shogunate, A battle between Yamana Mochitoyo and other famous guardian daimyos.After that, Japan entered the Warring States Period.

②Corruption: original monsters.

③Elder: In the setting, it is a position similar to that of the village head, with a very high prestige. What he orders is the highest will of the entire village and must be implemented.

Volume [-]: Acquaintance and the monster in the toilet