I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

Chapter 777: Reaching the Death God Valley

After spending some private time with Sana and Yuwa in the open air bath, Nathan finally left the water and returned to his room.

By then, the weight of the journey had settled fully into his body. Riding through the night had already drained him, and the poison still lingering in his system made every movement feel heavier than it should have. Added to that was the exhaustion that followed the bath and everything that had happened in it. Once he reached his room, he wasted no time. He lay down, closed his eyes, and let sleep claim him almost at once.

When he finally woke, several hours had passed.

Morning light had already filled the room, soft and pale through the shutters, and for a brief moment Nathan remained still, collecting himself. His body still felt tired, though the sleep had done enough to clear the worst of the haze from his mind. He got dressed, adjusted his clothes, and stepped out into the corridor.

As he did, the door beside his opened as well.

Taku emerged from the neighboring room and looked up at him. “Finally awake?”

“Are the others up?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah, all of them,” Taku replied. “You slept longer than the rest.”

“I was tired,” Nathan said simply. “Either way, we should leave as soon as possible if we want to reach Death God Valley by night.”

Taku nodded. “That is the plan. Most of them are just taking a bath before we go.”

Nathan gave a small nod and said nothing more. If they needed a little more time, then so be it. He was in no mood to start chasing people out one by one.

Instead, he turned and headed toward Shiina’s room.

When he reached her door, he rested a hand on the knob and opened it without much thought. The movement stopped halfway.

Shiina was awake.

She stood with her back to him, topless for only that brief accidental moment before she noticed him. But what caught Nathan’s attention was not the glimpse of bare skin. It was the scars.

Several pale, ugly marks ran across her back, as if her flesh had once been torn open by a blade. Against the softness of her white skin, they stood out all the more, impossible to miss. They were not small either. They told their own story, one that was sharp, violent, and old enough to have healed badly into memory.

Shiina glanced over her shoulder.

The instant she saw it was Nathan, she calmly pulled her sleeveless kimono back into place, slipping her arms through and tying it shut as if nothing unusual had happened at all.

“Awake at last,” she said, turning toward him with her usual easy smile, as though the moment had not carried even the slightest tension.

Nathan remained silent for a second.

He could have asked. The scars invited questions all on their own. But in the end, he chose not to. Whatever had left them there belonged to her past, not his, and he had no interest in forcing his way into matters that were not his.

“Did you just wake up?” he asked instead as he stepped inside.

“Just now,” Shiina replied. Then, with a small sigh, she added, “We are late, are we not?”

“Yes,” Nathan said with a nod. “We should leave immediately.”

Shiina smiled, though there was a faint trace of reluctance in it, as if she already knew the quiet comfort of the inn was over and the road ahead would offer none of it.

Then she moved to finish getting ready.

By the time Nathan and Shiina came downstairs, the inn had begun to stir with the slow, quiet life of morning.

The air near the entrance carried the smell of rice, grilled fish, and fresh tea. Sunlight spilled in pale gold across the wooden floor, warming the front of the hall while the deeper corners still held on to the last traces of night. A few travelers sat at low tables finishing breakfast, speaking in hushed voices that never quite disturbed the calm.

Shigeru’s group, as usual, stood out immediately.

Some were already gathered near the entrance with their things, while others still moved lazily between the dining area and the corridor, looking far too comfortable for people who were supposed to be leaving. Taku was eating as if he had not seen food in a week. Sana sat with a cup of tea in hand, looking entirely refreshed. Yuwa seemed awake enough, though she wore the expression of someone preparing herself mentally for another long day with the rest of the group. Sosuke was talking about the baths again. Nanao looked close to hitting him.

Nathan stopped near the bottom of the stairs and glanced across the room.

“So this is what leaving immediately looks like,” he said.

Shigeru, who had been speaking with the innkeeper, turned and let out a short laugh. “We are almost ready.”

“That is what people say when they are not ready at all,” Nathan replied.

Sana covered a smile with her cup. Taku snorted into his food. Even Yuwa looked faintly amused.

Sana and Yuwa especially looked longer at Nathan after their intense past night. While Sana smiled Yuwa just seemed embarrassed but also seemed content.

Shiina moved past Nathan and stretched her arms above her head, still looking only half awake despite the sleep she had gotten. “You cannot blame them too much,” she said lightly. “It is hard to leave a place like this.”

“It becomes much easier if you stand up and walk outside,” Nathan said.

“That was cold,” Sana murmured.

“It was true,” Nathan replied.

The old innkeeper approached then, carrying a folded cloth bundle and a small wooden flask. “Before you leave,” he said, holding them out to Shigeru, “take these. Dried food for the road, and water mixed with herbs. The path beyond Okurano grows rough, and once you pass the last farms, there are few good places to stop.”

Shigeru accepted them with a grateful nod. “You are saving us again, old man.”

“I am saving your companions,” the innkeeper corrected. “You lot would survive on stubbornness alone.”

A few of the group laughed.

Nathan watched as the old man’s gaze shifted toward him, and the warmth in his expression faded into something more thoughtful.

“You are heading to Death God Valley, are you not?”

Nathan answered before Shigeru could. “We are.”

The innkeeper was silent for a moment. Then he lowered his voice.

“Be careful once you get close. People in town speak of that place as if it were only another dangerous road, but it is not. The valley has always been wrong. Even when I was a boy, I heard stories. Travelers going missing, strange cries at dusk, hunters returning with their minds broken by something they swore they saw in the mist.”

“Sounds cheerful,” Taku muttered.

The old man ignored him and continued, still looking at Nathan. “Lately, the stories have grown worse. The animals avoid it. Birds change direction in the sky. A charcoal burner came through here three nights ago and said the earth near the valley smelled like blood after rain, though there had been no rain at all.”

That made several of them straighten a little.

Even Shigeru’s easy smile faded.

“You think something has changed there?” he asked.

“I think places do not begin earning names like Death God Valley for no reason,” the innkeeper replied. “And I think when old places grow restless, wise people pay attention.”

For a moment, no one spoke.

Then Nathan gave a single nod. “We will.”

The innkeeper studied him as if he wanted to say more, but in the end he only stepped back. “Then go while the day is still young.”

That finally got them moving.

Within minutes, they were outside in the clear morning light, fastening bags, checking weapons, and mounting their horses. The town of Okurano looked much friendlier by day than it had by night. Smoke rose lazily from kitchen chimneys, shopkeepers were beginning to open their doors, and children carried baskets through the street with the careless energy of a peaceful morning.

Nathan mounted his horse and reached for the reins just as Shiina appeared beside him.

“I suppose I am with you again,” she said.

“You say that as if there were another option.”

“There is not,” she admitted cheerfully, climbing up behind him before he could object.

A few of the others noticed at once.

Finally, minutes later, they rode out of Okurano beneath a bright sky, following the narrowing road southward. At first the journey was pleasant enough. The land beyond the town rolled in soft slopes of grass and low trees, with scattered farmhouses and vegetable fields stretching out on either side. Farmers paused to watch them pass, their expressions curious but cautious. More than ten armed riders were not the sort of sight that put anyone at ease.

After an hour, the cultivated land began to thin.

The houses disappeared first. Then the fields. The road lost some of its shape and became rougher, little more than a worn path cutting through rising ground and thickening woodland. By noon, the sun still shone above them, but the warmth of the morning had begun to fade beneath the shadow of taller trees.

Conversation came and went in loose bursts.

Taku complained about the pace. Nanao told him to stop whining. Sosuke tried twice to start talking about what they would do after the mission and was ignored both times. Ueda grew quieter the farther they went, his eyes drifting too often toward the dark between the trees. Even Shigeru spoke less. He remained at the front, alert now, no longer wearing that easy look he had carried through most of the journey.

Nathan noticed all of it.

He also noticed the land changing in subtler ways.

The birdsong had become sparse. The wind that moved through the branches above them carried a strange stillness with it, as though the forest were holding its breath. At one point, they passed the remains of an old roadside shrine nearly swallowed by roots and moss. The little stone figure at its center had been cracked cleanly across the face.

No one commented on it.

By the time afternoon began to slide toward evening, even the most talkative among them had fallen nearly silent.

Shiina, seated behind Nathan once again, had said little for the past hour. She was awake, but quieter than usual, one hand resting lightly against his side to steady herself whenever the horse stepped over uneven ground.

“You are very quiet,” Nathan said at last.

“So are you,” she answered.

“That is not unusual.”

She gave a faint laugh. “Fair.”

He glanced slightly to the side, enough to hear her better. “Something bothering you?”

For a moment, she did not reply.

Then she said, softer than before, “This place feels wrong.”

Nathan looked ahead again. “You feel it too.”

Shiina’s hand tightened just a little against him. “Anyone with sense would.”

That, more than anything, confirmed his own thoughts.

Toward sunset, the road climbed.

The trees thinned enough to reveal the land opening ahead, and when they finally reached the crest of the rise, the group slowed almost as one.

Death God Valley lay before them.

It cut through the earth like an old wound, vast and shadowed, with steep walls of stone descending into a depth the fading light could not fully reach. Mist coiled through the lower ground in pale, shifting bands, too thick in places and too still in others. The last red light of evening touched the upper ridges, but below that, the valley already belonged to darkness.

No birds flew over it.

No sound rose from it.

It was not merely empty. It felt abandoned in a way that made the skin tighten.

For several long seconds, nobody said a word.

Then Ueda swallowed audibly. “I hate this place already.”

“No one is asking you to marry it,” Nanao said, though her own voice lacked its usual sharpness.

Sana stared down into the valley with narrowed eyes. “So this is it.”

Shigeru guided his horse a few steps forward and stopped again. “We camp here,” he said. “We do not go in blind with night already falling.”

Nathan kept his gaze on the mist below.

For once, he agreed without argument.

Because standing there at the valley’s edge, feeling that unnatural silence press up from below, he knew one thing with certainty.

Whatever waited inside might have already noticed them.