Crossover anime/manga, can you be my immortal companion for life?

"It's you?"

The man put down his gun. He recognized Kirito; he had seen these outsiders running into the village several times in the past few days.

Kirito recognized the man as the old man with the hunting rifle they met on their first day in Hanyu Snake Village. Kirito remembered him very clearly because others had told him his surname was Shimura.

Kirito also lowered the sword that he had raised warily.

The man glanced at the blood on Kirito's sword tip and stepped forward with a hunched gait.

"You're also looking for a way out, right? How about we go together?"

The other party extended a team invitation, which Kirito accepted. Although, in reality, Kirito agreed entirely because he wanted to protect the old man.

“I was transported here along with the house. Be careful, those things are very vigilant and have guns.”

Kirito then noticed that, yes, the old man seemed to have just been exchanging gunfire with someone and had even won.

But... why do the monsters here have firearms?

Kirito didn't quite understand, but he didn't say much and instead followed the old man forward.

"Wait a minute, if we encounter a monster, you go and make a commotion, and I'll start shooting."

"No need to bother."

Kirito waved his hand.

"What do you mean you don't need it? You young people!"

The old man seemed to be getting a little anxious.

Then Kirito took an M16 out of his bag and held it in his hand.

The old man shone his flashlight on his old-fashioned hunting rifle, then looked at Kirito's automatic weapon, and his face twitched.

"Young man, why aren't you using a gun?"

The stubborn old man suddenly became very easy to talk to.

However, the problem was quickly solved. Kirito didn't know which way to go either, but the old man seemed to have a direction.

“I’ve been here before. This place is called the Valley of the Snake’s Head Cliff. It was in the village when I was a child, but it collapsed after a mudslide.”

Heh, that year my brothers, my children, were all gone too. I just never imagined that in my old age, I wouldn't escape this fate.

The old man spoke calmly, but Kirito felt a chill run down his spine.

The place that disappeared due to a mudslide decades ago is now here? What exactly is this place...?

However, the two then saw several faint beams of flashlight moving in the fog.

"They're here, young man..."

Before the old man could finish speaking, Kirito vanished from his spot like a gust of wind.

"Hey! Don't go and get yourself killed!"

He rushed up anxiously, and then he saw several beams of flashlight falling one by one in the shadows. Now he knew why Kirito didn't use his gun.

Looking at the blood-red light shooting into the sky through the mist, for some reason he thought of the legendary Battosai from the late Edo period, who was even more terrifying than Okada Izo. This must have been how Battosai killed people.

Without the slightest hesitation, one would fall after another, and even the sound of gunfire could not stop the figure's steps.

A short while later, Kirito, wearing a yukata, returned from the mist, but the patterns on his black yukata with white cloud designs were now stained crimson with blood.

Akira Shimura swallowed hard and pointed upwards.

"Let's go up. By the way, young man, have you ever practiced kendo?"

"I practiced it when I was a child."

Kirito was actually quite pleased inside, but he maintained a normal demeanor on the surface.

It seems that because of the remote location and the fact that Shimura Akira was taking the mountain path, there were relatively few corpses here. After about 20 minutes, Kirito followed the old man to a cliff.

This seemed to be the old man's destination. Because he knew the terrain, Kirito originally thought he might know the way out or something.

However, Kirito was stunned when he arrived at the cliff.

Because his physical strength was clearly exhausted, Shimura Akira, panting heavily, climbed up behind Kirito, but then his legs gave way and he knelt on the edge of the cliff.

He also saw everything that Kirito saw.

It felt like we had arrived at the end of an island; even the thick fog that had been lingering around had thinned considerably.

From this cliff position, you can clearly see below.

But below... there was a vast, endless sea.

A sea of ​​red blood!

The crimson light, appearing from nowhere, reflected in the sea mist, and it wasn't just a sea of ​​blood.

There are also people...

Some monsters, shedding tears of blood, are heading towards the sea.

There were also some people who had rotted to the point of being nothing but a lump of rotten flesh, their legs already standing in the bloody water, yet for some reason they kept writhing and hesitating in pain on the shore.

At that moment, Kirito heard the old man beside him whispering.

"Returning from the sea! Returning from the sea! Is this the real return from the sea? Haha! Hehehe! In the end, there is no way out at all. Let me die as a human being!"

The old man pulled out a gun, pointed it at his head, and closed his eyes with tears streaming down his face.

254

Chapter 254 Organizing Clues

Kirito initially thought the old man was about to say something about freedom on the other side of the sea when he saw him raise his hand.

Then he saw an old man next to him put the gun directly into his mouth.

He simply pulled out a gun.

No, why are you trying to commit suicide?

You are not allowed to die!

He felt a force stronger than a punch press snatch the gun from his hand.

The old man looked at Kirito blankly.

shook his head.

"Young man, let go. I don't want to become a monster like them."

As he spoke, the old man gave a bitter laugh and pointed down.

“I’ve seen many of the people in there. Even though it’s been so many years and their clothes are worn out, I still remember them.”

They were all people who went missing in that mudslide, and they all turned into this inhuman, ghostly state.

Haha, you can probably guess, right? The place we're in has probably been submerged by some mudslide or earthquake. Staying here would only lead to the same fate as them. It's better to die as humans than to suffer in peace even in death.

Despair gleamed in the old man's eyes.

Kirito was at a loss for words to refute his statement, as the old man had been soaking wet ever since he met him.

He remembered what Kazuma had said: maybe this old man really would turn into a monster, no... maybe he would still turn even after he died.

But he couldn't do it. He couldn't bear to watch him die in front of him, nor did he want the man to die with such despair in his heart.

"What do you know? What happened during the last mudslide? If we're going to die, at least let us find the culprit."

Kirito didn't say that they shouldn't be affected by the curse, because saying it would make him feel like he was betraying the person in front of him, even though he wasn't familiar with him.

"Last time? Last time, hehehe, the Takeuchi family discovered that the Kamishiro family seemed to be up to something by releasing that book. My brother, because of his sense of justice, ignored my advice and thought that the Kamishiro family was performing human sacrifice, so he insisted on arguing with the village chief, Riyo."

Then he was forcibly diagnosed with mental illness by the hospital and arrested. I went to the hospital to beg them, but they wouldn't release him... Huangyi also disobeyed and insisted on taking a woman out of the village for my brother, and then he disappeared too.

I dare not cause trouble for the Kamishiro family, nor do I dare to do anything. I've dragged this crippled body through all these years, and in the end, I still have to go through all this.

Kirito remembered that when the person walking upstairs introduced himself as Akira Shimura, so Akira... must be his son.

Looking at the old man, he realized that the old man might have died long ago, on that very day.

Human sacrifice—that's such a disgusting thing!

Although we cannot understand the whole story from these few words, it must have been terrifying. Perhaps the old man's purpose in living was to take revenge on the Kamishiro family one day.

Kirito's eyes were filled with rage.

"Never mind all that, come down the mountain with me."

Kirito didn't care whether the old man wanted to or not, he grabbed him and started walking down the mountain, while simultaneously sending the information he knew to the group chat.

Kazuma, who saw Kirito's message, was stunned for a moment, then quickly went through the information in his mind, combining it with what the girl in front of him had said.

[Sato Kazuma: I understand]

[Kerry: What do you know?]

[Sato Kazuma: This should be the same situation that Kirito mentioned, where the old man encountered something. Didn't Kirito say that the old man's son was trying to escape with a woman? They were probably taking the offerings with them, and then the mudslide swallowed up part of the village, leaving some people here.]

[Sato Kazuma: In other words, this might be some kind of alternate dimension. If their family's ritual fails, certain areas and people will be pulled into this dimension. And this time, because the girl next to me escaped, it happened again, and we and a random part of the area were pulled into this place.]

[Kazuma Sato: And these strange buildings here must be from different eras in history where rituals failed and people were dragged here. This also explains why there are almost as many monsters here as there are people outside.]

[Toyokawa Shoko: I see]

Kerry looked at Xiangzi in reality.

No, sis, why is it that even seasoned otaku need to think for ages to figure out such complicated settings, but you, who usually don't know much, can suddenly understand them?

"In other words, it's probably an evil god that needs sacrifices regularly. If you don't give sacrifices, it will get angry and drag a part of you into this dark space to suffer its curse. That should be it."

Xiangzi was oblivious to Keli's gaze and continued talking to himself.

After Teacher Xiang's explanation, Ke Li quickly understood what was going on.

Things may not be that simple, but that's roughly the situation.

It was an hour after the screech.

Kerry and Xiangzi cleaned up the living corpses around the area.