The Twelve Trials Starting from Zero

Kikyo remained silent, then said to herself, "I'm so scared... Shrine Maiden... As the representative of the gods... do you know what the afterlife is like...? Is it like the human world... full of suffering...? Someone like me... will surely go to hell..."

“No…” Recalling the feeling of her death, Kikyo said softly, “The world after death is peaceful. There is neither hell nor heaven, just a peaceful place.”

"Is...is that so...if...that's the case...then...it'll be...good..."

As the last word was uttered, the man's pupils dilated, and his tightly clenched hands suddenly loosened... He was dead.

Kikyo silently lowered the man's hand, and just as she got halfway up, she collapsed to the ground due to exhaustion.

A strong arm suddenly reached out and supported her.

"I thought you would save him." Su Qi helped her to a proper position and led her to the horse.

“I can’t save him.” Kikyo let go of his hand, steadied the horse, and tried to maintain her balance. She said calmly, “All I can do is to appease his spirit as a priestess.”

"You should know that I possess the Shikon Jewel."

Would you lend it to him?

"Of course not, but I might lend it to you if you ask."

"The Shikon Jewel is an evil object, and as a guardian priestess, I know this all too well. Neither humans nor demons should rely on the power of the Shikon Jewel, or they will eventually fall into demonic ways... I don't believe that man can resist the temptation of the Shikon Jewel."

"Speaking of which, since you were both bandits, why did you save that infamous Onigumo fifty years ago?"

"At that time, he was no longer capable of doing evil."

"But it turns out you were too kind."

The bellflower remained silent.

Seeing this, Su Qi didn't dwell on the topic any further, and instead said, "Alright, thank you to these lucky charms for bringing us the horse. Now that we have a means of transportation, let's set off... first, let's solve your problem of being unable to move."

……

Two weeks later, near dusk, on the shore of a lake outside a village.

laugh!

With a flash of light, a monster with a snake's body, a human head, and six eyes screamed as it was cleaved in two by a single sword strike and fell into the reeds.

Su Qi sheathed his sword and walked towards Kikyo, who was not far away, saying, "Are you done? It's getting dark, and more monsters will be attracted by the dead souls."

"One more is needed..."

Kikyo was enveloped in a faint, clear light, with several silver snakes wrapped around her, their gills finned and their bellies covered in six legs, making her look like a ribbonfish-like demon insect.

They are called Soul Worms, originally monsters that live by collecting and devouring dead souls. Now she has subdued them and turned them into shikigami to collect the dead souls of women and fill them into bodies made of ashes and grave soil... Only in this way can she have the strength to move.

"How are you feeling now?" Su Qi walked to Kikyo's side and asked directly.

After spending half a month together, a shallow trust had finally been established between the two, and the atmosphere was no longer as stiff as before. However, most of the time, Kikyo remained taciturn, only responding to serious and necessary topics.

“The basic actions are no problem, but to fully unleash the spiritual power I used to have, I need more dead souls…” She paused here, rarely speaking up, and said with a strange expression, “It’s ironic… The priestess who used to be responsible for exorcising evil spirits has now become a monster who cannot continue to exist without stealing the dead souls of others.”

Su Qi didn't offer any high-sounding words of comfort, but simply said, "If you feel bad about it, then help them suppress their souls after you've used up your soul power. That would be an equal exchange."

Kikyo shook her head slightly, remaining silent. Suddenly, she looked up towards the village and saw a dead soul worm carrying a ball of white light flying towards them. She then said, "It's here."

"They have indeed returned, but they are followed by two tails."

Su Qi narrowed his eyes, casually drew his long sword, and walked unhurriedly toward the flying dead soul worms.

A moment later, as the dead soul worms approached, a tall white shadow suddenly burst out of the woods and hurtled toward him.

"We've got you! You thieves who steal the souls of the dead!"

Su Qi, who was about to strike with his sword, immediately withdrew and leaped back upon hearing this.

The next moment, a tall, strange beast, over ten feet long, resembling a white lion, with a single horn on its head, crashed down heavily.

boom!!

The ground trembled, sand and gravel flew everywhere, and before the dust settled, a white figure broke through the barrier and rushed to Su Qi in an instant.

"Take this! Lonely Charge!!"

Her voice was childish, like a little girl's, and her tone was a bit childish, which sounded rather cute.

However, the trembling ground and the astonishing roar like a speeding train told Su Qi that this attack was quite powerful and definitely not just for show.

However powerful an attack may be, it is meaningless if it misses.

The attack trajectory was too obvious...

He still had the energy to make an assessment, then slowly took a step to the side, turned around, and made a move, flipping the beast by the scruff of its neck in the blink of an eye.

"Let's calm down a bit."

Su Qi instantly gathered his sword intent, raised the scabbard, and forcefully slammed down a Dream Bubble.

boom! !

With a dull thud like hitting a stone, the big guy beneath him was stunned for a moment, instinctively stomped his feet, and plowed the ground with his four claws, leaving four long tracks on the ground.

Glancing at the lake ahead, Su Qi lightly leaped down. Immediately afterward, the strange beast, trapped in the illusion and unable to control its body, collapsed to the ground, continued to roll, and finally crashed into the lake with a bang, creating a large splash.

"elder sister!"

At this moment, another strange beast, resembling a white lion with a mane as curly as clouds and extremely similar in appearance to the one from before, rushed out of the forest.

Su Qi stomped on the ground, his figure shooting out like an arrow. Just as he was about to raise his knife and deliver another Dream Bubble, the latter suddenly braked and shouted, "Wait, wait, wait! This is a misunderstanding! Please don't hit me!"

As they were speaking, the lion-like beast rolled on the spot and transformed into a cute boy with white curly hair, stopping right in front of Su Qi.

……

A moment later, on a clean open space by the lake, a wet little girl with puffed-out pink cheeks and a face full of resentment and a cute and obedient little boy knelt side by side in front of Su Qi and his companion.

"You..." Kikyo looked at the two siblings in front of her and tentatively asked, "You should be komainu, right?"

"As you said, we are indeed the guardian beasts of the shrine, the Komainu." The boy bowed and apologized, "I am very sorry, my elder sister was too impulsive just now. She thought you were the subordinates of the Mirror Demon, please forgive her."

"A mirror demon?" Su Qi narrowed his eyes. "Is it also collecting dead souls?"

"Yes, that monster is using the power of the Shikon Jewel to expand its territory rapidly, and the villagers of several villages have already been bewitched by it."

Su Qi's eyes flashed. "The Shikon Jewel and the Dead Souls... I smell a high-quality experience pack."

The komainu siblings who made a cameo appearance are from "The Cat-Eared Girl's Diary"...

Chapter Fifty-Six: Hmph, the inevitable result

After that, he inquired in detail about the siblings' situation.

They are komainu, or rather, monsters transformed from komainu stone statues in front of shrines and temples.

The so-called Komainu are actually lions, which were called Suanni in ancient China. They were originally guardian beasts of Buddhism, and later spread from India to China, Korea and Japan, gradually evolving into guardian beasts and mascots guarding the gates of shrines and temples.

Komainu is a neologism created by the Japanese, generally referring to the two guardian beasts in front of a shrine. Strictly speaking, a komainu refers to a lion with a single horn on its head, a variation of the lion.

Originally, the two stone statues guarding the shrine were actually lions. Later, perhaps to distinguish them from ordinary lions, they gradually evolved into a pair of male and female, lion and komainu.

The male is a lion, and the female is a komainu (guardian lion-dog). Lions have no horns and their mouths are wide open, while komainu have horns and their mouths are slightly open, revealing their teeth. So, strictly speaking, the older sister, Dokura, is a komainu with a small horn on her head, while the younger brother, Shishimaru, is a lion. Although he looks similar to his sister, he has no horn on his forehead.

Perhaps because they were shaped like komainu (guardian dogs), although the two siblings are actually monsters transformed from stone statues, they never acted like ordinary monsters and even possessed the special ability to discover gods, Buddhas, and shrines, and to distinguish between good and evil.

Their favorite thing to do was guard the shrine, and they would never tire of standing guard in front of the shrine gates for decades or even centuries. However, now, because of a certain yokai named "Rainbow Mirror," the two of them have been driven out of the shrine they have always protected by humans.

Even before they developed consciousness, they had protected that not-so-large shrine for hundreds of years. It was like home to them, and they could never give it up. So they decided to fight that monster to the end.

As its name suggests, Rainbow Mirror is a mirror demon. It can bewitch humans through illusions and devour their soul power and essence. After unexpectedly obtaining the Shikon Jewel, its power increased greatly, and its ambition also soared. It did not intend to spare not only the souls of the living but also the souls of the dead. Therefore, it specially dispatched people, armed with its clones, to collect dead souls indiscriminately in the surrounding area.

Unlike her younger brother's composure and politeness, the older sister, Du Le, who has horns on her head, is naturally combative and impulsive. When she first saw Su Qi and Kikyo collecting dead souls, she assumed they were the mirror demon's subordinates, which is why she rashly launched an attack.

"Sister, you really need to calm down." Although his younger brother, Shishimaru, still looks like an eleven or twelve-year-old boy, his face is full of helplessness and worry, like a heartbroken old father. "The two adults don't have mirrors, and their attire is different from those people. If they just take a calm look, they can see that something is wrong, right?"

"Hmph..." The little girl, who was also wearing a small training outfit with white clothes and red hakama, with long hair and thick eyebrows and animal ears, tilted her head and pouted, looking unconvinced, and said: "Anyway, they are all bad people who steal the souls of the dead. What's wrong with fighting them first? Shishimaru, you are too long-winded.

"Sister!" Shishimaru's face darkened. "You shouldn't have spoken recklessly when the situation was unclear. Quickly apologize to the two adults!"

Du Le instinctively shrank back, then stubbornly insisted, "I...I did nothing wrong, why should I apologize?"

"There must be a reason why you two are doing this. If you don't believe me, use your abilities to see for yourself."

"Abilities?" She hesitated for a moment, glanced at Su Qi and Kikyo opposite her, and finally gritted her teeth and said, "Fine, I'll look. They're definitely bad guys anyway..."

Having said that, he stirred up his demonic power, used his ability to distinguish between good and evil, and his eyes shone with golden light as he first looked at Su Qi, the scoundrel who had just hit him hard.

"Huh?! ...

"Hmph, of course that's the result." Su Qi crossed his arms and said with an arrogant look, "When it comes to the qualifications to be a good person, as an elite member of the FFF Group and the Home Police Force, I am second to none."

Oh no! Did I really call the wrong person?

Du Le started to panic. Ignoring Su Qi's strange words and actions, she turned to look at Kikyo and was surprised again. "Eh!? How can her spiritual light be so weak? But her merit is... great good?"

I lost! I was the one who was wrong!

With good and evil now clear, the beast-eared loli immediately went limp, collapsing to the ground with a look of utter defeat on her face.

Hearing her words, Su Qi asked with some curiosity, "Does the so-called discernment of good and evil mean examining the merits of others?"

“Yes,” Shishimaru said respectfully. “Its essence is to use the eyesight of gods and Buddhas to perceive the color of others’ souls and the light of their merits.”

Su Qi turned to look at Kikyo, "So, in the eyes of gods and Buddhas, you are neither evil nor a monster, right?"

The latter remained silent for a moment, then said calmly, "Gods and Buddhas are not absolutely right; merit and sin are merely the accumulation of past actions."

"You really are... very demanding of yourself..."

Su Qi shook his head, then turned to Shishimaru and asked, "Where is your shrine? How far is it from here?"

"Would you two gentlemen be willing to lend a helping hand?"

A hint of surprise flashed in the latter's eyes. He had seen this person easily subdue his sister, clearly much stronger than himself and his sister; with their help, they might really be able to take the shrine back from the mirror demon.

“Of course.” Su Qi smiled slightly. “After all, we are good people and great philanthropists, but before that…”

"Before that?"

He turned to look at the evasive, beast-eared loli, "But before that, as an apology for my rash attack just now, I hope Miss Dule can grant me one request."

Shishimaru was slightly taken aback, then his eyes became wary, and he said seriously, "Could you tell us what the conditions are first?"

Although he didn't think the two people in front of him were bad people, he couldn't make any promises when his sister was involved. If the conditions were truly difficult, he made up his mind that even if it meant abandoning the shrine, he couldn't let his sister be harmed.