Hunting Man-Piercing Birds

We continued hunting Unicorn Apes for about a month, and each of us earned about nine gold coins. Around that time, Unicorn Apes stopped appearing in the outer area, so we ended the hunt.

“So that’s the end of Unicorn Ape hunting. What do we do after this?”

Zengu asked me.

“It’s getting cold soon, so I want a quilt. What do you think?”

Ashin nodded.

“If all we have is a blanket, it’ll definitely be cold. I think we’ll have to buy quilts with the money we saved.”

There were blankets in the Wallside Hall too, but they were extremely thin. They were so thin that I worried whether anyone could survive the cold winter with just those. When I asked seniors like Yingjie what they did, they said they bought bedding themselves.

I shook my head and rejected Ashin’s suggestion. I had considered buying one, but I was thinking of making quilts. The quilts you could buy for nine gold coins were not thick ones like you would buy in Japan—they were thin. In this country, cotton was expensive, and if you wanted to buy a thick quilt, you needed several dozen gold coins. That was why I thought of making down quilts.

At this time of year, a yōma waterfowl called the Man-Piercing Bird flew in to West Edge Lake on the outer edge of the demon realm. I was planning to capture those Man-Piercing Birds, pluck their feathers, and see whether we could make down quilts from them.

Incidentally, the Man-Piercing Bird’s beak was harder than steel, and it was apparently named for the way it stabbed people to death with that beak.

“But I’ve heard that Man-Piercing Birds move in flocks. They’re very dangerous.”

That was what Ashin said. She was right that Man-Piercing Birds moved in flocks. So if we fought them normally, we would need a large force. That was why I had been thinking about whether we could make use of the Man-Piercing Bird’s habits.

When an enemy appeared, Man-Piercing Birds did not flee. They attacked as a group. I had been wondering whether we could set a trap by using that.

“Kou, what kind of trap are you thinking of?”

Zengu asked, so I explained the large net-like trap I had in mind while drawing a picture of it.

“So it’s a trap big enough for a person to pass through. That’ll take quite a bit of preparation.”

The trap was a large bag-shaped net big enough to hold about twenty Man-Piercing Birds, each around one hundred forty centimeters long, with a structure that let us close the entrance. It resembled a fixed fishing net, but it was a much simpler version.

We used rope to make the bag-shaped net. That work took five days. After that, we searched for a place to set the trap, and set it up beside West Edge Lake where the forest came close to the shore. We hid the trap with grass and tree branches, so from the outside it looked like a raised cave. A human would notice something was off, but what about the Man-Piercing Birds?

We also needed someone—or something—to lure the Man-Piercing Birds into the trap. We decided to leave that role to a scarecrow that would not fall over, using the structure of a balancing toy.

We waited for a flock of Man-Piercing Birds to fly nearby. After about two hours, a flock came. When I signaled to Zengu, he threw the scarecrow decoy toward the flock. The scarecrow flew in an arc and landed near the Man-Piercing Birds.

Then the Man-Piercing Birds went wild and started attacking the scarecrow. I pulled the rope. That rope was connected to the scarecrow, drawing it toward the trap.

The Man-Piercing Birds began noisily chasing after the scarecrow. Even while the scarecrow was being torn to pieces, it went into the trap through the entrance. The Man-Piercing Birds entered without suspicion. Normal birds would have been wary, but these yōma birds blundered into the trap without a care.

The moment most of the Man-Piercing Birds were inside the trap, Ashin pulled the rope connected to the trap and shut the entrance. That meant the flock of Man-Piercing Birds had been trapped.

However, two of the Man-Piercing Birds did not get caught and spotted me, then came attacking. Seeing that, Zengu started running toward me. Meanwhile, I drew my sword and began fighting the Man-Piercing Birds. Zengu soon joined the fight, and the two of us defeated the two birds.

Inside the trap, the Man-Piercing Birds were making an uproar. They stuck their heads out through the gaps in the net and screeched so loudly it was deafening. Ashin was staring at that sight.

“Don’t just stand there. Finish them off.”

When I shouted that in a loud voice, she began striking the Man-Piercing Birds on the head with a wooden club to kill them. We did not use blades because we did not want to stain the feathers with blood.

After finishing off every last Man-Piercing Bird, I finally felt relieved.

“To think this would actually work… it’s a miracle.”

It seemed Zengu had not believed this trap would succeed. Ashin was nodding too. Had she not believed it either? I counted the Man-Piercing Birds we had taken. There were eighteen in all.

“From here on, it’s a race against time. Let’s collect the feathers quickly.”

After that, we plucked the down from the Man-Piercing Birds’ chests and the small feathers from their bellies and stuffed them into bags. By the time we finally finished plucking them, my hands hurt.

“What about the meat?”

Zengu looked at the Man-Piercing Bird carcasses with greedy eyes.

“We’ll each carry one back. The rest will have to be hung from a tree.”

As for the three we were taking back, we removed the innards and washed them clean. We had not drained the blood, but apparently Man-Piercing Bird blood was delicious.

If we did not head back soon, we would not make it home before sunset. We started climbing the mountain carrying the feathers and meat. By the time we finally made it back, the surroundings had grown dim.

We set down our things and headed to the dining hall to eat dinner.

“I’m tired.”

Ashin murmured that after finishing her meal. She looked truly exhausted and sleepy.

“You do look sleepy. You should go back to your room and sleep today.”

When I said that, Ashin voiced the thing that had been bothering her.

“What are we doing with the meat?”

“I’m planning to hang it in the shed for storage. Let’s deal with it tomorrow.”

The next day, the Man-Piercing Bird meat we had stored in the shed was discovered by our senior, Yingjie. He came to the dining hall and asked whose the Man-Piercing Bird meat in the shed was.

“It’s ours.”

When I spoke up, Yingjie walked over to us.

“So it’s yours, Kou and the others. Why did you leave it in a place like that?”

“Of course we’re going to eat it.”

“It looked only half-plucked. Have you ever processed one before?”

“Well… this is our first time.”

Yingjie said he would process it for us in exchange for part of the meat, so we decided to leave it to him. We headed out to retrieve the Man-Piercing Birds we had hung in the tree.

“Ah.”

When we arrived at yesterday’s location, we were met with a disappointing sight. Only the ropes remained on the tree where we had hung them, and the Man-Piercing Bird meat was gone.

“What took away that much meat?”

Zengu tilted his head in confusion. It was disappointing, but there was nothing we could do about something that was already gone. We recovered the trap and inspected it. The trap itself still seemed usable. But the scarecrow we had used as bait needed repairs.

After that, we hunted Man-Piercing Birds once more and got the amount of feathers we needed, then asked a craftsman to turn them into quilts. With this, it looked like we would be able to get through the cold winter.