I Enslaved The Goddess Who Summoned Me

By the time Nathan and Shiina returned to camp, the fire had burned lower and the night had deepened into something colder.

The little clearing near the forest no longer felt merely quiet. It felt watchful. The valley loomed not far beyond, wrapped in black mist and silence, its presence so heavy that even from a distance it seemed to press against the air around them. The horses had grown restless enough to need calming more than once, and several members of Shigeru’s group were already gathered near the fire instead of sleeping, waiting for the others to return.

Shigeru looked up first when Nathan stepped into the circle of light.

”You are back.”

”So are you,” Nathan replied, his gaze sweeping over the camp.

Most of them had returned already. Sana sat cross legged on a folded blanket with a cup in hand, though whatever was in it clearly was not alcohol this time. Yuwa stood nearby with her arms crossed, her expression tighter than usual. Taku was awake but looked like he regretted it. Sosuke seemed to be trying to appear relaxed and failing. Eri and Ueda were speaking in low voices by the trees. Only two pairs were still missing.

Shiina let her cloak fall back from her shoulders and dropped onto a log beside the fire. ”Please tell me someone has food.”

Sana raised a brow. ”You sound far too comfortable for someone who just came back from a cursed valley.”

”I can be hungry and disturbed at the same time.”

”That is fair,” Taku muttered.

Nathan remained standing. ”What did you learn?”

Shigeru gestured for him to sit, but Nathan ignored it.

”We can all speak once the last two pairs are back,” Shigeru said. ”No point repeating ourselves.”

Nathan glanced toward the dark path leading down from the ridge. He did not like waiting, but he understood the sense in it.

So he stayed where he was while the camp settled into that tense kind of stillness that comes before difficult decisions.

A few minutes later, the fifth pair returned. Yamada and Nanao emerged from the dark looking tired and irritated, both cloaks damp at the hem from the mist lower in the valley. Nanao muttered something under her breath the moment she stepped into camp, and Yamada rolled his eyes in response.

”You took your time,” Sana said.

”We had to circle back because someone nearly got us noticed,” Nanao replied.

Yamada looked offended. ”The dog followed us, not me.”

”You fed it.”

”It looked hungry.”

Shigeru cut in before they could keep going. ”Did you find anything useful?”

Yamada’s expression straightened. ”Yes. A lot.”

That left only one pair.

The final wait stretched longer than Nathan liked.

The fire crackled softly. Somewhere beyond the trees, a night bird gave a short, uneasy cry, then went silent. Nathan kept his eyes on the dark until at last two figures appeared between the trunks. Sosuke let out a small breath of relief before they even reached the light.

Eri and Ueda stepped into camp looking more shaken than the others.

Ueda was pale. Eri, though trying to hide it, seemed equally unsettled.

Shigeru stood. ”You saw something.”

Eri nodded. ”Yes.”

That was enough. Everyone drew closer to the fire, and the mood around it sharpened at once. What had begun as unease was now focus.

Shigeru crouched near the flames and looked around at all of them. ”All right. We say everything. No leaving out details because they seem small. If there is a pattern, we need to see it now.”

Nathan finally lowered himself onto an empty crate near Shiina, though his posture remained alert.

Shigeru pointed to Nathan first. ”You begin.”

Nathan did not waste time.

He told them about the tea house, the men speaking of new prisoners brought in before dawn, and the mention of lower cells. Then he spoke of the two soldiers and their careless conversation about Mitsuhide visiting an old shrine in person the next day. He described the castle’s position, the guarded entrance built into the cliff, and the worn symbol carved in stone near it.

”Some kind of ritual mark,” he said. ”Old. Older than the prison itself.”

That earned several uneasy looks.

Shiina added what Nathan had left out, including the curfew bell and the way the whole valley changed after it rang.

”People do not merely obey there,” she said. ”They are afraid. Properly afraid.”

Shigeru nodded slowly and turned to Yamada and Nanao. ”You two.”

Yamada sat down near the fire and stretched his shoulders as if trying to work out the tension from them. ”We entered from the western side. That part of the valley is poorer than the rest. A lot of laborers, a lot of half broken buildings, not many guards at first glance. But the deeper we went, the more we started noticing movement above the roofs.”

”Roof sentries,” Nanao said. ”Not posted openly. Hidden. Watching the roads.”

Nathan’s eyes narrowed slightly. ”How many?”

”Enough,” Nanao replied. ”Maybe five every three streets, maybe more. They use the upper walkways and old balconies. It would be easy to miss them in the dark.”

Yamada continued, ”We also heard that tomorrow’s shrine visit is important enough that part of the western road will be cleared for a procession. So if Mitsuhide is leaving the castle, he will not be alone. There will be guards ahead of him and behind him.”

”Any word on the shrine itself?” Shigeru asked.

”A little,” Yamada said. ”It is older than the valley settlement. The locals avoid it unless forced. There are stories about the place swallowing prayers and sending back curses.”

Taku frowned. ”That sounds fake.”

Nanao looked at him flatly. ”We are standing next to a valley called Death God Valley.”

”Fair.”

Shigeru turned to Sana and Yuwa next.

Sana leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees. ”Eastern lower district for us. We kept hearing the same name from different people. The barred Steps.”

”The prison route,” Yuwa added. ”A descending stair cut into the rock under the main slope. Most locals avoid it, and soldiers guard every turn.”

Sana nodded. ”We did not get close enough to see everything, but we saw chained men being taken down there. Not to the mine paths. Lower.”

That matched what Nathan had heard.

”What else?” he asked.

Yuwa answered this time. ”There is a shift change shortly after sunrise. For a small window, the guards at the lower route are distracted because supplies are brought in at the same time. Food, water, tools, maybe more. It is the first weak point we found.”

That piece settled heavily over the group.

A weak point.

Shigeru looked to Eri and Ueda last. ”And you?”

For a moment neither spoke.

Then Eri inhaled and said, ”We followed the northern ridge paths. We found the shrine.”

The fire seemed to snap louder at that.

Shigeru leaned forward. ”You found it already?”

”From a distance,” Eri said. ”We did not go close.”

Ueda swallowed before continuing. ”It is built into a cut in the mountain, above the valley, not below it. There are old torii gates leading up to it, though half of them are broken. The path is narrow and lined with stone lanterns. None of them were lit.”

”There were ropes too,” Eri said quietly. ”Sacred ropes, old ones. And paper seals. But many were blackened, like they had been burned and left hanging.”

Nathan felt Shiina shift slightly beside him.

Eri’s voice dropped lower. ”And there was something else.”

No one interrupted.

”We saw movement around the shrine grounds. Not guards. Not clearly. Shapes.” She frowned at the memory. ”At first I thought it was mist, but it moved wrong. It gathered where nothing should have been there, then thinned out when we looked too hard.”

Ueda’s face tightened. ”I heard whispering. There was no one near us.”

No one laughed at that.

Not even Taku.

Nathan looked into the fire for a moment, piecing it all together.

Mitsuhide. The shrine. The lower cells. The mark carved into the cliff. The terrified valley. The procession route. The shift change. The strange presence near the shrine.

He already knew what he was going to say before Shigeru looked at him.

”Well?” Shigeru asked. ”What are you thinking?”

Nathan lifted his gaze. ”Mitsuhide is tied to whatever this place was before he ruled it. The prison and the shrine are connected somehow. Maybe by ritual, maybe by purpose, maybe both.”

Sosuke shifted uneasily. ”Meaning?”

”Meaning tomorrow is not a normal visit,” Nathan said. ”If he is going to the shrine himself, then something important happens there. Maybe a rite. Maybe an offering. Maybe a performance meant to frighten the valley even more. Whatever it is, it matters enough for him to leave the castle.”

”And that gives us a chance,” Shiina said.

Nathan nodded once. ”Yes.”

Shigeru folded his hands loosely over one knee. ”Say the rest.”

Nathan looked around the fire, making sure all of them were listening.

”We split again. One team intercepts Mitsuhide at the shrine. The other goes for the lower cells during the guard shift. If Genzo is alive, that is where he is most likely being held.”

Taku grimaced. ”Splitting sounds dangerous.”

”Not splitting is worse,” Nathan said. ”If we all chase Mitsuhide, the hostage dies or disappears. If we all go for the cells, Mitsuhide retreats into the castle and we lose our best opening.”

Yuwa nodded slowly. ”He is right.”

Shigeru remained silent for a few seconds, weighing it.

”Who goes where?” Sana asked.

Nathan answered without even needing a moment to think.

”I am going to the shrine.”

Then he turned his eyes toward Shiina.

”More precisely, Shiina and I will go there and deal with Mitsuhide ourselves.”

Shiina smirked at once. ”Good. I would have been offended if you forgot me.”

Yuwa stared at them both in disbelief. ”Wait a minute. Only the two of you are going after the daimyo? He is not going to be alone. He will be surrounded by knights.”

”And I have a bad feeling about that shrine,” Eri added quietly. ”A very bad one.”

Nathan looked at them without the slightest sign of hesitation. ”We will be fine.”

There was a calm certainty in his voice that did not leave much room for argument. Still, the others exchanged uneasy glances around the fire. It was not that they doubted Nathan’s strength. They had already seen too much from him to make that mistake.

It was simply that everything about this plan sounded insane.

Nathan shifted his gaze to Shigeru.

”On the other hand, once Mitsuhide leaves the castle with part of his forces, your path to the stronghold and the prison will be far more open.”

For a second, Shigeru only looked at him.

Then he let out a short laugh, almost disbelieving. ”You are saying that as if it were a small favor. You want us to storm the castle and break into the prison while you go kill the lord of the whole domain?”

”Yes,” Nathan said, without the slightest pause.

That only made the silence around the fire deepen.

It sounded absurd when spoken aloud. Reckless. Dangerous. Far beyond the kind of mission most people would ever agree to.

And yet no one there looked truly shocked.

Not because the plan was reasonable.

Because in a strange way, after everything they had seen and heard inside that valley, it felt possible.

If Mitsuhide truly left the castle for the shrine, then the domain would be at its weakest. The prison would be vulnerable. The guards would be stretched thinner. Their best chance might truly be tomorrow.

And beyond that, there was another truth none of them could ignore.

They had seen the people of the valley.

They had seen the fear in their eyes, the chains, the hunger, the bruises, the children growing up beneath that kind of rule as if suffering were normal. Mercenaries they might be, but even mercenaries were still human.

Shigeru glanced around at his companions, reading their faces one by one in the firelight.

”What do you think?” he asked.

Taku was the first to answer. A grin spread slowly across his face, sharp and eager. ”Is that even a real question? I am in.”

Sana nodded almost at once, though her expression was more sober. ”I am in too. Those children...” She exhaled softly, eyes dropping for a moment. ”This place is horrible.”

Sosuke folded his arms and gave a firm nod. ”Yeah. We cannot just walk away after seeing all that.”

Yuwa closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again and looked at Shigeru. ”It is reckless.”

Nanao gave a dry snort. ”That has never stopped us before.”

”That is not exactly reassuring,” Eri murmured.

”No,” Nanao replied, ”but it is true.”

Yamada leaned back, thoughtful for only a moment before he spoke. ”If Mitsuhide is gone, Nathan is right. Our chances will never be better.”

Ueda looked uneasy, as he often did when things turned serious, but even he nodded in the end. ”I hate this place. I hate everything about it. Which is exactly why I think we should do it.”

One by one, the decision settled among them.

Not lightly.

Not carelessly.

But firmly.

Shigeru watched his group in silence for a brief moment, and then a smile slowly crossed his face, quieter than usual but more real.

”Well,” he said, ”there it is.”

He looked back at Nathan.

”We are in.”

The fire cracked softly between them.

For the first time that night, something shifted in the mood of the camp. The unease did not vanish, nor did the danger grow any smaller, but now it had direction. Purpose. What had been a gathering of uncertain pieces was beginning to take the shape of a real strike.

Nathan gave a single nod. ”Good.”

Shiina rested her chin on one hand and smiled faintly. ”I was hoping they would say yes. It would have been boring otherwise.”

Yuwa gave her a look. ”You really are too calm about all this.”

Shiina’s smile widened a little. ”And you worry enough for all of us. It balances out.”

Taku laughed. ”She has a point.”

Eri still looked unconvinced, but she did not object again. Sana reached over and squeezed her shoulder lightly, as if to steady her without making a scene of it.

Shigeru drew a long breath and straightened. ”Then it is decided. At dawn, Nathan and Shiina go for the shrine and Mitsuhide. The rest of us strike the castle and prison while his forces are divided.”

He looked around the group, and his usual lightness gave way to something harder.

”No mistakes. No getting careless because the odds look better. If we do this, we do it properly.”

The others nodded.

Nathan’s gaze drifted past the fire toward the dark line of Death God Valley in the distance. Somewhere inside that cursed place, Genzo was waiting. Somewhere inside, Mitsuhide still breathed.

Not for much longer.

Beside him, Shiina followed his gaze into the night.

”Tomorrow is going to be fun,” she said softly.

Nathan did not smile.

”Tomorrow,” he replied, ”we end this.”