Chapter 436: Evil God Festival - Boathouse

"I'm sure everyone hearing this, would like to be a sacrifice rather than a squire." Mifune put his hands behind his back, the smile on his face became meaningful, "But I can tell you all good news, in Kagome Prefecture, the offerings and retainers are not fixed, but there will be a test every half a year."

"In this test, sacrifices that are not as good will be lowered to the rank of squire, and those that excel will be elevated."

"I'm sure you're wondering what the criteria are for this test that judges sacrifices and squires."

Anticipation showed in the eyes of all the children.

Mifune looked around at everyone and said slowly, "It's pain."

"Whichever of you suffers more will be the sacrifice."

The children shrank back a bit in some confusion and some trepidation; the relatively negative and abstract concept of [pain] scared them subconsciously.

Gobune looked at the performance of these sacrifices, grunted again from his nose, and said, "Of course, the pain of becoming a sacrifice is sharp, but only for a moment, and only requires you to sacrifice once and then you will never need to be in pain again, whereas the pain of becoming an underling such as a squire, though not as intense, lasts for the rest of one's life."

"Long pain or short pain, it's up to you to choose."

Mifune said looking down at his watch, and said absently, "Now children who become sacrifices, your pets get the most careful treatment at the hospital."

"But for the children who become squires, we'll just have to arrange for a regular veterinarian to see your pets, and it's up to these pups to survive."

The children below began to group themselves in twos and threes, hesitantly, automatically dividing themselves into two groups, [Sacrifices] and attendants, and then grouping themselves together again, and the expressions on some of their faces appeared to change visibly, with many of them crying in fear, and many of them clenching their fists, with light flickering in their eyes.

Bai Liu watched the scene calmly, not moving.

The food chain of desire was already formed when these children voluntarily divided themselves into the two unequal classes of [Sacrifice] and [Servant], induced by the Imperial Ship.

Cangta looked from side to side with a pale face, and eventually walked behind Bai Liu, folded his hands in front of him, and bowed his head respectfully and tremblingly - the posture of a squire who had decided to serve Bai Liu as a [sacrifice].

Bai Liu leans back and glances at Cangta standing behind him, "You've made your choice? Are you sure you want to choose me?"

Cangta nodded slowly, he used his afterglow to glance at Xiao Kui who stood motionless in the crowd, and spoke in a muffled voice with a palpitating heart, "...... I can't do the sacrifice, Xiao Kui that kind of look, I'm just too scared... ..."

"Kitahara Xiao Kui, send her back to the original boathouse." Gobune ordered indifferently, "Let her stay with her original retainer, so she can see how the best friend she took responsibility for was tortured after she fled weakly and without a word."

Xiao Kui's shoulders slammed and she was quickly pulled away by the two adults.

"The rest of the children." With a sweep of the hem of his coat, Gobune said, "Follow me to the boathouse for you."

Bai Liu followed the royal boat and did not have to go very far before he arrived at the boat house in the mouth of the royal boat, which was much newer compared to the one Bai Liu had used when he practiced the Evil God Sacrifice Dance as the Evil God Successor seven days later, facing the sparkling sea.

At the moment under the afterglow of the setting sun, the waterproof paint on the shell of this strange and elegant boathouse was glowing with a dazzling golden scale light, the edges of which showed a kind of red color, and the pattern of the boathouse painted at the entrance glittered in the light of the sea water to the sunlight, which didn't look like a cage that was about to bring pain to the sacrifices, but on the contrary, it looked like a splendid boathouse palace.

The group of children looked dumbfounded, and one even pointed at the boathouse and cried out incredulously, "Is this a place for us to live?!"

"Yes." Mifune turned over as he pointed to the entrance off to the side, "Go over there and claim the wooden plaque with your name on it, once you have it you go in and stick it in the wooden niche next to whatever room it is and that room is yours."

When a group of children were getting excited and ready to rush over to collect their wooden tags and run toward the boathouse, Gobune spoke up again, saying coolly, "But the room is for offerings to be chosen first, and attendants second."

"The squire can't choose a room until every sacrifice has been chosen."

The excitement on the faces of the children whose status was [Squire] stalled, and they watched with bated breath as the [Sacrifice] children rushed into the boathouse to cheerfully choose a room, exclaiming how wide and nice it was, the pieces of their own wooden plaque clutched in their hands slowly tightening.

Bai Liu walked in with his wooden sign, and when he entered the field of vision, there was a row of neat and bright boathouses, but he could clearly see that the width of each boathouse was gradually shrinking, and the innermost one was only as wide as two doors.

The moment they realized that the house here needed to be robbed, the kids, who had already weathered the storm together on the ship and had developed a bit of camaraderie, immediately began to run like mad, trying to stuff their wooden cards first into the wooden niches of the widest and largest room.

"This room is mine!"

"I'm the one who slipped the wooden sign in first!"

A few of the kids were fighting over the biggest one around the room.

Bai Liu swept the rest of his eyes and withdrew them, walking past the largest rooms without looking up, remembering his time at the orphanage, where a bunch of kids grabbed toys.

But that sort of thing generally didn't concern him; the toys the group liked, Bai Liu generally didn't either, as in this case, and he walked straight to the last room, lifted his head and flatly inserted his wooden sign, then pushed the door open and walked in.

Sure enough, the layout of the room was exactly the same as the one Cangta took him to rest in afterward, right down to the picture of the waves hanging on the wall, only this time there was no shrine behind it.

Bai Liu withdrew his hand from stroking the wall.

It seems that there is no idol here in the last room, so the next key idol for this branch should be on the [Old Evil Spirit].

--in other words, on Sheta, according to the setting of "A Copy of Siren".

The sound of footsteps of children pouring in came from outside the door, but those footsteps quickly paused.

Bai Liu lowered his eyes - it seems that these [attendants] have already found out.

These children were quiet for a long time, staring blankly at these boathouses they had longed for outside their doors, thinking they could live in them, and opened their mouths to ask, "Where are we going to live when all these boathouses are full?"

All of the quadruple rows of boathouse rooms had wooden signs already inserted next to them, and none of them were vacant.

"Of course you guys have a place to stay." The Imperial Ship looked at the stunned expressions on the children's faces, and his tone took on an inexplicable eeriness and excitement, "There could still be a place in this boathouse where you shitty squires can plop down and get some rest."

He lifted his step and walked forward, unhurriedly, through the joint rows of boathouses, stopping next to an open water storage mason jar and turning to the group of children with a smile, "This is it."

These children who chose to become [Servants] looked at this water storage mason jar of a building incredulously.

The land around the water-storage stone tank was damp and dank, densely packed with barnacle-like creatures, and on the ground were the remnants of blood from fish kills, and discarded shells of oysters and seashells, and some rotting and spoiled fish and shrimp; this was obviously a place where ingredients were handled, and the dirt floor smelled as if it had been pickled by all this, and gave off one fishy stench after another.

That's not even the most shocking thing to these kids.

Cangta looked in awe at the water tanks, a dense array of spiked wire cages half the size of their bodies, with a tattered plastic awning over them, a water bowl and a feed bowl in front of the cages, dirty with muddy water, and a variety of chickens and ducks and other meaty walkers clucking and clucking in the same cages right next to them.

--This is totally the doghouse for pets, or the kennel.

There's a place on these cages where they're hung, and that place has long been hung with the names of these [squire] pets, or perhaps the names of these squires themselves.

Mifune raised his hand and pointed to the cages, "This is where you will live."

All the children stared blankly at the cages, and no one spoke.

Mifune continued familiarly, "You are to climb out of this cage with your pets at five-thirty during the day, and then catch the animal in the cage next to you to kill and process and take it to the kitchens to be cooked for the masters so that you, the Lords of the Sacrifices, can have the freshest and most flavorful cuisine by eight o'clock."

"Note that five and a half days in the morning the sky is not yet finished here, it is rather dark, so if you make a mistake in catching the animals in the cages and catch them as other people's pets to kill them, we are not responsible for any of it, so take care of it yourselves."

Gobune said absently, "But that may not be a bad thing for you, after all, the last squire whose pet was accidentally killed by the person next to him managed to be promoted to Sacrifice Lord in the first round of exams that year due to excessive pain."

"That's a really hardworking and motivated kid, I like him a lot." Mifune smiled with satisfaction as if remembering something interesting, "After he was promoted to the rank of Sacrifice and enjoyed the privileged yet respectful life of the Sacrifice Owners, he was too afraid of being reduced from Sacrifice to Servant again in the next round of the examination, so in order to consolidate his pain- "

"--The boy forced himself to eat his pet."