Chuuya crouched by the stream, slowly filling the vase with water while keeping his eyes fixed on the clouds. He always tried to either look at the sky or directly at his feet—a habit he had developed after accidentally locking eyes with a few animals in the forest. Their statues, he painted with even greater care—those were testaments to the innocent lives he had taken.

Once the vase was full, he stood up slowly. The sun was blazing with its full summer force. He was just about to head back to his hideout—or as much as a place surrounded by a garden and nine stone statues could still be called that—when he suddenly heard a crack behind him.

He didn’t turn around immediately. The instinct to react to any noise in that way had long been forgotten and abandoned by his body. With his gaze fixed on the ground, he slightly tilted his head to catch a glimpse of the source of the noise from the corner of his eye.

Unfortunately, the curse hadn’t sharpened his eyesight. All he could make out was a blurry white-and-brown shape several meters away. Yet the height, the silhouette, and the fact that the figure was moving made it clear—it was a person.