It was the burly man who spoke, he looked like he was in his forties or fifties.

When Kimura Kazuki heard his words, he could not help but glance at the person. From how they addressed him, he should be the son of the chief of Kobayashi Village.

However, he noticed that the middle-aged man in front of him looked rather naive and sincere, which threw him off a little. Then, when he thought of the attitudes of the several villagers towards him, he fell into deep thought.

“This is my son, Tomohito Kobayashi.” Takashi Kobayashi could sense the tense atmosphere around, so he opened his mouth to introduce his son with a smile. “My son fell and hit his head when he was a kid, that’s why he can be a little dense. Please don’t be mad at him.”

A normal person would probably be angry if someone belittled him, even if the person were his father. However, Tomohito Kobayashi just smiled sheepishly and was not even bothered by it.

Kimura Kazuki nodded lightly, and then the atmosphere turned silent again.

Apparently, when they were interrupted by Tomohito Kobayashi, the tension just disappeared.

The villagers from Kobayashi Village did not say anything, so Kimura Kazuki did not take the initiative to speak as well. From the information he gathered just now, Daisuke Kojima should still be alive. Besides, the tall and skinny villager had threatened earlier to lock him up, and he even used the word “too”. Obviously, Daisuke Kojima was a captive in their hands. 

However, he did not think about it any further. Since Takashi Kobayashi did not say anything, then he would not ask either. Anyway, he would know the truth in a little while. He looked around the secret passageway and found that its level of cleanliness was incomparable to the Unto Shrine.

Although there was a lot of dust in Unto Shrine’s secret passage, it was because no one had entered the place for some time. After the dust was cleaned up, the secret passage of Unto Shrine was clean and beautiful, and there would be clear sounds of footsteps when walking on it.

Back to this secret passage, it was quite rugged in terms of the floor itself, not to mention the surroundings. The steps were of different lengths and different heights, and he could even step on chunks of stone from time to time. The two villagers in front almost tripped and fell several times, even with flashlights. The mountain wall at both sides of the passage was even more uneven and covered with moss, which gave off a dank and moist feeling.

“I heard that during the Nara period, Emperor Kanmu moved his capital to Kyoto. The nobles and monks were the first who came to the Kyoto enclosure, and Kanayama was one of the destinations. Could it be that this secret passage was built by the nobles at that time?”

When Takashi Kobayashi heard this, he could not help but start to laugh. “The things that you’ve said were all rumors that I spread back then. Nine out of ten are false. The Kobayashi Village was too poor at that time, so I could only think of this method to attract adventurers, and then developed some businesses with the support of such tourism traffic. Computers weren’t that common then, so the people in our village collected money to publish the news in the newspaper. It was only after these that Kobayashi Village gained its reputation.”

“This secret passage was indeed built by those nobles, but the treasures… were all gone. After the nobles were annihilated, the treasures were all divided. How is it possible that they’re still kept here?”

“Oh, I see.” Kimura Kazuki asked again, “Were the nobles wealthy at the time? So wealthy that they needed to build this secret passage to hide their treasure?”

The other villagers’ faces took on strange expressions with meaningful, mysterious smiles when they heard that. Takashi Kobayashi looked at Kimura Kazuki, who seemed so young. This little fellow was probably sixteen or seventeen years old, but after thinking about it, he coughed and said, “This secret passage was built to lock up slaves.”

So this was the truth.

Kimura Kazuki nodded. Maybe the slaves that had been locked up here were all female. No wonder these villagers had acted so weirdly upon hearing that question.

Kimura Kazuki did not ask further, and soon after that, they walked down the steps of the secret passage in a single file. When they finally stepped onto flat ground, the villagers were relieved. They did not come here often, so no one came to clean up too. The stairs were cluttered with broken stones, and sometimes there were notches in the stairs, which made it difficult to walk on.

After going down the stairs, the area in front of Kimura Kazuki opened up into a wide space. He picked up his phone and looked around. It took about seven to eight minutes to walk here, and the ladder was a wrap-around from top to bottom, about a hundred meters down from the gazebo. Now they should be in the middle of Kanayama.

He looked around the area some more and he was again puzzled. “Since there are mechanisms to get in here, why is there another cave underneath the gazebo? Is it possible to come up here through the cave?”

Takashi Kobayashi nodded. “It is indeed possible to reach here from outside the cave, but I don’t know why those firefighters didn’t come in during the day.” Speaking of this, Takashi Kobayashi was a bit worried. He did not expect that the two, Ryoto Amagasaki and Hayato, would know about the cave below the gazebo, and the two even brought tools with them to go down to the cave from the gazebo. They were crazy.

If the officers in the police station really came in, they would definitely discover everything inside, and by the time they saw Daisuke Kojima and rescued him, Takashi Kobayashi and his family were basically doomed. However, Takashi Kobayashi himself also found it strange. He heard that the firefighters had already entered the cave, but they did not go further in. Could it be that there was danger in the cave?

Regarding the situation of them “going around in circles”, Makoto Honda did not reveal the truth to Takashi Kobayashi. Although experts said that it was because of the magnetic field, who knew what kind of paranormal incidents were happening at the time?

But for whatever reason, it was a good thing for Takashi Kobayashi.

However, just looking at Kimura Kazuki caused him another headache. He really did not expect that he could still meet a weirdo like Kimura Kazuki in the middle of the night. Why would he come up to Kanayama instead of going to bed?

Takashi Kobayashi sighed when he was thinking about it. “The cave outside was used to deal with the slaves. After the slaves had been tortured until they were half-dead and the nobles had lost their interest, they would just throw the slaves down there.”

Kimura Kazuki frowned slightly as he said, “That’s horrible.” Although he knew that things were chaotic in ancient times, he still did not feel comfortable hearing such things.

“Some nobles were really sick.” Takashi Kobayashi took his son’s arm, and then signaled Kimura Kazuki to follow them. Before Kimura Kazuki could ask about it further, he said bluntly, “I presume that you have already confirmed that Daisuke Kojima is here.” He paused for a while and said helplessly, “Yes, you’re right, and I don’t want to keep him locked up as well, but the guy is just too shameless.”

A few days ago, Tomohito Kobayashi had quarreled with a young boy in Kobayashi Village and pushed him lightly, but then the child just died from that.

At that time, Tomohito Kobayashi looked at the person lying on the ground and thought that the boy was just joking with him. Daisuke Kojima, who was passing by, saw this scene. He went up to have a look and found out that the boy had died because the back of his head had knocked against a sharp stone.

After understanding the situation, Tomohito Kobayashi panicked and immediately went looking for his father.

“I had contacted the child’s parents at the time and I planned to settle the matter in private. They too have agreed…” Takashi Kobayashi continued helplessly, “I also gave Daisuke Kojima a sum of money, hoping that he would not expose this matter. But that guy was insatiable. He even blackmailed my son twice in just two days.”

After learning about this, Takashi Kobayashi knew that Daisuke Kojima was greedy for money.

He knew that if he were to accept the consequences every time someone blackmailed him, then Daisuke Kojima would definitely be a leech on their family for a lifetime.