Under Yamabuki's interrogation, the tavern owner tremblingly opened the cellar, revealing more than a dozen bodies lying haphazardly inside. None of these bodies had clothes on. After Yamabuki inspected the bodies, he found that everyone had been killed with a single, clean blow, something the tavern owner in front of him could never have achieved.
"You have accomplices? Are you working together to run a black market inn?" Yamabuki immediately tied the tavern owner up and made him kneel to answer.
"No, no! I really don't have accomplices. It's just that, yesterday, a group of people got into a brawl here, and many people died. I thought it would be a waste to bury these dead people, so... so I thought of making them into meat-filled buns," the tavern owner said, trembling.
The faces of these Eleventh Division members turned ugly. They thought they were bad enough, but they didn't expect someone to be even more despicable than them.
"Chief of Staff, someone like this should be directly cut down. What do you say?"
Yamabuki's mouth twitched as he looked at the tavern owner: "You can be spared the death penalty, but you can't escape punishment. Beat him up."
The Eleventh Division members rushed forward and beat the man until his face was bruised and swollen. When Yamabuki saw that he had been beaten enough, he had the tavern owner explain the entire incident from beginning to end.
It turned out that this tavern was the place where Furuoki Ōtogawa had gone on a killing spree yesterday. After killing the people, Furuoki Ōtogawa left gracefully, and the owner felt it would be too much of a waste to bury these dead people, so he set his sights on them.
"So, your meat-filled buns haven't actually been made yet?" Yamabuki asked.
"Not made, not made. Please let me off this one time. I'll never dare to do it again! From now on, I'll definitely run my business properly and never commit any more crimes!" the tavern owner wailed.
"Also, did that person yesterday really say his name was Furuoki Ōtogawa?" Yamabuki asked.
"Absolutely, I couldn't have misheard." The owner wished he could hold up all his fingers to swear.
Yamabuki pinched his chin. Twelve of the thirteen original Gotei 13 Captains had already appeared, and the last one was this Furuoki Ōtogawa. Yamabuki had been secretly searching for these original Captains, but had never received any news of him. He hadn't expected to find him so easily.
"Do you know where this person went?" Yamabuki asked.
"I don't know, I really don't know, but..." The tavern owner looked hesitant to speak, and finally replied cautiously: "I feel like he's a very stingy person, the stingiest of the stingy! Really, you'd think a normal person coming to a tavern would be here to drink, but who asks 'Boss, what's free in your shop?' as soon as they walk in? Don't you think that's outrageous?"
Watching the tavern owner complain, Yamabuki's mouth twitched. He shouldn't be talking about others; he didn't even plan to let dead people go. He was even stingier than him.
"Bring me the map of this area," Yamabuki said to his subordinate. Although Soul Society had maps before, they were only small-scale, not comprehensive.
Later, Yamabuki led his team to draw a relatively complete map.
The tavern owner said that this person was very stingy. After killing people, he took all the valuable items from their bodies, not even sparing their clothes.
When he came to the tavern, he only drank well water and didn't even bother to order a small dish.
Where would such a person live? An inn or a hotel would be impossible; taking a single coin from such a person would be harder than killing him.
Could he be staying at someone's house? No, a killer should try to avoid contact with others as much as possible, otherwise, he would eventually be found by his enemies. So, where else could he be?
Yamabuki looked at the nearby map and suddenly saw that the map indicated a temple in the village ahead.
Actually, when this temple was first recorded, Yamabuki's mood was quite strange. The people living in Soul Society were all dead, yet a group of dead people were still worshipping deities.
Of course, a scene now appeared in Yamabuki's mind: a person who was clearly wealthy but stingy to the point of death, unwilling to stay in an inn or eat good food, could only stay in a dilapidated temple, eating locusts when hungry and drinking dew when thirsty.
Yamabuki truly couldn't understand why such a person would want to earn money. Isn't the purpose of money to make one's life better?
"Go to the village ahead. I suspect the killer should be in that village," Yamabuki said.
Before leaving, Yamabuki burned all the bodies and warned the hotel owner that if he dared to do such a thing again, he would chop off his head.
Then, he led his subordinates through the rain towards the village ahead, arriving only after noon. The rain in the sky had finally lessened a bit, but the ground was very muddy and difficult to walk on.
"Chief of Staff, he's just a murderer. Why bother with him? Wouldn't it be better to let him fend for himself?" a squad member asked.
Unohana did not clear out Rukongai out of a sense of justice; she simply found an excuse because she wanted to cut people down.
The people of the Eleventh Division also had no so-called sense of justice; they just wanted to fight.
If this were just an ordinary murderer, Yamabuki wouldn't bother with him. After all, in this world where Hollows frequently appear, are the small deeds a murderer commits even considered crimes?
Look at the squad members around me; which one is qualified to stand behind me without a dozen or twenty lives on their hands?
What Yamabuki valued was the result of collecting all the SSRs.
Before he transmigrated, he also played mobile games like his peers, such as Onmyoji, CrossFire Mobile, and Honor of Kings. Most people treated these games as competitive games, but Yamabuki played gun-fighting games like CrossFire Mobile as collection games. His greatest joy wasn't how high his rank climbed, but what kind of weapons he had collected.
Even if the weapon was very bizarre and had no practical use, he would still be very happy.
Now, twelve of the thirteen original Gotei 13 Captains had been "collected," and he was very displeased that there was still one missing.
Yamabuki just smiled and led his squad members directly into the temple.
At first, Yamabuki thought it was a dilapidated temple where the incense offerings had long ceased, but he never expected it! The incense offerings at this temple were surprisingly thriving, and the offering table was full of various tributes, piled high.
And when Yamabuki saw the deity enshrined in the temple, he couldn't help but laugh.
He saw a huge eyeball, which looked very strange and bizarre, but inside the eyeball was actually a... right hand.
Yamabuki finally understood; this right hand was the Right Hand of the Soul King, the very thing that later resided within Jūshirō Ukitake's body.
Although the power of this right hand was already very weak, Yamabuki could still feel a faint trace of the Soul King's power.
"We're all hungry. You don't mind if I eat some of your offerings, do you? Brothers, dig in, don't be shy." Yamabuki directly distributed the offerings on the altar to his team members, telling them to feast.
....
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