As the party gets more time to talk at The Wrong Cabbage, Santokumaru finds himself enjoying others' company for once. Vesper tells stories of the Elysium Academy with gentlemanly flair, Eleanora explains some of the philosophy behind her magic -- Santokumaru didn't know vegetables even had spirits -- and Tourna whirs and chirps along with the conversation whenever appropriate. Santokumaru had always thought of his banishment from Honyaki as a dreaded weight to carry, but as the meal winds down, he starts to wonder if making friends from around the realm isn't such a terrible fate after all.
The journey north is uneventful, and Santokumaru stays relatively quiet most of the way, occasionally jotting down a quick poem of a terrain feature or a landmark that inspires a new way of cutting. When they reach the forest's edge, he unbuckles the enormous knife block on his back and refastens it at his waist, so it looks more like a traditional warrior's scabbard. As they say in Honyaki, "The time it takes to hold one's knife, can measure the end of a slow man's life."
It isn't long before they encounter the guardian demons, wavering and shimmering in place. With a hand poised just above his blades, he thinks back to Honyaki's folklore of spirits and shadow things. Was there something in there about guardian demons...?
No rhymes or cryptic warnings come to him. Perhaps this was a creature unrecorded in Honyaki's region of the realm.