A short walk later they reached to the road. While marching on there, they spotted a thin man with sunken eyes running with a bag filled with something.
He was having trouble in keeping it in his grip. As a result, he dropped some of its contents on the muddy surface.
Without even trying to pick it up, the thin man ran without slowing down. Shinji knelt down to pick up a coin.
“Gold.” Shinji showed it to Fujimoto, “HEY!” he yelled at the man who ran even faster after hearing Shinji.
With the coin between his fingers, he walked by following the trail of coins.
“He doesn’t care dropping these. He must have plenty of it.” Fujimoto also began to collect fallen coins.
Shinji paused and knelt on mud.
From there he plucked out a familiar looking coin. It was the coin which he had paid in the inn before leaving. The emblem of a castle embossed on its side couldn’t be mistaken with any other coin.
He took out his vicious sword from a sheath he kept tied on his waist.
Without any word, he went for the thief on the loose.
“Get back here!” Shinji roared as Fujimoto struggled to catch up with him.
But there was no answer from the robber. The clinking coin bag was making easy for Shinji to choose the direction even in the entangled woods.
Now the clattering of coins was getting louder.
“Stop!” Shinji yelled at the scared thief.
When he chopped a final tree branch, he saw the thin man with nowhere to go. He dropped the coin as soon as he saw those two cut-throats.
Gold coins spilled out of the leather bag.
“Where did you get this from?” Shinji pointed his sword at him.
Robber was still looking for a place to run.
“Where did you get this?” Shinji ran towards him with his sword held high.
Thief screamed and ran inside a tree a trunk.
“S***!” Shinji punched the tree which had the thief in it.
“Did he just enter inside this tree?” Fujimoto was astonished.
Shinji watched the tree trunk bleed. He touched the red sap from his finger and wiped it on his shirt. Somehow Shinji found use of his sword and swung it at the massive tree trunk.
Birds flew off their nests as the tree fell on the ground. Yet there was nobody inside.
Fujimoto collected the coins and put it in the rubber bag.
“Hurry to the inn.” Shinji turned at Fujimoto.
