CGBTS Chapter 34

Chapter 34 – Death Sentence

Novel Title: あの夏から戻れない (Can’t Go Back to That Summer)

Author：宮緒葵 (Miyao Aoi)

Illustrator：笠井あゆみ (Kasai Ayumi)

Translator: K (@kin0monogatari)

Protagonists: 櫛原夏生 (Kushihara Natsuo -MC) & 四辻柊 (Yotsutsuji Shuu -ML)

*Please read at knoxt.space, the original site of translation. TQ*

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“…T-that’s not important right now…!”

Natsuo brushed the dust and dirt off himself in various places and started running. His destination, of course, was the village head’s residence. Shuu had taken him there several times, so he remembered the route.

Judging by the position of the sun, it was probably still sometime in the early afternoon. Normally, this would be the time when the villagers were hard at work in the fields, yet the fact that he encountered no one was eerie. The village, fallen into complete silence, was like the stomach of a hungry beast. The wall of mist surrounding the village writhed ominously, yet there was not a single human figure anywhere.

“Hah…! Hah, ha…!”

Fortunately, the ground was unpaved, allowing him to reach the village head’s residence without getting injured. There was no one around, and from the outside, all the windows appeared to be tightly shut, yet Natsuo could feel an unnatural heat pouring through the thick walls.

Natsuo caught his breath and reached for the sliding glass door.

―――Rattle.

Contrary to his expectations, it was not locked. He slipped through the opening, which yielded without any resistance. Just as before, the interior was dim and deserted, but he immediately knew where he needed to go.

The heat he had felt outside was leaking all the way here from the end of the hallway. It was that eerie altar room where he had met the village head.

“Ugh…!”

Careful not to make a sound, Natsuo slid open the sliding door marked with a drawing of the Odamaki sacred flower just a crack and covered his mouth and nose with his hand. If he did not keep his breathing shallow, he felt as though the mingled sweet fragrance and human heat would make him choke.

In the room, bathed in the wavering light of red lanterns, villagers holding Odamaki were packed tightly together. Almost everyone except the small children seemed to have been gathered there.

Everyone was holding their breath as they watched the altar wrapped round and round in red thread――and the village head seated before it, along with Etsuko and Kiyoshi, who had been forced to kneel with their hands tied behind their backs. Etsuko was still wearing the same clothes as three days ago, and a gag had been forced into her slightly swollen face.

……Where is Shuu?

As the village head’s deputy, he should have been somewhere near the village head, yet Shuu was nowhere to be seen. Natsuo frantically swept his gaze around the room and nearly cried out.

The countless paper dolls nailed all over the walls had been stained completely red from head to toe. Before, only their heads had been red.

“…In the place of Odamaki-sama, I hereby pronounce the judgment.”

A hoarse voice leaked through the stitched-shut mouth of the village head’s mask. Tension ran through Etsuko and Kiyoshi’s backs, while the villagers silently leaned forward. In this village, which had neither television nor the internet, perhaps even a trial was considered a form of entertainment.

“Etsuko of the Sawada family, Kiyoshi of the Kasuya family. Both are sentenced to death.”

Just as Shuu had predicted, the death sentence was pronounced, and a woman sitting in the front row collapsed with a thud.

“Mom,” Kazuo pleaded, looking as though he was about to cry. Then, Natsuo saw the man sitting formally beside the fallen woman with his fist clenched tightly. Was that Etsuko’s father? While the other villagers were dressed in their everyday clothes, these three, along with Kasuya sitting behind Kiyoshi, were dressed entirely in black.

……Was that meant to serve in place of mourning clothes?

“…I-I can’t accept this!”

Kiyoshi rose onto his knees and shouted. He roughly jerked his chin toward Etsuko beside him.

“That woman tricked me! If I’d known she intended to kill the new outsider with the Sacred Flower, I never would have stolen it!”

“Stop it, Kiyoshi!”

When the village head’s right hand twitched, Kasuya sprang forward and slammed his fist into the side of Kiyoshi’s face. Kiyoshi was sent flying and landed on the tatami with Etsuko underneath him, but he quickly pushed himself up and glared at his father with bloodshot eyes.

“Why, Dad?! Don’t you love your own son…?”

“Anyone who defies Odamaki-sama ain’t my son or anything else! Besides, you keep making a fuss about being deceived, being deceived, but stealing the Sacred Flower itself is a grave crime…!”

Kasuya declared it bluntly, but a faint trace of tears glistened at the corners of his eyes. He probably did not truly accept the fact that his son would be executed because of Etsuko. But in order to protect the rest of his family, he had no choice but to cut Kiyoshi loose.

“Ugh……, f, gnnngh……”

Etsuko was groaning repeatedly beneath Kiyoshi. If she had not been gagged, she would probably have been shouting all sorts of self-serving excuses.

No, perhaps that was exactly why she had been gagged in the first place. Her once neatly groomed hair was disheveled, and she was panting heavily, looking like an entirely different person from the girl she had been three days ago.

“―――Does anyone object to this judgment?”

As though the scene of chaos unfolding right before her did not even exist, the village head addressed the villagers standing in formation.

Kazuo’s father stopped him when he tried to speak up and silently shook his head. Kasuya quietly returned to the line, biting down hard on his trembling lips.

“Go-ing, go-ing, re-turn-ing…”

An elderly villager sang as he waved his Odamaki.

“Repeating, winding back, never quite full…”

The rest of the villagers joined in, slowly beginning to sway their Odamaki. The only ones who did not participate were Etsuko’s parents, Kazuo, and Kasuya.

As though slowly tightening a silk cord around their lowered heads, the strange song echoed through the room, growing louder and louder. The paper dolls nailed to the walls trembled faintly, their bodies completely crimson.

―――Red, so red.

Everything was being painted over in red.

“It is Odamaki-sama’s divine work…”

Leaving behind a lingering, clinging resonance, the song ended. When the village head raised his right hand, two young male villagers who had been seated in the front row silently stepped forward.

“Uuuugh! Uuuh!”

“N-no! No! Somebody, somebody help me!”

Ignoring their resistance, the two men each placed a rope around Etsuko’s and Kiyoshi’s necks. Even after being wrapped around their necks several times, the long ropes still had about two meters of length remaining.

……What the hell is that…? That looks just like……

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*Translator’s Note: Yep. They will be turned over and over by the rope like the Odamaki. A gruesome way to die if you ask me. -K

*P/S: To those who wanted to read my other new translation ‘(3P) Brotherly Sandwich: The Feast of Tempting Flesh‘ by Shu Kaori, you may click here to read on my blog since there’s an issue with sin.knoxt regarding the Chapter List.

Next update: 2026.11.04

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