Based on his experience over the past few days, Kenji Yamamoto explored the surrounding area and, sure enough, found a note with green bloodstains as a clue:
Wine cellars are dangerous, wine cellars are safe.
The note was crumpled into a ball and thrown into the grass, where it was not conspicuous. Turning it over, you could see a sun pattern drawn on the back, which was then smudged with sparse lines, and finally a large character for "death" was written next to it.
Kenji Yamamoto immediately understood the message the note's owner wanted to convey:
[You will die on Sunday].
Here we must mention the Japanese way of calling the seven days of the week. The Japanese calendar also runs from Sunday to Saturday, arranged in the order of Sun, Moon, Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, and Saturn.
Previously, in an attempt to figure out the pattern of the road, Kenji Yamamoto had wandered around there for a long time and once found a piece of paper with a lot of strange cherry blossom characters and patterns written on it. It is unknown what the person or ghost who wrote it was thinking, but instead of writing numbers directly, they turned the piece of paper into a code.
After finishing his work, Kenji Yamamoto spent a long time inside the house trying to decipher the meaning of the note:
The Royal Palace Inner Garden is the central area of the Ōeyama Royal Palace, represented by a star pattern. It is usually inhabited by Shuten-dōji. You need to circle around the entire Ōeyama area four times to reach the vicinity of the Tenki-gōen (Heavenly Demon Garden) before you can see the road there. The Chrysanthemum Room is where people may work or do other things. It is represented by a flower pattern and only appears after circling a fixed area six times. The Sake Cellar is the simplest, located between the dining room and the Royal Palace Inner Garden, but you need to bring a gourd, which is only available in the kitchen. It is represented by a sake gourd pattern.
As for the underground palace, I don't know if it's because I haven't been there or for some other reason, but it wasn't mentioned on the note.
Because the Sakura Kingdom had already used up its last chance to remind them, Kenji Yamamoto was unaware that the chosen one who "just happened to enter the cellar" had actually been hiding in the bushes in the middle of the night and hadn't noticed, tumbling down the stairs into the wine cellar.
Furthermore, because this chosen one had been running around aimlessly, think tanks from various countries were unsure how to summarize the situation.
After all, she deliberately wandered into the dark, unlit bushes. While others would have been killed long ago if they encountered a monster in the dark, she somehow managed to stumble into a safe place.
It's true what they say, comparisons are odious.
Incidentally, this chosen one is the first Russian chosen one in the world to clear the game.
Kenji Yamamoto didn't know what day of the week it was, but with a one in seven chance, even if he was unlucky, it shouldn't happen to him, right?
Hoping for a lucky break, Kenji Yamamoto walked into the wine cellar step by step.
Strangely enough, although he walked into the darkness, he was always able to see his surroundings clearly and never slipped and tumbled down the stairs. After walking for an unknown amount of time in the darkness, Yamamoto Kenji finally reached the end, where a large door made of locust wood appeared before him, with a brass doorknob.
Kenji Yamamoto gently nudged the door with his foot, but the wine cellar opened with a creak, as if there were no lock.
The sound was exceptionally clear in the darkness.
For a moment, Kenji Yamamoto imagined many terrifying scenes, such as a ghostly hand reaching out from inside, or a monster chasing after him, but nothing happened.
Seeing the neatly arranged bottles of liquor on the shelves inside the door, with nothing else, Yamamoto Kenji breathed a sigh of relief and then mustered up the courage to go in—as for who gave him the courage, it was probably Talia from the Russian country.
Kenji Yamamoto immediately searched the room for anything resembling a "rule note," but found nothing. He then began looking for a hiding place, hoping that if any palace stewards entered, he would have somewhere to hide and try to save his life and avoid any mishaps.
As luck would have it, there was indeed an empty wine vat here.
There were several large, neatly arranged wine vats placed at the entrance of the cellar, not particularly eye-catching. Kenji Yamamoto went inside and hid for a while, finding that the corks on top were easy to remove, making it an excellent hiding spot.
With a way out in mind, Kenji Yamamoto felt much more relaxed and began to think about his mission.
His goal was to poison the sake-loving Shuten-dōji, just like the historical hero Minamoto no Yorimitsu. Therefore, he needed to know which bottle of sake Shuten-dōji would most likely choose. As for the source of the poison, Yamamoto Kenji used what was available and collected some pollen from the spider lily—this was something he had secretly wrapped up and carried with him before entering the area, and four days was enough for it to grow in the Tenki-gōen Garden.
When that time comes, Shuten-dōji will lose control and fight with his subordinates, becoming an enemy of the entire demon world.
He had both dealt with Shuten-dōji and weakened his forces, achieving two goals at once and making it easier for Nurarihyon to take over the demon realm.
As for how much of a threat the spider lilies would pose to the demons after they grew wildly, that was not within Yamamoto Kenji's consideration.
Pollen is limited, and Kenji Yamamoto couldn't possibly sprinkle some into every bottle. So he returned to the entrance of the wine cellar and, by the candlelight inside, tried to observe the dust on the ground to see which wines had been taken more often, in order to make a decision.
After all, if the note is correct, another interpretation of "[Sunday will end]" is—
On Sundays, Shuten-dōji drinks alcohol.
If ghosts come to take away the fine wine, it will naturally bring danger to the people hiding in the wine cellar, and in severe cases, it may even threaten their lives, just as the note said.
Wine cellars are dangerous, wine cellars are safe.
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