Chapter 26

## The Law of the Mountain

* Color
* Volume

**The Law of the Mountain** (山の掟, *Yama no okite*) is the 26th chapter of the *Golden Kamuy* manga.

## Synopsis

Tanigaki recognizes the tattoo on Nihei's body and realizes that he is one of the tattooed convicts. Furious with Nihei only laughing it off, Tanigaki draws his gun and accuses Nihei of murdering soldiers during his escape from the Abashiri Prison. Nihei shrugs it off, claiming that he only killed fools who were blinded by their own greed; he notes that he feels more guilty killing animals than those guys. Nihei stands tall and asks Tanigaki if he is going to shoot him and skin him. He continues to question Tanigaki's identity, wondering if it's Tanigaki the Matagi or Tanigaki the soldier standing in front of him.

Back in the hut, Asirpa realizes that she has heard Nihei's name before. She recalls how there used to be horrible men who would go around murdering hunters and stealing their prey. Once when Asirpa and her father were hunting, they became the target of those men. Asirpa's father marked the bear's fur with a symbol and later recognized it when a man brought the same pelt to the fur trader. The man was arrested, but there still were three of his accomplices who were looking for hunters to rob in the forest. However, they picked the wrong man to target...

While Nihei continues to bathe himself in the water, he tells Tanigaki of his encounter with those three men. Nihei was butchering a bear in the woods when a bullet ricocheted off the ground at his feet, followed by a gunshot in the distance. Nihei realized he was being targeted and shouted at the bandits, threatening the men.

The bandits didn't take Nihei's warning seriously and shot at him, the bullet passing through Nihei's hair. Nihei considered that shot "the opening of hunting season" and over the next three days hunted the bandits one by one, clubbing each to death. However, the last bandit got caught by the police. While the policemen tried to stop him, Nihei proceeded to snapping the bandit's neck. The murder of the bandit resulted in Nihei being sent to the Abashiri Prison. Nihei explains that he wants to die in the wilderness, so he escaped the prison. He dreams of his fallen body being consumed by wild animals and becoming one with nature. Nihei asks Tanigaki if he understands him.

Sugimoto asks Shiraishi about Nihei, and Shiraishi describes him as an older man with graying hair, carrying a Type 18 single shot rifle, and accompanied by a brown Ainu hunting dog. Sugimoto realizes that this matches the appearance of the man he and Asirpa saw earlier. Shiraishi then reveals that the fur trader in town told him that Nihei asked about the money he'd get for the pelt of a white wolf. Asirpa is shocked to hear it: Tanigaki was hunting for Retar, not her. Asirpa rages at Shiraishi, asking why he didn't say it earlier, and Sugimoto forces him to eat *hupca* as punishment. Sugimoto then suggests they wait till morning before they look for Nihei.

Tanigaki and Nihei are spending the night waiting for Retar to return to the deer's carcass. However, in the morning the find the carcass covered with wolf feces. Nihei concludes that the wolf must have done it when they were away washing themselves. Tanigaki says that he heard of a special kind of wolf behavior, where they track a strange human and observe them from afar; it's called "being watched by a wolf". He tells Nihei the white wolf must have watched them from the moment they showed. Excited about the hunt, Nihei proclaims that his boner is raging out of control.

Asirpa, Sugimoto, and Shiraishi set out to find Nihei and Tanigaki to protect Retar.

## Character Appearances

* Sugimoto Saichi
* Asirpa
* Retar
* Tanigaki Genjirou
* Tetsuzou Nihei
* Ryu
* Shiraishi Yoshitake
* Wilk *(Mentioned)*