Episode 01: Curse

## Plot

**Spoiler warning: *Plot and/or ending details follow. (Skip section)***

A man in a hospital gown wakes up in the snow with no memory of who he is or where he came from. Stumbling around lost in the cold, he's attacked out of nowhere by a giant insect with mandibles as large as he is—but just before it can catch and eat him, the man falls through the snow into a cave. When the creature tries to follow, it is swallowed whole by an even larger red slime. A human face emerges from the horrifying creature and seems to try to speak, and then a woman in a hooded robe throws a flash grenade at it and rescues the man. She grabs his hand, and the two run out of the cave.

Outside, she introduces herself as Kuon, but the man still can't remember who he is. They stop at Kuon's tent, where she gives him warmer clothes—and teaches him how to wear them—and tells him a little of Kujyuri, the land they're now in. Of course he's never heard of it.

Kuon and the man head off for a nearby village, but the man tires quickly. Kuon encourages him to hurry, so that they aren't caught outside at night, at the mercy of more monsters like the Tatari—the monster that he encountered in the cave. He's so obviously helpless that Kuon appoints herself as his guardian.

As the two proceed down the mountain towards civilization, the man finally notices that Kuon has a tail. When he grabs it, he learns two more things: she has ears too, and the tail can be used as a painful head-vise.

Their pace still turns out to be too slow, and the two spend an extra night encamped in the wilderness. They talk until the man falls asleep, and Kuon shows as much interest in his face as he did in her tail.

They reach the village a day after schedule, and Kuon makes the medicine delivery she came for. Listing their names at the inn, it turns out that the man can't recall his name, so Kuon names him Haku. She mentions that the name has a long history.

A huge meal arrives for them, courtesy of the innkeeper, which Kuon immediately begins to demolish. She introduces Haku to one of the local delicacies, a wrap called amamunii, then peeps on him briefly in the bath, but sees that his feet are awfully torn up from their journey. She paints his soles with a stinging ointment that nonetheless has him feeling much better in the morning.

Haku helps Kuon with odd jobs in the village but proves too weak for most of them. He's relegated in the end to working a broken grindmill. His efforts to move the mill manually produce so little effect that he turns to fixing the broken water wheel instead, which works, and Haku prepares to take a nap.

A bearded man walks by and discovers Haku's successful handiwork. Haku asks the man not to tell anyone what he saw, to avoid getting saddled with further repair work. Laughing, the man leaves, and Kuon arrives, but having immediately gotten back to his nap, Haku gets a tail about the head for his efforts. Afterwards he gets a chance to explain what he did, and Kuon decides that Haku is more suited for work that uses his head as opposed to his feeble body.

When Haku and Kuon arrive back at the inn, they find it full of a gang of rough men, amongst whom is the bearded man from the grindmill. He introduces himself as their leader, Ukon.

But later that night, in the nearby wilderness, a group of villagers are viciously attacked by some unseen monster...

***Spoilers end here.***
## Gallery

Kuon looking at HakuKuon flustered from getting her tail grabbedHaku watching Kuon eatHaku taking a bathKuon applying medicine to Haku's injuryHaku has had enough of his work
## Characters

*By order of appearances*

* Haku
* Kuon
* Ukon

## Trivia

* When Kuon mentions that the name "Haku" has a long history, she may be referring to Hakuowlo.
* The way Haku grabs Kuon's tail upon first meeting her echoes Hakuowlo's curiosity at first meeting Eruruu.
* Ukon's nickname for Haku, "An-chan" ("kid"), is the same thing that Teoro called Hakuowlo.
* In the anime, Kuon appears to meet Haku after rescuing him, while in the game she was taking care of him beforehand.