Monsters don’t salt their meat. Or at least they don’t salt their leftovers to save for later; that’s the kind of higher thinking we don’t associate with mindless monsters. So what does it say about the giant bloodthirsty apes that they not only do this, but can take on human form? At first it seems like they’re the primate version of Yatagarasu, but as the prince notes, they don’t seem to understand spoken language – or at least not the language of ravens. Frankly, they’re more like wereapes than anything else, but since they’ve never been seen before – the prince-turned-priest says this while researching his temple – it doesn’t just raise the question of where they came from, it almost begs it.

Right now, I can only think of one answer that aligns with the other storyline introduced almost a month ago in episode 14. In that episode, we touched on the illegal drug sage weed—which I hypothesized might have something to do with the effects of sage and mint on animals, since catnip is in that family. But the word “sage” can also mean “intelligent” or “wise.” So what if the name sage weed has a double meaning? We know what the drug does to intelligent beings like the Yatagarasu, but what if it had a different effect on beings without human intellect? Could monkeys have ingested sage weed and developed a false intelligence and the ability of a Yatagarasu to shapeshift into human form? Their intellect seems pretty sketchy from what we’ve seen – one knew to hide his primate form when the Kin’u and Yukiya were looking for him, but he vastly underestimated what the Yatagarasu could do to him. They know how to salt and store meat to preserve it for later, but they have no real sense of restraint, as they consume all the women and children on site. (Or at least I hope they did. The other possibility is much more cruel.) And of course, there’s also the burning question of why Koume was spared from slaughter.

When we first met Koume in the last episode, there was something…out of about what she and her father had discussed. The two were traveling merchants, and we now know that the town they visited was the one attacked by the wereapes. Yukiya and the Prince found Koume sleeping in a chest, the only survivor, but we should really be wondering how she ended up there—and why her father is missing. Did he put her in the chest before he was killed? Did he put her there because he knew the attack was about to happen? Was he somehow involved in the delivery of the sage capsule and was hiding his daughter the only way he could think of to get her out of the deal? We don’t know, but Yukiya is suspicious of her and I think that’s fair. There are too many unanswered questions about how she managed to stay alive, and the long time it took her to wake up also raises the possibility that she was drugged beyond mere drunkenness. And if that was the case, it raises the possibility that her father is alive and trying to distance himself from her, possibly for her safety.

This whole situation feels much more dangerous than the introductory story about the potential brides. That one would have had an indirect impact on the country, but it could destroy it completely. It goes beyond the question of what happened and lands firmly in the camp of “why did it happen,” because the only thing more dangerous than not understanding the massacre is neglecting to consider who benefits from it.

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YATAGARASU: The raven does not choose his master is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.