When I finally caught up to the servant, he held the reigns to a knackered-looking mare.
“As you requested,” he said eagerly, unless I mistook fear for enthusiasm.
“Thanks… but you really didn’t need to do that.” I pulled open my inventory and withdrew a coin. “Here, for your trouble.” I flicked the square coin towards him and he only caught it partially, fumbling it around before he managed to trap it between both hands. When he opened his hands and gave the coin a proper look, he suddenly fell to his knees before me, forehead planted in the dirt.
“Whatever you request of me, it shall be done! With this much money I can get my family out of here safely, you cannot comprehend the immense—”
“Thanks for the horse,” I interrupted abruptly.
“But, but…”
“See you later,” I said and leapt on the horse, setting off in a gallop before he had the chance to make me regret my impulsive altruism. All I’d given him was one Shu...
Though the horse was an old mare that had seen better days, or decades even, it made my trip from the hidden Azure village to the Capital quite a short one, compared to how long it’d have taken me on foot.
Despite the soothing effects of the healing potion from earlier, I felt pain ripple through my body with every rhythmic jolt transmitted through the horse’s powerful legs and up through the saddle. Not to mention, my bottom half quickly lost all feeling and tingled uncomfortably the entire way.
Although I’d prepared myself for another ambush when I travelled across the crimson hills, no one challenged my passing, and the few peasants tending the fields did their best to seek cover when they heard the sound of my thunderous hooves. That is to say, all was as ‘usual’.
I was first going to find a blacksmith to repair my armour, then I’d go shopping for an alchemist, and then I’d track down the bastard who’d put a bounty on my head. The things I’d do to him would make even the bloodthirsty Reds tremble in their boots.
The mare ran with the wind, like an indominable force pushing ever onwards, which made it all the more surprising when it collapsed, exhausted, before the Kakon-shi slums upon our arrival. As it fell away beneath me, I leapt from the saddle and slid a metre or two across the soft earth on landing. If there’d been a spectating crowd, they would’ve no doubt greeted me with a standing ovation, but the only audience I had here on the outskirts of the Slum was a tired-looking old man, who gave me an unimpressed look as though he’d already seen that trick before.
Before I made my way through the city, I swapped into my casual attire of a soft white shirt and a knee-length black skirt. As the Safe Zone banner popped into existence, I also put my sword away. It wasn’t that I expected to fit in with my outfit, but rather that the people of this World would just see me as an outsider, and not some Rōnin or Samurai, who’d perhaps cut them down for any offense taken. I also wasn’t sure whether any Shinobi resided within the city, so hopefully the change in clothes would keep them from noticing me. Lastly, if I happened to run into another player, I didn’t want them to know who I was, though I hadn’t seen any players this far, so I doubted this last concern was warranted. For now, anyway.
I moved through the Slums I’d only just escaped from the day before,[1] as the last embers of the sun painted the clouds in pink and orange hues. I half expected to see the remains of Mori’s corpse, but it seems that time had moved quickly, since, as I moved onwards through the district, no traces of the Vermilion and White Tiger’s battle in the Marketplace remained. The stalls were once more in their usual condition and people thronged the plaza, browsing through wares, haggling, and making merry. It was a bit jarring, to be honest, and I got the feeling that I wasn’t supposed to have returned here so soon. I had, after all, gone through three Stages in less than two days. It was possible that the Shinobi ambush was supposed to have been triggered as I made my way back to Kakon-shi, but I had perhaps circumvented that by taking an alternate route back to the Azure village instead.
Of all the stalls in the Market, the majority sold food of one sort or another, while only a scarce few sold jewellery, trinkets, charms, books, art, and such. The permanent stores, built from wood and stone, with a proper roof above them, were housed in the buildings that surrounded the stalls in the courtyard. They sold armour, weapons, alchemical reagents, and materials for other types of crafting skills, such as Scribing, Needleworking, Cartography, Hunting, and so forth. Most of the stores were open to the air, their shutters and sliding panels flung wide, with the exception of the Alchemist’s, the Blacksmith’s, and the Scribe’s.
I slid open the door to the Alchemy store and cast a sliver of sunlight into the dark interior. Its pungent and dank aroma flooded my nose as air rushed from the room, and I quickly closed the door behind me for the sake of the people outside. A sheen of condensation covered the walls and water droplets occasionally fell from the ceiling, one landing square on the top of my head as I made my way to the desk, behind which a man was busy mixing various reagents. The entire shop was at least ten degrees hotter than the outside, not to mention uncomfortably humid.
“I’m looking for Aloe Vera leaves. For healing potions,” I told him.
The Alchemist turned around and looked at me with a sceptical glance. Part of me feared he was going to send me on some quest just for me to be allowed to browse his wares.
“I don’t have any of those, but maybe you could use these instead,” he replied, pulling some fresh herbs from a jar.
“Do they have healing properties?”
“They do. Give them a try. You can pay afterwards.”
That was awfully friendly of him, I thought to myself. For some reason, I found this sort of kindness suspicious. But I went over and made us of the available alchemy table despite my apprehensions. Twenty minutes later I’d distilled a brown-ish-red ‘Weak Healing Potion’ and had a new entry into my ‘Known Ingredients’ list, called ‘Akebia’. In terms of effect, it seemed to be pretty much identical to the Aloe Vera plant I’d used in the past.
“Well done,” the Alchemist congratulated me, somewhat condescendingly.
“I’ll buy three more of these herbs and flasks to go with them.”
“As you wish.”
I paid him seven-hundred Mon and left the damp shop in a hurry.
For the next hour, as torches were lit all around me, I browsed through the stalls in the large courtyard, and bought a couple of meat-skewers to appease my growling stomach as I walked around. So far as I could tell, I was the only player here, but then again it wasn’t always super easy to spot the difference between real and virtual, since I’d noticed that some players in the Forgotten Village dressed like the characters of the World.
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At some point, I caught a glimpse of a Tailor’s shop set into the courtyard wall, similar to the Alchemist’s, and realised the disrepair my leather tunic was in: the frayed shoulder, where I’d taken a hit from the greatsword; the neat little puncture holes in the other shoulder, courtesy of the Shinobi’s needles; and the four larger holes in its side, where the claw had punched through. It had been manageable when it was just the shoulder, but thanks to the ambush earlier, the tunic’s structural integrity was utterly compromised. And it wasn’t as though it had really protected me that much to begin with, so I decided it was time to replace it.
The Tailor gave me a bright look as I entered through the open front of the store and placed my broken tunic before him on the counter. A breeze flowed through the shop, ruffling my hair.
“I need something better than this,” I said.
He gave the tunic a solid inspection, and constantly had to brush his long dark hair away from his eyes, then he went to rummage through a box in the back of the store and returned a few minutes later bearing a folded dark-grey jacket with strange hexagonal shapes sewn into the torso, shoulder, and upper arm sections. Of all the armour I’d seen in this World until now, this was far more elaborate by comparison.
“This is a prototype armour I’d been working on for Genbu-sama’s men, but I suppose they have no use for it anymore…”
“Why not?” I asked, curiously. The mention of a ‘Lord Genbu’ was new to me. It was another name which fit into the animal theme of the clan names, as the name translated to “Black Tortoise”, and the fact that I hadn’t heard mention of him before was quite intriguing to say the least.
“You don’t know?” the Tailor asked, lowering his voice to a whisper as he leaned closer. “After his exile from the city and the other clans’ relentless hunt for his remaining heirs, he lost all the power he’d once wielded in the region, and his fortunes were seized on and split between the three ruling clans. They have no use for new and improved armour for their foot soldiers, so my prototypes have just been collecting dust.”
Interesting. I wondered if any supporters of the Black Tortoise clan still watched from the shadows, secretly hoping the three clans would tear themselves apart.
“You say this armour is better than what the foot soldiers wear?”
“Yes, far better. Though, it is costly to produce and also time-consuming to make. This particular prototype is made from imported wool, and mixed with silk for additional protection against arrows. Grids of tough, hexagonal leather plates have been sown into the fabric to create a sturdy mesh that will also protect against most weapons, while remaining lightweight enough to not slow down its wearer.”
“What about protection against spears?”
“For that, you’d want to wear something over it, like a Dō.”
“And how much is it?”
The Tailor paused, scratching the back of his head. “Erm… Three Bu.” The way he said it, made it sound like a lot of money, which it probably was. He didn’t seem confident that I’d want to buy it, so I decided to try and haggle with him.
“I’ll let you have this,” I said and pointed to the ruined tunic before him, “and two Bu.”
He looked at the tunic for a minute, but then said, “Alright, you have yourself a deal.”
As I handed him the coins and grabbed my new jacket, a tooltip appeared:
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‘Prototype Genbu Kikko Katabira’[2]
-Armour-
Armour > Torso > Arming Jacket
Armour Type: Medium
“A prototype arming jacket once commissioned by Lord Genbu of the now-extinct Black Tortoise clan. The lightweight jacket takes inspiration from the tortoise by having hexagonal plates of dense leather sown into the wool-and-silk fabric at critical points. Offers strong protection against arrows and other ranged projectiles.”
Equip
Discard
Weight: 0.3 kilos
----------------------------------------
It somehow weighed less than the tunic I’d given him in exchange, which made me a bit worried, but I was sure that its fabric and leather plates beneath would do far better at stopping arrows and shuriken.
Next, I went to the Blacksmith’s shop, just as he was about to close. I squeezed through the partially-open sliding door and almost collided with the man.
“We’re closed,” he said.
“I’ve got money to spend,” I bargained.
“How much?”
“Enough to make it worth your while.”
The Blacksmith wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead, then pulled a dirty, white band from his pocket and tied it around his head.
“Alright, what do you need?”
I pulled my broken ‘Blacksteel Cuirass’ from my inventory, along with the Dō that the Lady had awarded me, and set them on a table in the middle of the shop that smelled of iron, smoke, and burnt coals.
“The Azure Dragon, ey?” he said as soon as he saw the symbol.
“You recognise it?”
“Everyone knows what the Tsukikusa[3] flower means,” he said matter-of-factly.
“Really?” Perhaps I should’ve asked someone about it before, since I clearly had a lot to learn.
“Why do you think they all wear blue? The Azure Dragon clan became wealthy thanks to the blue dye that they make from this flower. They wear it as a symbol on their armour to pay homage to their ancestors.”
“You seem to know a lot,” I replied.
“It’s common knowledge, young lady.” Well, that was a first, I certainly hadn’t been called ‘young lady’ before, but perhaps it’s a common occurrence when you don’t walk around looking like a killer-for-hire.
“What about the Spider Lily insignia that the Vermilion clan uses?”
“That… that has an altogether different meaning. You wouldn’t know it from looking at them, but they have quite a strong connection with Buddha, especially the idea of an afterlife. But along the way their fixation became twisted, and they started believing the path to salvation lay at the end of a long and bloody road. I wouldn’t be surprised if this whole war was just a means to an end. They’re lunatics, the lot of them.” Though he hadn’t said it outright, he seemed to believe that the Vermilion clan had caused the war.
“Is that so…” I responded, intrigued. Who would’ve thought that a blacksmith, of all people, would be such a chatterbox?
“Anyway, I’m closing, so hurry up and tell me what I can do for you.”
“I need this repaired,” I said, pointing to the cuirass, which looked more like a stew pot than a functional piece of armour.
The Blacksmith tapped the metal with a hammer, then hummed to himself. “I’ll have to find something strong enough to bend it back into shape, which will take time and lots of coins—”
“That’s not a problem,” I interjected. “Can you have it done in two days?”
“That’d be a bit too—”
The chink of the golden, rectangular Ryō was like the chime of a dulled bellclock as it bounced off the table and settled right next to the Blacksmith’s hand after a succession of tiny hops back-and-forth.
The Blacksmith swallowed loud enough for me to hear, then he cleared his throat. “I, eh, I suppose that if I hire another hand, it can, eh… be done.”
“Good, thanks. I’ll see you at sundown in two days.” I turned around and made to leave. It was impossible to not feel smug about how easily my coin could alter someone’s will. To be fair, I still had no clue how much money I’d just given him.[4] He might have been able to retire in a castle with that kind of money, though it didn’t matter much to me. I couldn’t waste time hanging around in this World forever. Not if I were to make good on my promise to the Watcher. I’d carve a bloody swathe through every World put before me.
As I reached to the doorway, feeling my stamina pool increase from the lessened weight, he called after me. “What about this other armour?”
“You can keep it, though if you could copy its symbol onto the back of the black one, that’d be great.”
I didn’t hear his reply as I left, but I was sure he’d get it done. As I thought about it, perhaps asking to have an engraving made on the back of the cuirass wasn’t a good idea, considering how I normally wore a cloak that would cover it… Oh well.
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[1] When you think about it, I’d had quite a crazy time in this World already.
[2] Literally: “Black Tortoise Shell Armour”.
[3] 月草, literally meaning “Moongrass”. In English it is referred to as the “Asiatic Dayflower”, and throughout time it has had many names, with Tsuyukusa (露草) “Dewgrass” being the most common name in modern Japan.
[4] Spoiler alert: A lot.