Rika didn’t waste any time setting out with Ishihara and Harada. Melati, unfortunately, had to stay behind since she couldn’t blend in as a Yamato native like the others. Besides, as much as Yoshika liked Mel, she had self-control issues and it was better to keep her close by.
Yoshika made sure that they were well-equipped for their journey, providing them with funds in the form of mana cores and gold, as well as a special speaking stone made by Dae.
“This won’t be able to communicate with us once you leave Jiaguo, but Dae’s enchanted it to work as a beacon that we can use once we have our own reflecting pools. We’ll be in touch as soon as we can, but if you’re in serious trouble, break it.”
Rika raised an eyebrow at her.
“Worried about our new technology getting into enemy hands?”
“No—it’s got a bit of my essence in it. If you break it, I’ll know you’re in trouble right away and come help.”
“Aww! My own little Yoshika-summoning bauble. You’re too sweet. Won’t that cause an international incident, though?”
Yoshika shook her head.
“Your safety comes first. Diplomatic incidents we can handle, but we’d never be able to forgive ourselves if something happened to you.”
“Thanks. It’s good to know you’re looking out for me.”
With Rika on her way to Yamato, there was little else they could do about the situation there until they learned more. In the meantime, Yoshika focused her efforts on figuring out how to get the people of Urayama settled in Jiaguo—a task easier said than done.
Jia and Kaede discussed the issue with Lady Tennin, after Yoshika had created an illusory double of Kaede to explain their unusual circumstances.
“So rather than dying, you’ve merged with Yoshika in much the same way that I merged with the kami of my shrine?”
Kaede frowned and shook her head.
“Not quite, but similar enough, I suppose. It does us little good to dispel the rumors when the truth is much worse. If my father knew the full story, I doubt he’d waste time with the Ienaga clan—he’d march on Jiaguo with all haste.”
Jia sighed.
“No use fretting over it now. Let’s talk about your village—Ito said you’ve got around two hundred and fifty people?”
Lady Tennin nodded.
“That’s right. I hope that’s not too many. I know that I’m stretching the spirit of your invitation with this...”
“No, it’s fine. The academy originally had around two hundred students, but it was pretty empty when the trade caravans weren’t in town. According to Dae, the city is large enough to support thousands, and there’s enough space in the shield formation for hundreds of thousands, if we build out.”
“That’s good to hear, though I’m not sure how my people will feel about living in the walls of a city. We’ve always been a self-sufficient people.”
Kaede leaned forward and rested her chin on one hand.
“There isn’t a great deal of arable land here. Most of the terrain is either mountainous or heavily forested. There’s a small lake in one of the valleys at the base of Mount Geumji, but I’m not sure about the soil...”
Lady Tennin clapped her hands in delight.
“That sounds perfect! We wouldn’t even have to change our name, living beneath a mountain like that. Don’t worry about the land—I can still grant the blessings of the kami to bring good harvests. I dare say it will even be easier without having to worry about wandering youkai!”
Jia and Kaede both grimaced, and Lady Tennin cocked her head.
“Did I say something wrong?”
Jia sighed.
“Geumji was originally a pretty powerful leyline, and the shield formation is extremely large. There’s a reason Goryeon formations are so small even though it leads to housing problems in the cities. The shield keeps monsters out, but it doesn’t do anything about the ones that appear within.”
“Originally? Has it lost its power?”
Kaede shook her head.
“Quite the opposite. We’re doing the best we can to manage it, but one of our greatest assets is a nearly unlimited supply of essence which is constantly overflowing. The place we took it from was surrounded by a massive endless storm that was populated by monstrously powerful elementals and leviathans.”
“Oh my.”
Jia chuckled.
“Yeah, we don’t expect it to get that bad. That place was left unchecked for eons, while we have every intention of maintaining Jiaguo as a safe place for the people who live here.”
Kaede nodded.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that magical beasts and elementals develop here very frequently. We haven’t even been here an entire year, but we’ve observed a marked increase.”
“Right, it’s been fine so far since we don’t have any mortals living here yet, but it might be an issue if your village decides to settle in a remote location like that.”
Lady Tennin tapped a finger to her lip thoughtfully.
“Hmm, well I’ve protected my people before and it’s not like we don’t have our own martial artists to handle smaller problems. Besides, surely you have your own people handling things with so many immortals around.”
Jia pursed her lips.
“Well...sort of. At the moment, it’s pretty much just us, a sect of non-combat healers and...Yang Qiu’s demons.”
Lady Tennin covered her mouth and gasped.
“You have a population of oni here? How in the world did you manage that?”
“We didn’t. Yang Qiu is bound to us by her core, and the rest are being held prisoner. Honestly, I don’t know what to do about them—everyone keeps telling me I should just kill them, but that feels wrong.”
The tennin smiled gently, placing an arm on Jia’s shoulder.
“You have a good heart, Lee Jia. I can see why you became a tennin like me, even if it was just enough to balance out An Eui. But haven’t you already proven that demons—and tennin, for that matter—can be rehabilitated? You seem to be free of your core now.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Jia sighed.
“It’s complicated. Our cores have merged completely into something else, and we’re still not sure what. That’s obviously not a viable method for anyone else.”
“I see. Well, I for one would be very interested in meeting some of them. That said, I’m sure we can handle ourselves—the real question is what else you require of us.”
“What do you mean?”
Lady Tennin covered her mouth and tittered softly.
“Oh come now, it’s already quite generous of you to offer my people a place in your academy, but surely you weren’t planning to grant us your land tax free?”
Jia opened her mouth to respond, but Kaede shut it before she could say anything stupid and answered in her stead.
“Of course not. We expect to have a lot more people living here in the future, and with your blessings enhancing the land around Urayama, you will be our primary source of good farmland. We’ll subsidize much of the cost of building and irrigating, but in return you’ll be providing most of the nation’s grain and livestock.”
“That shouldn’t be difficult—I can already sense how lively this land is, and while you say the terrain is poor I don’t think life can help but flourish under an aura like Yoshika’s.”
“Good. We can discuss the details later—I may also request that you send some laborers into the city to aid in the construction efforts there, at least until we can establish a more stable workforce.”
Lady Tennin smiled brightly.
“Certainly! Ah, I haven’t been this excited in decades! I think this will prove to be a very fruitful partnership.”
----------------------------------------
A few weeks later, New Urayama was already well underway on its construction, and a road between their village and the eponymous capital of Jiaguo City was being roughed out. Knowing just how different the people living under her protection already were, Yoshika decided to hold a meeting between the various leaders who weren’t already part of Jiaguo’s government.
Kaede warned her that if left unchecked, they would likely insulate themselves and form factions like the feudal lords of Yamato. It was important to start coalition building as early as possible.
In Elder Qin’s gardens, Jia and Eui attended along with Lady Tennin, Lin Xiulan, Long Ruiling, and Yang Qiu.
Jia bowed as they gathered within a gazebo overlooking the gardens.
“Thank you all for coming.”
Lin Xiulan was the Grandmistress of the Cult of Harmonious Stars, a sect of healers from Qin who’d been forced to officially disband and seek asylum under the auspices of the Great Flowing Purewater Sect. Despite being married to the Grandmaster of the Flowing Purewater, Xin Hai, she was quite strongly independent and openly radical in her beliefs.
She’d been eager to support Jiaguo, in the hopes that her sect could flourish without being oppressed by Qin’s laws against dual cultivation—which was an incredibly effective tool for healing, as Jia and Eui had learned for themselves many times.
Xiulan cast her gaze across the gardens with a pleasant smile.
“Always a pleasure, dears. These are lovely gardens. Did you say Elder Qin Zhao planted them?”
Jia nodded.
“Apparently by hand. The enchantments preserving them are his work, too.”
“Huh—I never imagined he’d have such a sensitive hobby.”
Eui chuckled.
“He was always full of surprises. I wonder what he’s up to these days? No way he’s dead.”
Long Ruiling stood rigidly straight, her wings tucked tightly behind her. Yoshika wasn’t sure what posture she was trying to go for, but she was far too nervous to pull off whatever it was.
“Mel really likes it here. I think she might be hiding a couple of smaller drones from me and keeping them small just so that she can play in the flowers.”
Yoshika did in fact sense a few of Melati’s smaller bodies keeping a respectful distance as they flitted about through the hanging flowers and carefully pruned trees.
Long Ruiling and her friends were fiends. Magical beasts who’d ascended to high enough power that they gained sentience and could take on human forms. Though technically, they had only descended from such beasts—Ruiling and her friends were all born as fiends.
Ruiling herself was the most human of them all, and even still her entire body was covered in iridescent dragon scales, her legs ended in taloned feet, and she had a large pair of functional wings that fluttered emotively when she wasn’t consciously reining them in.
The other two were much stranger. Melati was an entire hive of wasp-like insects that were loosely human-shaped once they grew to full size, and their friend Sukarto was a quadruped with a lower body resembling a rabbit. His upper body was humanoid, but resembled no man or beast Yoshika had ever seen.
The three of them had gotten caught up in Yoshika’s return home after she recovered the Sovereign’s Tear, and requested to stay as refugees rather than attempting to return home across the sea in failure.
The last to join in was the demon, Yang Qiu.
“Yeah, it’s real nice, but why the hell am I even here?”
Yang Qiu was a former citizen of Qin, whose sect had been overrun and destroyed by demons. Along with her fellow disciples, she’d been forced into inhumane conditions which pitted them all against each other in an attempt to force a demonic transformation.
Most such attempts ended in failure, but Yang Qiu survived and was chosen to represent the Demon Lord in their attempt on Chou’s tomb.
After her defeat, Yang Qiu offered Yoshika her demonic core, giving Yoshika complete control over her life and death in order to subvert her demonic urges. Since settling in Jiaguo, she’d spent most of her time hunting magical beasts and elementals in order to feed on their mana cores, and to provide sustenance for the captive demons under her supervision.
Jia stood in the center of the gazebo with Eui, standing back to back so that they could address their assembled guests. For the first time in quite a while, she spoke with both voices at once—as Yoshika, both separate and united.
“You’re here for the same reason as the rest of us, Yang Qiu. Everyone here has been oppressed, exiled, or rejected in some way by their own people. We all come from different places, and hold different values. Nevertheless, we’ve chosen to come together as one.”
“I didn’t choose anything! And I’m pretty sure I’m from the same country as—”
Eui glared at Yang Qiu.
“Shut up! I’m trying to make a point here.”
She backed off, holding her hands up defensively. Eui cleared her throat.
“As we were saying. We all represent different peoples and cultures, and that creates tension. We know, Lin Xiulan, that your people aren’t happy about having demons within our walls, and while you’ve been polite about it, we haven’t failed to notice that it’s the one thing which you do not vocally support us on.”
Xiulan inclined her head.
“It’s your nation to run as you wish, but I cannot honestly say that I approve.”
“We’re sure that there will be other such clashes. Lady Tennin is fiercely protective of her people, and they of her. We can vividly recall just how divided the students were when we originally attended the academy, but that’s not what we want for Jiaguo.”
Lady Tennin flashed her usual dazzling smile.
“That is excellent to hear! But what are we to do about it?”
Xiulan nodded along.
“Agreed. I trust your intentions well enough, but this sounds like an intractable problem. Even Qin is divided by its sects, and Yamato by its lords. Is Goryeo any better?”
Yoshika shook her heads.
“Not at all. In some ways, it can even be worse. Our cities are tall, but our hierarchies are taller. We’ve had the opportunity to meet the poor and the wealthy in all of the great nations, and nowhere is the gap as severe as in Goryeo.”
Yang Qiu snorted derisively.
“Sounds like you’re screwed, then. Good luck with that.”
“No. We don’t think so. Jiaguo’s greatest strength is not the Academy or the Tear—it is us. Not just Yoshika, but all of us. We are rejected by our homes because we are different, but it is those differences which make us the same. Unity doesn’t have to mean homogeneity.”
Long Ruiling frowned.
“To be honest we were kinda just stranded here, but I understand your point. It actually reminds me a lot of the islands back home. Among my people, no two individuals are the same—except in the dragon clan—and living in harmony with so many different types of people takes compromise. There’s still tension—especially between awakened and trueborn fiends—but we manage.”
Yoshika nodded.
“Thank you. That’s exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about. Compromise. We all know what it’s like to be rejected, and while it’s impossible to create a place that’s perfect for everyone, we believe we can find ways to abide by our differences.”
Lin Xiulan cocked her head.
“Such as? You’re good speakers, dears, but you need to do more than convince us. You are rulers now, and that means ruling.”
“That doesn’t mean we have to do it alone. We already have a close circle of friends and advisors helping us see this dream to fruition, but we need more. To that end, we’re starting by appointing each of the people here as special councilors, tasked with representing the will of your people, presenting and debating policy with the other councilors.”
Ruiling blinked.
“Uh...my people are just me and two others, though.”
Yang Qiu chuckled.
“And mine are all prisoners. You really want them to have a say?”
Yoshika didn’t hesitate.
“Yes. Everyone should have a voice, no matter how small. That is how we will achieve unity without losing individuality. That is Jiaguo’s path—and mine. We are many peoples, and we are one. That’s our way.”