"How are things going for you in general?" Stas and Kensei stopped in Uramasa's underground dwelling. Kensei took a sip from his sake cup, and after a slight hesitation, Stas followed suit.
"Pretty good. I've become an advanced warmaster. Life's getting on track. But don't samurai rules forbid the consumption of alcoholic beverages? Something like: 'Keep your mind always sharp to feel every moment of life and to protect your master,'" Ordyntsev smiled, watching the one-eyed man's reaction with interest.
"Ah, I was never much of a samurai, even on my best days. And now, well, I've gotten involved with the warmasters. So, one more restriction or one fewer makes little difference. You know..."
The ronin waved his hand thoughtfully.
"When we stood there in Akaru, facing the bandits and those warmasters, I knew right away that you'd make something of yourself. To step out so fearlessly against several armed robbers without really knowing how to fight, you have to be truly an extraordinary person. And judging by your meteoric rise, I was right. To master the control of prana in just a few years... I can't even imagine what you'd have become if you'd started training from a young age."
"I'm about to blush from all your compliments," Stas chuckled. "By the way, why didn't you tell how you earned your place among the warmasters? How did you even manage that? I thought samurai and warmasters were like cats and dogs; leave them alone, and they're bound to fight."
"Somewhat true," Uramasa laughed unabashedly. "When I first got here, almost every day, some jerk would decide to test what this 'little samurai' was made of. It was tough; not all of them were weaklings. But then the battles started, and suddenly, there was no time for such foolishness. After that, I simply became stronger than most of them, so picking a fight meant getting punched in the face."
Uramasa paused to refill the cups.
"Then, thanks to Jishin's decent command, our squad began to grow. New fighters joined us, and then together, we stormed new strongholds. And there, I saved a couple of lives and proved myself to be reliable. And that's just how it went. Being close to the prince also played its role. As you can see, I'm not much of a storyteller," he sighed, realizing he had nothing more to say.
"You should see how the others look at Jishin now. Throughout the entire war, he lost only a couple of battles, ones where there was no chance of winning. But even then, we managed to retreat, not just run for our lives. And that was with far from the best fighters. And to fix that, he started training them, can you imagine?"
Stas nodded. He had heard something about it in passing.
"Take that march through the Totoyami forests and hills, for example. If not for his training, half the army would have died of exhaustion halfway there. But we not only ended up behind the Kiatto forces, but also struck them right in the back. Oh, the slaughter there was grand. The only pity is that there were so few Sansa..."
Clearly, Uramasa's anger towards that clan of warmasters had not subsided. Perhaps the poison makers would have been better off killing Kensei years ago, but to their misfortune, they did not.
"What's the chat about?" the fabric canopy was pulled back, and a smiling Shin, Naito's son, entered.
The eternally friendly lad had changed noticeably over the past three and a half years. A series of small spots had appeared on his right cheek, presumably from an acid explosion, and his body had become much more muscular.
Working as an agent and participating in the war are different things. In the latter case, you have to use all your strength to become stronger and survive.
"And there's no escaping you," Uramasa grimaced. "When I go to the toilet, I'm afraid I'll see your face peeking out of the hole."
"Oh, come on, Kensei," he turned and smiled warmly at Stas. "He really loves me, he's just shy."
Stas and Shin watched intently as the ronin's hand rested on the hilt of his sword and drew it out by a measure of two fingers out of the sheath.
"Just kidding," giggled the head of Jishin's secret service.
A few seconds of tense silence followed, and the blade clicked back into the sheath, disappearing from view, and a third cup appeared on the table.
Stas had long since received a message from the Leviathan lying in the corner of the room about the power of the people present.
Each of them was already at the advanced level of strength. For Uramasa, this progress meant even more than for the others. Since he couldn't spend prana on various techniques during the war, he developed only the way of the sword and body strengthening.
And since his opponents were not samurai like himself, but far more dangerous warmasters, Kensei had to become much stronger very quickly.
Of course, if he hadn't been talented himself, it would have come to nothing. But here, the stars aligned quite fortunately.
Stas involuntarily wondered what a person following the path of a samurai but with the power of a supreme warmaster could turn into.
Suddenly, a curious fictional world popped into his memory, where the strongest swordsmen with swift attacks could easily slice through entire islands or blow away cities with powerful strikes.
Shin was also of interest. If Stas himself had only slightly walked the path of an advanced warmaster, then Naito's son was midway through it. Considering that for ordinary people, such a journey took many years, sometimes a lifetime, one could appreciate his potential.
'Is this not fate?' Stas thought involuntarily. 'Yes, I put some effort into changing Jishin's fate, but the people around him became so strong without my help.'
The Samurai, Serpent, and Spy were sipping sake and discussing their joint affairs. Meanwhile, in the corner lay a giant snake, at which both Kensei and Shin cast curious glances but remained silent for now.
"Just met with Jishin," hearing Shin, Stas noted that everyone present called the prince by his name. "I haven't seen him in such a nervous state for a long time. The last time was when his elder brother assigned us to that position." The shadow shook his head. "Luckily, the Sansa didn't have the strength to continue attacking. At that moment, every second of us was wounded, and every first was out of energy."
"Yeah, that nasty bastard won't leave Jishin alone, and therefore, us either," Uramasa's face twisted. Apparently, Stas had missed quite a few stories about the relationship between the two brothers.
Ordyntsev looked at Kensei in surprise. In the current caste society, it was almost impossible to meet someone who dared to affront even the higher-ups of others.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
The essence of local traditions was that you could only insult your equals or those who were weaker. For example, ordinary soldiers could curse other soldiers like themselves or peasants. Officers could go after both their peers and soldiers. Yet, none could dare to slight the rulers, except for these rulers themselves.
Ordyntsev met Shin's attentive gaze. The shadow nodded, affirming Stas's thoughts.
"Kensei is right; you, Shiro, weren't with us, so you were lucky not to see or carry out those insane and dangerous orders," Shin's eternal smile faltered for a second. "By the way, as far as I know, you're still officially in Izuna's camp and at odds with Jishin?"
"Yep. Our brilliant heir seems to have just forgotten about me. In all three years, he hasn't called me once. Not that I mind, but it still makes you think." Stas clearly understood what the people sitting next to him were doing.
Each of them had allowed themselves to speak ill of the heir to the great clan, then looked expectantly to see if Stas could do the same. Of course, they knew who Shiro was. Nevertheless, they allowed this small test.
As soon as the earthling's words rang out, the atmosphere around the table became much more relaxed.
Here were people who had decided to tie their lives tightly to the younger prince. And to ensure that their lives lasted as long as possible, they were now racking their brains.
"First off, what exactly does the elder prince want?" Stas introduced the question for consideration. "What is he aiming for?"
"That's pretty straightforward," Shin swirled the sake in his cup. "The war is coming to an end, and every commander, leader, and even ordinary fighter is trying to seize something so that when the time comes for accolades and rewards, they look as good as possible."
"And in relation to the elder prince, where do we stand now?" Uramasa clarified with Shin. "Too far behind?"
"It's hard to judge," Naito's son pondered. "But to summarize, it's not as bad as it could be. Unlike Izuna, Jishin participates in battles much more often. Moreover, he has many more personal fights. And among the warmasters he has defeated, there are even a few well-known names."
Shin paused to drink.
"At the same time, Izuna leads a much larger army. As far as I know, he has about two thousand warmasters under his command, one of our clan's largest armies. Nevertheless, this imposes a number of responsibilities on him, which force him to stay in the headquarters all the time. The number of his personal victories is frankly small, and among them, there are almost no well-known names."
Stas nodded, grasping the situation. For an outsider who didn't know the local rules, it might seem strange that personal strength and, even more so, the number of corpses and defeated famous enemies were such an important measure of success.
But it was essential to understand that the only solid "currency" among warmasters was indeed strength. Unlike samurai or onmyoji, the warmasters had no global goal or meaning in life. Worse yet, the rules and restrictions were also built on this strength and a system of simple limitations, such as the prohibition of sharing techniques.
The former samurai clearly brightened up.
"So, if everything continues as you say, we'll be on an equal footing?"
"It seems so," Shin smiled. "However, this will soon change. When Izuna takes the last cities of Hyugo, and the war ends, he will gain so much glory that he will push us back all at once."
"So either we must prevent him from doing this," Stas smiled gently, causing those around him to frown. "Or, much better, we must do something ourselves at the end that will make us even more famous."
"And what will that be?" Uramasa frowned, while Shin silently watched Stas with an interested smile. "You're certainly a master at coming up with ways out of the most hopeless situations. I heard you even escaped from a dragon, but here you're clearly biting off more than you can chew."
Ordyntsev grimaced. He struggled to tell who the source of the leak was: Io, the elders, the onmyoji, or someone else, but to his horror, he found that his name was now closely associated not only with the killing of Kirin the Cutter's disciple but also with fleeing from a huge legendary lizard!
And in the eyes of the locals, this seemed even honorable. To survive after meeting a dragon that wanted to kill you meant something. It didn't matter that the dragon had first played with him and then simply let him go. The result was what mattered.
The problem was that for Stas, that experience was one of the most unpleasant in his entire life. The feeling of complete and absolute helplessness when all your tricks, attacks, and efforts are simply meaningless. What could be worse?
Levi, hearing the samurai's words, also felt downcast but then gathered her resolve.
In recent months, she had been training hard and even had some success.
Unlike the techniques of warmasters or even onmyoji, her magic was noticeably different. If the former created the required element from prana or infused the existing one with prana, Leviathan used the natural energy flowing within her to somehow connect to the surrounding world, commanding it to change.
And since the world also had natural force at its core, it worked somehow.
And although Stas was still busy mastering prana and etheric techniques, he already saw the potential of natural energy.
Even if you forget that a person capable of using the surrounding force would never get tired, it was worth remembering such a property of nature as the dispersion of ether.
Without special stabilizing techniques, the thirst energy felt very uncomfortable outside the boundaries of living beings. By its nature, it began to urgently absorb natural energy but spent more strength than it gained and quickly dispersed.
Considering how many problems ether intoxication caused Stas, or rather the concerns about preventing it, one could understand the earthling's interest in this domain.
If he learns to use nature as a cleanser from ether, he could safely use much more powerful techniques.
The difficulty was that natural energy in its pure form was an incredible mutagen.
Just look at the magical beasts altered by this power.
And it had to be remembered that out of ten mutated animals, at best, only one had a chance to remain viable. The other nine could, for example, get a particularly caustic stomach acid that simply ate through their own bodies.
"Think about it," Kensei continued. "What can we do with the glory of ending the war and capturing the last cities?"
"Nevertheless, I have an idea," Stas continued, having finally dealt with the "dragon topic." "And I would like you to hear me out and then express your opinion."
"Don't listen to this sword lover, Shiro," Shin smiled encouragingly. Stas was not against dropping the suffixes. "We're all ears."
"Who did you just call a sword nut? Want to die?" Uramasa responded with a light bloodthirst.
Stas didn't wait for them to calm down and began speaking.
"My idea is based on the fact that people are quite illogical beings and often capable of thinking only in bright images. Take, for example, the leadership of the Sumada clan. Ordinary warmasters, when they think of it, probably see Goro Sumada himself."
Shin and Kensei didn't interrupt, listening attentively.
"People are very lazy creatures, so our minds look for any opportunity to rest. As a result, to avoid the effort of remembering dozens of people, all leadership is associated with the personality of the head of the entire clan. That's what I suggest we take advantage of." Stas narrowed his eyes cunningly.
"We don't need to compete with Izuna in the number of captured cities and destroyed armies. After all, due to the size of his army, this is practically impossible. Oh no, we will approach it from another angle. We need to do something so bold, decisive, and crazy that when they remember the end of this war, they will think not of the captured cities but of this adventure."
There was movement near the entrance, and although the sound-dampening artifacts were activated, he still waited for the passing soldiers to leave.
"The funny thing is, we don't need to do something heroic or very complicated. Rather, the adventure should be bright and memorable. After that, we need to spread this story to as many people as possible."
"Hmm," Uramasa pondered deeply. "Nothing comes to mind. Do you have any ideas, Shin?"
"Not right off the bat. Maybe a victory over some famous warmaster or the capture of some important strongpoint might work," Naito's son shook his head irritably. "I just don't have enough information. My network of informants is still too weak to provide such important details."
"So, that's how it is," Stanislav tapped his fingers on the table. "We can solve this issue. I even have a candidate in mind who can help us. Considering I work for him, it will be even easier."
"The question is just what he will demand for his help?" Shin stopped smiling, finding the idea quite risky. "And won't the price be excessive?"
"That's a discussable issue." Stas summed up their meeting. "Besides, without Jishin's decision, everything remains up in the air."
"I like this idea," Kensei raised his fist. "It's high time to shake up this swamp. To inscribe our names in history, what else can be dearer to a samurai's heart?"
"But don't you keep saying you're no longer a samurai?" Shin and Stas noted simultaneously, exchanging amused glances.
"And all you want is just to make fun of it, you wretched warmasters!"
"You're the one who keeps talking about it!"
"I don't care!"