Volkarin looked at the paper and frowned.

“These characters do indeed look similar to surin script.

Scrutinising the inscription characters, he continued.

“It’s not unheard of for residents of Planet Surin to explore the universes but these characters are too elementary.”

Standing next to his son, he pointed out five characters.

“For surin script, we can write just one word for these characters. For example.”

Underneath the inscriptions, he wrote “dog”.

“This is a single surin script.”

Underneath it, he wrote the human’s inscription characters, trailing off at the end.

“But for the humans, it would be; four-legged animal with a tail, a snout, etc. So what for us would be one or two words would be ten or twenty words for humans. Our vocabulary is very extensive and very hard to learn if you are not a surin. So if I’m right, someone from Planet Surin or who had went to Surin took our writing system and simplified it so that humans could learn it. That’s why the characters look similar but any surin can tell they’re missing very important strokes that can change the entire meaning of one sentence. In fact…”

He again pointed at the characters that he wrote.

“You can tell that these characters here are broken down from a single script. If you tried to piece them together like a puzzle, you can just barely make the surin script for dog. But that’s hard to write, especially if you’re going to do inscriptions as your hand has to be extremely steady and your control over chakra has to be completely perfect. Because of the energies of chakra and ki clashing within them, humans are unable to properly control whatever energy they choose to utilise, making it close to impossible for them to use proper surin script to inscribe inscriptions. It’s probably another reason why whoever taught them how to script broke up the surin script into manageable strokes.”

Before Uehara could nod, Volkarin had already kicked him out of his own mindscape. Regaining consciousness, he didn’t open his eyes. Instead, he continued to think further upon what his father told him.

[Although slightly different, I can more or less make out some simple Japanese hiragana and Chinese oracle bone script within these inscriptions. And now that I think about it, surin script has some semblance to Chinese seal script and Japanese kanji. In fact, father’s cloak has the kanji for “Overlord” written on the back. Does this mean that the writing systems from China and Japan took inspiration from surin script?]

Before he could ponder any further, he felt Sakura scratch his head.

“Hihihihihihi~ Aoki-sama~~~”

Hearing how she purred his name, he chose to not take action, mostly because he liked how her soft hands ran through his head and gently scratched his scalp.

[Comfortable.]

Meanwhile, Sakura was excited. She had sensed Uehara’s chakra fluctuate a bit when she spoke that last embarrassing line. But when she saw that he ignored it, she grew excited.

[Does that mean…that he…doesn’t mind?! He doesn’t mind that I’m…hihihihihihi~ I’m one step ahead of Chizuki-nee-san.]

If only she knew that Chizuki always did the same thing to him when she groomed his hair.

…

There were only thirty-minutes left until the auction would start and people were starting to enter the building. Most of them were your average wealthy merchants but Sakura could also sense a few shinobi and martial artists among them.

The venue continued being filled up and the murmurs grew louder. The employees of the auction house worked hard to maintain order and verify everyone who entered before allocating them their appropriate seats. As the time for the auction drew closer, the entire hall grew silent as the big families started coming in.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

Two men in golden armour stood at the entrance and yelled out the names of each of the families.

““KASUGA CLAN HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!””

A group of well-dressed nobles in elegant gold-plaited robes entered the hall. Six guards with spears surrounded them as they entered, giving off an imposing aura. The entire auction house was quiet.

The reason was because of one elderly woman that entered the auction house. Although she appeared frail, everyone knew her name.

The owner of the auction house, Tachibana Saburo came forward and cupped his hands.

“Thank you for gracing our auction house with your presence, Lady Tsubone.”

With how tall he was, Lady Tsubone could only reach his stomach, but she didn’t bother glancing at Saburo. Giving a simple “Hn”, she continued walking to her personal room on the balcony.

Saburo’s lips twitched but he didn’t say anything. After all, she was Kasuga no Tsubone who was known as a literary genius that was said to rival Fujiwara no Michinaga. She was praised as a genius in handling court affairs and even the two previous emperors, Emperor Sanjo and Emperor Ichijo (Go-Ichijo) were tutored by her.

Although she retired from court life a few years ago, no one would dare underestimate her as it was suspected that she still held a lot of power within the imperial court.

After the Kasuga clan was seated inside their VIP room on the balcony, the next family made their entrance.

As soon as the first foot crossed the door line, the two guards again announced.

““FUJIWARA CLAN HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!””

Similar to the Kasuga clan, a group of nobles surrounded by soldiers entered the building. The other nobles weren’t worth mentioning but the one leading them from the front was. Tsubone watched with veiled anger from the balcony as the man leading the clan walked in.

[Michinaga!]

Tachibana Saburo stepped forward again and cupped his hands.

“Thank you for gracing our auction house with your presence, Lord Michinaga.”

Unlike Lady Tsubone, Michinaga didn’t even give Saburo a glance and walked past him. After all, he was Fujiwara no Michinaga, one of the most influential men in Japan. He was the regent for four of Japan’s emperors and is also one of the best literary geniuses in Japan, known for his literary and artistic capabilities. But only a select few knew him as the hidden emperor of Japan.

That’s why Saburo didn’t even show any signs of indignation, only stepping to the side so as to not further block their way.

However, Michinaga felt someone’s gaze on him and when he looked up, he was slightly surprised to see the owner of the gaze.

[I never expected to see Tsubone personally attend this auction.]

Since both Michinaga and Tsubone held positions in the imperial court, it was impossible for them to not dislike each other. Moreover, the Kasuga clan and Fujiwara clan had a complicated history since the person who laid the foundation for the prominence of the Kasuga clan was actually from the Fujiwara clan.

For two centuries, these two clans have had an irreconcilable grudge. The Fujiwara treated the Kasuga clan as their branch clan and demanded a lot of things from them while the Kasuga clan remained headstrong and actually dared to enter the imperial court and fought the Fujiwara for authority.

When it came to the generation of Michinaga and Tsubone, these two behemoths became so powerful that there was a direct threat of civil war if they continued to fight. If it wasn’t for the war against the Chinese in the west, these two behemoths would’ve long since plunged the country into civil war.

After the Fujiwara clan entered their VIP room, another set of feet entered the building.

““TACHIBANA CLAN HAS ENTERED THE BUILDING!””

This time, there was no group of nobles. Only seven men in armour entered the room. All of them released an imposing aura that can only be cultivated from being in numerous battles. But, there was one man that was more imposing than the other six.

Saburo smiled when he saw the man leading from the front. Coming forward and cupping his hand, even he was a bit shorter than the man.

“Thank you for coming here, father.”

The man looked around the auction house before looking at his son again.

“You did good.”

Saburo smiled as he backed away to let his father pass. Meanwhile, the other patrons of the auction couldn’t keep silent. White heavy armour, white spiky hair, white beard and most notable of all, an eyepatch. With a gaze that could silence babies, everyone recognised who this man was.

Tachibana no Hayanari, the war hero who is responsible for several crushing defeats against the Chinese. He is acknowledged as one of the strongest martial artists in Japan. None of them expected they would meet such a war hero in their lifetime. Unlike their indifferent or even slightly hateful gaze against the previous two clans, the auction patrons only had admiration for Hayanari.

Hayanari sensed the gaze of Michinaga and Tsubone. He gave a smirk and climbed the stairs to his VIP room. Although not everyone knew this, nearly half of Japan’s army unconditionally supported Hayanari, making him a thorn on the sides of the Kasuga and Fujiwara clans.

With all main clans seated, a few more renowned clans entered the building. Among them were the Iga clan, Koga clan, Fuma clan and Hattori clan that were known for nurturing shinobi and martial artists. All of them supported Tachibana no Hayanari.

There were also a few more clans who entered the building such as the Taira clan that supported the Fujiwara clan and the Minamoto clan that supported the Kosuga clan. When all these behemoths were seated, the time for the auction to start came.