New Quest Available
-From Outside to Inside
Would You Like to Accept the Quest?
Yes No
A screen appeared in front of me. Before clicking one of the options, I clicked the quest name so that I could see what the details of the quest were. As soon as I did so, another window appeared and displayed the conditions for completing the quest.
Quest Details: Find more information about how the people from the Moriya Shrine entered Gensokyo from the Outside World.
Conditions: Obtain information from Kanako Yasaka
Quest Completion Reward: System Upgrade
Quest Failure Punishment: System Forced Sleep Mode for 72 hours
‘Okay, so this quest is perfectly suited for what we are just about to do and the punishment itself is decently lax compared to the other punishments. I don’t know precisely what it means by forced sleep mode, but I would imagine it is probably similar to the sleep mode of a computer so I’d imagine that it means nothing involving the system will be available including talking to Miu, receiving quests, and getting analyses from Mio. If it was only that then it isn’t too much of an issue. I’ve lived for 11 years without a system, how bad could another 3 days be without it? Wait, why am I assuming that I’ll fail this quest? The conditions seem relatively easy, I just have to get information meaning I could just ask this Kanako Yasaka person. Actually, this might be harder than I thought if I had to talk to this person. I hope that one of my family could do the talking for me.’ I hoped in my head. ‘Anyways, I should at least get a bit more information about this person so I can get a sense of who we will be dealing with. Mio, could you tell me a bit about Kanako Yasaka?’ I requested Mio.
Affirmative
Kanako Yasaka: The current goddess of the Moriya Shrine and the Goddess of wind and rain. She desires to collect a massive amount of faith and treats religion like a business. Most of her actions and decisions are centered around gaining faith. As the Goddess of wind and rain, she has the ability to manipulate both of them, having the power to generate disastrous tornadoes and torrential rainfalls.
‘Thanks, Mio.’ I thanked Mio before I analyzed the information she gave me and quickly selected the yes option on the screen. ‘So we will be dealing with a Goddess with a frankly terrifying power. How will we deal with giant tornadoes combined with lowered visibility due to the rain? Hopefully, we won’t have to fight her, or else this could get a bit sketchy. I’m glad that the quest was not to defeat her in a battle and just to obtain information from her. Reading this information, it should not be too hard to offer something to trade for information. We just have to trade faith for information, but how can we gather faith in the first place? I’ll think about this issue later, we are almost at the surface, so I should pay more attention to my surroundings lest I walk straight into another wall.’
This time, I made sure to watch where I was going and soon we reached the wall where I had almost accidentally walked into. I started flying and quickly reached the mouth of the cave and out onto the Surface. I looked around the lush landscape for where Youkai Mountain could be. By the name, it was apparent that it would be a mountain so I looked around the area for any mountains. Doing this, I saw a towering mountain whose peak could not be seen because the mountain continued into the clouds. I pointed my finger at it and all of my family looked in the direction of my finger.
“Do you think that is Youkai Mountain?” I asked with a bit of uncertainty in my voice.
“It probably is. After all, it is the only mountain I can see from here. Oh well, only one way to find out. Let’s go check it out.” Orin responded while starting to fly toward the mountain.
We flew for several minutes before we finally neared the foothills of the mountain. Once there, we saw many of what looked to me like humans with crow wings flying around halfway up the mountain.
“We should ask someone here if this really is Youkai Mountain or not.” Big sis calmly stated before slowing down her flight and landing on the ground.
“Okayy!” Sis responded while raising her hand before landing on the ground beside big sis.
The rest of us followed after sis and soon all of us were standing on the ground, walking forward slowly. Okuu and I flicked our wings a few times while we were walking to get the dust off of them. After a few minutes of walking, we came across two people playing with each other in a field filled with trees whose leaves were changing colors. Both of them had golden blonde hair with amber eyes. The one on the left had two red leaves in her hair and a large red dress that looked like it would be worn at a boarding school, while the other wore a red hat with a bunch of grapes attached near the base of the hat and an apron-like dress. Big sis walked up to them and started a conversation with them.
“Excuse me but is this Youkai Mountain?” Big sis approached the pair who had stopped playing and turned to look at us.
“Yes it is, do you have business here?” The girl with the red leaves in her hair responded while dusting off her dress.
“Oh, my apologies, I should have introduced myself before asking you two questions. I am Satori Komeiji, the mistress of the Palace of Earth Spirits and mediator between the Surface and Underworld.” She points at each of us and introduces us to them. “This here is my little sister Koishi Komeiji, this is my youngest sister Ayaka Komeiji, this is my pet Rin Kaenbyou, and my other pet Utsuho Reiuji. Now to answer your question, we were hoping to go to the Moriya Shrine to ask a few questions.” Big sis answered.
“Oh, people from the Underworld, we don’t get many of those here. Nice to meet all of you, my name is Shizuha Aki, the goddess of autumn leaves.” The girl with the red leaves in her hair introduced herself.
“And I’m Minoriko Aki, the goddess of abundant harvest and the younger sister of Shizuha. Together, we are in charge of controlling the autumn season and making sure nothing goes wrong.” The girl with the red hat said.
‘More people with the title of goddess. I have a vague idea of what they could be, but that is based on the fictional stories I read back in the Outside World. Maybe they are different here. I really want to ask, but I also don’t want to speak.’ An imaginary balance appeared in my head. On one side the word ask appeared while on the other side, the words don’t ask appeared. Each time I considered a positive to asking them, a weight appeared weighing down the side with the word ask, while every time I considered a negative, a weight appeared on the other side. This lasted for what I thought to be several minutes but they were perfectly balanced still.
“What do you mean by goddesses?” Big sis asked as if reading my thoughts and hesitation even though my Quiet Presence+ skill prevented my mind from being read. Upon hearing big sis ask the question I wanted to, the balance in my head vanished as if nothing had been there in the first place.
“Oh, goddess is our race. As goddesses, we are in charge of a certain thing and we have the ability to influence or even control that thing. The power of each goddess varies depending on how influential their certain thing is and how much faith they receive. As for me, I am in charge of making the leaves change colors when Autumn comes around. It is quite a simple thing, so I am not too powerful as a result.” Shizuha answered while pointing at the trees around the area.
“As for me, I have the authority to control the harvest, so I can choose to either bring about a plentiful harvest or crop failure. However, my authority only extends to plants that bear harvest in autumn. Because the thing I control is stronger than my elder sister’s authority, I am a bit more powerful than her.” Minoriko added to her sister’s explanation.
“You might be stronger than me, but you still rely on me for many things.” Shizuha teased her younger sister.
“Elder sister!” Minoriko blushed before lightly punching her sister.
“Hahaha, isn’t my little sister just the cutest?” Shizuha simply laughed before puffing out her chest in pride.
Big sis looked like she had something to say, but just as she opened her mouth to speak, Orin quickly interrupted her.
“I th-” Big sis started.
“Yes, she is, now could you tell us how to get to the Moriya Shrine?” Orin asked, cutting big sis off.
“I knew you would understand my little sister’s cuteness. To get to the Moriya Shrine, just follow the path up until you reach a giant gate, you won’t be able to miss it.” Shizuha answered while tightly hugging Minoriko.
“Okay thank you, we’ll be off now, have a good day.” Orin respectfully said before signaling for us to follow her. We all did so and when we were out of earshot from the two sisters, big sis asked Orin something.
“Why did you stop me from speaking?” Big sis turned to Orin.
“You were going to argue that your sisters are cuter right?” Orin responded with a question.
“Yes, it is objectively the truth.” Big sis answered. Hearing her answer, I blushed while sis had a massive smile on her face.
“I don’t deny that. I mainly did that so we could move on. If you had said what you wanted to say, we could have been there for days arguing over who had the cuter sisters. It doesn’t appear to me that either of you would relent.” Orin told big sis.
“Fair enough, thank you then, Orin. Let’s continue moving forward.” Big sis started to lead the way again.
A bit of walking later and we found a dark forest, even though the sun was high in the sky. The forest was extremely unnatural as it seemed like there was a purplish-black sort of shield around the forest that prevented light from entering. Suspicious about what was in the forest, we slowly walked forward into the forest following the path. Along the way, we found a small shack. In front of that shack was a girl with green hair and a red and white ribbon. She wore a red dress, a white bow near her neck, and a green magatama around her neck. She turned to us and showed a shocked expression on her face.
“Oh my, visitors? How long has it been since I last had any visitors over?” I heard her mutter quietly. “Hello! My name is Hina Kagiyama, the goddess of misfortune.” She introduced herself.
“Hello,” big sis then introduced all of us, “we come from the Underworld and passed by here to get to the Moriya Shrine.” Big sis told her.
“I see, good luck on your journey then, and it was nice meeting all of you,” Hina responded before going back into her little house.
‘What a weird person. Why did she decide to live here? Unless this eeriness has something to do with her… Is it possible that the purple-black thing that I saw around the forest is misfortune? I’ll ask Mio to confirm my deduction. Mio, could you give me information about Hina?’
Affirmative
Hina Kagiyama: A misfortune goddess who lives in the Great Youkai Forest. She is rumored to have a friendly and kind personality. She possesses the power to stockpile misfortune by draining others of their misfortune and storing it in her surroundings. She amasses misfortune to prevent it from impacting others. As a side benefit, the negative energy from misfortune gives Hina power.
‘Thank you Mio, so I was right, it really is misfortune that makes this forest so dark. Wait, if that’s the case then we have to hurry out of here.’
“We have to get out of here! Now!” I said in a panic while speeding up.
“Why?” Orin asked, grabbing my arm and preventing me from moving forward.
“This stuff around us, the thing that makes this forest so dark is misfortune. We should leave as soon as possible to prevent too much misfortune from gathering on us.” I answered before freeing myself from Orin’s grasp and rushing forward. This time, I tried to pull all of my family forward, which was very difficult. After all, I was only an 11-year-old girl trying to pull 4 people who were all taller than me. Seeing my seriousness, my family realized the severity of the situation and quickly ran forward as fast as they could. Normally, I would not have been able to keep up with them because I was much shorter than the rest of them, but before they ran off, Okuu picked me up and put me on her back.
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Seconds after we started running, we managed to get out of the forest, hopefully without too much misfortune amassing on us.
“We finally made it out,” Sis said while gasping for breath. Her voice lost its usual brightness and only contained sights of exhaustion.
Everyone was too tired to speak and simply nodded in response to sis’s words. Well, everyone except me because I was carried by Okuu, but I didn’t say anything to allow them to recover their breaths. After around 20 minutes of resting, everyone finally regained their breath and was able to continue moving forward. We continued walking until we came across a large valley. In the basin of the valley was a large river. Near the valley, we saw a sign that read:
To continue forward up to the Moriya Shrine, follow the river upstream. For those that can, it is easier to fly above the stream than it is to walk, but if you must, walking is also a way to proceed, just follow the banks of the valley upstream. The path is a bit uneven, but it is still possible to traverse.
We decided to trust the sign and started flying over the valley, following the river upstream. Along the flight, we saw a young girl with blue hair tied into twintails wearing a large blue dress. She had 4 red orbs tied in her hair and a green hat. A large aquamarine backpack was sitting a few centimeters from her. She was digging around the backpack while holding a few tools in both hands. She looked like she was working on some kind of device.
We flew down to the girl to see if we were heading in the right direction, when we approached her, she tensed up before suddenly disappearing into thin air, like how sis did with her power.
‘Could this person have a power similar to sis?’ I couldn’t help but think.
“Ooooh, hide and seek! I love playing this for a second! I’ll find you in a few seconds!” Sis excitingly shouted before vanishing as well. A few moments later, sis came back dragging back the girl who was flailing around trying to escape from sis’s grip but was unable to. When they neared us, the girl simply stopped struggling and accepted her fate.
“Sorry for my little sister, she can get a bit playful at times.” Then big sis introduced us all again. “We came from the Underworld and wondered if we were heading in the right direction to the Moriya Shrine.”
“Oh, you are from the Underworld! What is it like there? Are there any machines there? What kind of technology do you have over there?” The girl replaced her tension with curiosity after hearing that we were from the Underworld. “Oh, where are my manners? My name is Nitori Kawashiro, a kappa.” The girl, Nitori introduced herself.
“Nice to meet you. To answer your questions in order, the Underworld is very similar to the Surface except the space there is much more constrained, the machines are very simple and can only do basic things, and the technology we have are just simple things like lights. Now could you tell us if we are heading in the right way or not if we are trying to get to the Moriya Shrine?” Big sis responded to Nitori.
“Ooooh, that’s pretty cool, maybe we could collaborate and make an invention that would suit both the Surface and Underworld at a later time. Also, yes you are heading in the right way, just keep following the river and you will soon come across a waterfall. Once you do, simply start flying up the waterfall and you will soon arrive at the shrine. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have something I need to finish.” Nitori replied before going back to her backpack and tinkering with her tools.
“Let’s continue forward then, keep an eye out for any waterfalls, though I strongly doubt that we will miss a waterfall especially if it is connected to this river,” Orin told us and we all nodded.
While we flew forward, I had some time to delve into my thoughts, and as such put my body into autopilot mode. ‘I am still confused about how Nitori disappeared like that. Surely it can’t be an ability similar to sis’s, but if it’s not that, what else could it be? Is it perhaps one of her inventions? She does seem pretty well versed in creating tools and devices, but is it even possible to create a device that allows you to disappear?’ I thought to myself. ‘Mio could you tell me about Nitori?’
Affirmative
Nitori Kawashiro: A shy kappa who lives in the kappa hideout in Youkai Mountain. As a kappa, she has the ability to manipulate water and is particularly skilled at building and using tools. She is an engineer who is particularly interested in products from the Outside World and will often reverse engineer devices originating from the Outside World to find out how they are built and function. She specializes in creating technological tools and struggles to make magical tools. She creates tools to sell them and frequently uses many techniques to maximize the profits she gains. Her signature device is her optical camouflage that she designed so that only she could use it.
‘Thank you, Mio. So that is what allowed her to vanish, her optical camouflage. I wonder how she made it, but I doubt she would tell me.’ I started to analyze the information given by Mio. ‘I didn’t think that there would be any engineers here given that it seems like Gensokyo rejects things that are scientific in nature given the description of the Great Hakurei Barrier. Well, there is no point in thinking too much about it right now. I’ll probably get an answer when we talk to Kanako Yasaka.’ I ended my thinking with this thought.
Just as I turned my attention back to reality, I saw that we had reached a giant waterfall. Seeing that, we started flying straight up. As we were flying up, we saw a bunch more of the people with crow wings that I had seen from the foothills of the mountain. I also saw a few people holding a sword and shield with wolf-like appearances. The ones with the crow wings paid us no attention, but the ones with wolf features flew off somewhere. Soon afterward, a girl with short white hair, white wolf ears, and a fluffy white tail approached us. She held some kind of sword in one hand and a shield with a maple leaf on it in the other.
“Halt! State your purpose immediately!” She stood in front of us, preventing us from continuing.
“We are people from the Underworld, we were hoping to meet with the people of the Moriya Shrine to ask them a few questions.” Big sis informed her.
“Hmmm,” The girl thought for a moment, “Alright, you may proceed. Follow the waterfall up to the top of the mountain and you should see the shrine once you are up there.” She responded before flying away and allowing us to proceed.
We started flying again, but I couldn’t help but lose myself in my thoughts again. ‘Who was that person, she never gave us her name. I’m curious about who she is, but I can’t ask Mio about who she is without knowing their name. Well, I guess I’ll find out at some point, maybe when we are going down from the mountain.’
We continued flying up the waterfall, a few of the crow-winged people looked at us curious about what we were doing, but they didn’t act on their curiosity. Well, all except one. A girl with black hair and brownish-red eyes wearing a white shirt and black skirt flew toward us at a very fast speed. We prepared ourselves for an attack, but nothing ended up coming. The girl simply stopped a few feet away from us and started asking a barrage of questions.
“Hello, I’m Aya Shameimaru, the fastest in all of Gensokyo and the journalist of the Bunbunmaru Newspaper! From your appearance, you must be people from the Underworld. I have a few questions about the incident that you guys caused a few weeks ago. Oooh, I have a few other questions as well like why are you here on Youkai Mountain?” The girl, Aya, quickly asked us while standing in front of us.
We tried to ignore her and move on, feeling that it would be a pain and a waste of time to converse with her, but everything we tried to do was intercepted by Aya and we were forced to answer some of her questions.
“Fine, we have a bit of time to answer a few of your questions, what do you want to know?” Big sis sighed before reluctantly giving in.
“Perfect! I wanted to know why you started that incident.” Aya started with a basic question.
“I can answer that then.” Orin started to speak. “I commanded the vengeful spirits to exit out of the geyser created by our resident solar deity because she was planning to do something she would regret in the future. I planned to lure strong youkai to stop her, but two humans showed up. Granted they did manage to get the job done, but it was just a bit unexpected for me.”
“I see” I heard Aya furiously writing in her notebook and only low mutters could be heard from her. I managed to catch one that drew my attention. “Humans are strong against the youkai of the Underworld.”
“Now I wanted to know what she was planning to do.” Aya followed up.
“My goal was simple! It was to destroy the Surface World because the people who gave me this power instructed me to do so!” Okuu answered.
“I got it…” Aya said before writing down a few more things in her journal while mumbling what sounded like newspaper headlines to me. “Underworld plans to terrorize the Surface.”
“Okay, now why are you here on Youkai Mountain?” She asked.
“We are here to meet with the people of the Moriya Shrine and ask a few questions.” Big sis answered.
“Got it,” Aya replied before quietly saying a few other headlines. “A New War Begins? Underworld vs. Moriya Shrine. Not good enough, maybe Hidden Tension between the Underworld and the Moriya Shrine?”
“Lastly -” Aya started before being cut off.
“We don’t have any more time.” Big sis curtly informed her before starting to fly off.
“Bummer,” Aya replied before flying back toward wherever she had come from.
Seeing that she no longer stopped us from going forward, we continued flying upward. During our flight, I took another moment to dive into my thoughts.
‘That person was quite persistent. I guess journalists are the same no matter what world you are in. I’m a bit tired after that interaction even though I did not speak a single word. Anyway, I should get more information about her just in case I happen to meet her again, which I really don’t want. Mio, could you tell me more about Aya Shameimaru?’
Affirmative
Aya Shameimaru: A Crow Tengu who is known for exaggerating newspaper articles about anything that happens in Gensokyo. She is unrelenting when it comes to gathering information for her newspaper articles but can be very serious when the time calls for it. She has the power to manipulate the wind and is able to hear rumors by listening to the wind. Apart from her ability to manipulate wind, she is among the fastest in all of Gensokyo. She runs the Bunbunmaru Newspaper which has been received as a gossip paper.
‘Interesting, so her claim of being the fastest in Gensokyo is not a complete lie. Also, yep she definitely is unrelenting when gathering information. Apart from that though, how can she hear rumors by listening to the wind? Sure Air does transport sound the fastest, but it is quickly dispersed so the original sound can not be heard.’ I wondered. ‘Well, I shouldn’t think too hard, I mean I am in another world full of unnatural powers, so I shouldn’t keep relying on my knowledge of the Outside World to explain things in Gensokyo.’ I concluded my thoughts on this note.
After a bit more time, we finally reached the peak of Youkai Mountain. Once there, we saw a large gate, like the one that was in front of Reimu’s Shrine. The words Moriya Shrine were written on the piece of paper that hung from the gate.
“We’re finally here. That was quite the journey.” I said while everyone else just nodded in agreement. We all took a step toward the gate, each of us happy that we had finally reached the Moriya Shrine, the shrine that sat atop Youkai Mountain.
Status
Status:
Name: Ayaka Komeiji
Species: Chireiden Chimera (Two-Tailed)
Age: 11
Job: [Locked]
Skill Points: 0
Unique Skills: None
Skills:
Lesser Darkness Manipulation Lv. 2
Lesser Mind Reading Lv. 2
Quiet Presence+ Lv. 1
Miniscule Wind Manipulation Lv. 2
Lesser Illusion Lv.2
Lesser Nuclear Manipulation Lv. 1
Affinities:
Stellar
Titles:
Progenitor
Spirit Seer
Elemental Tails
Family Bonds:
|Chireiden|
Spell Cards:
1st: Astro Sign [Solar Star System]
2nd: Sun Sign [Red Giant]
Quests:
From Outside to Inside
Authority Level: 2
Fainted Counter: 5
Lesser Darkness Manipulation: Allows limited control over the darkness element.
Lesser Mind Reading: Allows the reader to read the mind of a target for 20 seconds. Cooldown - 10 hours.
Quiet Presence+: Makes the user harder to detect by eliminating the sounds of heartbeat and footsteps. Prevents the mind from being read.
Miniscule Wind Manipulation: Allows little to no control over the wind element.
Lesser Illusions: Allows the user limited control over the illusion element. Enables the creation of small illusions that last for 20 seconds. Cooldown - 5 hours.
Lesser Nuclear Manipulation: Allows for a small amount of control over nuclear energy, more specifically, nuclear fusion.
Progenitor: A title given to those who have evolved into a new species. Reduces pain felt by 10%.
Spirit Seer: A title given to those who have the capability to communicate with spirits. Allows for communication and understanding with spirits.
Elemental Tails: A title given to individuals with multiple tails completely filled with the energy of a certain affinity or element. The elements attuned to the tails are boosted when the owner of this title uses them and they are able to create more creative phenomena with that element when the effects of the tail are active.
Tail 1: Stellar
Tail 2: Wind