by DB King
The whole place was simply alive. Huh, looking back, I never really bothered visiting our clan’s villages, he realized. I think Hamada and I rode through a few of them once, but we only ever bothered to stop to buy a few fruits and vegetables.
There were guards at the gates, two of them, armored warriors, whose armor was painted black and white, but they merely greeted everyone that walked or rode past them. They carried long spears with them and wore smiles on their faces. They’re from the village themselves, he thought. They’re likely acquainted with every damn person here.
When Jin approached the gate, however, the guards blocked his path. One of them, the younger of the two, merely held out his right hand, signaling him to stop. The other, much older, one crouched to Jin’s eye level and smiled sadly. “How did you come here by yourself, child?”
Jin wobbled on his feet. Several days of constant travel had negatively affected his health. “My name is Murasaki Jin. I am the son of Murasaki Hamada, and I have come here to meet your lord, Toyotoda Arima. He is my uncle.”
The older guard stood up. His eyes scanned Jin for a moment, before widening when they landed on the family crest over his left breast. The man sighed and shook his head. The younger guard shrugged. “What do we do?”
“Let’s take him to Lord Arima and see what happens,” the older guard said. “The worst case scenario is that he’s making all this up and gets thrown out of the manor. The best case scenario is that he’s not making any of this up and is actually a noble.”
“Yeah, but why is he alone and why is he barefoot and why does he smell like he hasn’t taken a bath in a week?”
“That’s above my paygrade.”
The older guard turned to Jin and sighed. “Alright, follow me. I’ll take you to Lord Arima’s estate, Murasaki Jin. Stay close and don’t wander off. We… don’t really punish children and you haven’t broken any laws, but you’re an outsider and it's best if you stay close, understood?”
Jin nodded and followed the older man. He seemed polite enough. Jin couldn’t blame his apprehension; he hardly resembled any form of nobility. His clothes were dirty and ragged, even torn in more than a few places. His slippers had disappeared at some point during all the running, and he hadn’t even noticed it until the younger guard pointed it out. And he stunk – badly. A warm bath and some lavender soap would do wonders for both his mind and body.
The village was just as lively on the inside as it was on the outside. Numerous villagers greeted the guards as he passed them, men and women alike. They all knew each other, Jin surmised; everyone here knew everyone else. With a population that probably numbers in the low hundreds, he supposed, they’ll all get acquainted with each other sooner or later…
It was… familiar. Everything here was.
Everything here reminded him of a lonely old village, nestled upon a cold mountainside, where a blue-eyed little boy played and laughed in with his friends. The people there lived simple but happy lives. They were content with what they had and shared everything else with each other. Jin recalled a face – beautiful and warm, but young and inexperienced. Her hair was a crown of wavy, golden locks, and her eyes were twin sapphires. She had rosy lips and pink, freckled cheeks. She sold apple pies in the morning and worked in the bakery after noon. Her voice was rich and smooth, soft and delicate, caring and nurturing, gentle and loving. Her laughter was infectious. Whenever she laughed, people would laugh with her, even when they knew not the reason why. Her face… her smiling face… the beautiful face he’d see every single day.
It was a face he hadn’t seen or remembered in so, so many years.
A single tear fell from Jin’s right eye, and a brief pang of pain grasped his heart. “Mama?”
The guard turned and glanced down at him. “Did you say something, child?”
Jin shook his head and blinked. Was he thinking out loud? “It was nothing… I just… remembered… someone.”
The guard nodded and continued striding onward.
He couldn’t recall the last time he remembered his mother’s face. She was truly so beautiful, so radiant. Her death was the spark that started everything, the tiny spark that would ignite the blazing inferno of his conquest. And now, he could see her face in his mind’s eye – a constant reminder of what he had done, of the atrocities committed in his name, and his promise to be better in the next life.
They stopped in front of a large manor, surrounded by low walls that clearly would not withstand an actual siege. Then again, a lord of a village likely wouldn’t have the necessary funds to build an actual castle – especially if his village wasn’t known for producing anything of particular value. His uncle was lucky to even have a sizable manor for his family.
The guard motioned for him to stand back and stay in place. Jin nodded and stood still, closing his eyes as he waited. Exhaustion was rapidly catching up to him; given another hour without rest, he might just collapse and fall unconscious. Damnit, why is my regeneration failing me?
If his body’s natural ability to heal hadn’t been disrupted, Jin would have still been capable of doing so much more than just spending the last ounces of his strength to stop himself from falling, which was ironic given his Magical Core was literally bursting with energy.
He had to get this fixed soon. Regeneration was one of his greatest advantages in a fight. He couldn’t lose it—not without getting something in return. Though, he now had the Lightning Bug tattoo wrapped around his right arm. But that shouldn’t interfere with his regeneration. Something else must be to blame for the state of his body and his core, which had gotten at least twenty times bigger and brighter.
Jin was broken out of his tired thoughts when a hand landed on his right shoulder and shook him back to wakefulness. Blinking and rubbing his eyes, Jin let out a yawn just as the guard spoke, “Lord Toyotoda will see you now, Murasaki Jin. Please follow me at all times and… keep your weapon strapped onto your waist at all times.”
They were very likely unsure if a five-year old with a weapon was threatening enough to warrant a temporary seizure of his weapon, which made sense. He was probably the only five-year-old with the ability to kill Magical Beasts and soldiers without blinking even once through the whole thing. He was the only five-year-old who had gone through the worst battlefields and seen the worst of men. He was the only five-year-old who had killed more people than any other human being in this world. Were they right to be wary of his presence? Possibly. Were they actually wary? Quite unlikely; if they took him seriously at all, or even took a second to acknowledge the magical tattoos on his skin, then the guards might have considered taking away Agito.
Not that it would actually help them if Jin actually decided to slaughter them all, but the thought was adorable.
They took him into the manor. The overall quality of the place was surprisingly good – certainly a lot better than Murasaki Castle in terms of design and color. His uncle, it seemed, preferred a colorful home with rich tapestries, silk rugs, jewel-laden walls with paintings of ancient battles and prominent family members. At the center of the first floor of the manor was a large, open hearth, where servants prepared the lord’s lunch; from the smell of it, the meal was probably some kind of duck stew with green onions, garlic, and ginger. They were also grilling a few chunks of pork belly.
Jin’s mouth watered at the scents and smells, but he kept his composure and discipline. After all, he was now the lord of the Murasaki Clan – not the heir, but the actual lord of it. He had no lands or holdings to his name as of yet, but he was a lord nonetheless and it was important to act like one as was repeatedly drilled into his head by Toru Akira, his tutor on courtly life, duties, and procedures. Huh, the old crone probably died in the siege. I wonder what happened to my other teachers.
Jin never did see them in the castle, but it wasn’t as though he was actively looking for them, given everything else that was happening around them. He would have preferred it if they had lived. They were good, honest people, w
ho did their duties diligently. He had learned much from them, except for that annoying crone, who hit him with a stick whenever he wasn’t kneeling right. Jin chuckled despite himself.
The guards took him to a higher floor, where numerous other guards awaited. They led him through a doorway. On the other side was a man, who was undoubtedly the lord of this manor. Jin couldn’t recognize his face. He sat upon a low chair and was writing something on a piece of parchment. He was old, much older than Hamada. He wasn’t fit either; his belly protruded outward, though he wasn’t exactly obese. But then his hands were calloused – a sign of hard work and strife. Scars marred his chest, and an ugly beard covered most of his withered face.
This is my mother’s brother? Just how old was this guy?
The man looked toward Jin, and then looked to the crest upon his kimono. His eyes widened as he stood up. “Jin! I thought you were dead!”
Chapter 15
“Breathe in and breathe out – slowly.” Jin loomed over a much younger figure, a black-haired, pink-cheeked boy, who was the son of his uncle, Toyotoda Arima. The boy was a mere five years of age, but – just last week – had displayed a powerful inclination to the magical arts. Though apprehensive at first, Jin volunteered to tutor the young heir as Lord Toyotoda was not nearly as rich as his Hamada and could not spare the resources needed to find and hire an instructor from the Imperial Court.
Jin was genuinely impressed. He had been living in his uncle’s village, helping out and assisting as much as he could, and he hadn’t really seen much potential in the boy—until now.
Toyotoda Ebisu was a genius in the magical arts. His talent became clear to Jin after the boy had accidentally enchanted a pencil with a butterfly. He didn’t create a powerful magical artifact, of course, but the act of connecting a living being and literally shoving it into an inanimate object took a certain amount of talent that even he did not quite possess. Jin had only begun to understand the ins and outs of the complex art of enchanting, failing more than succeeding, even with his memory and experience aiding him every step of the way.
Ebisu just did it without thinking or measuring every single thing, creating a weird, butterfly-infused pencil that really didn’t do anything, since the butterfly was a mundane creature and not a Magical Beast.
Teaching was a strangely enjoyable experience as well. Jin had never been much of a teacher in his previous life, either. His patience was simply too thin and every single prospecting pupil had been too idiotic to understand the ways of the arcane in the same manner as he did. So, after the fiftieth or so attempt, he had simply given up on passing on his knowledge to the next generation.
Having a gifted pupil, however, was a refreshingly vibrant and exciting affair for two reasons: Ebisu was a genuinely talented mage whose learning capacity exceeded Jin’s own. The second reason was much simpler: Ebisu could stand in for a few of his experiments that needed another mage to work – though, only the less harmful ones as injuring the heir, accidentally or otherwise, would not endear him to the lord.
Ebisu had been the one to aid Jin in discovering the source of his affliction, the one that’d messed with his regeneration. The problem, it seemed, was rather simple: the Lightning Bug was apparently continuously electrocuting him, emitting a weak, but constant flow of electricity, which forced his regeneration to work at all times to stem the damage it was doing to him, vastly slowing down its ability to deal with every other injury to his body. The constant flow would have already killed him and left his body to smolder a long time ago if it hadn’t been for the regenerative magic. Jin had discovered the problem after accidentally zapping Ebisu with a tiny bit of lightning and noting how the boy’s regeneration had been much slower for ten minutes afterward.
Unfortunately, Jin had found the problem, but he’d found no actual solution. The only way to regain his regeneration, it seemed, was to get rid of the Lightning Bug tattoo, which was definitely not an option he was going to consider. The other possible option was to find another Earth-Shaker Boar, harvest its core and supplement his Fire Salamander with it a second time. Doing so should, in theory, increase his regeneration to be on par with what he had before. But that’s just a theory, he thought. I won’t be able to test that until I can get my hands on one of the angry pigs.
Jin sighed and shook the thoughts away. He turned his attention back to his uncle’s heir.
The heir was currently glowing. A thin layer of magical energies radiated from his skin, creating an illusion that he was set ablaze with white flames. However, Jin was the only one who could see the actual effect. To everyone else, Ebisu would just be standing still with his eyes closed, slowly breathing in and out.
“That’s good.” Jin continued. “Look deep within yourself, Ebisu. Find the wellspring of energy that exists within you. Find it, tap into it, manipulate it, and bend it to your will.”
Ebisu smiled, revealing a missing tooth on his lower mandible, courtesy of running around and falling on a rock sometime last month. The heir had laughed off the whole affair, of course, but Lord Toyotoda had not been amused.
“I can feel it!” the boy exclaimed.
The fiery magical aura around Ebisu’s body receded immediately, gathering within his stomach. Slowly but surely, Ebisu’s wild magic morphed into a clear, round shape – a sign of good control, since magic really did not want to be controlled. Jin’s student, however, was a natural.
Within moments of morphing into a ball, Ebisu was already messing with his magical core’s shape, creating triangles and squares and a host of other figures, even moving it around his body. “Hey, look what I can do!”
With a simple flick of his wrist, Ebisu gathered a bunch of magic into an outstretched palm and created a globule of pure magic, though it quickly lost its shape and retreated inward soon after a swift jerking and pulling motion.
“What happened?” Ebisu muttered, staring at his hand.
“Magic cannot exist outside our bodies for very long,” Jin explained. “It needs something to latch onto. Otherwise, it’ll just swing right back into your hand.”
Jin pointed at his tattoos – the Fire Salamander and the Lightning Bug. “To really cast the more powerful forms of magic, your magic first needs to latch onto and pull in a Magical Beast. In doing so, you’ll absorb some of that creature’s natural abilities into yourself in the form of a tattoo. The abilities you gain would depend on where you place your tattoo.”
Ebisu nodded.
Jin continued, moving his Fire Salamander from his chest and onto his left forearm. He pointed at the creature that now definitely did not look anything like a Fire Salamander. Its horns were much more pronounced, curving backward – a trio of Phoenix feathers at the center. Hard scales had appeared all over its body and scything talons had sprouted from its fingers. Powerful wings extended from its back, leathery and bony. Its tail had lengthened immensely, ending in a dreadful spike.
Jin could safely say it was unlike any Salamander he’d ever seen before – if it really was one at all. Then again, magic was fluid and ever-changing and so were Magical Beasts. With all the cores he’d shoved into it and not the Lightning Bug, it was kind of natural that it’d begun morphing into something else entirely. “See this thing? It allows me to unleash a cone of flames from my palm – watch this.”
Jin held out his left hand and released a quick puff of bright red flames from his hand. Ebisu’s eyes were wide as he beheld the simple display of power. “Teach me to do that!”
Of course, that wasn’t all Jin could do with his power, but his student didn’t need to know that. He reached out and patted the child’s head. “All in due time. First, you’ll need to find and tame your own Magical Beast. That won’t be an easy thing to do, pupil.”
Jin’s control over the element of fire had increased immensely over the four years he’d spent in his uncle’s manor. After systematically hunting down and absorbing the cores of over fifty Elemental-type Magical Beasts, his Fire Salamander had evolv
ed to become something much more than what it had been. It was a gradual change, but Jin had noticed greater fluidity and creativity in his flames, allowing him to morph them into different shapes each time he unleashed them. No longer was he stuck with just unleashing cones of flames or summoning a wall of fire from the ground. Jin could even create replicas of himself and other people now, made entirely of magical flames—the replicas were even capable of speech and physically interacting with the environment around them. They were fragile, however, but the utility they offered was nothing to be scoffed at. Essentially, what he could do with his flames was now limited only by his imagination.
Unfortunately, however, Jin hadn’t yet tested his full power as he was not content with just studying all day as he did in Murasaki Castle. He had to earn his keep. So with the knowledge and wisdom of his past life, Jin had become one of Lord Toyotoda’s closest advisors – usually in matters regarding city planning and economics. Political matters were simply out of his domain for now. Four years of his advice, however, had seen the growth and advancement of Hirata from a simple farming village into a flourishing hub of trade and commerce. It wasn’t exactly a township or anything of the sort, but – with Jin’s help – Toyotoda Arima had elevated his tiny little village in the middle of nowhere into a place that merchants frequented.
During one of Jin’s forays into the woodlands around Hirata, he had discovered large quantities of silver and iron at the base of a nearby mountain – untapped for thousands of years. The only problem had been that it was too far into the forests for the simple village folk to journey into on their own and not get slaughtered by wandering Magical Beasts. Toyotoda Arima did not have the necessary funds to hire an extermination team to clear out the surrounding woods and make the paths safe for travel. The man would have left it alone if not for Jin’s timely intervention.