Jia and Eui approached the village cautiously, uncertain about what kind of reception to expect. They were foreigners, and it was impossible to hide that fact given the unmistakable expressions of their half-spirit ethnicity. Jia had been hoping to get more answers from Jianmo about ‘Yang-aligned demonic cores’ but she hadn’t had any. Jianmo could confirm that she’d seen them before, but they were apparently quite rare and she’d never had any reason to look deeper into it.

The village was, as Jianmo said, quite large. It sat at the foot of a small mountain, and consisted of several farms sprawled out across a wide area with a central grouping of buildings that presumably housed the people living there. Jia and Eui crossed miles of rice paddies, grazing fields, and farmhouses before finally reaching the village center. The people working the fields didn’t pay them much mind as they passed, aside from the occasional curious stare. Jia wasn’t sure whether they were staring because she was a foreigner, or because she and Eui were completely overdressed.

In order to better fit in, they had traded their now somewhat ragged academy uniforms for a pair of dress robes in the style of Yamato. When Jia had purchased them, Rika had called them ‘kimono’. As dress robes, they were more formal than the combat robes of a martial artist or cultivator, and Jia had hoped it would put the villagers at ease as they approached. Her hopes were rather cruelly dashed when she saw the difference in attire between her and the villagers.

Back in her home of Goryeo, it was common for people to dress in long-sleeved jackets and baggy skirts or trousers. Apparently Yamato’s warmer climate had led their people to a somewhat less conservative manner of dress. The most common outfit was little more than a single short-sleeved robe that went down to the knees and was cinched at the waist by a simple cloth belt. Occasionally it would be accompanied by a simple pair of trousers, but that element was considered optional by the men and women alike. Despite the late autumn season, the air was warm and humid, and most of the people Jia had seen went without pants.

All this to say that her conservative dress robes and pale skin were as out of place among the sun-kissed farmers in their working clothing as her ears and tail. The style matched the country, but the class was clearly wrong for the setting. It made Jia look like some kind of out-of-touch wealthy noble striding into the village as if she owned the place. She sighed miserably as Eui snickered at her expense.

“You’re not used to being on this side of things, huh?”

Jia shook her head.

“Not at all. If the me from three years ago saw me now, she’d turn around and run the other way.”

“Hah! Well I was a rich girl growing up. You get used to the stares after a while.”

“Ugh, I feel so fake. I know that I’m as wealthy as I look, I know that I’m a pretty powerful cultivator, but it still feels like I’m just pretending.”

Eui scoffed, but reached over to give Jia a reassuring squeeze.

“I’m sure you’ll be fine. You’re not pretending, and you could flatten this whole village solo if you wanted to.”

“That’s not as reassuring as you wanted it to be, Eui. But thank you.”

Once the two entered the village center, they came across a bustling marketplace where people exchanged goods—though ‘exchange’ might be putting too fine a point on it. Jia watched as a pair of children ran up to and asked politely for a week’s worth of supplies. A moment later, they left with a bag of rice and a jar of milk, just like that.

“Do they not have money here?”

Jia’s off-hand comment caught the attention of a nearby villager, an older woman with a robust build that belied her age, only the graying hair and gravelly voice betraying her real age.

“Hahaha! I heard that, Miss Youkai. New in town, are you? Welcome to Urayama! We don’t see much trade here—too far out on the border. Local lord don’t bother us as long as we keep sending young men and women to serve in his armies. What brings a couple Goryeon ladies out this way, anyhow?”

Now that she thought of it, Jia noticed that most of the population of the village were either children or middle-aged. Adults between the ages of twenty and forty were nowhere to be seen. Lee Jia offered a polite bow to the old woman.

“My apologies, Miss. I didn’t mean any offense. My name is Lee Jia, and this is An Eui. As you say, we’re new here. We’re not nobles, though—just regular common folk like yourself.”

The woman snorted.

“Travelling in fine silk dresses like that? Pssh, hardly! You two look like you could buy the entire village out from under the—”

The woman paused, her eyes widening as her brain caught up with what she was saying. She urgently bowed ninety degrees in a display of deference that made Jia extremely uncomfortable.

“Pardon my rudeness, Lady Lee! My name is Ito Suzu, but you can call me Suzu if it pleases you—or, er, anything else your ladyship desires.”

Lee Jia grimaced, turning to Eui for support only to find her treacherous partner covering her mouth and giggling at her expense. Jia sighed—changing clothes had been a mistake.

“No, really! You don’t need to do that, we’re not ladies! Just...travelling mages from Goryeo—”

Jia’s attempts to reassure Suzu backfired as the woman dropped to her knees and started kowtowing.

“Oh! Lady Tennin preserve us! I’m so sorry for my rudeness, Lady Mage. Please, take my life, but spare our village from your wrath! There’s nothing of value here for such powerful beings as yourselves!”

Jia buried her face in her palms, and Eui’s laughter erupted into full-on cackling. Telling the woman that she was a foreign cultivator had been stupid. The three nations had a long history of war, and both mages and cultivators were considered strategic assets. The commotion was starting to draw attention to them, and Jia could see worried stares from all over the market. She waved her hands in a panic trying to clear up the misunderstanding.

“No no no! We’re not from Goryeo, we’re—”

Jia glanced around frantically before pointing at her now openly giggling partner and throwing her neatly under the cart.

“Look! Exiles, see? We’re not associated with Goryeo anymore—that’s why we’re dressed in Yamato clothing.”

Suzu looked up warily at Eui, who gave Lee Jia a sour look but cooperated by pulling aside the curtain of hair that usually covered her scar.

“Branded and everything, see? We haven’t even set foot in Goryeo for the last three years. Now calm down, if we were going to kill you or raze the village we’d have just fucking done it instead of wasting time chatting with you.”

Jia winced at Eui’s harsh tone, but paradoxically it seemed to put the old woman at ease as she rose to her feet and brushed herself off.

“O-oh, alright then. I guess you’re who you say you are. I hope you don’t hold my outburst against me Lady Mage—we ain’t used to seeing your kind around here.”

Lee Jia inclined her head, doing her best to project an air of calm, though she realized that after her panic moments earlier it was probably a waste of effort.

“It’s already forgotten. And please, just call me Lee Jia—I’m no lady, and while I am a mage, I’d prefer it if you just thought of me as a martial artist like yourself.”

Suzu was taken aback by Jia’s words. Though she hadn’t introduced herself as such, Jia could sense the faint flow of ki within her body—probably a significant contributor to how fit she was at her age. Within her domain she could sense quite a number of other martial artists as well, many of whom had been slowly edging closer over the course of their conversation.

“Eh? You could tell just by lookin’ Lady—I mean, Miss Lee?”

Jia nodded.

“We’re actually martial artists ourselves. Our travels haven’t been for nothing.”

A bit of a white lie, but the implication that they’d been travelling peacefully in Yamato would help calm down the agitated villagers and hopefully lead the increasing number of martial artists subtly taking position around them to reconsider whatever they were planning. Suzu perked up a bit at that.

“Oh really? I’ve never heard of youkai martial artists before! Who’d you train under?”

“Iena—”

Yoshika clamped Jia’s mouth shut and used a moment of absolute awareness to consider her answer more carefully. Ienaga and Hayakawa were probably not names that she should be dropping casually. By the time Yoshika returned her thoughts to normal speed, it seemed as if Jia had just stammered a bit.

“—In the Ienaga province. I believe they called themselves the Takeda clan.”

Jia said a silent apology to Rika in case she was accidentally damaging the reputation of her dojo by misrepresenting them. Suzu scratched her ear and shrugged.

“Haven’t heard of ‘em, but any dojo in Ienaga’s land is bound to be a good one. We’re mostly just army-trained around here. So what brings the two of you out all this way anyhow, Miss Lee?”

Jia suppressed her sigh of relief as the conversation finally got back on track. She could tell that Suzu was still wary of her, and the martial artists attempting to hide nearby were still poised to jump into action. She commended their bravery, but none of them were above the first stage.

“Mostly chance, to be honest. We had been, um, testing ourselves in the wilderness recently, and we just happened upon your village. I don’t suppose you’re free to show us around a bit?”

Suzu scratched her head, and Jia carefully schooled her expression into a polite smile as the old woman tried to ‘subtly’ look to one of the martial artists surrounding them for confirmation. The man nodded his head, and Suzu turned back to meet Jia’s eyes.

“Well, I was gonna haul lumber for Osada this afternoon, but I suppose I can make time for some visitors.”

Jia bowed politely.

“Thank you, Miss Suzu.”

They spent much of the remaining afternoon exploring the village while Suzu described their community and carefully downplayed its strategic importance. Between that and the small contingent of martial artists that clumsily ducked back behind the building they were peeking out from when Lee Jia looked at them, it was clear that they still weren’t trusting her. Well, that was fine—probably wise, as well.

Suzu explained that the village was almost totally self-sufficient. Though they still had to participate in the draft, the local lord didn’t take any tithes from them, and for the most part they were left entirely to their own devices. Children could help out at the farm between the ages of about eight to sixteen before they left to join the army. The lack of taxes did have a downside, however—the army provided no protection to the village.

“Wait, you’re right at the edge of the wilderness out here. No shield, no army, and barely a handful of first tier martial artists—how has this village not been overrun by beasts?”

The group following them cringed and ducked back behind another building as Eui gave them a dismissive glare. Suzu swallowed nervously before answering her question.

“Aha, well, not all the young’uns we send to the army make it back—not always ‘cause they die, mind. Some just find another life elsewhere. But uh, we’ve got enough fighters to get by, Miss An.”

Eui crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at Suzu. Jia could feel where Eui was going with this line of questioning and contemplated stepping in, but she knew they weren’t in any real danger and she was curious as well, so she let it go. Eui rebutted Suzu in her typically blunt manner.

“No, you don’t. We’ve been letting it go because not trusting is smart, but neither the group that was surrounding us back at the square, nor the idiots following us around would be enough to protect this village.”

Suzu winced as Eui called out their clumsy attempts at security.

“W-well, Miss, it’s not like that’s the entirety of our—”

“I can sense every single martial artist in town right now. Less than a third of the villagers are awakened, and exactly one has made it beyond the first stage—it’s the man currently having a very heated discussion with what I can only assume is some kind of council of elders that makes decisions around here. If every single one of them teamed up against the beast that Jia and I killed yesterday, this village would be razed to the ground in an hour. So—I’ll ask again, who protects you?”

The old woman gaped in awe at Eui, and two of the martial artists that had been following them turned and began running back toward the town center—making a beeline for the elders that Eui had just mentioned.

“Eh—u-um, well—that’s—”

Suzu’s stammering was cut off by a calm masculine voice.

“It’s alright, Miss Ito. I’ll take it from here.”

Jia had sensed the man approaching from up on the mountain from almost the moment they’d arrived in town. He was entirely mortal, so she was very curious how he’d known to find them. He was dressed in a monk’s robes, and Suzu bowed deeply to him.

“Thank you, Mister Priest! I’m sorry for my inadequacy!”

The monk—or priest, Jia supposed—smiled kindly and shook his head.

“Nonsense, Miss Ito. Lady Tennin thanks you for your service, as always.”

The old lady responded by simply deepening her bow before turning to flee. Eui frowned at the mortal priest who had received such deference from a martial artist, looking over him appraisingly.

“She wasn’t done answering my question.”

The priest chuckled and stepped aside, gesturing towards the mountain.

“I suspect you will find the answers you are looking for if you follow me. Lady Tennin would like to meet you.”