The taxi dropped them off at the gates to Rakuyo, and Chiaki quickly paid the fare.

Riku looked around after disembarking, and a frown formed on his face.

“Huh, that’s odd,” Riku mumbled.

Despite there usually being two guards at the entrance of the city 24/7, Riku couldn’t see anyone manning the gates. He turned to Chiaki, “Is nobody here, or are my eyes going bad?”

Chiaki nodded, confirming his guesses. It was after six and visibility was low, but the entire area seemed to be devoid of people. “I don’t see anyone here either. Maybe they’re switching shifts?”

Riku thought for a moment before agreeing, “Yeah, that makes sense. Let’s just wait.”

Ten minutes passed, and nobody seemed to be coming. Chiaki was checking the time on her phone, deliberating whether to call someone when she heard the sound of footsteps. She perked up and saw a lone man wearing the uniform of the city’s guards approach.

Riku had noticed him earlier and was already going up to talk to him. “Hey! Can you let us enter the city?” he called out. Bringing out the Shinosaki family’s seal, Riku showed it to the guard.

The guard took a closer look at the seal and slowly shook his head. “I’m sorry. This isn’t a valid entry permit.”

Riku was dumbfounded. “I literally entered the city a few hours ago with this. How could it not be valid?”

The guard showed an apologetic smile. “The head of the Shinosaki clan issued an order to not accept anybody with a Shinosaki clan seal. She’s very moody. I don’t know what you did to her to make her so angry, but you should apologize the next time you see her. You might get to live a few more years that way.”

Riku obviously didn’t take the guard’s good-natured advice to heart. “Can you let us in to apologize? We’ll leave once we’re done.”

The guard shook his head no. “I’d like to, but orders are orders. I don’t want to lose my job.”

Riku sighed. It didn’t seem like any amount of talking would do him any good. And attacking the guard was also very illegal.

Nothing to be done, they walked off.

A little while later, Chiaki broke the silence. “I guess we’re sleeping at a hotel tonight.”

Riku looked at her in confusion. “Says who?”

She looked back at him as if he were crazy. “You want to sleep on the streets? You don’t go to school, so you might not know this, but the walls of Rakuyo are known as the strongest barrier formation in the entire world. You can’t break into the city through any means. The barrier covers even the air and underground. Like, even if a nuke was dropped onto the city, the barrier would still be standing strong. If you want to forcefully get into the city, dream again.”

“No, no, no,” Riku hurriedly explained himself, “I’ll show you where—oh, never mind.” He remembered the awful result of the last time he tried to use a map. “Just Googol Shinosaki snack store. There’s a portal there.”

She rolled her eyes. “A portal? Into Rakuyo?”

“Mhm. What about it?”

“You can’t simply ‘make a portal’ into Rakuyo! Even the Saito clan, like, you know, the superclan that specializes in spatial magic, can’t do it, okay? You’re making no sense here, alright?”

Riku nodded before saying, “Well, my grandmother had portals into the Saito clan treasury for the longest time. You know the saying ‘a frog in a well knows nothing of the great ocean’? Yeah. Mhm.”

Chiaki exploded. She usually wasn’t this irritable, but a lack of sleep can turn even the most docile puppy into an angry wolf. And Chiaki was never the docile puppy. “Me, a frog in a well? You, a person who literally spent every single waking moment after being born watching anime, calling me, a frog in a well? Think about this saying from my homeland: ‘the pot calls the kettle black,’ except I’m not a kettle, I’m a pristine newly-bought wok!”

“Oh, that’s a Japanese saying too. ‘The eye snot laughs at the nose snot.’”

“Are you calling me nose snot?” Chiaki instantly snapped back.

“That wasn’t my intent, but whatever, Snotty Kettle Frog,” Riku said, putting emphasis on the last three words. He then shrugged before changing the topic, “There’s a portal at Shinosaki snack store. Hurry up. Chop chop.”

Chiaki rolled her eyes. “I’m Googoling it now, Snotty Pot Frog. Hold your horses.”

After a moment and a half, she started to head in the direction of the snack store. “Hey, Snotty Pot Frog, if you just stand there, you’re going to be left behind.”

This time it was Riku’s turn to roll his eyes. “Yes, yes, Snotty Kettle Frog. Your word is my command.”

Chiaki speedwalked forwards. Even though Riku was one fart ahead of Chiaki in cultivation, he literally did not leave his room; he couldn’t remember the last time he had run. The few hours spent looking for print shops were mostly spent slowly walking from place to place while trying to call or email ahead. And so, Chiaki, a fit woman, barely had to exert any effort to outpace Riku’s zone of comfort. He panted as he ran desperately to catch up; with Riku’s special condition, if he got lost, he would stay lost.

Luckily for Riku, the dagashi shop they were heading to was relatively close by. He took a second to catch his breath and brought Chiaki over to the alley on the right-hand side of the shop.

Pointing at a certain spot on the wall, Riku said, “See that brick, Snotty Kettle Frog? Just press the Shinosaki clan seal onto it and the portal will activate. I’ll show you.”

He took out his clan seal and pressed it onto the wall. And under Chiaki’s shocked gaze, absolutely nothing happened to Riku; he stood still like an idiot in the same exact place he was before.

Naturally, this was exactly what Chiaki had expected; it wasn’t anything close to surprising her. However, her jaw had dropped and her eyes were wide open. Why? The answer was simple. The smug voice of Riku’s grandmother resounded out from where the portal was supposed to be.

“Did you think I wouldn’t block my own portal if I took the bother to stop you guys from going through the gates? I’ve booked you a room at the hotel on ****-cho, Sakyo Ward. You’d best prepare yourself for the upcoming wedding! Ahahaha!” The sound of Kikue’s cackling dispersed into the wind, and Riku clutched his forehead. He spotted Chiaki—the Kettle Frog—doing something on her phone out of the corner of his eye.

“Don’t tell me you’re looking up that hotel?” he asked.

“Of course! What else can we do?” the Kettle Frog paused before adding sarcastically, “Oh, do you have another portal?”

Riku paused, a lightbulb flashing over his head. He started to laugh heartily, a smile written all over his face. “Oh my god, you’re amazing. Man, and I had almost forgotten! Haha, we might have actually had to stay at that hotel if you didn’t remind me!”

Chiaki raised an eyebrow. “You’re kidding.”

“No, of course not! The other portal is fairly close by, I think. Us snotty utensil frogs are in Sakyo Ward, right? Quick, search up *****-cho. It should be north from here.”

She sighed and looked it up. Her eyes widened when the page loaded. “Close by?” she scoffed. “It’s in the fucking mountains. I’m heading to the hotel.”

The Pot Frog hurriedly tried to salvage the situation, “We can get a taxi, right? It isn’t that bad. Let’s just go. Alright? You don’t want to let her win either, right?”

“Did you forget what happened just a few seconds ago? What makes you think that Grandma wouldn’t disable this portal too?”

“Well, she doesn’t know about this portal…”

Frog (female) snorted. “She isn’t as forgetful as you, you know? She’ll definitely remember a portal that she made.”

“Ah, well, she didn’t make it.”

“Then who did? I still don’t really believe experts who can get past the greatest barrier in the world exist besides maybe Grandma. And why would they just be wandering around making portals into highly secure locations in random places? And even if people who fulfill those two conditions exist, I don’t believe you’d know them.” Chiaki humphed.

Riku let out a complicated smile. “Well, you see, the other expert that goes around making random portals is, well, a certain snotty pot frog.”

“You, you mean? Hah. I’m going to the hotel. Have fun failing by yourself.”

Frog (female) made to hop off, but frog (male) stopped her.

He ribbited, “C’mon, I need you! Why don’t you believe me? Have I ever let you down before?”

“Why don’t I believe you? You tell me, if a seventeen year old who spent all of her time learning how to cook Chinese food told you that she could hack into the Bank of Japan, would you believe her? And well, you’ve let me down many times. You still remember what happened barely an hour ago? Hmm?” she ribbited back.

Riku, having been made to take a logic pill, grimaced. “Ugh. Fair enough, I guess. Is there any way I can get you to believe me?”

Chiaki pondered. “Hmmm. Try explaining in detail how you made the portal. Maybe I’ll believe you then.”

Riku nodded. “Okay, that’s easy. I suppose you know that spatial portals are just spirit stone formations with an effect of teleportation?”

She nodded impatiently.

He continued, “Alright, so the barrier of Rakuyo is based off the ideas of Feng Shui, which means—”

Chiaki cut him off, “We learn this in elementary school! Give me something serious.”

Riku rolled his eyes. “Okay… So, the Saito-Shinoda principle applies to the Chundi point of the Rakuyo Vajramputra barrier; this can easily be verified by applying pneumotheospecnomimetry to ascertain the Xie ratio of the spiritual energy. Of course, the Meiji-13 Kansai earthquake is the cause for this. Thus, the Varakain-style of Xunke formation can anostralize the barrier by an amount determined by the Nagasaki constant multiplied by the Sanhokka factor of the sum of all Takeda forces in the vicinity, which leads to—”

“Stop, stop!” Chiaki was clutching her forehead. “I completely don’t understand a word you’re saying. You’re making my head hurt. I’ll believe you, okay? I’m calling a taxi now.”

Riku laughed triumphantly.

Only he knew that every single word he just said was complete bullshit. This weeb knew nothing about formation theory; he just copied his grandma. It somehow worked.