Chương 30: Some Things to Consider

Yomi rode up to the farm astride her cassowary, and I saw her coming from a modest distance away. She sat in the saddle with supreme confidence, a grin on her face, and her eyes came alight with mischief as she came up along the road.

"House is looking good, Amon!" she called out. I shrugged.

"Extension is mostly done by now, save for work on the interior," I said, motioning toward that side of the building.

"The lads do decent work."

"I'll say. So that's how houses look out west, eh?" She dismounted, feeding her bird another mouthful of grain. I leaned on the fence and watched her, quietly appraising her.

"Seems like you've made a full recovery. Guang was a little worried there'd be lasting side effects from Inumi's attack."

"Mm..." She turned and spat on the road.

"That spot still itches from time to time. But that'll pass too. Though I am a little worried about all the blood I've been pissing out." I stared at her for a long time, quietly raising a brow. Yomi snorted with laughter and slapped her own knee.

"I'm jokin', relax!"

"You got an odd sense of humour," I replied. Though the corner of my mouth did twitch into a tiny smile. It was rare for me to see a woman who could joke around like a lad back home, but I wasn; t going to complain.

"So they tell me. I'm about to hit the trail. Your Iudex sent word along to Low Moon of my accomplishments when the city came to retrieve the bandit's corpses. So I got a payment waiting for me out that way. A damn fat one. Figured maybe you'd want a cut of it? After all, you did much of the work."

"I'm fine, really. I made sure to tell everyone that you did all the work. And I'd appreciate it immensely if you said the same to people." Yomi chuckled.

"You're an oddball. But, fine, if that's your preference. I will admit I feel a little guilty about the lying but... eh, the world is full of graves for fools who let honour dictate their lives," she said, shrugging.

"Oh, I'm well aware." And usually those people abandoned honour as soon as they realised the danger they had been in against me.

"So, I take it then that you wouldn't be interested in becoming a bounty hunter? Me and you, I reckon we could get a lot of valuable criminals. Some of them we might even take alive." She barked a rasping laugh, mischief glinting in her eye. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. I folded my arms, meeting her gaze.

"Appreciated, but no thank you. I'm looking to avoid trouble. And enough of it has come my way since coming here without me going out of my way to find more." I wasn't naive to think I'd seen the last of my problems around here. Smoke padded over, his large tail swishing languidly behind him.

"Hrr... The woman... from the other night," he said. He was getting better at speaking by the day, but he still took pauses every couple of words. Yomi raised a brow.

"Well now, that's a shock. A spirit beasts in a spot like this? You get more and more interesting by the day, Amon."

"Spirit beast?" I asked.

"Didn't have them back west? I guess that's not shockin', they're already rare in these parts. You'd tend to find more of them up in Cathaya. I guess you could think of them as animals that have the potential for qi in them. Means they get smarter, stronger and, in some cases, develop the power to speak. Good thing it's rare, this one would never stop complaining if he could talk," she said, jerking a thumb toward her cassowary. The bird gave an indignant squawk.

"Spirit... beast," Smoke repeated, testing the words in his growling and guttural voice.

"You heard me, little man. You're rare indeed. I'm not the best at sensing qi, but I can feel some of the strength bubbling inside your body. Keep training, you'll be a hell of a fighter in the future!" Smoke made a small rumbling sound, his brows knit in thought. I reached down, giving him a small stroke behind the ears.

"Father... I keep you safe," he eventually said.

"You really don't need to worry about me, or the land. Trust me." But somehow I got the impression the hellcat would worry anyway. Yomi mounted up, her bird hissing and shaking his head as he righted his balance.

"I'll hit the trail then. Figure I can cover a lot of ground before sundown if I get started now. Thanks again, Amon. And ah... don't forget what we talked about. I get the feeling you'll see more yokai out this way, in due time." She moved to hit the reins, only to pause.

"You know... this spot of yours is near the road, and I hear the upper crust toffs are getting more and more interested in taking their holidays down by the coast. If you want to make money in a more 'peaceful' way, opening an inn wouldn't be a bad idea." And then she was off, flicking the reins. I leaned against a fence and watched her go, her cassowary rapidly taking off off toward the sunny horizon. And I couldn't help but feel... just a little sad about her leaving.

Maybe I'd always feel a little better in the company of other killers. I turned and looked back across my land, beyond the crops and the coops, and saw that I had a good deal of land I wasn't currently using.

"An inn, huh," I murmured. It didn't sound like a bad idea, I reasoned. Truth was that being a farmer didn't occupy as much of my time as I would have liked (on the occasions no other stupid nonsense got in the way of things) and any quiet moment or lull in activity was the sort of thing that left me... alone with my thoughts. And that was the last place I wanted to be. But buying more land, making an inn... that could be interesting.

Though, Tiode would need more foot traffic to even begin justifying the idea in my head. Still, it wasn't a bad little dream to have in my head.