Chương 17: Book 1, Chapter 17: Plan of Action

Okada Yashiro was terrified but had to be strong for his men. The kitsune kneeled across from him, as did her mysterious Unbound companion, this "Lord John." What was he to her? He looked a lot like some descriptions of that mysterious foreigner that traders and a few priests kept insisting they saw spying on them when they passed nearby—but he entirely lacked the discomforting Presence they all insisted he had.

Really, he felt more like the kitsune herself, erasing any of his doubts of her being the donor for his Unbinding. Maybe he was a different person who travelled with her. Yashiro couldn't picture someone spending half a decade in the woods without effect, and her other attendant did mention she was away for some time. Did her business bring her outside the nation to some unknown land from which she brought him back, perhaps? And why put in all the efforts to clear this old, haunted fort for their own?

His clothes were strange, simple yet practical, but there wasn't a single visible stitch. Well made, if nothing else. A statement about humility, perhaps? Lady Yuki's current dress was similarly simple, and the design felt foreign to his sensibilities. Still, he fully admitted she might be wearing a style from the capital rather than his humble homeland. Every time he visited a major city in the past, it seemed like fashion had taken a radical pivot.

Perhaps the simplicity was the point; her black kimono was relatively basic outside of the gold thread despite her status, too, and the usage of such a masculine colour had to be a statement of some sort.

"It's a shame that we had to meet like this, Sergeant Okada," the kitsune pleasantly chimed and inclined her head slightly. Thankfully, she had taken the time to clean the blood off after her frankly horrifying display earlier. It was too easy to picture his soul in her jaws instead.

"Yes, my lady. I would have preferred to meet under better circumstances, too, but I'm afraid I don't know how to greet you properly," he responded uneasily. He glanced back at his men, watching how they stood stiffly at the back of the room, unsure what to do in a formal meeting like this. It was utterly bizarre how she "allowed" him to keep an "honour guard" of his entire force in the meeting.

An honour guard was something you did for a visiting dignitary, not a random militiaman with an inkling of sway in a small town! Then again, random militiamen didn't "meet" kitsune in isolated forts. Well, it wasn't as if they would do him much good if either of them took offence. He could only hope that Lady Yuki was a fraction as reasonable as Yumi, but yokai were known for their fickle moods at the best of times.

"Silly me!" the fox spirit said, covering her mouth like she hid a laugh, "Just call me Lady Yuki; everyone does. Oh! And don't worry about Yumi, by the way. She's just taking a well-deserved rest after our outing to cull those beasts earlier." He jolted. Did the kitsune just read his mind? Falling back on protocol, he bowed deeply, but not so deep as to appear like he was grovelling.

"Thank you for saving me and my men, Lady Yuki and Lord John," he quickly spoke, keeping his voice as level as he could. What a fight it was, too! He and his men could hardly beat those things with teamwork, and only one at a time at that. The two of them, though? He shivered. The kitsune alone was a blur he could barely track, and he had fought alongside Unbound before. What he could see spoke of unmatched brutality as she diced anything with the misfortune to be vaguely within her reach.

If it wasn't already clear that she could cut the lot of them down with a few casual blows, the fact she grabbed all five of them at once like lost ducklings before leaping that high into the air made it clear that they might as well be toddlers next to her. Lord John, on the other hand… He was glad it didn't come to blows earlier today with the tax collectors. The stains would have taken days to clean even if John's wrath was quickly sated.

Where Lady Yuki was a hurricane of bloodshed, he was like a thunderstorm, smiting foes from on high with contempt. John hardly moved the entire fight; he didn't need to. Every movement and every technique was quick but efficient, with no drop of ki wasted. It was like he just pointed, and things ceased to be. He rose, smiling as he waited for Lady Yuki to continue, he supposed. If earlier was anything to go by, John was not a talker.

It felt wrong to refer to her by her given name rather than her familial name, but he wasn't familiar with yokai as a whole and even less so with kitsune specifically; perhaps it was just normal amongst their number.

"Did anyone suggest that you should come out here?" the kitsune questioned, and Yashiro hurriedly shook his head. She looked him up and down, and although she remained smiling and calm, he couldn't help but feel like a criminal in front of a magistrate.

"No. After the incident with the tax collectors earlier today, this humble sergeant decided to purchase some goods and deliver them here as an apology," he stated. Besides, he'd rather the terrifyingly powerful yokai not take offence to how her underlings were treated and level a section of Broadstream Town as recompense.

Of course, there were far more powerful Unbound than her in the army or amongst the nobility, but the damage would be long done by the time they showed up, even if he could somehow convince them it would be worth their time while a war was going on. As far as he was concerned, bribing yokai into passivity was as good of a use of the "emergency funds" in the budget as anything.

"A gift?" the kitsune asked, tilting her head, "What was it?" He tensed as he replied, "It was quite a lot of food from the markets prepared into various delectable dishes, my lady. I'm afraid that it was lost when we were chased." He could only hope that she took the loss of her tribute well. Some of the nobility could be… testy about it even for entirely understandable reasons, never mind yokai. She closed her eyes briefly and sighed but showed no sign of great and terrible fury, thankfully!

"At least that won't contribute much to their numbers," she murmured.

"Their numbers, Lady Yuki?" he reflexively asked, blood running cold once her gaze turned back to him, and he bowed deeply once more.

"Forgive my interruption; I did not mean to speak out of turn!" Stupid, stupid! He was going to get everyone turned into a red stain!

"Rise," she ordered, voice holding no heat to it, and he slowly sat back up hesitantly. She seemed entirely calm, face holding a kind of effortless serenity, but he wasn't ready to stake the fate of himself and his men on that alone.

"I'm not the most formal amongst my kin. Do you happen to know what Nameless are?" Hesitantly, he shook his head, and a smile spread across her face, and the shadows on the wall behind her twisted impossibly. Cold sweat dripped down his back. What followed was the most upsetting shadow puppets he had ever seen. The lady kitsune evidently had a thing for storytelling, and he was stuck here as she explained the background of these Heavens cursed spiders and some of their capabilities.

He might never sleep without a mask again. Yashiro thought traders being picked off was just mundane banditry brought about by the war stretching on, but this? It was lunacy!

"Any questions?" she asked, sitting back as he jolted back to reality. Many, including "Why the hell would you show someone a graphic depiction of spiders possessing someone?" but few he could ask without definitely dying. He just wanted to drop off the gifts, bow and scrape a bit, and then go out drinking without worrying about spiders! A quick glance at his men revealed they felt similarly.

"Why are they called the Nameless? I know you said she ate her own name, but surely, if someone can do that, someone else has done that before and created a different variety of being?" He asked, and it had been bugging him for a while throughout the presentation. Isn't calling them Nameless inherently giving them a name? Lady Yuki smiled, opened her mouth and spoke. No words came forth. He could tell there was a sound… but Yashiro could not recall it even a moment after she finished. Something was wrong.

His head hurt. He had to get out of there! Breathing heavily, he started to get back up, but then the kitsune just… stopped speaking, and everything was back to normal. Unsettled, he sat back down." That," she said, "Was their progenitor's name. It was the third most common name in the nation at the time. It's still common to this day. This effect only persists when you use the word to refer to her specifically, and the same will happen if you attempt to give a name to any of her descendants."

He shivered once more at the thought of being… erased like that. Sure, they were monsters and probably didn't care much, but it must have been torture for the original. Was petty spite really enough for someone to do that to themselves?

"My lady, how many of them are there?" he asked, dread filling his gut and unsure whether he wanted to know the answer.

"Somewhere around five to seven hundred, most likely," she casually responded, "The casualties we inflicted today with that little scuffle and our previous… enthusiastic walk to scout out their capabilities will likely be replaced soon. Think of their wealth as a cap on their numbers, which they rapidly reproduce to fill." Hundreds! What the hell was he even supposed to do against hundreds of those things? They could overrun town whenever they wanted!

It was then John walked back into the room, a heavy box floating eerily next to him without a care for silly things like the fact it should be falling. Wait, when did he leave? John telekinetically hefted the box onto the table before the sergeant, every soldier in the room jumping at the sudden noise. When Yuki started her shadow puppet theatre, he silently excused himself while he went to work on a quick project.

The fact that she had the mental bandwidth to read a note quietly placed on the table and give her approval while doing a full-on magical shadow puppet show complete with narration was nowhere close to the most worrying fact he learned about her today. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

It had only taken a minute or so to grab Yashiro's shattered club, which he thought was called a kanabō, and after he figured out it was oak, he grabbed a wooden post of a similar size from storage and headed to the shop. It was pretty easy from there to get all the metal studs out of the broken one and into the new one when you can liquify wood, and the pseudo-lathe made slimming down a section to act as a grip pretty easy.

From there, it was just a matter of slapping some stain on to seal it and then cheating with magic to make it dry fast. That'd be on him if he wanted a leather grip. John didn't have much of that free. Really, he had been waiting outside for Yuki to finish for a few minutes, and her dropping a bombshell about their numbers and levelling a psychic attack on everyone was as good a time as any. Ow. He settled back down at Yuki's side and wordlessly gestured towards Sergeant Okada and then the box.

Hesitantly, the man took the lid off the box, peeking inside like a child on Christmas morning, his eyes widening. Almost reverently, he hefted the weapon out of the container.

"This…" he started to speak before stopping, rubbing a hand over the slightly rusted metal bumps.

"These are the studs off mine, aren't they, my lord?" he asked in awe. John gave him a quick nod. Really, they were going to have to leave eventually, and he wouldn't leave the man unarmed, even if it wouldn't do much against any concentrated Nameless attack. While he was academically aware that he possessed a fair bit more firepower than the average folk here, it had never really sunk in until now.

With a solid position, he could slay dozens of them with impunity, and Yuki was terrifyingly capable in melee when she didn't have to worry about not blacking him out with g-forces. Sergeant Okada, though? He and his men maybe managed a trio of kills throughout the battle, and that was with an elevated position. John had to admit that the concept of a club covered in disposable rock spikes was neat, and seeing bits of stone fly up to refill it after he bashed that Nameless was fascinating.

Could one perhaps use it to make some sort of rocky regenerative armour? He was getting sidetracked. Yashiro placed the weapon to the side before bowing again. It was not a fearful bow to avoid consequences but one of genuine thanks.

"My thanks, Lord John!" He dipped his head in return but didn't say anything, not trusting himself to pick the right words.

"John's gift brings up a good concern, though," Yuki interjected.

"How are we going to get you safely back to your homes?" She's right. If they were ambushed once, they could be ambushed again, and he was nowhere near naive enough to believe that was anywhere near all of them.

"Besides, there is almost certainly a Greater Nameless amongst their number directing them. This was almost certainly a probing attack." John jolted at that. A Greater? Here? Yuki seemed so sure earlier that there wouldn't be any! Fuck, now he has to start figuring out ways to counter their body puppetry! He could feel his blood pressure spiking already.

"Tell me, Sergeant, did you find it odd that you and your men weren't overwhelmed on your way here?" Yuki asked, tilting her head.

"My lady?" he responded, unsure.

"Surely you saw how much faster they moved when fighting me? Not only that, but they can attack you from range and never used such abilities during their pursuit. No, they knew you were coming here and herded you to make us open the gates so they could block them open and rush in unimpeded… And if we didn't and you simply died, it would have looked like we killed you. Who else knows you interacted with us, and who would benefit from your disappearance?" His blood chilled as realization swept him.

"The tax collectors," Sergeant Okada muttered, eyes widening.

"I pressed one of their grunts that seemed to recognize you two about where they saw you before. Do you think they've been infiltrated? Do we have one of those… things in the town?" Yuki made the apparently universal sign for something that could go either way, raising a hand and tilting it back and forth.

"Maybe. Even if they're ultimately driven by greed, the stronger examples of their kind are fully capable of making deals for longer-term gains, even if they'll ultimately be consumed by greed and bite the hand of their allies. I've yet to see any of their puppets, so there's a chance they're merely working with the tax collectors." Well, that's a kick in the teeth and a half. Still, it provided answers, at least.

Five bucks said there would be significantly fewer "special wartime taxes" if they went to an adjacent area. By targeting a reasonably poor area without magical elites, which presumably got little traffic from traders, they'd ensure that the fewest people who could expose their scam would know about it. It was devious but something they could work around. He leaned back, searched his notebook for a few words, and double-checked some grammar conventions before speaking. John cleared his throat.

"Do you recall if they hoard more than just money itself? Things like wood, metal, etcetera," he asked. Yuki turned and regarded him curiously.

"Yes. They will take anything vaguely valuable that they can get their spindly legs on. Why do you ask?" Giddy energy flowed through him, and a smile crept onto his face, "And how are prices defined? Are they local or nationwide?"

"It's an average within the hive's operating area. Why?" Yuki confirmed, and John's smile grew into a wild grin.

"So if someone were to crash the prices of much of what they have hoarded, what would happen?" he asked. Her eyes narrowed, and she thought for a second.

"I imagine it would be much like when something valuable is stolen from their nest. They'd starve and have to start culling their numbers to survive."

"That's it! That's our way to wipe them out!" John excitedly blurted and went to continue before realizing he lacked the words, switching to writing a note before passing it over to his companion.

"We can look into the town's historical imports and exports and figure out what the Nameless are taking! In an area like this, it's probably something practical, maybe tools? If it's something I can reproduce in my workshop, we can make enough to dump all at once for dirt cheap and crash the prices for a few weeks or months. Collapse their exit tunnels so they can't get out quickly, then swoop in and clear out the nests after they've started killing one another."

Yuki gazed off contemplatively, quietly "Hmm"-ing to herself as she thought it over, interwoven tails subtly twitching.

"I can see it working," she declared, a faint smile gracing her muzzle, "But what of the people in the meantime? Such a plot would leave some unable to put food on the table for some time." That… was a good question and one he didn't have an answer to. Shit. Maybe he could provide some sort of food aid program? He'd have to expand his fields significantly and almost certainly build them outside the walls, exposing them to more pests.

He'd undoubtedly need extra hands to harvest it all, too, and the biggest population of people who need money would be the people he put out of work… Well, it felt like a dick move to knock someone down a few rungs on the ladder only to force them to harvest food for the pennies you made from the process and a head of lettuce.

"Lady Yuki, Lord John," a gruff voice interjected, and John jumped slightly. He had almost forgotten he had more guests in his excitement.

"Whatever you plan, this humble servant begs you to please try to limit the damage to the people under my charge." If he had any thoughts about John's busted voice, they weren't evident.

"Worry not; we shall endeavour to minimize damage while we tear this rot out," Yuki reassured him, although he didn't look terribly pleased either way.

"I'm afraid we will have to keep our exact tactics hidden for now, though, lest our mutual foes discover them."

"As you wish, my lady," he submissively intoned, dipping his head.

"I do have a question if it pleases you to entertain this humble servant's musings."

"By all means, ask!" the kitsune airily chimed.

"What would you have me and the men do tonight?" he questioned, "Despite the… strange magical lights, I can see the day has started to fade from the crack in the windowsill, and I fear that we wouldn't make it back." John turned to regard it, and sure enough, the wooden panel was just slightly askew, enough for a sliver of the moon's pale light to drift through. Now that he thought of it, Yuki never questioned the magical lights he had spread about mimicking lightbulbs. At least those must be common in some form.

Their unspoken request was clear: "Can we stay for the night to not get eaten by spiders?" It was a reasonable request… yet he didn't feel entirely comfortable with armed soldiers staying within his walls, even if he was sure of his ability to defend himself, given their recent performance. What were they going to do, somehow sneak past downstairs, bumble into the motion detectors, wake him up, and then try to rush him and beat him before he could do anything?

Whatever hidden motivations she may have, she'd definitely rush to his aid should worse come to worse, and they had no reason to suspect he didn't have superhuman physicality… and if that's all the force they could bring to bear, they'd probably have to hack at him for a while to break through his warding. Still, that didn't mean he had to like it. One of Yuki's bundled tails drifted close to his side under the table, and he took that as a wordless signal. John stood.

"Come," he hoarsely ordered, and the men hurriedly obeyed, much to his amusement. They followed him out into the dusk, with Yuki not too far behind. From there, he led them into the primary warehouse, not the converted secondary one where Aiki and Haru stayed. Hmm. Hopefully, they weren't too stressed out, but at least Yuki remembered to tell them the danger had passed. John would have almost certainly forgotten.

The primary warehouse was a strangely good spot for less-than-trusted guests who would only be here for a night. What was here was mostly bulk supplies like stone, wood, and some metal with nothing magical, so any damage they could do if they got brave enough to pocket something would be minimal. Hell, maybe they'd take some of those ceramic jars full of that old "medicine" and save him a world of trouble in disposing of them.

"Here," John said, sliding open the door and gesturing inside, "Bedrolls and meals will be here soon. Feel free to heat the place." The rough wooden floor was a bit cold and hard, but there was still a fire pit and plenty of firewood. It was not as if they needed anything to ignite it, given the spearmens' ability to ignite the tips of their weapons. He should probably request Aiki or Haru to deliver the meals, even though he plans to cook them.

Without waiting for a response, he turned away, hurried steps carrying him back to the main building. Glancing back to see what Yuki was doing, he saw the kitsune taking up post nearby, legs crossed. Now, what could she be doing? She breathed in and softly out, and the… shadows raced up to meet her, wrapping around her like a cocoon, specs of brightness akin to stars drifting across before being subsumed within the abyss. Oh!

His mind snapped back to a few days prior when Yuki had absorbed some type of mysterious energy from the sunlight and mentioned she'd need time outside under both the day and night. A wordless dread gnawed at him as he stared at Yuki's almost writhing cloak, righteous anger thundering against his consciousness along with an alien heartbeat. Where her light was warm and comforting, this was akin to a terrifying storm in the dead of night! It got duller as he got further away, at least.

Say, why was she doing that right next to their guests' temporary quarters? You know what? If she wanted to… play a prank? Do psychological warfare? Assert dominance? That was her prerogative, and there was probably a good reason. Even if there wasn't, it wasn't his problem.