Into The Mountains

Kibatani village as the trio approached it had a curious mix of natural beauty paired with a rugged mountain toughness neither Hikari nor Shinzo had seen before. Great wooden fences of meticulous craftsmanship surrounded great orchards of cherry trees in which pigs and cattle grazed freely around thick elderly hardwood trunks. “Livestock eaters.” Hikari muttered with an air of frustration. “All the mountain villages do, they aren't so lucky as your village being able to farm nearly year round. Their growing season is so short that if they didn't raise livestock they'd probably starve.” Old Man Kou chided in response as he drove the ox cart further into town. “They're still farming, I can see plenty of wheat fields around, surely it's still rightful cultivation if they raise the animals.” Shinzo added as he looked around. “No it's not, rightful cultivation is humans farming and eating grain, not animals even if they're fed grain. I don't see it as any different from hunting, it's theft, even worse it's humans stealing sideways energy. How would you feel if they ate your oxen?” Hikari snapped at Shinzo and Old Man Kou in his restrained mannerisms. “Once they get old I'll join them in eating them. I raised these two myself and know they've eaten plenty enough rice to be loaded with their downwards energy. Would you prefer these folks starve?” Old Man Kou responded in calmness and understanding. “If they can't live by real right cultivation because of where they live then they should move somewhere else.” Hikari argued he slunk back against a bag of rice in annoyance. “You inviting them to live in your village then? There's only so much land to go around, people have to make do with what they can. So long as they live by right cultivation as much as they can then everything will turn out alright.” Old Man Kou answered as the cherry orchards gave way to dry wheat fields. “Good enough is a slope that might lead us back to the old empire again.” Hikari retorted in frustration. For while he knew Old Man Kou had a point, his life had been one of such agreeable tranquility that he never really learned how to deal with anger. “If anyone goes as far as to declare themselves emperor again then we'll just have to use our swords and overthrow them again. Until then folk need to eat.” Old Man Kou half declared and half laughed at Hikari's frustration over such a small disagreement. Shinzo meanwhile just looked out of the Ox Cart as the fields passed them by, he knew better than to argue when his big brother got like this. Soon the fields were passed entirely and the trio found themselves in the village proper, the houses here were different than in their village. Made from stone and wood with no paper siding all having the slight glimmer of hihiirokane of which was used to make the nails that held everything together. Yet immediately as they entered the trio could tell the village was in not even close to standard operation. The white smoke of a fire long past told the story of burned houses on the border of the village and the mountains. Men carrying swords, either new hihiirokane blades or the occasional pre-revolution steel blade like Hikari's sword, patrolled the village. The air of the village was that of tension as everyone eyed the trio and their ox cart as they passed.

Driving the ox cart down the widest path into the village Old Man Kou would pull the reins and stop the cart at its center to where they would be surrounded by militia men. One man in particular who had a large scar across his chin common in the more hardcore sword fighting practitioners would approach the cart with his hand on the hilt of his hihiirokane sword. “You must be the old man gathering donations from the nearby villages.” The man then bows his head in respect at Old Man Kou. “We can't thank you enough. Two nights ago a damned ogre lit fire to the grain store in secret. We militia men tried to put it out, but by the time the fire was extinguished the grain inside was ruined.” The scarred man elaborated in a mix of deep burning anger and genuine gratitude for the help. “It’s worse than I thought then. Do the villagers have enough to feed themselves until the next harvest?” Old Man Kou asked as his joints cracked with the effort of him getting out of the driver's seat of the cart. “Thankfully so, but the fire left us militia men without a meal for a couple days so this is a lifesaver.” The scarred man responded as he walked over and picked up a sack of rice twice the size of a toddler and threw it over his shoulder. Hikari and Shinzo both stood up and stretched before grabbing similarly sized sacks of grain and following the man. “You two here to join the militia then? That's a mighty fine sword on your hip, there's a few here with ancient family swords a lot like that.” The scarred man asked the brothers as they followed him. “In a sense I suppose. We're here to see why the ogres aren't following the deal our great grandfather made with them.” Hikari answered as he adjusted his carry of the grain sack while they walked. “Is that so? Call me a skeptic but I think if they’ve broken the agreement once they’ll probably just break it again. Might be best just to deal with them permanently.” The scarred man doubted in turn as he carried his rice sack. “That’s not the way of Rightful Cultivation, slaying the ogres is stealing their lives just like hunting a pheasant for its meat. Ogres have been reasoned with before and can be reasoned with again. I won’t hear another word to the contrary.” Hikari chastised the man before they reached a large stacked stone mill. “If you say so, but if you fail I won’t hesitate to rally the militia into action. We’ve defended ourselves from colonizers in the past so I say it makes no difference whether the threat is internal or external. Just throw the grain in here, not the best for keeping rats out but it won't burn.” The scarred man responded as he threw down the sack of rice on the flat stone floor. “I have no intention of failing, so save your rally for my victory.” Hikari responded as he too lowered his sack of rye onto the flat stone floor. Shinzo just chuckled to himself about the situation and set down his sack of wheat. Behind them followed Old Man Kou and a handful of other militia men all with sacks of grain or barrels of preserved vegetables in hand. It’d take a couple trips with everyone to get the cart unloaded before Old Man Kou would lead them into one of the fenced off cherry orchards on the outskirts of the village and let them loose, leaving the cart under the cover of one of the cherry trees. Hikari and Shinzo meanwhile were invited by an old widow to stay in her home while her sons were on the militia night watch. There they were spoiled by the old woman on account of Shinzo somewhat resembling a young version of her late husband. There she’d make them stir fried rice with pickled cherry blossoms and wild mushrooms, and it’d be some of the best rice that either of them had eaten. That night they made a plan, next morning they’d help the widow with her field work on the insistence of Hikari in which they’d speak with the local farmers and try to figure out what they know about the ogre attacks and go from there. They both would end up sleeping like rocks that night, being that it was the first time in over a week they slept with a roof over their heads and with cushions that weren’t sacks of grain. That morning they got up with the sun and set about working the old widow’s wheat field, hacking away at whatever weeds and such needed it. The work was slow on account of them trying to strike up conversation with whatever villagers were in earshot. Yet the bulk of them were older and didn’t know anything useful as the attack victims seemed to all be those who lived closer to the mountains than what the widow and the rest of them did. “Damn, this is going nowhere slowly, feels like we just wasted a day.” Shinzo vented to Hikari as they finished up the day’s field work. “At least the field work let us keep up with our rightful cultivation, when we’re done lets split up and ask around the village. Seems like everyone more closely involved lives on the other side of the village.” Hikari proposed though with a similar sense of frustration. They both agreed and set out around the village after they finished their respective field work. Shinzo being the more charismatic of the two would speak with the villagers while Hikari would talk with the militia men. Only one militia man would have anything worth remembering to say, a broad shouldered fella who looked the type that lifted weights whenever he wasn't working in the fields. He made mention that while on nightwatch the night before the grain storage burned down he saw a humanoid sort of silhouette out by the tree line. He didn't think it was an ogre because it was only maybe a shaku taller than he is. The man figured it was just another militia man on nightwatch out for a piss and that the rest of the militia men he told agreed with him. Yet nobody has actually come forth and said it was them yet. That night after eating a dinner of some sort of fried wheat noodles with pickled ginger Hikari and Shinzo would discuss what they heard that day. “I only heard one thing of note today. Apparently one of the night watch saw a humanoid shape out by the tree line at night. He said it was only a shaku taller than he was so he assumed it was another militia man. Yet nobody actually knows who it was.” Hikari explained to Shinzo across the table. “That makes sense, ogres are supposed to be… What, eight to ten shaku tall?” Shinzo exclaimed in turn. “I think so, did you hear anything important?” Hikari confirmed before asking. “Apparently one of the bodies found looked like it had an arrow pulled out of it. Do ogres use bows and arrows?” Shinzo exclaimed before asking. “I've never heard of them using bows and arrows but maybe the stories just don't mention it. They always talk about how strong they are and how big their clubs are, the stories might just leave that part out.” Hikari retorted as he began to think. “Ya, but weirder still was that the arrow looked like it went all the way through the body.” Shinzo elaborated further. “Well if ogres are supposed to be big and strong they can probably use really big strong bows, those can probably fire a big arrow all the way through a person.” Hikari pondered in turn, though slightly annoyed Shinzo didn't say that to begin with. “Hmmmm, I think I might have an idea. Ogres are beings of sideways energy like animals, they can only eat meat so they have to hunt to survive. What if that humanoid in the trees was a young ogre trying to establish a new territory or hunting ground of some sort?” Hikari proclaimed not entirely sold on the idea himself but it's a start. “Ya maybe, like a wolf wanting to start a new pack.” Shinzo agreed further. “And if it's just the one that might be why the rest of the militia hasn't found it yet, it's like looking for a needle in a haystack.” Hikari pondered in turn. “So if it's just one troublemaker, let's run up to the mountains and try to find the rest of the ogres. If they want to keep the deal they'll want to help us find the rogue ogre.” Shinzo exclaimed in excitement, nearly standing up from his sitting cushion. “Then it's settled, we'll head out tomorrow.” Hikari agreed, eager to think they found an easy solution.

The next morning they again woke up with the rising sun, the old widow after hearing their plan just said to skip the field work for the day and go solve the ogre problem. Reminding them that working together to solve problems is also part of Rightful Cultivation. Hikari tried to argue but Shinzo would just drag him off into the mountains, a few days rations in their packs. A more natural beauty and serene grace neither of the brothers had seen before in their lives. Around their home a man could walk for days on end and see nothing farmland, be it wet rice tanada, dry wheat fields, plum orchards, or various mixed vegetable gardens. All so monotonous, so unfantastic and unimaginative, designed with maximum efficiency and sustainability in mind. Yet these mountains were the down wild and crazy machinations of the natural order of it's fullest extent. Fluffy green mosses clung to every surface strong enough to give them stability. All manner of great ferns carpeted the dimly lit forest floor so dense you could hardly walk through them and in a mad sort of non pattern no being but the natural mountain wind could have planted them. Cedar trees twice the height of a house and nearly the width of them too dominated the forest like moss covered wooden colossi. Yet everywhere else every manner of tree fought for their piece of sunshine in the dense forest, cypress, chestnuts, pines, oaks, ginkgos, zelkovas, and a hundred others trying to claw their way to the top past their brothers and sisters. New trees grew out of ancient stumps so big you could move a family of five inside their interior and still have room to dance about like wild men. The ground was soft and spongy beneath their sandaled feet, and with each breath it's as if every living thing in these mountains gave a little sliver of their life energy into their lungs. The only way a place like this could be described is magical, magical and pure in a way that could heal your soul from any ailment physical or spiritual. The feeling overwhelmed the brothers to the point where they said no words to each other as they marched all day. Even being here, and so completely dedicated themselves to living this moment still felt like it came short of truly experiencing everything this land had to offer. Like a human could spend their whole lives in this forest and still only know it like two travelers who pass each other on the open trail for only a brief moment know each other. In fact, so caught up in the land were Hikari and Shinzo that they ended up forgetting to eat anything at all or set up a camp until brilliant scarlet beams of the late evening sun began to make love to the western mountains and darkness flooded the forest floor. Though it was of little worry to the brothers, they simply laid under a massive broken old log the size of a dozen ox carts that was supported by its old stump the width of a grain store. They ate their pickled cherry onigiri for dinner and huddle up next to each other to sleep for the night. And while the daylight air was filled with the sounds of rustling leaves and calling birds, the night was flooded with an orchestra of bug songs and mountain beast calls. Though the most breathtaking part of that night was the variable orchestra of lights that was the fireflies flying about for their late night showing all throughout the middle air of this forest paradise. The brothers sat up to watch the show wordlessly for as long as their eyes would stay open, though eventually the weight of their long day would pull them closed and the two would drift off to sleep. Yet their awakening would not be the magical or serene experience yesterday made them expect it would be. Unlike most days they wouldn't wake up with the rising sun, yesterday's trek had finally set in while they slept and the sun was well blazing yellow in the eastern sky as they awoke to shouting. Unlike what they expected again however this would not be the shouting of a pack of ogres. Instead it was a man, a tall man with tawny tattooed skin and a great black beard with long curly hair that ran past his shoulders. He wore the skin and fur of various animals from mountain river fish to mighty and imposing brown bear. What was most alien about the man was the thing he was aiming at the brothers, all black like midnight obsidian, some of it shined and some of it was dull. The profile of the thing was long and tubular with a thin and forward curving box at its bottom and a downward bent shape that was pressed against the man's shoulder. On top was a three pronged fork in the front and a small elevated ring in the back that man lined up with each other and his left eye. “Hands! Sky! Now!” The fur clad man screamed at Hikari and Shinzo in broken and almost nonunderstandable pronunciation of the words. Taking a wild guess at what the man actually wanted, Hikari stuck his hands in the air above his head, because his guess at what the thing the man was pointing at him was some sort of gun. Though the one he had seen on a traveler passing through the village years ago was far different than this thing. It was a long tube of wood and hihiirokane that had no box on the bottom and was loaded through the front of the tube, to which two mechanisms on its side which this thing was missing would spark together and make it fire. That was the most common form of gun in Muryowa, used for recreational target practice in areas with a natural abundance of the ingredients to make gunpowder. Though Hikari had heard stories of many many years ago when a foreign empire tried to invade Muryowa they had newer guns that resembled their target guns being made of wood and steel, yet were loaded from where the sparking mechanism would go on a target gun, and that they held many shots at once all encased in a brass shell. The militias did steal and use these guns against the invaders but without the facilities to make the shots or their shells the new guns just became decorations on the walls of veteran families.