Chapter 515 - 515: The Son of Heaven Looks Down

Over the next few days, Kian wanted to go see Kyoto.

He wanted to investigate what was so strange about this world, and in Bamboo Grove Village the only lead he'd found was that power sword.

The power sword told him the Imperium of Man had once ruled this planet.

But for some reason, the Imperium's influence had suddenly vanished without a trace, and the whole planet's technology had slid back to the level of Old Terra somewhere between the years 1000 and 2000.

The peach-blossom mountain next to Bamboo Grove County was about thirty kilometres away. From the top, looking down the other side, you could see Kyoto.

Kian wanted to go take a look at Kyoto. Maybe he'd turn up more useful information.

When he told the county headman his plan, the headman hurriedly stopped him.

"You mustn't, sir! Kyoto is no place for simple country folk like us!

"Without a household registration permit, commoners like us who enter Kyoto face punishment for the whole family!

"If you go into the capital without permission and the samurai catch you, Lord Minamoto's whole household might be arrested and beheaded for taking you in!"

Kian thought, holy crap, what kind of horror-show regime is this? Sneak into Kyoto and they behead your hosts?

Seeing Kian's expression darken, the headman hurried to reassure him:

"Don't worry, sir. It's getting colder by the day. Winter will be here soon.

"Once winter is over, there's the Yōkai-Slaying Festival. Kyoto collects the heads of the Big Yōkai cut down over the winter and puts them on display to reassure the people.

"At that time Kyoto opens to the common folk of the surrounding lands. If you want to go to Kyoto, sir, you need only wait until spring."

When Kian heard he'd have to wait four or five months, he wasn't too happy about it.

If he forced his way into Kyoto, he'd bring trouble down on the Minamotos. He couldn't repay their kindness with harm.

And if he killed himself to respawn at his Sanctum, he wasn't quite willing to give up.

Tzeentch was the one who'd sent him to this planet. He couldn't sense the beacon in the Warp from here, so could anyone outside sense this planet at all?

He remembered that when they left the Forge World, Inquisitor Trasolh had held a meeting and said they were going to look for a planet that had vanished more than eighty years ago.

The more Kian thought about it, the more he wondered: damn, could that vanished planet be this one?

These days, every planet with humans on it was registered in the Imperium's records. There were almost no so-called lost worlds.

For a planet to vanish, it had to be the work of a Chaos God!

Why had Tzeentch hidden this planet? Kian was dying to know.

If he killed himself now and respawned at his Sanctum without bringing back a scrap of information, he felt it would be a huge waste. So he had to hold out here.

"Fine. Four or five months, then. I'll wait!"

Kian decided to settle in the village for the long haul and investigate the planet's secrets while he was at it.

But he'd barely made up his mind when he strolled back to the Minamoto home and got a piece of good news!

The whole Minamoto family was beside themselves with excitement.

Hei's wife and Tarō were heating water, while Hei was grooming himself with a small knife.

Kian said, "Ooh."

"Bathing and burning incense to welcome an honoured guest?"

Hei's honest face couldn't hold back its joy.

"I just heard from a travelling merchant. The Son of Heaven is looking down! The Son of Heaven is looking down!

"The Son of Heaven's procession is about to pass near Bamboo Grove County. I must go and seek an audience!"

The so-called procession was when this world's ruler, the Son of Heaven, took his inner circle on an excursion outside Kyoto to tour the countryside.

If you were lucky, the Son of Heaven might take a liking to some worthy man of the countryside and recruit him to his staff. That was what they meant by the Son of Heaven looking down, and it was the only ladder of advancement an ordinary person on this planet had.

The Minamotos had once risen to the rank of great general, but the family had fallen on hard times and slipped down the ranks, and now Hei was a rōnin.

Hei thought constantly about restoring his ancestors' glory. He practised his martial arts and cultivated his character, all for the day the Son of Heaven might look his way and take him into service.

Kian himself loved his freedom, but he could understand Hei's longing to be part of the system. He didn't make any trouble and just watched from the side as the family bustled about.

He was also a little hopeful. If the Son of Heaven chose Hei, maybe Kian could use his good relationship with Hei to get into Kyoto with him?

Then, with his family attending him, Hei bathed, scrubbed himself spotless, and put on a black under-robe, and his wife and son armoured him.

Kian watched from the side. The whole armouring scene felt straight out of a chanbara film!

Hei's wife fitted the pieces of the ō-yoroi onto him one by one: the cuirass, the great shoulder guards, the helmet, and a black iron face mask that covered his whole face.

Once the armour was on, a pair of swords, one long and one short, went into his sash. With that, a fully armoured samurai was ready.

Then the family moved out to the main road, the route the Son of Heaven's procession would take.

His wife spread a cloth on the ground, and Hei knelt formally on it, watching the road in the distance and waiting for the Son of Heaven he'd longed for to pass by.

Kian sat down in a clump of weeds next to him and asked:

"Hei, you really want to be an official that badly?"

Clad in black armour, Hei looked a little embarrassed.

"I do. These days, demons and monsters run rampant All Under Heaven. These are troubled times. Good men like us ought to enter service, do our part, and serve the realm."

By now, Kian had a sense of the situation on this planet.

Because huge numbers of Big Yōkai appeared every autumn and winter, farming across the whole planet was very unstable.

The Eastrise Dynasty called itself a unified dynasty, but with feudal-era technology, how could it possibly govern such a vast territory?

So the realm was actually run as a feudal system. Beneath the Son of Heaven were a great many vassal domains, and those domains had their own feuds and often went to war with each other, so there were refugees everywhere.

On top of that, commoners on this planet had almost no way to rise, so peasant armies kept rising up in revolt.

Monsters, famine, wars between the domains, peasant uprisings: one crisis after another.

Kian was in a prosperous area right next to Kyoto. If he went just twenty-five kilometres from Kyoto, he'd see the fields littered with the starved dead!

"I want to join the Son of Heaven's staff and do something for the realm, for All Under Heaven, and for the common people!"

Hei said this to Kian.

Kian laughed.

"Lord Minamoto, you're the one who truly carries All Under Heaven in his heart. In that case, I wish you luck. May the Son of Heaven choose you!

"When you climb up into the Son of Heaven's palace, remember to give me a hand up too, and take me to see the splendour of Kyoto."

Hei promised he would, and the two chatted about other things.

Just then, deep in the bamboo grove in the distance, a long column suddenly appeared.

The people in the column were magnificently attired. At the front rode more than a hundred mounted samurai, and behind them marched more than five hundred samurai on foot.

Behind them came all manner of ceremonial attendants.

In the very middle of the attendants, more than forty bearers carried an enormous palanquin between them.

The palanquin was draped in sheer gauze, so no one outside could see who was inside.

But with an escort of that grandeur, the person inside could only be one man: the Son of Heaven!

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