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Chapter 559:

I felt another probing attempt hit the barriers around the camp. I was getting used to the way these Fae used their magic. It was somewhat similar to the magic from my homeland, actually.

More….freeform, less rigid.

Humans needed a more structured system to properly utilize and enact magic, but these creatures could do it almost instinctively.

I of course rebuffed them each time.

I am a Goddess of Magic! Who do they think they are trying to undermine my magical defenses?

Though it was clear that this was the extent of\'retaliation\' we\'ve faced since coming here after the first steps. After Wilhelm\'s first display, it seems like they\'ve taken the approach of watching and waiting.

But that wasn\'t really my concern. I was just staying back and making sure we were defended while they all handled the fighting.

Speaking of, I found the person I was looking for.

She trotted into the medical tents, holding a bunch of medical supplies like bandages and healing Potions. I made sure she didn\'t see me as I sneaked behind her.

"Mr. Kitamura, I have the healing supplies." Jeanne smiled brightly as she walked up to a Tengu – an older one – on a cot with a leg wrapped up tightly and blood seeping through.

"You\'re an Angel." The Old Tengu smiled back. "But you don\'t need to worry about this old man; I\'ll heal fast enough."

"Nope! You\'re not allowed to leave until you get a clean bill of health!" Jeanne pursed her lips.

The Old Tengu let out a tired sigh. "Being chided by a young lady, I\'ve grown too old. Maybe I should have just stayed home. Getting taken by surprise by a mere animal and almost losing my leg."

"You\'re far from the first person, Mr. Kitamura." She began to unfasten his bandages carefully before taking a Health Potion and dripping it onto his leg and rebandaging it up. "There have been plenty that have been caught off guard about this place. You just need to be more careful in the future."

"Ah, that\'s already feeling better." He sighed happily, adjusting himself, about to get out of the cot.

"No, you don\'t." Jeanne quickly stopped him. "It\'s still not healed. You\'re walking around on crutches for at least two days, mister." she said sternly.

"These old bones can handle just walking."

"Nope, two days!" She didn\'t relent, even grabbing the crutches for him. "The Healing Potion is great, but if you aggravate it, it could take more to heal, and you know that we have to conserve as much as possible."

The Old Tengu grumbled. "Alright, alright, you win. You sound like my granddaughter, always after me about taking care of myself." He grabbed the crutches with a huff but smiled warmly towards her as he exited the tent.

I made sure she finished up before running in and quickly grabbing her into a big hug.

She made a cute squeal before realizing what was going on.

"Hi Jeanne!"

"Hello Jinn." Jeanne smiled brightly.

"You\'re really good at the whole nurse thing. Do you have experience with it?" Wilhelm asked me to make sure Jeanne was comfortable. I want to check to see if she was fitting in alright and how she was handling everything.

"My mom taught me some things. She was the one in our village that people came to when they got hurt or sick. Though... that mostly dealt with some basic herbs and such." She looked wistful. "And I often did things like this during the war. I only got hurt myself on the rare occasion, so I spent a lot of time helping tend to the wounds of my soldiers."

"Does it feel weird being back in a place like this?" I hope she didn\'t feel burdened.

"To be honest, it feels... more normal." She looked down. "Everything else is... well, it\'s great, but it\'s hard to get used to."

"Reassurance in familiarity." I hummed.

"Yes, that\'s it." She let out a little breath. "It feels like a dream, something I would have flights of fancy about when I had time to daydream during life."

"Is it hard to accept?" I asked.

"A little." She admitted it with a faint whisper. "I sometimes still think I\'m dreaming. It feels strange not to have any responsibilities or duties to uphold."

"Artoria said similar things, as did Raikou and Scáthach." Though Scáthach adapted the easiest. "Is there anything you dislike about being here..."

"No! I\'m so grateful; I love it here. And everyone is so nice to me! And...well, Wilhelm is here, and that\'s...nice." She looked bashful, stiffening at the last bit. "I was able to go out and play only a few days ago. I did something as whimsical as... shopping for clothes and other things I didn\'t actually need."

She\'s sweet; I can see why Wilhelm adores her. Even I feel the desire to protect her and make her happy.

"No one is expecting you to be involved in our fight." I wanted to see her reaction.

"I want to help!" She said it firmly. "Not out of any sense of responsibility, but... just because I want to. Even if it\'s something as simple as helping injured, I can do that without any problems."

Well, who could tell her no when she looks at you with eyes like that?

"Not many patients yet, huh?" I changed the subject because she looked a bit panicky at the whole idea.

Honestly, I think she feels too indebted and feels the need to repay it. But that\'s something for Wilhelm to work on her with; I\'ll just do my best to make her comfortable with everyone, especially if she\'s going to be my new little sister.

"We\'ve had a few dozen so far, but there hasn\'t been anything bad besides one person who almost had their heart stabbed." She winced. "But magic healing supplies are wonderful."

"Healing Potions are great and all, but you know what\'s better? Healing Magic." I leaned in. "Have you ever considered learning healing magic?" As a goddess of magic, I could feel her potential with it and know she would be fantastic.

"Me? Magic?" She whispered. "I\'m not…..very smart or learned." Her brow furrowed. "Are you sure that\'s something I could pick up?"

Right, she did recently start learning how to read; I could imagine her confidence in that area isn\'t very high.

"I promise, you probably have amazing talent in the field. There\'s just one thing you need to do."

"What\'s that?"

I squeezed her in another big hug. "Call me big sister!"

"Neh?!"

@***@

Wilhelm POV

Things were coming along nicely.

You know, it\'s funny how simple things can slip your mind when they\'re rather obvious in hindsight. Like, a group of Youkai were literally carrying the seized galleon onto the island.

The thing is, I was spending like an hour thinking about the best method to move it through Magic considering its size when Nurarihyon came up to me and called me an idiot and said that they\'d just carry it in more inland.

Kappa Bro practically carried it all by himself.

But I digress.

This would be the base we set up in this weird ocean.

Not to mention it still had some resources for us to exploit left behind by the previous residents, but this strange map thing was rather convenient, and I didn\'t want to take the time to figure out something similar.

A Compass-like spell isn\'t something beyond my capabilities, but this realm was far too strange for me to have confidence in making it reliable unless I did something a bit extreme. I highly doubt that my basic clairvoyance spell is going to work on anything major here.

Regardless, the big Spanish galleon was basically concealed as it was placed in the recently burned village that was quickly getting rebuilt.

"Who\'s staying behind and who\'s going out?" I asked Boss.

"Aotabō and Sadao will switch between them staying on the island along with about thirty or so of my boys to man the place and handle everything. Should turn this place into a proper stronghold just in case."

Made sense.

"Why don\'t I start putting up magical defenses around the island?" I offered. "I think the ladies can help." I nudged my head towards the handful of Yuuki Onni who seemed to be their magic specialists. Though the girl was just standing casually a bit further away, chatting about something else.

"I had a thought about that." Nurarihyon rubbed his chin. "Everything here uses magic, and it seems our Youjutsu is more effective in comparison."

"They\'re magical beings." I nodded along with his line of thinking. "You got something up your sleeve?"

"I got something, more of a smaller Trump card, but I think it\'s fine to show it; it\'s not like you\'re an outsider." He patted my shoulder with a warm smile. "Alright everyone, let\'s show the new kid some of our brothers that don\'t come out very often."

Everyone stopped what they were doing and seemed excited.

Now I was rather interested in what I was going to see. I mostly just wanted to join the Night Parade for bragging rights and such, but they treated me so genuine, it was hard to feel like an outsider.

Sadao and a few others came running over with... they looked like ceremonial urns. A bit on the big side, but otherwise, not much to describe. They had talismans around them as if to seal them...

No, those weren\'t seals to keep things in; it was to keep others from disturbing the things inside.

There were probably about thirty in total.

"All of them, boss?" Sadao asked.

"Nah, we just need four for this." Nurarihyon grunted, and the Kappa placed four lined up and moved to have the others presumedly stored in the village.

Nurarihyon took his sheathed sword that looked like a cane and smacked on the urns. "Time to wake up you lazy bastards; we got some work for you to do."

The urns slowly started to shake, then the ground rumbled.

The lids on the urns popped off, and the Talismans disintegrated as huge skeletal hands reached out.

It was a bit comical the distorted size compared to the container that apparently held them. I could notice the spatial distortions without the obviousness of the size difference being thrown in my face.

But the massive skeletal hands reached out, using the land as leverage, and seemed to pull themselves out.

Four equally large and towering Skeletal Youkai loomed overhead.

"Gashadokuro." I named them in honest surprise. "I\'m fairly sure there aren\'t any in Kyoto." Their bodies flickered with green fire.

They were Skeletons, rather big ones, giant-sized. But they were formed from the resentment and bones of those who died on battlefields, if I recall correctly.

They were among the more nasty of Youkai.

"There\'s a reason that my side of the fence can hold up to hers considering the difference in numbers and support, brat." He grinned.

I do recall her saying that he often took in the more... difficult of their people.

Each of those urns...

These things were not easy to dismiss.

A little tidbit I just recalled as well; I vaguely remember they were somewhat invulnerable and were supernaturally stealthy.

The four giant skeletons spoke no words, but their mouths chittered.

"He\'s a new one of ours; don\'t worry about his heritage." Nurarihyon replied, seemingly understanding them.

I held a hand up, waving at them. "Hello."

They looked between themselves, their teeth continuing to clatter together before one of them kneeled down as if to inspect me.

I furrowed my brow because I felt like it was mocking me based on the way it was acting.

My instincts usually didn\'t steer me wrong, so I let my Reiatsu loose, targeting the four Gashadokuro.

It descended upon them like a mountain pressed firmly down, and they all shuddered, their chattering ceasing completely as the flames in their eye sockets flicked in what I believe to be surprise.

Funny enough, they withstood it. That was enough that... well, I\'d say a newly advanced \'High Class\' entity would have been brought to their knees.

I reeled it in a moment later after making my point.

Something changed in them, and I think they seemed to acknowledge me after that.

Oh well, some entities, you gotta show your strength to earn their respect. Boss mentioned my heritage; it could be any number of things they found unpleasing compared to their Youkai brethren.

"Good." Nurarihyon nodded to me as if to tell me I did the right thing. "Alright, you lazy bastards. You\'ve slept for several months without working; it\'s time to put those damn bones to the grinder. We\'re on an island in a weird place; take to the four corners and set up a barrier."

The four Gashadokuro seemed annoyed at the request, like employees grumbling when their boss had their back turned, but they each picked a direction and moved. They were big enough that regardless of where we were on the island, we could see them.

They took to each corner of the island and put their arms up; their Youki burst out in impressive amounts. As if four pillars, their Youjutsu became a cohesive whole and formed into a rather malevolent feeling barrier around the entire island.

"Their kind can synch up with each other stupidly well. If one of them \'dies\' the others will consume what\'s left of them. If they wanted, they could all merge together. We don\'t even know if they\'re all one entity or different ones." Nurarihyon commented.

They\'re basically a mass of bones and resentment, so that made sense.

"Boss, Boss!" I recognized the Youkai flailing his hands. It was the one with the single eyes and the weird pyramid shape on his head. The one with the extremely good eyesight.

"Seta, what\'s wrong?" Nurarihyon quickly turned to him.

Seta held a diamond in his hand, carved with a basic runic circle on it. It was a gift from me because I was impressed with his previous ability.

It basically just amplified the distance he would see and took into account the curvature of the world if that played as a factor.

"Bunch of ships, at least 30. And a lot of them, I saw them flying a flag with a snowflake on them!" Seta eagerly revealed.

Nurarihyon and I shared a look. "Aotabō!" The boss quickly shouted.

"I can handle things here, Boss!" He shouted back.

"No time for a head count or doing things neatly; everyone who\'s coming, get to the ship; we\'ll sort it all out later!"

No rest for the wicked.

@***@

My ship quickly took back to the waters rather easily.

I double checked the strange animal skin compass magic as we started sailing away, and it was still working. I didn\'t know what was anchoring the magical mechanism, but I\'m fairly sure we could navigate back without it for now.

As we got a little further away, it was hard to see it too. I think the barrier held a semblance of obscurity from a distance.

At the very least, once we left it, the fuck-off big monster skeletons were no longer visible.

Though maybe it would be a good deterrent if others could actually see them.

An amusing thought.

But I failed to ask just how far away these supposed ships were.

I put a lot of power into propelling the ship forward without it becoming obscene. At a few points, we skipped a few waves and I had to slow down a tad. But eventually, we could vaguely make out what he described.

Though he seemed to miss a few key details, which I don\'t blame him for.

It\'s that there were a group of ships that presumably belonged to the Winter Court because of the \'winter\' motif or sigil.

No, it was that a presumed group of Winter Court ships were engaged in a battle with a ragtag group of ships that didn\'t have a matching symbol between them.

I narrowed my eyes, reinforcing them to get a better look.

Were those….Greek? I saw at least two ancient Greek ships. Next to them... that was another Spanish galleon. An old Japanese ship as well. A couple Viking ships are among the bunch. I think there was an English ship there.? And there were several ships from origins I couldn\'t immediately place, but... they flew a Catholic cross on their flag.

Realization dawned on me.

The crosses from the grave made much more sense now, as did many other things.

"Prepare for battle; we got potential friends mixed with enemies." I declared. "If you see a Fae, put them down as quick as possible. If you see anything other than Fae, try not to hurt them."

"You heard him, boys, weapons out! I want to see your Touki roaring before we even get close!" Nurarihyon shouted out orders as well.

That ragtag group of ships, they were all crewed by humans.

@***@

A/N

Sorry for the delayed chapter, I\'m actually without power right now as I was on the edge of the Hurricane. Don\'t know when it\'ll be back up, and I only managed to get my Laptop charged earlier today so I could finish up the chapter.

If you want to read 10 chapters ahead or support me, visit my p.a.t.r.e.o.n.c.o.m / astoryforone

Got a new Kunou chapter up over here as well.

I also have a boosty if you can\'t use the above under the same name.