Steel Trim
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Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune Ch. 10
🕑 Added 2024-12-23 16:39:53 +0000 UTCNeedless to say, his kitchen was pretty different. It was pretty funny to show Yuki an induction element and watch her look of sheer bafflement as the water heated up with no open flame involved. He even encouraged her to touch the active surface before he placed the pot on it and left some ice on it next to the pot, but not quite touching, to show off how it was entirely unaffected. Of course, this launched a whole new barrage of questions, given she didn't sense any fire aspected magic in play.
Surprisingly, she knew of electromagnetism, but he supposed that an early discovery is expected in a world where a certain percentage of the population can manipulate lightning. Yuki had just never seen it used for cooking, which he could understand given that magic seemed to be primarily manual for the people here. It'd be like having a hand-crank-powered generator for your house lights. He didn't know how much an employee who could keep a constant voltage and amperage for a good half hour while you cooked would cost, but he couldn't imagine it was cheap compared to just leveraging conventional methods.
It was strangely entertaining to watch some unfathomably ancient being that may have been around when Rome was still an empire stare at a pot like it held all the secrets of the universe. He hadn't noticed it before, but when Yuki was fixated on something and deep in thought, her tails started twitching, but not all at once, just random ones amongst their number. It was almost funny if you forgot that she was a terrifyingly historic entity that tried to do some sort of ancient coup.
Still, despite his attempts to make lunch, Yuki had entirely taken over the space once he had explained the various appliances' functions to her. She had tried to gently shoo him away and told him to relax for a bit, and he half-acquiesced, sitting nearby as she became a whirlwind of activity. He should probably be worried about her fur getting into the food, especially with how she was stirring a pot from across the room, tail tip curled around a spoon… but, now that he thought of it, he hadn't seen a hair shed from her yet. Was that just a kitsune thing? …Did that make her hypoallergenic?
"Are you sure you need no help?" he verbally asked after consulting his notes, cringing when his voice cracked towards the end and taking a drink of water.
She shot him a smile, responding, and it took him a few moments to decipher it. "I'm sure. Do you happen to have some tea?" Yuki said, grabbing some noodles from storage and starting to prepare them. Honestly, he was getting tired just looking at her. It was baffling how she managed to keep track of everything without looking at it.
"Tea? No." It was a luxury he never really felt the need to acquire, nor did he know how to prepare it properly, and he knew too well that it was a centuries-old tradition that people have been arguing over for time immemorial.
"A shame, we'll have to fix that. I know a few blends that will help that throat of yours," Yuki said, and John only had to take a moment to flip through his book looking for the translation for "Blends" and "A shame" to understand her.
John struggled to find the words and returned to text, writing, "Maybe once I have some sort of cash flow. I could probably bring a lot of lumber in for trade."
He held it out for Yuki to read, and eventually, she turned around and saw it between steps. A faint frown graced her muzzle. "I'd prefer you not peddle lumber on the side of the road," she said, shaking her head.
"What's wrong with that? Lumberjack is a respectable profession," he wrote.
"It is one vital to the nation, for sure, but I introduced you as the lord of this fortress."
"And?" he asked, tilting his head.
She looked a bit incredulous as she responded, opening her mouth to reply… before closing it with a low sigh, instead writing out, "That means that there are certain expectations as to how you might act and playing the role of the lumberjack would be rather unlike your presumed station. While I have no doubt you'd be more than capable, it'd make people more likely to question who you truly are. Maybe if Aiki was the one bringing it into town to sell, but the poor soul won't be able to walk the streets on his own for some time, and you acting as a bodyguard for a commoner would be even less like it, as that'd imply your time was less valuable than his."
John's brow furrowed. "What about what we did yesterday? Didn't we already do that?"
"That was a bit different case," Yuki responded, waving his confusion off, "There's a difference between an occasional helping hand offered out of kindness or duty and appearing to do it as a profession."
He supposed that made sense.
"If you hired someone to protect him, that'd be fine because they'd be there on your behalf However, anyone strong enough to protect him would probably make trips unprofitable, even given your," she paused in her writing, looking toward his gauntlet, "Ability to produce lumber faster than several workers."
"How would you have us get money, then?" he asked verbally after a few moments to find the words.
The kitsune said a word he didn't initially recognize, followed by "—parts. I don't know if there is a dealer nearby who would be able to buy anything of true value, but it would be something more socially worth your time and something a person of personal power would be expected to do anyhow." What was that word, again? It was on the tip of his tongue… Right, yokai! Well, monsters seemed a bit harsh of a term since he now knew that Yuki was in the same category, and it included everything from bizarrely living umbrellas to the things that lived in the woods he occasionally had to scare off or fight.
"Isn't that… a bit weird?" he hesitantly asked.
"Why would it be?" she asked, "It's not like you find it weird that one may carve a tool from a boar's ivory, and both of you are made of mundane flesh and bone."
That implied that Yuki wasn't made from mundane flesh and bone, but that raised questions for later when he wasn't considering hunting nightmares for money.
John couldn't see fault in her logic. Still, it felt weird to him. Even then, that's contingent on him wanting to do it! It's not like he regularly sought out the denizen of the woods for a good old fashioned life-or-death struggle. No, even though the vast majority were clearly unintelligent, most had the sense to leave him alone after a good hit or two.
Aside from one particular species, at least, but he only had a vague clue about where to find those, even if he wanted to. The bastards seemed to have a grudge against him, but he doubted they were sapient even if they tried to siege him out that one time. There was no real intelligence to them as far as he could figure; otherwise, they would have been much better at ambushing him.
He wagered they were more like ants than anything, but once they realized they could get no grip against the walls and that he could lay waste to them with impunity from above, they gave up pretty fast, and nowadays, he only sees them every once in a while at night. It still spooked him whenever they showed up, but he wasn't positively terrified like he used to be.
Maybe their parts were worth a pretty penny? He couldn't imagine that hunting them would be terribly complicated, but their tendency to dissolve in sunlight would likely make their parts less useful as tools. "Hey, Yuki?" he asked, struggling to come up with the words and switching back to writing once more, "There's one particular type of yokai in the woods that keeps attacking here, albeit ineffectually. Would you mind telling me if they're worth anything?"
"Of course!" the kitsune responded, and John immediately went to work. He drew up a quick sketch of their umbral forms, flickering and indistinct. They were spider-like in nature, about four to six feet in height at the apex of their legs. Cruel spikes dotted their form, which they used as attachment points to hang gray silk-like armour, often having forest detritus woven into it as a form of rudimentary camouflage. Their two front legs were akin to crude harvesting scythes, bladed on the inside, and their mandible-bearing faces had eight blue eyes irregularly spaced on them in some bizarre defiance of biology to make them more creepy. He probably really should be more scared of them, and they definitely popped better in person than in a colourless sketch, but John had killed enough of them over the years that he was numb to them at this point. It helped that they burnt in sunlight pretty fast once you got rid of their cloaks, and that said cloaks were rather flammable. Score another for heat rays.
He showed it to Yuki, and after a few moments of confusion, her expression sunk into a deep frown. "Where did you see these?" she asked.
"Around the woods. Here for a while, when they tried to swarm the walls. They were rather dangerous when I was getting settled in the fort and learning magic, but now they only occasionally try to break in. They're most of why I have to make sure the walls are clear of vines," he wrote in response. They were legitimately dangerous for a while, but he still didn't get why they didn't try hunting him while he lived like a caveman in the woods. Nowadays, they were easy to deal with as long as he kept the walls trimmed and barred the front gate. Their exclusively nocturnal habits made them easy to avoid otherwise.
Yuki's frown only deepened. "And how long have you been seeing these?"
"Four or so years? They were pretty incessant when I took up residence in the fort." He shrugged after he wrote out his reply.
The kitsune sighed. "That is a Nameless. This forest has an infestation."
That sounded… bad. Still, how awful could it be? They've been here longer than he had and didn't appear to be wrecking the ecosystem or anything.
"Alright. This forest is infested. What does that mean for us? And why are they called the Nameless?" John wrote, hoping they weren't a global phenomenon and that he didn't give away the game entirely.
She sighed. "That's because of their origins. Once upon a time, there was a," she stopped, narrowing her eyes and saying "Jorōgumo" before writing the matching character and continuing her sentence, "That is, a form of spider yokai that often disguises themselves as a human woman. She was rich and powerful, a hoarder of a great amount of wealth from both the mortal and spiritual realms, acquired over her long life, but she was also covetous, and if something caught her eye, she would stop at nothing to acquire it."
Yuki looked over to him to ensure he was paying attention before snapping her fingers, a tiny bit of unnatural shadow and light flowing between them. On the smooth white wall next to her, a shadowy image formed of a woman standing atop a pile of coins, faint lint glinting from them to show a shine.
John's eyes widened in fascination, taking a sharp breath in as Yuki started casually defying the laws of physics again with a shadow play.
"So, if she saw something she wished for in the mortal realm…" The text formed next to the image, like the subtitles in a silent movie. "She bought it."
The shadows changed to show her standing amongst a crowd, raising a placard with a number on it at an auction.
"Even if it was at great cost."
And they were back to the pile, now dwindled, but with numerous possessions piled up towards the edge of the scene.
"But time healed her hoard and ensured it always came back stronger than ever!"
The pile surged higher, and the woman lounged amongst the immense wealth.
"At least, until the incident where she saw one of the most beautiful estates in the mortal realm for sale and had to have it." The pile shrunk, and the woman stood, laughing, in front of what might as well have been a palace. "But she was not content, as she knew she could always make more, and there was so much to improve upon. After all, her life would continue as long as she wasn't slain, so there was always time to make more coin. Tell me, John, how much do you know about economics?"
What did that have to do— Oh. Oh no. John knew where this was going.
"Metal statues. Great stone terraces. Sprawling gardens." With each statement, the pile shrunk, and more items sprung into being around her. "She was happy, but her actions had far-reaching consequences. Craftsmen became rich as wealth that had not touched mortal hands in centuries found its way into their pockets. They spent like drunken lords, and competition for goods drove prices up as it trickled down into more and more hands." Someone tried to trade a coin for a loaf of bread, only to have their hand smacked away as a new figure offered an entire bag instead. " She triggered an inflation crisis!
Trade buckled under the strain as other parts of the land struggled to compete for imports, including food, and the raiding began, signalling the start of the Third Starvation War." The scene changed to that of a bloody battlefield as calvary crashed into infantry, and arrows flew through the sky before swirling and shifting into a silent landscape dotted by corpses.
"The Celestial Court held her responsible even as raiders looted her estate." The same women as before stood in chains before twelve stern judges on high pedestals, scowling. "But she refused to be held responsible. In a fit of rage, she tore up her own Shape and Name and ate them, discarding everything she had spent so long building up!"
The woman withered and shifted, twitching as her bones broke before a monstrosity exploded from her body like a shell, a spider-like limb impaling one of the judges and dragging his struggling form over to her mandibles.
"She was imprisoned nonetheless."
A lance of light pierced each of her eight legs, pinning her to the spot as she dropped the judge, and the image faded into an indistinct swirl. Eventually, though, it resolved into lumpy masses of eggs. "Yet, the seal was not perfect, and in her prison, she bore young, and her spawn slipped forth from its confined parent, yet still inheriting their mother's greed."
The egg sacks burst, and a million skittering legs spewed forth. One separated from the rest, latching onto a nearby coin as the rest faded away. It grew bigger, stronger, more defined, and looked rather familiar…
"Jealousy and hoarding strengthens them until they start to take on a modicum of the intelligence and cunning of their mother."
The Nameless sat upon a stack of money, growing larger, spikier, and with an increasingly complex weave of webbing as armour. "Eventually, they can spawn their own young, which they can use on humans…" Six comparatively tiny spiders crawled from behind it as a man stumbled into the scene holding a torch. He flinched back, but the spiders were already upon him. They raced over him but didn't bite him, and he flailed as shadowy arms parted his jaws and a half dozen tarantula-sized arachnids forced their way down his throat. He fell and seized on the ground before going eerily still, calmly standing back up as John's blood ran cold. "As hosts and avatars of their will, gathering wealth where a spider may not tread." And finally, the shadows and light both dissipated.
John felt nauseous. Great, there might be a body-snatching spider in the woods… or there will be one. All the carts he scavenged over the years rarely had money on them, and when he took over the fort, there wasn't a coin in sight. Shit. Guess he knew where the people who lived here went. He assumed the carts were just a matter of simple banditry or something looking for a meal, but that…
He had to bug-proof the entire fort. Sure, the big ones can't get in, but the small ones? They could hide amongst supplies heading in or squeak through the front door when he leaves to hunt or fish, even if they somehow couldn't climb the wall. Hell, anyone could be compromised! Were the soldiers? Were Aiki and Haru? No, they would have opened the doors by now to let all their creepy crawly friends in, and his mouth was conspicuously unspidered last night. Plus, a few poor peasants would make poor tools for gathering wealth.
"You can detect if someone is being controlled by spiders, right?" He quickly scribbled out, showing it to the kitsune.
She nodded. "Don't worry. It's almost certain this infestation hasn't produced any Greater Nameless, but I'd have no issue with it, even in my diminished state."
A minor relief.
Wait. The way they swarmed… they were communal, weren't they? They probably lived together in a hive woven from the same flammable silk. "How is it that you're sure they don't have any 'Greater' variants among them?"
"The town isn't reduced to a wealthless series of hovels or just empty."
He shivered. "Surely someone would notice and send forces before it came to that?"
Yuki shrugged. "In peaceful times, sure. The mortal government is a bit preoccupied, and the Celestial Court would care little. Mundane banditry sees a surge during wars as forces are diverted from keeping the peace, and towns sometimes die off for mundane reasons, too. Besides, would you want them here right now, anyhow?"
John was horrified, but once more, he had to admit that all her points made sense. If the war wasn't a curb stomp, they could likely not afford to send enough trained fighters to root through a whole forest; even if John had solved his Presence issue, he had a feeling that it would end poorly for him personally if they did.
"Would you be able to locate their nest?" John asked.
"Not nest," Yuki clarified, "Nests. They like to form numerous outposts. In any case, I can, but why do you ask?"
"I think it would be prudent to remove them from 'your' woods, Lady Yuki, and I have a few ideas regarding that."
The kitsune held out a bowl to him, and he accepted it reflexively. It contained a soup with thick noodles, veggies, chunks of duck, and an egg cracked over it. "After. For now, enjoy your lunch."
Comments
bioenthusiast
Are they decedents of humans and just still call themselves that, or is “human” the word use to describe their people? For instance in another story I read there was a guy who teleported his soul to a world with these dragon people and when he learned their language the author just used human for their peoples name.
TopBat
I forgot to respond to this one like a dummy, but it's something I haven't touched on quite yet! The people here still see themselves as "humans", despite the obvious differences that would lead to many disqualifying them on our modern Earth.
bioenthusiast
She said that they attack humans, are there humans on this planet?
The Walrus Transcendent
Late to the party, I know, but they're magical sp0ders. Mundane fire would likely just ruin their hoard and get them livid with rage. Maybe some kind of entropy+heat self-perpetuating magical napalm, or disposable incendiary cores that convert ambient mana into more heat till they cook themselves?
TopBat
Doh! Fixed. More tomorrow.
mage
> The kitsune held out a bowel to him A what? I wouldn't want to eat anything contained within literal bowels, although I might be tempted to eat something in a *bowl.* Anyways, I am an ever-hungering demon whose diet is fine words -- yours are, moar.
Maxxx524
Oh, this is an easy fix. Flamethrowers sounds like they work plenty well against the spiders. A classic solution to a classic problem. Kill it with fire. >:D
aerolyte
When can we expect handholding? There better be plenty of it or else
TopBat
Hey there! Good news: I decided to drop this one early so it's not on Christmas Eve or anything and so you all have some extra stuff to read! Bad news: you're getting body-possessing spiders for Christmas.
