Atop a Tree That Reaches the Clouds (5)

After drinking, buying drinks for people, and questioning anyone who looked as though they had time to kill, I gathered information in Kaiyo Port and concluded that the capital known as Outo sounded like an interesting place.

Apparently, the country of Fusang had five major cities, and Kaiyo Port was one of them.

As its name suggested, Kaiyo Port's role was as a harbor—and not just any harbor, but the country's only large, fully equipped port for trade with the continent.

That was why people and goods gathered there, making it a convenient place to learn about the state of the country.

But if I wanted to trace the source of Yosogi Style and properly learn how this country had come to be the way it was, I needed to venture farther into Fusang.

Yes, because Kaiyo Port was merely this country's gateway.

As for what the other four cities were, one was Outo, the capital of the country, whose name I had mentioned earlier.

Walking northeast along the highway from Kaiyo Town, it took about two weeks to reach Outo.

Outo was also, just as its name suggested, at the center of Fusang.

...Though that didn't mean the center of the island. It was the center and heart of the southern part, where people had gathered and formed a nation.

To be more specific, if I went east from Outo, I would find Tengaku, a town built in the hills, where winged folk supposedly lived.

Conversely, heading west from Outo would eventually bring me to the sea, beyond which Shin, a city of merfolk, existed beneath the waves.

And if I continued north from Outo, I would supposedly reach Chinju, a fortified city that also served as a frontline base.

There were, of course, other towns as well, but apparently these five cities possessed functions indispensable to the structure of Fusang.

Outo was also geographically located in the middle of the five cities, and was a city built through the intermingling and cooperation of three races.

It was a fascinating story.

It was true that I had seen humans and merfolk in Kaiyo Port, but not a single winged person.

Besides, hearing that it had many smithies and other production facilities, along with numerous dojos for honing martial skills, gave me a decent grasp of the country's norms, and I saw no reason not to head for Outo.

Leaving Kaiyo Port and heading northeast on foot along the highway, I soon came upon rice paddies stretching as far as the eye could see, filled with water.

I narrowed my eyes at the sight, which I had rarely had the chance to see in this world.

The feeling welling up in my chest was a strange nostalgia.

It was a landscape I should have had no connection to whatsoever in my current life, yet it still felt familiar.

I couldn't even remember where I had seen it—not even in the hazy memories of my previous life.

Apparently, from here to the vicinity of Outo, the land along the highway was a major food-producing region, with fields and rice paddies lining the road.

From the fields, I sensed a kind of determination—a resolve to produce as much food as possible and support the war effort precisely because they were far from the front lines.

Apparently, in the past, oni had very rarely made their way here by following rivers that flowed down from the vicinity of the Fusang Tree.

Their targets were people—or rather, humans specifically—and women in particular.

Nowadays, vigilance in the frontline region was strict, and even if they managed to sneak this far, they couldn't possibly return with much of a prize, so that danger had apparently disappeared.

Oni were stronger than humans and lived longer, yet their numbers were overwhelmingly small.

Well, that was more or less the fate of long-lived races, especially after they had once come close to extinction.

Yet numbers were still a great strength in war.

Thus, to fill the gap in their military strength, the oni borrowed human wombs to create half-oni.

Half-oni were a slave caste: stronger than humans, weaker than oni, yet able to mature and become warriors faster than oni.

Half-oni could apparently also be born from pairings between two half-oni.

Apparently, half-oni currently formed the main force on the central battlefront.

From what I could gather, the oni living in this land were probably descendants of humans who had become demons.

As far as I knew, when people of different races such as humans, elves, and dwarves had children together, the chances of conception were low.

And even if a half-breed was born, its ability to reproduce would be subject to major limitations.

...And ah, I hated to use him as an example, but in Win's case, as a half-elf, there was still a possibility of him having children if he found a human or elven partner.

Of course, that possibility was considerably lower than it would be for two humans or two elves.

But when it came to dwarves, beastfolk, or other races, the possibility was practically zero.

For the record, I had never heard of two half-elves—so few in number—meeting and forming a bond, so I didn't know about that case. But judging from other half-breeds, such as children of beastfolk and humans, having children seemed difficult for them as well.

Yet oni were creating half-oni with humans.

And if their numbers had grown enough for them to serve as the main force on the battlefield, then they clearly didn't fit the usual pattern for half-breeds.

In other words, there was a very high likelihood that oni reproduced with humans as though they were the same species.

I couldn't help feeling apprehensive and conflicted at that thought.

Even setting aside the fact that the oni's actions were savage enough to inspire disgust, the future that would await the world if their power expanded didn't seem pleasant.

They had started a conflict because they no longer had enough room to live.

That was simply unavoidable.

Just as beasts fought over territory, tragedies like this could be found anywhere.

It could be called the law of nature that the strong subdued others and survived.

However, despite having started a conflict because they lacked living space, the oni's attempt to dramatically increase their numbers through half-oni seemed dangerous somehow.

There was a major contradiction there, and I even found myself wondering whether the oni were already fighting not out of necessity, but simply to sate their appetite for conflict.

If that was the case, then supposing the oni won, seized all of Fusang, and ...would the fighting really end there?

That was nothing more than my own speculation, but surely it wouldn't turn out that way.

They would choose to mate with more humans—and with half-oni themselves—to increase their numbers, then launch an invasion of the continent.

In that event, they would face the Yellow Ancient Empire.

It was a mighty nation, and not an opponent even demon-descended oni could easily bring down.

After all, five immortals protected that land.

But what if, by some one-in-ten-thousand chance, the oni's upheaval disturbed the sleep of the True Dragon, the Golden Dragon?

The tragedy that could result would be beyond measure.

If the True Giant really was the one who let the oni escape to Fusang, then, however slim the possibility, it wasn't impossible that the dragon's sleep could be disturbed.

As I walked along the highway, I looked over the fields beside me and up at the clouds drifting across the sky, then sighed.

Acting under the banner of saving the world wasn't like me.

But I didn't want this world to be shaken, and I couldn't help feeling that the oni were a hindrance.

What on earth had the True Giant been thinking when it sheltered demons on this island?

Of course, this information came from listening mostly to humans in a human country.

The oni might have reasons of their own, but I didn't seem likely to get a chance to hear them.

Whether or not I actually fought the oni, I was now deeply concerned about the state of Fusang.

Speaking of ethics, humans did the same among themselves all the time—abducting enemies, breeding with them, and assimilating them through blood.

When the people of the grasslands wiped out the warriors of a fiercely hostile tribe, they welcomed the surviving women and children into their own tribe and assimilated them.

Since no one could survive on the grasslands without the strength of warriors, that was necessary even for those being assimilated.

The feelings involved, of course, were another matter.

Even outside the grasslands, when one country destroyed and annexed another, their bloodlines mixed over the course of several generations and eventually assimilated.

Sometimes assimilation failed and the desire for independence grew, but cases where the two sides blended surprisingly smoothly were by no means rare.

What the oni did was savage, but if I thought of the oni as human too, then at least I, an outsider, had no business burning with righteous indignation.

"Well, what should I do?"

Unable to pull my thoughts together, I said it aloud.

I was traveling alone along the highway.

No one was around to listen to my soliloquy.

If the oni mainly lived in the mountains, should I make the mountains more rugged and imprison them so they couldn't move?

No, I didn't know how physically capable oni were, but they might still overcome a few difficult spots.

Or should I simply split this island in two from north to south, separating it into an island of oni and an island of humans?

Far enough apart to make it difficult for either side to interfere with the other.

Fortunately, this was an island nation surrounded by sea, and the island itself was long and narrow.

It would require the use of power on a truly massive scale, but if I had the earth spirits and the water spirits dwelling in the sea unleash their full power, ...I could probably do it now.

Ever since my encounter with the Golden Dragon, I had probably become capable of drawing out more of the spirits' power than before.

However, drawing out power that strong would be dangerously reckless, so I had never tried it.

No, wait—but if I used power like that, the resulting damage would probably be beyond measure.

The shaking would be far greater and more violent than the earthquake I had caused before, and huge waves would sweep away the coastal regions.

The merfolk city beneath the sea would be smashed to pieces as well.

No matter how far I drove the oni away, I might end up destroying Fusang.

Fighting them properly seemed far more peaceful.

I had absolutely no desire to fight or kill the oni, but I also felt that I couldn't simply leave them alone.

That wasn't a good thing.

What a troublesome predicament, even for me.

Fusang had been at war all along, after all, and it wasn't as though the country was in a critical situation now, so my baseless speculation probably wasn't enough reason to get involved.

At present, there was no reason for me, an outsider, to stick my nose into it.

But I had met the Golden Dragon and learned that this world was more fragile than I had imagined.

That was precisely why I ended up worrying needlessly.

Even so, I knew that if I let that anxiety drive me down the wrong path, I could become a calamity far worse than the oni themselves.