I wanted to convince Moritoshi to give her the day off work so she could help me plan and we could get everything situated.

  “It’ll be fine. You’re the master, that means you can do everything she can do, but better!” I said and grinned at the man.

  The master spat and rolled his eyes before he once more walked back off into the backroom. “Go away unless you’re going to buy something.”

  I blinked and stared at the doorway. “Does this mean…”

  “OUT!”

  My eyes went wide, and I turned heel and walked out with a simple “Okie dokie, have a good one, buddy!”

  I closed the door behind me before he said anything else to me. Whatever he said, I knew it wouldn’t be good. I grinned at Niku, who was standing off to the side of the building waiting for me, and I went over to her.

  “So, we have plans to make,” Niku said seriously.

  I frowned. I didn’t beg her off work so we could actually plan out my work, but it would still be a chance to actually get to know her a little more and spend some time with her. I eventually nodded hesitantly and led her over to Betsy and the wagon, telling her I had a map Nakayasu had given me.

  We eventually settled in at a table in the inn’s tavern, looking over it. We had a bottle of sake and even some sushi supplied by the innkeeper. I have had some decent sushi in my life back home, but this stuff was on a whole other level. It was like the stuff you’d see on television or on those chef competition shows. The fish was fresh, and whoever made the rice was a true master of their craft. The balance of flavors was so perfect I didn’t even feel the need to dip it in my little bowl of soy sauce.

  “So, we’re going to want to stay out of this region as we go down south,” Niku told me, motioning to a section of land away from the sea, more towards the middle of where the regions connected.

  She took a bite of the tuna roll that had actual real-life wasabi in it. Not the dyed horseradish we bought in grocery stores and went ga-ga over. When I had asked the innkeeper for extra, he brought out a legit sharkskin-covered wood panel to crush it. It was at that moment I knew we were going to be getting the good stuff.

  “It’ll be harder because the Royal Road goes through that region, but there are other roads we can take to get deep into the Song region,” she told me and ran her finger down a line on the map.

  I couldn’t help but stare into those big brown eyes when she spoke. They were the first thing I really remembered seeing when I first woke up here. Her coming to help me and feeding me whatever that potion was that tasted like that sugary lime green soda back home.

  She narrowed her gaze at me and raised an eyebrow. “Are you even looking at the map?”

  I cleared my throat in my hand and then nodded. “Uh, yeah, of course I am. So why do we want to stay out of there, the rebellion?”

  “I swear, you’ve been here longer than I have, and you don’t know anything that’s going on, do you?” A new voice scolded me.

  I blinked and looked up and saw Amber, or Kohaku, standing over our table with her snake once more wrapped around her neck. She had her arms crossed against her chest, and she stared at me with anger in her eyes.

  “Uh, I’ve been busy?” I defended myself weakly.

  She tsk’d and pointed at the section on the map we apparently wanted to stay away from. “The rebellion is some freedom fighters from that region that want their land to be free from the Empire again. There’s been constant warring in that region for the last few years.”

  I looked at Niku for confirmation, and she nodded her head. “Kohaku is right. It’s a dangerous area. Even if it’s peaceful when you go through, the forces are still there waiting to hijack and waylay anyone who comes through.”

  “If there’s such an obvious way around, then why don’t they just send bandits and troops there? Seems like a good way for the Emperor’s army to get behind them then, no?” I asked.

  Kohaku helped herself and pulled up a chair to sit at our table before she grabbed a piece of sushi and ate it.

  I frowned at her for a second before I looked at Niku, who frowned. “Well, I’m not going to lie. The way I’m suggesting to go isn’t the easiest. It’s hard for full caravans to go through the mountains there, let alone an entire army.”

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  Now I frowned.

  “With Betsy though, and since we’re just a couple of single wagons, we should be alright. Representative Norimoro will have some tricks up his sleeve as well to make sure his horses can get through well enough. I’d imagine considering his position,” Niku explained.

  Amber grinned. “There might be some creatures I can sketch for my book and learn about up in those mountains to take back home with me.”

  I frowned and looked at Niku once more, who shrugged but nodded. “It’s possible. There are wild things all over this world. As long as we steer clear of anything too dangerous, we’ll be alright.”

  I frowned. That sounded ominous, and I wondered what sort of things in this world there would be besides the guys with their eyes in their butts. At least the shirime didn’t seem dangerous, just weird. I tried to think of any other yokai I knew about, but my mind came up blank for the most part. I knew there was some sort of goblin creature that had a bowl for its head? That didn’t seem very dangerous. As long as we didn’t run into an orc or goblins, we’d probably be okay, I figured.

  “Maybe there will be tengu,” Amber said and got a glint in her eye.

  I raised my brow, and Niku frowned. “Let’s hope not.”

  Amber leaned in close to my ear and whispered the word goblin, and then I frowned as well. “Yeah, let’s hope not.”

  Now that she got close to me, I could hear David hiss softly. The creature had seemed to relax up to this point while it rested on Amber’s shoulders. Now with the talk of yokai and goblins and being close to me, the snake seemed to wake up. I wasn’t sure why, but I had the distinct impression that the thing didn’t like me.

  I narrowed my eyes at the snake, and it hissed and flattened itself out again. I could feel it trying to use some kind of technique on me. It was trying to do some kind of technique on me, and I just stared at it blankly. When it didn’t seem to work, it tried to double down. The snake stared at me harder and adjusted its positioning until Amber gave it a soft swat on the head and told it to knock it off.

  David turned its head and looked at Amber, offended, with squinted eyes, but eventually it just laid back down on her shoulder and closed its eyes. It only opened them once more when I leaned in and whispered that I was going to introduce him to Betsy, my ox. It reared its head back and slithered over to her other shoulder.

  Amber frowned at me and shook her head in disapproval. I just grinned and shrugged before I returned my attention to Niku. She seemed inattentive to the whole thing and just looked over the map while she drank some sake. I grinned.

  She looked up at me with a raised brow. “What?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, why don’t you go show me around?”

  She nodded and rolled up the map before she handed it over to me. I grabbed it and nodded, and we left Amber sitting there with a frown. I still felt kind of bad about all of that from earlier and last night, but she seemed to have mostly come to terms with everything. Though there was that comment about how she was going to make a book for when she got back home. Was she going to figure out a way to get home? I shook the thought away. Whatever she did to help herself.

  With the course plotted, we spent the rest of the day just kind of hanging out. She showed me around the village, and we hung out at the lake nearby. It led off past the village and towards the place where we got the clay yesterday. It was nice just relaxing all day and not being expected to do anything or having to worry about timelines or delivering products.

  At one point, we got Betsy, and the ox gave us a ride on her back through the fields. This time, though, Betsy was careful enough not to expend her core like she had before. She didn’t strain herself, so there wasn’t a need for more mana regeneration pills, thankfully. I still felt like I owed her for the pills she gave us, and when I brought it up, she just smirked and waved it away.

  “I took them from Master Moritoshi. Don’t worry about it. He had a lot of them. He’ll never know they’re missing…. Probably,” she told me.

  I blinked and shook my head at her before I laughed softly. “Well, it’s fine if he does. I’m sure I can pay him for them.”

  She nodded along, and we rode through the fields while she rested her head on my shoulder. I gave Betsy a pat on the head and grinned as we rode towards the sunset. I didn’t think I had been this happy in a long time, and we were going to be spending the next chunk of time together going south.

  I looked up at the sky’s orange and pink hues as we rode along. I lost track of time, and I think I might have heard her snore a little while she was resting on my shoulder. Betsy had brought us back around to the village proper and gave a low bellow that woke Niku up.

  “My house is just on the other side of the village. My papa will be wondering where I went. I’m normally home by now,” she said with a small amount of worry in her voice.

  I nodded, and Betsy moved us along on her hooves, plodding in the dirt softly, leaving massive tracks. It didn’t take us long until we were at a small wooden house just outside of the village, like she said. It was closer to the river than the other buildings and sat up on little stilts, just in case of flooding. When we rode up, I noticed a man standing on the porch with his arms crossed and a glare that would melt ice.

  I gulped, and Niku sighed behind me. “It’ll be alright.”

  I nodded. What I assumed was her father was wearing one of the plain gray farmer’s robes, though he had clothing on underneath, unlike Nakayasu. He indeed looked like a very proud man with his back straight and hair and topknot worn just so.

  We climbed down to Betsy, and when I went to go say goodnight, she leaned in and kissed my cheek softly. Her angry father glaring at me was forgotten, and I watched her run off.

  “Coming, papa!” She yelled as she ran over to the steps that climbed up to her house.

  He remained stoic and didn’t say a word, but his glare shifted towards her after the kiss. The man held the door open for her, and she ran inside, pretending not to notice the man’s ire. He had one last glare at me before he followed her inside.

  “Betsy?”

  “Mrrr…”

  “She’s amazing.”

  “Mrrr.”

  These were all of the possible covers! Let me know in the comments if you like any of them. :D

  Man I just rescheduled all my chapters since I've been dropping so many more than I planned and it looks like I'm going to start dropping volume 2 "Celestial Logistics" at the beginning of the new year probably.

  Finally, goals!

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