We rode a while longer at the slower pace until we came up to a large city. This area was much more mountainous than the rest of the continent I had seen, and we were on the top of a lower peak and looked down at it. It looked like a good size. It might have even rivaled one of the metropolises back home. I wondered how big Yoshino was compared to this, though. Compared to Yoshino, this city looked like a dump.

  “Wonder what city this is?” I asked out loud and once more looked at my map.

  Betsy gave a low bellow, and I got the impression of a shrug.

  I traced my finger along the road we had taken through the mountain with the monsters and I blinked. “Huh?”

  “Mrr?”

  “I think this is Lijiang,” I said and squinted down at the city. It looked rough, but the bones of a once proud and prosperous city were there.

  Without prompting, Betsy started us down the mountainside at her slower pace. It took us a while to climb down the mountain and get to the city and I spent the time practicing the shamisen. Betsy didn’t approve and gave angry bellows here and there in distress. I ignored her and just strummed the instrument with the little fan. I thought I was getting better and pretty soon I’d be good enough to join the Wagakki Band.

  When we finally got to the outskirts of the city proper, I put the instrument away. I didn’t mind torturing Betsy’s ears, but I didn’t want to scare away complete strangers. We rode through and everything looked like the village where we stayed last night. It was nicer, but still run down. Boarded-up buildings stood, and some farm buildings and what appeared to be businesses had closed.

  I sighed and shook my head. I had seen this plenty in my life back home. The town I lived in before I started trucking and really still called home was like this. It was way up in Northern NY and you could tell the city used to be a proud, hardworking center along the river. Now though, due to whatever political reasons or money the city was… well, it wasn’t it used to be.

  While there weren’t any guards stopping us from getting into the city, there was a heavy guard presence in the city. They wore the same sort of samurai armor the guards in Yoshino wore, and none of them looked happy. They glared at me as I drove past them and I just gave them all nervous little waves. I didn’t have a problem with any of them until a group of three of them stood out in the middle of the road with the lead holding their hands up.

  Betsy came to a slow stop, and the man glared up at me. I answered his glare with a nervous little smile.

  “Afternoon, uh.. Officer?” Was that the right term? No, it couldn’t be. If the man had a problem with what I called him, though, he didn’t let it show on his face outside of the normal glare he gave me. He walked up alongside the wagon.

  “Where are you going and what’s in the cart?” The guard demanded and looked up at me. He looked up at me with a frown. His features didn’t quite match the innkeeper and his family. They looked more like the features of someone from the north of the mountains.

  “I’m heading to the sumo arena, sir. I’m taking clay for the dohyo. The SSA official Hojo Norimoro is somewhere behind me in his own wagon. We, uh, are a little faster though,” I said and maintained the nervous smile.

  The head guard nodded his head, and he waved at one of the men he was with. The man went around and I watched and felt him go around to the back of the wagon. I didn’t mind. The only thing he’d find was a bunch of clay waiting to be molded into the ring. The head guard lost his glare, though.

  “Sumo, huh? I’ve heard of Norimoro,” the guard said and looked me over.

  “Yes sir. Are you a fan of sumo?”

  He grunted and shrugged. “It’s fine. Bunch of fat guys wrestling in a ring, no genuine talent in that, I don’t think.”

  I frowned and sighed. Even in this world, people didn’t truly understand what an amazing sport it really was. “Sure,” was all I said in response, though.

  The third guard stayed in front of Betsy with a hand on the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it if I caused any problems. No, I realized when I actually looked up at them. It wasn’t a man; it was a woman. Her features were a lot softer, and she was smaller, but she still had the tired, overworked eyes the other two guards shared.

  The one that went around the wagon to look in the back came around and he spoke in the lead guard’s ear for a moment. The lead guard nodded his head and then looked up at me. “You got any paperwork or anything?”

  Heh. Gotta have your bols. Well, you were supposed to have them back home. I hadn’t run into anything like that since I’ve been here though. “Uh, no? Is that needed?”

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  The lead guard frowned and crossed his arms against his chest. “No, not technically, not yet. It’s polite for the law, though.”

  I frowned. “Sorry sir, first I’m hearing of it since I’ve been on the continent. I would have kept closer to Norimoro if I had known. I just knew he wanted this stuff here as soon as I could get it, so me and Betsy here ran,” I said and nodded up towards my ox.

  She looked at the three and gave a deep bellow.

  He gave the ox a funny look hearing its name and then looked up at me with a confused look. The look only lasted a minute, and then he shrugged. “Well, whatever. My partner here says all you got in the back is clay, and I don’t see how that could be dangerous. Move along.”

  I nodded and Betsy plodded off before I pulled on the yoke and stopped her. “Oh uh, sir? Sorry to hold you up even longer, but uh…”

  “You need directions, don’t you?”

  I gave him a little chuckle. “Yeah, I had a route on how to get here, but once I got here, I thought I’d just be able to figure it out.”

  “You go through the mountains?” the female asked. She seemed to relax and finally took her hand off the hilt of her sword since her boss gave us the go-ahead.

  I looked over at her and nodded. “Yeah, my contact up north told me the bandits have gotten bad around the border on the Royal Road.”

  The two men growled.

  “The local magistrate doesn’t let us patrol up that way. Doesn’t let us leave the city much,” the leader griped.

  “Oh, uh, that’s too bad,” I offered, not really too sure what else to say.

  He sighed and waved his hand. “That’s not your problem. Did you run into any problems on the mountain?”

  “Ah, yeah, nothing me and Betsy couldn’t handle though,” I nodded.

  The other male guard leaned in and I heard him say that was somewhere else they should be allowed to patrol. The leader waved him away.

  “Alright, the arena is in the center of town. It was a gift by the glorious late Emperor Sasuke Masahiro-”

  “Long may he reign,” interrupted the two other guards in chorus interrupting my directions.

  I stared at them and frowned before I looked back at the lead guard, who also seemed distracted for a moment. Though, he echoed their chorus a minute later.

  “It’s much bigger than anything else in the city, and a lot nicer than these other buildings.” he looked around in disgust.

  Oh yeah, this guy was definitely from the north. Maybe even directly from Yoshino or one of the towns just outside it. I had started to get a better picture of the relationship between the Song region and the rest of the empire now. I was guessing they didn’t have a great relationship and kinda figured why there were bandits and rebels.

  I looked at the lead guard and nodded my head. “Alright, thank you, sir.”

  He nodded his head. “Just head to the center of the city. If I see Representative Norimoro, I’ll tell him I sent you the right way.”

  I gave a soft slap of the yoke, and Betsy plodded off with an indignant huff and bellow. “Thanks sir!” I called back once we left them.

  Just like in Yoshino, the streets were very small and narrow. It was hard for us to get around the corners, especially once we got closer and closer to the city. I had to get off the wagon and help some shopkeepers move tables and tents in front of their businesses to make room for Betsy to make the turns with our long wagon. Most of them were nice enough since I helped move stuff out of the way and then put it back, but of course there’s always one or two who crotchety fucks.

  I saw the peak of a rounded dome off in the distance that loomed above all the other buildings.

  “Let’s try to stay on this road for as long as possible,” I called up to Betsy.

  She nodded and kept moving along as I looked around. Other than being run down, the people seemed to be in pretty good spirits. Though there was a looming sort of sadness. Looking back, it felt like I was going through working class towns back home. They went along and did their thing and tried not to let the crippling debt and weight of the world bear down on them. They didn’t let the problems show, or tried not to.

  “Oh man, that place is nice,” I gasped when I saw it.

  The monumental building loomed above all the other buildings and was the same color that I was guessing was the official colors of the empire. The walls were black and a deep emerald green that matched the guard’s armor. It had the steepled roofs and looked like something out of a book on ancient Japan. There were various flags that flew in the vertical manor that went along with how their script went, top to bottom instead of the right to left like I was used to.

  Each of the flags had a different crest on it. Nothing really stood out of any of them, but I was guessing one must have been the seal of the Sasuke family that ruled the empire, one must have been a more local crest for the Song Region and maybe one was for the more local area? Though, come to think of it, I was never told the different names of the states that made up the Song Region. Or maybe they called them prefectures here like Japan did? More stuff to figure out. I sighed.

  We kept rolling towards the arena and I noticed that on top of the large arch that you went through to get in was a large golden dragon like a snake. It was coiled around a large mountain and the carver’s made it look like it was flying around it.

  “Betsy, do you see this? It’s huge.”

  I got the impression of her rolling her eyes in response.

  We rolled right up to the front doors, which were closed. The archway was wide enough that two carts our size could fit through it. The doors were wood that was painted black and in front of it were two men holding the polearms that looked like they had a small sword on top of them instead of a spearhead. Naginata? I think that’s what they were called. I wasn’t sure.

  The curious thing about them was that they were dressed in the robes that marked them as a cultivator. The inner was a fabric that had a golden sheen to it, while the outer robe was a deep black. Oh yeah, these guys definitely could have been space knights. They were obviously from the same sect or something, and I wondered why a sect was guarding the sumo arena if cultivators and sumotori didn’t get along.

  “What’s your business at the Lijiang Arena?”

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