Chapter 148: Chatting in the Wooden House

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Entering the door was the living room. There was no sofa, no dining table, no furniture of any kind.

The only thing that could barely be called a decoration was a floor-to-ceiling window that framed the snowfield.

“Please sit wherever you like,” Rikka said.

Minamoto Kiyomoto and Himegami Izayoi looked at each other, both asking each other: Where to sit?
The two of them turned their heads at the same time and looked at Kamibayashi Miko. Kamibayashi Miko walked to the floor-to-ceiling window and admired the natural snow scene painting.

“I see,” Minamoto Kiyomoto punched his left palm with his right fist. “As long as you pretend to be looking at the scenery, you can stall for time and see how others sit.”

Kamibayashi Miko glanced over here.

“I was just talking nonsense,” Minamoto Kiyomoto raised his right leg, then his left leg, and floated in the air with his legs crossed.

“What kind of sitting posture is that?” Himegami Izayoi couldn’t help but laugh.

“You can retract your divine power. It’s not cold in the house,” Rikka said again.

The golden light, like sparks from a splashing bonfire, disappeared into the air. Kamibayashi Miko felt the room temperature, then took off the clothes she had bought in the morning, wearing only a sweater.

The sweater was very close-fitting, outlining the curves of her body. In this way, the pure and otherworldly goddess also inevitably became graceful and alluring, captivating people’s hearts.

“I thought you were deliberately training in the severe cold,” Himegami Izayoi also retracted her flame-colored divine power.

“I’m not a diligent person,” Rikka knelt on the wooden floor. “I came here to keep myself from being distracted. I didn’t bring anything. When I’m bored and have nothing to do, I’ll train. The reason the room is warm is so that I don’t stay in bed all the time.”

Himegami Izayoi also sat down on the floor.

Rikka opened the dessert they had bought, placed it between the two of them, and made a gesture of “please eat.”

The person was very beautiful, and the scenery outside was also very beautiful, but the scene was so simple that it made one feel sad.

“So what,” Minamoto Kiyomoto maintained his cross-legged posture and slowly descended from mid-air. “Back then, Shakyamuni also gave up the nobility of a prince, abandoned his seven-treasure chariot, and ran to the deep forest by the Abhami River. After that, he even gave away the clothes on his body before he could concentrate on his training.”

“Am I as amazing as Shakyamuni?” Rikka asked.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely more amazing than him,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said with a laugh.

“Nonsense,” Kamibayashi Miko walked over and sat down, folding her clothes and placing them by her feet.

“Wishful thinking,” Himegami Izayoi picked up a dessert and ate it to pass the time.

“It’s not to be taken seriously. Forget it after you say it,” Minamoto Kiyomoto nodded. “But a person who dares to say he is more amazing than Shakyamuni is completely different from a person who thinks he is definitely not as amazing as him.”

The Hokkaido Miko nodded. She was about to say something when the sound of water boiling came from what was probably the kitchen.

“There’s only hot water. Do you want some?” she asked as she stood up.

“Lower the temperature to a little hot,” Himegami Izayoi picked up a second dessert and handed a piece to Minamoto Kiyomoto.

A few seconds after the Hokkaido Miko left, the whistling of the kettle stopped.

The whole world seemed to be left with only the sound of Himegami Izayoi’s light chewing, so quiet it was almost eerie.

Rikka had been in such an environment until May of the following year, and it was like this every year. Minamoto Kiyomoto couldn’t help but admire her.

Thinking about it carefully, Kamibayashi Miko had lived in the secret realm of Hakusan Shrine since she was a child, living a life even more boring than that of ancient people.

Himegami Izayoi was the same. As the noble “Lord of Kyoto,” she had no trouble adapting after moving into the secret realm of Hakusan Shrine.

By analogy, those Shinto Lords, shrine maidens, Kasen, and even the leaders of the Shinto sect probably also lived a life of asceticism—most of them probably not as extreme as the Hokkaido Miko.

Don’t underestimate anyone, Minamoto Kiyomoto said to himself in his heart.

There weren’t even any cups here. The Hokkaido Miko made four out of ice.

Thus, the son of the innkeeper’s wife, the shrine maiden of the first shrine in Hokkaido, the Divine Medium who had existed since the age of myths, and the “Lord of Kyoto” drank bland hot water and ate the dessert they had bought.

“Are we disturbing you?” Kamibayashi Miko said.

“If you hadn’t come, I wouldn’t be training at this time either,” Rikka shook her head and replied.

“What do you usually do?” Himegami Izayoi blew gently on the hot water.

“Daydream, daydream until even daydreaming becomes boring.”

“I thought you were hard to get along with. It turns out you’re such an interesting person,” Minamoto Kiyomoto clapped his hands and laughed.

Rikka tilted her head, not understanding his meaning of “hard to get along with.”

“I have a few questions for you,” she said.

“Not lovers, have kissed, haven’t done it,” Minamoto Kiyomoto replied.

“…Hmm?” Rikka showed a doll-like confusion.

“This guy has already forgotten about the first time we met, when she buried me in the dirt,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said to the other two.

“What do you want to know?” Kamibayashi Miko looked at Rikka.

Minamoto Kiyomoto’s gaze turned to Himegami Izayoi. Himegami Izayoi, while eating dessert, looked at Rikka.

“Humph, they’re ignoring me,” Minamoto Kiyomoto muttered and drank the hot water.

The water temperature was boiling hot, but not only could his eyes shoot red light, but recently, even his mouth could spit dragon’s breath. All aspects of his body were getting stronger and stronger.

His temperament had also changed a little. Although his figure still looked thin, he gave off a very imposing feeling.

“What do you train for?” the Hokkaido Miko asked.

“To protect the world,” Kamibayashi Miko replied.

“To unify the world,” Himegami Izayoi said.

“That’s not your real purpose,” the Hokkaido Miko said. “Putting aside your identity, what does Kamibayashi Miko want to do, and what does Himegami Izayoi want the most?”

“How do you know it’s not?” Minamoto Kiyomoto asked curiously.

“I was born there,” Rikka pointed at the snowfield outside the floor-to-ceiling window.

“What does that have to do with anything?” Himegami Izayoi took a bite of her dessert.

“Wait,” Minamoto Kiyomoto raised his hand. “You were born there? In a place that’s minus forty degrees?”

“I don’t know where I was born. Maybe I was placed here after I was born. My master found me in the snow. It’s okay to say I was born here,” Rikka explained calmly.

The living room, which had nothing, was silent for a while. The most comfortable and leisurely one was Rikka herself.

“What does where you were born have to do with knowing what we really want?” Himegami Izayoi asked again.

“When I was buried in the snow, I saw a red-crowned crane. I hadn’t started training then, but I could already see shikigami,” Rikka took a sip of water.

“So you can see through a person’s capacity, sense a person’s… complexion, and whether they’re telling the truth?” Minamoto Kiyomoto guessed.

“It’s just a vague feeling,” Rikka put down the ice cup. “What is the purpose of your training?”

“Besides unifying the world, I really don’t know what I’m training for. Could it be to protect the world?” Himegami Izayoi laughed. “What about you, Miko?”

Kamibayashi Miko’s pure and beautiful face showed a thoughtful expression. She didn’t speak.

“What about you,” Himegami Izayoi turned her gaze to Minamoto Kiyomoto.

“To see what I can do,” Minamoto Kiyomoto had nothing to think about.

This was not so much the purpose of his training as the direction of his life—he had thought so before he started training.

“I don’t know what I want to do,” Rikka said. “I don’t even have something I’m not really interested in doing, like ‘saving the world’.”

“If you don’t want to do anything, then you can do anything. Help us deal with the Coral Demon Moth?” Minamoto Kiyomoto immediately tried to persuade her.

Rikka thought for a moment and asked, “What’s in it for me?”

“Are you that kind of person?” Minamoto Kiyomoto said in surprise.

“If I don’t want to do something, of course I have to ask if there’s any benefit.”

“The matter of Lake Shikotsu, we didn’t get any benefit either, but we still helped you, didn’t we?”

“The Divine Medium wanted to come. You’re pursuing the Divine Medium and want to have children with her. Isn’t that a benefit?” Rikka asked back.

Kamibayashi Miko, who had been in deep thought, looked up.

“…If I haven’t gotten her, does it count as a benefit?” Minamoto Kiyomoto said gloomily.

“She risked her life to save you. You’ll have children sooner or later,” Rikka said faintly, then added, “Himegami Izayoi too.”

“From today on, Rikka, you are my real sister! No, how old are you?”

“21. I’m not interested in being your sister,” Rikka refused without any emotion. “But purely as a woman, I have the idea of getting close to you.”

Kamibayashi Miko drank her water in small sips. Himegami Izayoi looked at Minamoto Kiyomoto with a cold smile.

“I… you know why I don’t want to stay, right?” he said helplessly.

“Because she will fall in love with you, and you will fall in love with her?” Himegami Izayoi asked.

“No, and the latter part is superfluous. Let me think, how should I put it… it’s like: a mother gives birth to a child, and this child looks like a monkey, but everyone will praise the child for being cute. Only Rikka will hand that child a banana.”

“Haha!” Himegami Izayoi’s tense face suddenly broke into a smile.

Kamibayashi Miko also put down her water cup, a smile on her lips.

Rikka looked at Minamoto Kiyomoto quietly for a while.

She turned her head, her white hair, which was draped over her back, twisting with her. She said to Kamibayashi Miko and Himegami Izayoi:
“I can help you, on the condition that he sleeps with me for one night.”

“Let’s go back,” Himegami Izayoi clapped her hands lightly. She had already finished her dessert.

“Thank you for coming to see me,” Rikka nodded.

“Don’t be in a hurry. Wait a minute. I have a question,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said.

“Is Master Kiyo moved?” Himegami Izayoi asked with a smile.

“Am I a person who can’t stand the test?”

“I don’t know who, at first liked one person, couldn’t stand the test, and now likes two people,” Kamibayashi Miko said casually.

Himegami Izayoi took out a folding fan from her waist, opened the fan bones one by one, and blocked the vixen’s smug smile.

Considering her identity, vixen was not quite appropriate. It was more appropriate to say ‘a female emperor who brings disaster to the country and the people’.

“I never make the same mistake twice in the same place,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said.

“But you’ll make it three times?” Himegami Izayoi tilted her neck and asked playfully.

“Don’t mess around,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said with a laugh. He ignored the two of them and asked Rikka, puzzled, “Do you often sleep with men?”

“Never.”

“Then why did you propose that kind of condition?”

“This is the banana I’m handing to Kamibayashi Miko and Himegami Izayoi.”

“…I apologize for the joke just now,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said sincerely.

“I told you not to talk nonsense and not to listen to me,” Kamibayashi Miko laughed, watching the fun.

“That was just a joke, an exaggeration, an example to show her frankness,” Minamoto Kiyomoto was very helpless.

“Can we change the condition?” he asked Rikka.

“Let me think,” the Hokkaido Miko said, drinking her tea.

The living room, which had nothing, became quiet again.

Kamibayashi Miko stood up, walked to the floor-to-ceiling window, and looked at the scenery outside.

On the distant, majestic snow mountain, white clouds rolled. The sunlight shone into the clouds, dazzling, more beautiful than any painting in the world.

She couldn’t help but start thinking again about what she really wanted.

She couldn’t have feelings, yet she was close to a shikigami;
At Heian Shrine, when she heard her father ask her to get close to Minamoto Kiyomoto, her confusion;
Time and time again, she agreed to Minamoto Kiyomoto and did intimate things with him;

After knowing that she had fallen in love with him, the sadness of having to leave him;

Kamibayashi Miko abandoned all her feelings and analyzed herself with reason, and she knew what she wanted.

She wanted to have feelings, to experience family affection, to let go of everything and be with Minamoto Kiyomoto.

She wanted to do some selfish things. No matter how dangerous the situation, she wanted to keep him by her side. Even if she died, she wanted to take him with her.

But she couldn’t.

She was the Divine Medium.

What the Divine Medium wanted was only to protect the world, and then die in a certain battle.

Minamoto Kiyomoto couldn’t be with her either. He had his mother, Izayoi, and a goal that he had to be alive to achieve.

‘If I die, how long will he remember me? When he’s old, will he still remember the shrine maiden he met when he was nineteen?’ Kamibayashi Miko asked herself.

“Where do we sleep tonight?” Himegami Izayoi asked Rikka.
“I’ve already had a shikigami send over some blankets. They’ll be here soon,” Rikka replied.

Kamibayashi Miko, who was deep in thought by the window, was startled by the sound of flapping wings. She looked up and saw a group of red-crowned cranes landing gracefully on the snow in front of the wooden house.

Some were carrying bedding, others were carrying insulated boxes, bringing food and daily necessities.

The red-crowned crane at the front pushed open the wooden door with its head and walked in with elegant steps. The other red-crowned cranes followed closely behind.

They put down the things one by one, then lined up and went out.

They didn’t fly away, but went to the east of the plain, where there was a lake with mist rising from it. It seemed to be a hot spring.

In the mist, the red-crowned cranes either strolled on the water surface or danced gracefully, like a fairyland.

“Slender necks, slender long legs, truly creatures untouched by dust,” Minamoto Kiyomoto walked to her side and praised.

“Mhm, very beautiful,” Kamibayashi Miko said, looking at the red-crowned cranes.

“I was talking about you,” Minamoto Kiyomoto turned to look at her.

Kamibayashi Miko withdrew her gaze and glanced at him, “Izayoi is also here. Is it okay to say sweet things to me?”

“What’s not okay?” Minamoto Kiyomoto was very frank. “I like you, and I’m trying to get your consent now. This is a clear fact. To bury my head in the snow, to be restrained as if I’m only pursuing one person, to be纠结this and that from time to time, that’s not my style.”

“Miko, don’t be fooled,” Himegami Izayoi said with a charming laugh. “Absurd things, when they come out of his mouth, actually give people a feeling of honesty. You have to remember his fickle nature.”

“And then let the two of you be together?” Kamibayashi Miko turned back and said with a smile.

“Then thank you for your withdrawal.”

“Hey, I don’t agree with this. You’re good, she’s good, they’re all mine,” Minamoto Kiyomoto said.

Rikka had been watching the three of them, “Since that’s the case, adding me won’t be a big deal.”

“Why don’t we just count her in? The three of us will be safer together in the future,” Kamibayashi Miko said to Minamoto Kiyomoto.

“Are you serious?” Minamoto Kiyomoto asked.

Kamibayashi Miko’s hand chopped at Minamoto Kiyomoto’s side.

“I didn’t say anything, did I?” he dodged and said with a laugh.

Himegami Izayoi waved her fan lightly, and a fire fan in a kimono appeared in the room.

“Go and make the bed,” Himegami Izayoi ordered.

The fire fan nodded in agreement, then bowed to the other three and prepared to make the bed.

“By the way, just make the bed for me and Miko. Let Minamoto Kiyomoto do his own.”

“Wait!” Minamoto Kiyomoto called out to the fire fan. “Fire fan, you have to think carefully. If you don’t help me make the bed now, when I and Izayoi sleep together in the future, I’ll be talking bad about you all day.”

“So spineless, threatening a shikigami,” Himegami Izayoi scolded.

“You see, Izayoi didn’t refute that I would sleep with her, nor did she refute that she would listen to me talk bad about you.”

The fire fan looked at its master.

“Go on,” Himegami Izayoi was helpless and impatient.

She knew herself very well. If Minamoto Kiyomoto really wanted to talk bad about someone to her, she would definitely deal with that person.

She was very strange. She had never realized before that as a monarch, she couldn’t escape Minamoto Kiyomoto’s male charm.

Was it because she hadn’t gotten him, so she cared too much?