Chapter 24

Once the comedic duo of Tenma and Kanako noticed my perturbed expression at how... Childish they were being, Tenma quickly distanced herself from the goddess and cleared her throat awkwardly.

"Lord Moria, may I inquire as to your thoughts on my proposal of having my Tengu people patrol your lands in your name in return, for allowing my people to reside on your lands." Lord Tenma asked respectfully as Kanako behind the Tengu huffed at being left out.

For a moment I thought about her plea for sanctuary on my land and to be honest, her having her Tengu patrolling was completely unnecessary as I could see and feel every single action upon my mountain just as a normal human being could feel someone poking their body, the mountain itself was my body.

But I still wanted people to reside within my sphere of influence as I was wholly incapable of influencing people outside my range of consciousness and having people within that range of control would push them to worship me in some form or another.

"Very well your Tengu's will be allowed to patrol my lands in return for the right to live within my town that I have built or make their own settlement. Either way, I must ask you the most important question." I announced before I leaned forward on my throne and stared at the strongest Tengu of Gensokyo.

"What do you need to know Lord Moria?" She asked respectfully.

"What are you in relation to me? Are you the leader of the powerful Tengu race residing within my lands..." Left unstated how a leader of a powerful race leading said race in the literal example of command dispute between authority figures was going to happen I continued. "Or do you plan on taking some form of office or post that will connect the two of us so that your people will have no confusion as to where we stand between one another?"

Even as Kanako muttered something about crows being sellouts I focused on Tenma who frowned at my wording before she nodded. "I see that despite having a couple of servants in Ram of Yukari and that time-stopping maid you still don't have a priestess. I could be that?" She offered and for a moment I was stunned as I expected her to offer herself as some kind of concubine or something which is so prevalent in Gensokyo's very traditional time-locked culture.

But a Priestess was a gamechanger as I already had a hero in Hiro who was even still providing a great deal of faith to me by telling of me in the human village and when those brats popped out of the teen village girls, he knocked up, then I will get even more faith with the kids still bearing my essence. But a priestess could directly go ahead and convert people to worship me and probably not be a himbo who will get the baby trapped.

Having the leader of the Tengu volunteer for such a role would be perfect as that would bring the Tengu race here in Gensokyo fully under my control.

So, I didn't bother to test or otherwise look a gift horse in the mouth when the petite Tengu humbled herself by kneeling on the ground with her large black wings spreading across the ground like a pool of black shadows.

"Sakuya go to my storage area and bring me two bricks of the dark black marble material and a strip of the divine gold," I ordered the time stopping maid who was behind my throne disappeared, and this time I ignored her act of stepping out of the timeline and allowed her to escape my perception, so she seemingly instantly teleported in front of me with the materials I requested.

"Thank you," I said to the maid, and then even as I noticed Kanako looking gob-smacked at the materials in my hands I ignored her as I looked back to Tenma. "Tenma you use that large staff to fight, correct?" I asked earning a nod from her.

"Lord Tenma, I have heard of your great artifact-creating abilities, but this is a staff made directly by the Buddha I mean absolutely no insult, but I have used this weapon for centuries and I am more than comfortable with it, to say the least." She said most respectfully as she herself seemed to recognize the divine gold as something special.

"Well, that's fine I wasn't planning on making you a weapon, to be honest. One doesn't get to be the strongest in any supernatural race without becoming set in their ways. I was going to make you an artifact that can make your life easier and be a defensive tool." I explained as I melted the black marble-like stone within my hands making Kanako keen as drops of the material escape my hands to fall onto the ground like little black marbles and then I pulled the divine gold into strands to intertwine into the amulet I made in the shape of a medallion.

"This badge of honor and artifact will do three things. It will safeguard your soul against being extinguished should you be wearing it in battle or in other words it will capture your soul should you die. It will alarm me should you die so I can move to restore you to a new body once the amulet teleports back to me. Lastly and more importantly it will act to increase your natural body's essence fivefold at the cost of using twice as much stamina usage when it's activated."

Seeing the large staff made by Buddha himself I very much doubted that the Tengu leader was at heart a spell caster and either way, having your body's reaction time being five times better could make you a much better fighter in any case.

"I am most blessed by your gift my lord," Tenma spoke as she reverently opened her hands to accept the medallion that floated from me into her hands before she pulled it into her diminutive chest feeling Kanako's avaricious gaze upon the artifact.

"Sooo..." Kanako led on as she rubbed her hands together as though expecting me to just gift something to her as well.

"Ah, you are still here Kanako of Moriya Shrine," I said putting emphasis on how she was an unrelated god in my heartland making her face twitch.

"Ah yes Lord Moria I am sure you must have merely been absorbed in making that interesting trinket for little Tenma there. Any who I was wondering if we could trade for some of that divine gold you so generously donated to Reimu who sold it to my shrine." But before I could respond angrily that Reimu was a lazy ass brat who didn't do her shrine maiden duties she coughed and then continued. "But that agreement is a much more interesting material and I was wondering how much such a thing would be worth."

For a moment I was confused as to what she meant before I recalled the black marble-like material, I had just used but then again, I had plenty of it in my mountains influence and hell I even used it as part of my throne due to an interesting thought I had.

"I thought it was just an interesting marble that had some soul manipulation abilities so I decided to make my throne partly out of it so I could sit on the souls of people I killed," I muttered making all the women in the room twitch.

"Well yes it does have potent soul-touching properties but it's typically only found in the Underworld and is strictly controlled by the Devil race in the 'real world' for making their evil pieces. So, it's just weird seeing it here in Gensokyo in all places." Kanako hurriedly explained as she looked at the piece of the now-named leftover Agreasite that I handed back to Sakuya to put away.

"Well, it's interesting to know that devils exist in the Outside world but honestly there's no material thing you have that I want. I want worshippers frankly and as a goddess yourself that's something you most certainly won't be willing to 'give' away... I mean that's the reason your little shrine came to Gensokyo right? The easy faith of people not living in the modern world."

Kanako had no answer to that.

Meanwhile, I was freaking out that the outside world was possibly Highschool DXD and wondering whether the bullshit was going to reach Gensokyo somehow.