Business

[Meanwhile, back in Mount Miwa, Nara prefecture]

"Damnit, you can't trust sssnakesss!" Ōmononushi hissed as he wrought his hands and fumed in fury, while Alex and Yata kept out of his way, both happy just to get out of the makeshift laboratory within the mountain.

Alex bit his lips at the mention of snakes, as Yata choked on the ironic comment. Ōmononushi himself is a serpent being. They looked away when he glanced in their direction.

Orochi executed his escape well. Alex marvelled at how he could swagger up the platform and disappear before Ōmononushi can stop him.

"Shit," Ōmononushi swore. "Fucking snake!"

Alex nudged Yata, who sat by his side in silence, and asked in a whisper, "why doesn't he report it to Takamagahara? I mean, if a prisoner escape…"

Ōmononushi caught his words, arms akimbo, and said, "Can't betray a fellow snake."

Betrayal is definitely not in Ōmononushi's dictionary, Alex thought.

What Orochi did is a betrayal of trust, even if being imprisoned and persecuted are compelling reasons to escape.

"Politics too," Ōmononushi said. "Orochi and us are Jomons. Takamagahara will see it as a collusion with him, even if I am honest with them."

"I wonder where he went…" Yata mused. "He can't go to Youdu."

Ōmononushi sat on the boulder, watching two hikers with the white sashes tied around their waists, walking past the three of them, unaware of their presence.

Youdu city is out of the question. The tracer detected five different areas within the Hidden Dimension. Ōmononushi knew Orochi masked his trail for a reason, even from the Mishakuji. So much for being old pals.

A place popped into Ōmononushi's head. Then he shook it off. Impossible.

"Maybe to his home world?" Alex suggested.

"Unlikely, that's like entering the Void," Ōmononushi waived his suggestion aside with a wave of his hand.

"The Void?" Alex asked. "I thought that's a prison."

Ōmononushi's eyes turned to the three hikers approaching the trail towards the boulder, which marked a winding route upwards, while he furrowed his eyebrows, as though reminiscing a memory.

"What you human call black holes swallowed the planetary system we used to live in," Ōmononushi said slowly. "Nothing exists there. Not even a veil. Just one big black hole."

Worlds destroyed by an imploding star or hit by a massive asteroid still can keep their characteristics, if the star doesn't turn into a black hole. The veil still exists between the hidden dimension and the ruined planets. Just not theirs.

No one remembered when the complete destruction of their home world's existence happened. The bad news came too sudden and too late. A search for survivors started but turned up no traces. Not even a transport ship.

Orochi, Ōmononushi and the other senior Mishakuji underwent the final evolution a few millennia before the mass extinction event.

There are no stars to remind Ōmononushi of home. Just one big black hole remains. Only sake and peaches on Earth bore a semblance to some products of their extinct world. Ōmononushi wondered if Kanghui's kind met with the same fate.

Too busy looking after a budding Earth then to return to the homeland which he will never see again. Never to feel the warm breeze while watching the three moons orbiting around his former planet of a home world and never to slither up the gargantuan trees with their unusual reddish leaves and their peach-like scented jujubes.

"Ohhh…" Alex's voice trailed away. An awkward moment of silence followed, for he didn't know what to say. One death of a loved one is bad enough, but no consolatory words could console someone who suffered the total annihilation of his home world and people.

Heck, Alex couldn't imagine what he would feel if Earth ended that way.

A panting hiker drew Ōmononushi's attention to a small group of three male middle aged hikers making their way around the boulder.

The panting hiker is a plump man with a visible pot belly protruding from his jacket, heaving his chest with each step, and wiping the beads of sweat off his brows.

Ōmononushi grumbled in disgust and flung a wisp of glowing white energy at the man. "Fatty, obesity isn't good for the heart. Neither is drinking too much sake."

"W-w-hat's that?" Alex blurted out, pointing at the wisp which surrounded the fat man with a white aura.

Then he realised he shouldn't.

Ōmononushi's face has blackened after their chat.

"A guarantee that he doesn't collapse and die on MY mountain," Ōmononushi muttered.

The fat man stopped in the middle of the way around the boulder and looked up in their direction. Then he gasped in surprise.

"A white snake!" He called out to the other two men ahead of him and they halted to gaze up.

"Did he just spot us!" Yata jumped up while Ōmononushi snickered at how naïve Yata was.

"No. They just spotted an illusion of a white snake," Ōmononushi said while the three men gathered with their mouth agape before proceeding to bow to the boulder. "That's what they came up to see."

The three men gathered together and discussed amongst themselves. They continued to look upwards intermittently. Then they turned around and headed down the mountain.

"Return," Ōmononushi ordered and the wisp immediately flew back to him, entering his fingertip. "I hate to see dead bodies and lingering souls on my mountain."

"Why?" Yata said.

"Just priests coming up here, disturbing my peace to do their ritual cleansing." Ōmononushi shuddered at the thought of the hullabaloo during the elaborate set up for those rituals and the human traffic, which trampled all over the peaceful mountain. "Not like it helps to clear the souls, but we let them think it does."

"But you could have gotten a soul stone from a ghost," Yata muttered.

"I don't do that to my believers who support me with human currency. Besides, Yomi-no-Kuni and Avici supplies us with more soul energy than we need," Ōmononushi answered. "Besides, the fat man donates a lot to our shrine from his business. Every year, his top executives will come by and do a ritual prayer."

"Oh, so that's how Shamoji gets his Lexus," Yata rubbed his chin.

Ōmononushi winked at him. "A Lexus IS nothing. But I have a lot of mouths to feed. Hakura and the rest have expenses. Besides, you do well under Kanghui, even without her shrine."

"She is rich in the human world because of the share markets and her other businesses in Hong Kong," Yata said.

"Wait, she does what in Hong Kong?" Alex asked, curious about how they could afford so many material items in human society.

"She owns a few shell companies which do legit trades like stocks and forex, some popular fengshui and exorcism advisory company and two exclusive clubs, which the triads and other businessmen patronise," Yata replied.

"Fengshui and Exorcism company?" Alex tilted his head and cringed.

"Makes millions in a year," Yata replied. "Too many superstitious humans, but it isn't a scam. She makes their problems go away with the help of some ancients, like Jiuwei."

Businesses, clubs and stocks boggled Alex's mind and the mention of millions, an amount he would not likely live to see if he was still alive.

He wondered about what would happen if the human businesses knew they were dealing with primeval beings, the very ones who masqueraded as gods in human society.

"Exorcism is big business in East Asia. Very underground too. Some of the Shinto priests charge an arm and a leg," Ōmononushi said.

"But are they effective or just scamming?" Alex asked.

"Some are scams. Some are real. The human you hear talking to himself in the street is mentally ill, or bothered by ancients or ghosts…," Yata said.

"Majority of cases who are not mental have a ghost problem. Fully evolved beings rarely bother with humans unless offended." Ōmononushi shrugged.

"Yata, what other things do you do?" Alex enquired out of curiosity.

Yata tapped his cheek with his index finger and replied, "Stocks and the occasional hostess bars to audit their accounts."

"You can perform account auditing?"

Yata raised his eyebrow at Alex's words. "What do you mean? I did all the accounts since the Edo period. Just a matter of adapting to every new method they introduced over centuries, including using the computers."

"Much easier with the human computers," Ōmononushi chuckled.

"We started off with abacus," Yata said. "Manual calculations. Then electronic calculators and book keeping. Computers are easier. They automate most of the jobs we used to do. No need to flip pages to balance the account."

"So what will I do if I follow her?"

Yata thought for a bit, and replied, "You can't be part of the operations, though. Maybe stocks in the future."

"Heh, why do you say that? Jiuwei is not exactly Japanese to begin with," Alex pointed out.

"He understands the written language very well, enough to comprehend the technical documents and contracts in Japanese," Yata snapped at Alex.

Alex sighed. Yata made a strong point about his poor Japanese reading skills.

During his human life as an archaeological researcher, Alex relied heavily on an expert in ancient Japanese and Chinese languages to help decipher ancient scripts.

"Not necessarily. International business transactions require English," Ōmononushi added as he glanced with sympathy at Alex. "I imagine Kanghui would have plans. But the news is out. Xitian wants her on a platter."

"She is in trouble?" Alex and Yata jumped up at the news, realising that they have not seen her for a while.

With a sly grin, Ōmononushi replied, "I don't think she is in trouble. Xitian may be in for trouble, knowing Kanghui as much as I do."