Chapter 97: Land of the Raising Sun

Unknown Place, East Coast of Asia

February 20th, 1070

–

Erik and Selena were at the top of a cliff looking at the stretch of sea in from of them.

"So, our next place to visit is on the other side of this sea?"

Selena asked Erik, who nodded his head.

"Yes."

Erik answered shortly.

"And it is the Land ruled by that goddess who is Hestia's friend?"

Selena asked again and Erik nodded his head.

"Yes. Her name is Amaterasu. She is the goddess of the sun and, in a way, the universe in their pantheon. She is the chief-goddess too and rules the pantheon with the help of her brothers Susanoo, god of storms, and Tsukuyomi, god of the moon. Susanoo is Amaterasu twin brother."

Erik said, explaining to Selena a little about the rulers of the next place that they would visit. Some days ago, when they were back at their home in Scotland for Selena's birthday, they had received the visit of their friend Hestia. During their talk, Erik commented that the next place that they would visit would be an island to the east of where they were right now that the natives called Nihon.

At that, Hestia who was munching in a new treat made by Erik using a spice that he had got on an island south of the place they were visiting, got her eyes wide.

"That's Amaterasu's place!"

Hestia said to the couple. Erik nodded at that information.

"I imagined that. I heard stories about the sun's goddess from that place."

Erik said and sipped on his tea. Hestia finished munching on her treat and started to cutely lick the tip of her fingers.

"So good~"

The goddess said while enjoying the aftertaste of the treat.

"It's good that you liked the cinnamons rolls that Erik baked, Hestia."

Selena said to her friend with a smile on her face. She was skeptical when she had seen Erik strip some trees of their barks and gather some seedlings of it, but her mind had changed in an instant when Erik grounded the dry bark in a fine powder and used it to create a lot of new recipes. Cinamon, as the people of that island called it, was a spice that had very good potential. If used in small quantities, of course.

"They are divine!"

The goddess replied, making the couple chuckle at the choice of words.

"Anything that you can tell us about the place that your friend Amaterasu rules?"

Erik asked Hestia. Information was power, after all.

"Hmm… Not much. We really don't talk much about 'work' when we are together. But I do know that they don't meddle too much with the normal population anymore and even the youkai are governed indirectly by them. Takamagahara has five 'blessed' clans that do the spiritual work too, but last time that we had tea Amaterasu complained that their behavior was getting unruly since they stopped meddling with normal people."

Hestia said while munching in another cinnamon roll. An imaginary sweat drop went down the couple's forehead. For someone that Hestia said didn't 'talk much about work', she talked a lot about it. Hestia finished munching in another cinnamon roll and started to lick the tip of her fingers again.

"I will tell her that you are going to visit their land. Peacefully, of course. She will be able to keep an eye open for trouble going your way if I tell her that you were the one that made the cookies that I brought to our last meeting."

Hestia said with a small smile forming on her face. She had Amaterasu hooked on Erik's honey cookies the last time that they had tea. Erik smiled at that. It seemed that most women had an 'addiction' to sweet things and goddesses were not immune to that universal truth.

"Oh, then please do, Hestia. I'll prepare some extra cinnamon rolls for you to eat with her when you both meet again."

Erik said to the goddess and he could swear that he saw Hestia's eyes shine with a vibrant red flame on them.

–

Back to the present time, the couple was still looking at the stretch of sea in front of them.

"So, how we are going to do it?"

Selena asked Erik, who hummed and replied.

"Hmm… We could get there by ship, sailing through the sea but it would not be 'quiet' as a lot of people would see two foreigners arriving. Or…"

Erik said first. From what he could get from the information he had gathered, Nihon was not a good place for foreigners due to the numerous wars that they had with the people living on the continent. Erik then snapped his finger and summoned their flying carpet in front of them.

"... We can fly over the sea and disembark anywhere that we want and mix with the locals."

Erik said to Selena. His idea was to cast over them a spell to make the locals ignore their looks. Something that would have been difficult to do properly if they arrived in the place in a foreign ship. Magic was that strange sometimes.

"Let's fly then."

Selena said and hopped on the unrolled magic carpet. Erik smiled at her and hoppen on it too, sitting by Selena's side. He then took control of the carpet and started to fly them to their new destination.

–

The trip took less than an hour due to the speed of their magic carpet. During their last vacation from vacation, Erik had taken some time to reverse engineer the enchantments and spells are woven into their magic carpet. The result was an improved magic carpet that could fly more than four times its original speed, reaching whoopings three hundred kilometers per hour. It could go fast if more magic was pumped into it, but it had the risk of damaging the enchantments woven in it.

The couple looked at the stretch of land in front of them with anticipation, imagining what new things they would see in that place. During his last life, Erik had visited modern Japan a few times, but this would be a totally new experience for him. After all, he had someone to share the experience with now and it would be a 'medieval' Japan.

Erik maneuvered the carpet through the air following the shoreline in search of a quiet place to land that was, at the same time, near a city or big village and hidden from the view of others. He was not concerned about people seeing them from the ground because of the protective spells that he could turn on when the speed of the magic carpet was lower.

Finally, they found such a place. It was near a city that had a big harbor which was mostly dedicated to fishing boats but had some warships on it too. The magic carpet landed inside a small forest near the city, in a clearing that only had short grass growing on it. Erik was the first one to disembark and immediately spread his sense around the place. To his relief, aside from some small animals, they were alone in the place. Selena jumped off from the magic carpet and into Erik's arms, who sent the magic carpet away with a snap of his fingers. Taking Selena's arms into his, the couple calmly walked out of the small forest and into the city. It was almost lunchtime and they had some stuff to cover before they could have lunch, like which form of currency they used here.

The initial investigation was a quick one due to them being already used to doing that same procedure in every new place that they visited. And, after trading some gold, silver, and precious jewels with some merchants, the couple went to enjoy their lunch with some of the various street booths available in the city

–

Unknown to them, a black-haired beauty was watching their every move while sitting in her throne while munching a cinnamon roll that she had gotten from her dear friend in her last visit.

"Erik and Selena Ravenclaw, hein?"

The black-haired beauty, Amaterasu, the goddess of the sun, murmured in a low voice. Hestia had forgotten to tell them that her friend could see everything in her domain which was touched by the sun's light. The goddess of the sun had seen the couple enter her lands using their magic carpet and concluded that they were the other friends of her dear friend, Hestia, and the ones to bake all those sweet treats.

"Amaterasu-sama."

The goddess was taken out of her thoughts and observation by the voice of one of her subordinates. The woman was waiting for her to answer at the door of the room with a pile of papers in her arms. Amaterasu almost let out a groan seeing that.

"You can enter."

Amaterasu said to her subordinate. It seemed that her break was over and more paperwork awaited her.

–

Weeks quickly passed by and Erik and Selena got used to the new place's customs. Both of them were living in an inn but Erik already had his eyes open and looking for a good location where he could buy and build them a new home away from home. Usually, he was not picky with the location of it, but for some reason, Selena thought that he was being extra picky about their place on the Island.

"Why are being so picky about it, Erik?"

She asked her husband one day.

"Oh. Is more about what the location can offer us. The last places which we had bought land did not have that many variables to take care of, but here, the things are different. Nihon is a volcanic island, meaning that it still has a lot of active volcanos around. Both in the sea and on land. So, our new place can't be too close to the ocean that it would be washed away by a giant wave, or too close to a volcano that could explode under us."

Erik explained to Selena why he was taking his time to choose a new place for them. She had not thought about all that variables before and was happy anyway that her husband was thinking about their future.

'He can be so dependable!'

Selena thought to herself. She would have coughed blood if she knew why Erik was really holding back and putting some effort into this particular piece of land. He wanted to have a particular natural hot spring.

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