Chat group: My Fist of the North Star will never lose!

Chapter 358 Have you ever been a priestess? Some things are just assumptions and nonsense!
"Where's the shrine? Isn't there even a shrine? Where am I supposed to stay for the rest of the time? I took a week off to get here, you know. I'm not going to have to eat out and sleep in the open, am I?"

Seeing the incredulous look on his face, he stood up.

She hadn't expected that her temporary role as a shrine maiden was so temporary. Not only did she lack the deities to worship, but she also couldn't perform Kagura dances, exorcise evil spirits, offer prayers, or perform exorcisms. Surprisingly, she didn't even have a shrine to stay at.

Becoming a shrine maiden from scratch?

But Yakumo Yukari didn't even blink, showing no remorse whatsoever. She shrugged helplessly, then tightly hugged Miko's slender arm, who was a year younger than her, preventing her from leaving.

"Our house is quite big, you can sleep right away after completing the mission, and Lan's cooking is amazing, I guarantee you'll never forget it after just one bite!"

After trying to pull her arm out, Yotsuya Miko, who found herself stuck in the crevices of the sage's chest and almost dislocated, rationally sat down again, behaving like a modern-day high school girl.

But she couldn't help feeling a bit foolish. Even if Yakumo Yukari was a youkai sage, she was still a youkai. Had she ever been a priestess? She had been making assumptions and acting recklessly!
What else could I do? I could only forgive her.

"Then... let me ask first, what does 'forming a bond' mean?"

Seeing that Yakumo Yukari had also sat back down, but kept her folding fan covering her face and her eyes were smiling so much that they were just slits, Miko suddenly had a very bad feeling.

Wasn't it supposed to be that as long as you're a girl, human, and have courage, it's fine? Why did she feel something was off after hearing that word...?

"Well... here's what happened—"

Although she wanted to explain everything in less than twenty words, it was clear that even the sage of youkai didn't have that ability. Yakumo Yukari sighed slightly and explained everything to her shikigami and Miko.

Since the end of the first lunar shattering war hundreds of years ago, Yukari Yakumo, having received spoilers from Jia, began to work on building the future Gensokyo.

She chose a desolate and uninhabited area in the deep mountains of the Far East as the precursor to Gensokyo... In fact, it was next to Yachigatake, the Youkai Mountain, located in the area between Kansai and Kanto in the future, roughly near Nagano and Yamanashi prefectures.

A sparsely populated area inhabited by monsters, with a large concentration of monsters, and even oni and tengu, is naturally extremely dangerous. Unless a human is seriously ill, no one would dare to approach this place.

However, it is clear that as Amaterasu overwhelmed Venus, the human race's fortune rose, and the population increased rapidly. Humans occupied all habitable places at a rate far exceeding the birth of yokai, and gradually expanded into the yokai territory that was once considered absolutely inaccessible.

Centuries later, human settlements and towns gradually emerged in what was once a desolate area inhabited only by monsters and wild beasts, and friction began to arise.

The number of monster attacks on human villages has increased dramatically, and in such situations, humans usually call upon powerful monks, samurai, onmyoji, or shrine maidens to subdue the monsters.

However, this method does not work here.

—The Four Great Demon Kings, the Great Tengu, the Heavenly Demon, the mastermind behind the Hidden God… a host of powerful demons have gathered here, and their very existence, status, prestige, and strength will attract other powerful demons to come.

Even without the intervention of the strong survivors of the lunar war, the slightly stronger monsters who spontaneously gathered here simply because their living space was being squeezed are not people that ordinary human cultivators can deal with.

Even if you gathered all the Onmyoji in the world to fight in a group, it still wouldn't be enough.

This is far beyond the level of being an overabundance.

Because of this, in the Eastern Kingdom, which is home to too many powerful demons, the demons are particularly confident and often devour all humans, destroying villages and towns, so that humans dare not approach this place again—but this is not acceptable.

Youkai exist because of human fear, so if even humans cease to exist, youkai will naturally perish, and the Gensokyo that Yukari Yakumo plans to build will vanish into thin air.

Someone must stop the behavior of the lower-level monsters so that mortals can continue to live here and humans and monsters can coexist. And that person must also be human!
It cannot be a monster, nor a god; apart from beings that are themselves human, no other being can serve as the "protector" of the humans here.

Otherwise, humanity will either quickly lose its fear of monsters or quickly offer its faith to the gods.

For example, Yukari Yakumo would never allow those two gods from the neighboring Suwa region to extend their reach here, to wantonly collect human faith in the territory she has painstakingly cultivated for so long, and to completely turn this place into a human sphere of influence.

The same applies to other major publishing houses; otherwise, it would be pointless.

Therefore, Yukari Yakumo's idea is that the protectors of the humans in Gensokyo in the future should be fair and just, and they should be from their own community.

"Didn't Jagi say that wild witches would come to act as protectors in the future?" Miko asked curiously, a question that had been on her mind for a long time.

The fact that the words "wild" and "shrine maiden" could be put together was truly an eye-opener for her.

If a shrine maiden is the wife of a god, how could there be a shrine maiden who has no faith in a god?
"Actually, we've already found it..." The golden-haired Boundary Youkai suddenly closed his folding fan, and his expression became somewhat strange.

“We recently found a shrine maiden with powerful spiritual energy. Moreover, the god she worships is the Dragon God, who has no need for faith and doesn’t care much about worldly affairs. Consequently, the shrine maidens under her are not very persistent in collecting faith… You could say she’s no different from a wild shrine maiden.”

Unexpectedly, there really is.

"That's a shrine maiden from the Hakurei Shrine. She's named after Hakurei and is skilled at exorcising yokai. Moreover, there's a powerful exorcising family under the shrine called 'Miyaguchi-gumi,' which is considered quite formidable among humans..."

"Then why don't you look for her?" Jianzi pressed.

"Idiot!" Yukari Yakumo lightly tapped the girl's head with her folding fan and said irritably, "How am I supposed to summon her here out of thin air? Am I supposed to say that the Youkai Sage asked them to protect humanity and exorcise the Youkai, and then they'll disappear into the void in a flash? There's no way I'd believe that!"

“That’s true.” Jianzi nodded thoughtfully, then seemed to have figured something out and exclaimed in sudden realization, “So my role is to set an example, right?”

—Using Miko's existence to prove to that wild shrine maiden that Yakumo Yukari was not lying, and to prove that she was indeed pursuing the path of coexistence between humans and yokai, is the only way to cooperate with her.

"Moreover, you have an advantage that she can't match." The sage of demons changed the subject and snorted softly, "No matter how strong she is, it's useless. She can't possibly deal with all the demons and great demons in the region. Any demon king could easily defeat her if he used his full strength."

At this point, Yukari Yakumo blinked and revealed a mysterious smile.

“But you are different, Miko… You only need to convey the message that ‘a priestess will protect humanity’ to those low-level monsters, and stop their current excessive behavior. The powerful ones will not, and dare not, attack you first.”

"Ah?"

Jianzi couldn't believe she possessed such a unique quality. Aside from her mastery of the Southern Dipper Fist and her ability to see ghosts, her only extraordinary trait was… knowing Jia Ji. Now she understood, because—

The most powerful monsters have basically all been beaten up by that guy.

Any powerful yokai with even a modicum of reason would refrain from provoking this human shrine maiden named Yotsuya Miko, should they hear that she is connected to the man who once flew to the moon.

Whether it's out of consideration for past favors or for one's own life, it's the same.

Yukari Yakumo's voice suddenly rose, and her tone became impassioned, "So, as long as you have enough courage, Miko, you can definitely do it! Use your fists to forge bonds with those low-level youkai! I'll be cheering you on from behind!"

Seeing that Zi nodded helplessly, all she could think of was that they were bound by fate, and in the end, it was exactly the same as what she had imagined—

"I guess I still have to use fist techniques!"

...........................

The morning sun wasn't too strong, and it felt warm on people. Just as Yukari Yakumo had said, it was a season of falling cherry blossoms and clear skies. Although she was dressed rather "lightly," the black-haired girl, who was temporarily a shrine maiden, didn't feel cold.

Of course, this is also due to her efforts to exercise. Even if a sudden downpour were to soak her to the bone, she wouldn't catch a cold or fever as easily as she used to.

Even though her slender, fair limbs didn't seem to have much strength, her physique, enhanced by her battle qi, had long surpassed that of a normal human, whether it was wrist strength, arm strength, or leg strength.

At this moment, she was on her way to complete her latest request—to defeat three heart-eating tengu on the monster mountain.

The reward was a meal personally prepared by the golden-haired nine-tailed fox girl.

However, although the area that Yakumo Yukari mentioned was not large, merely a place for youkai to hide and escape the world, that was in the eyes of the youkai sage whose activity range was the entire Earth.

For a young girl who can only walk, being thrown out of a place where she was lost and then randomly pointed in a direction, and then moving forward in this unfamiliar place is not easy.

If it weren't for the fact that the Monster Mountain is so conspicuous in this place, she would probably be lost by now.

"Yukari Yakumo, give me a hunting permit!"

Although Miko really wanted to complain about Yakumo Yukari's disregard for low-level youkai, she wasn't even from this world and had no right to say that. She just needed to focus on doing her own thing.

Wearing footwear unique to this era, the girl walked with incredible speed. The rugged terrain, various protruding rocks, vegetation, and slippery moss would make ordinary people walk with trepidation, but she could see them all clearly and avoid them with ease.

The figure moving towards its destination in the morning light possessed both the cool elegance of a shrine maiden and the vivacity of a young girl, prompting a heartfelt sigh from a 17-year-old girl who was secretly watching from the side.

"How youthful!"

…………

They ran from early morning until almost noon when Jian Zicai finally arrived at his first stop.

She was slightly sweating, but not very tired. After catching her breath a few times, the girl prepared to continue, but before she could, a voice came from behind her.

"He who comes is stopped."

Beautiful, dignified, and full of heroic spirit.

The girl who walked out from the foot of the mountain had a pair of snow-white, furry ears on her head. As she spoke, her ears would twitch from time to time, making it clear that they were not just decorations.

Upon closer inspection, it was revealed that not only her ears, but also a white tail behind her, making her look like a white wolf.

"White Wolf Tengu...?"

Seeing her appearance, Jianzi revealed the name of this kind of monster. It was a low-ranking existence in the Monster Mountain, but as long as it was a monster, it was an opponent she could not underestimate.

This girl is a rare type that doesn't evoke the word "cute." She holds a shield in her left hand, adorned with crimson maple leaf patterns, and a long, gleaming sword in her right, as if she's patrolling the foot of the mountain.

His sharp appearance and heroic bearing, along with his long, flowing white hair like a wolf's mane, and his alert and wary eyes, gave him a sharp and ruthless impression.

Although she's not on the kill list, judging from the current situation, if we don't defeat her, we probably won't be able to get through.

"Miko?"

The white-haired girl with dog ears asked with a hint of confusion, "But why are you dressed like this?"

The well-fitting shrine maiden outfit perfectly outlined the girl's slightly undulating curves. The wide white sleeves swayed in the wind, creating a unique sense of elegance. The short red hakama skirt revealed her slender calves and white tabi socks, along with her long, straight black hair tied into a single ponytail with a red ribbon, and her dazzling golden eyes that seemed to embody divine power.

—Apart from showing her armpits, she is a perfectly qualified shrine maiden.

But... no matter how you look at it, showing your armpits is still strange, even from a monster's perspective.

The doubt lasted only a moment before the dog-eared girl's eyes hardened. "No matter who you are, I will not let you pass!"

Don't focus on this right away!

The "Red and White Priestess" blushed instantly at the other party's words, and the huge red bow on her chest swayed with her sudden step. She had already made her move!

Advanced techniques of Nandou Jade Fist —

Southern Dipper White Heron Fist - Illusionary Palm!
Because of the violent movement, a thin notebook fell out of her arms, with a few words vaguely visible on it, which seemed to be the "Book of Friends".

(End of this chapter)