This One I Know!

Sagiyama Castle, Tenshu.

It was clearly much smaller in scale than Inabayama Castle, but it had still been maintained quite well. After all, this castle was where Saito Dosan planned to retire. Even if he himself did not care, his subordinates would not dare treat it carelessly.

Precisely because Saito Dosan had chosen it as his retirement residence, the castle currently had no lord—or rather, its lord was Saito Dosan himself. It was just that the Viper had not moved in yet... Thus, carrying Saito Dosan's written appointment, the group of three rather smoothly took temporary control of Sagiyama Castle's highest seat of power.

They encountered no obstruction.

"Because Lord Dosan is the castle lord to begin with, and before Lord Dosan comes here, the place is supposed to remain vacant..." Tokichiro explained. "If we could not even get in from the start, that would not be obstruction. That would be open defiance."

That made sense...

Gu Mo stood atop the Tenshu watchtower, gazing out at the distant scenery and overlooking the castle below. Once again, he regretted that his phone had run out of battery so early... If he had known, he should have brought a power bank. Though given how long this had been, one or two probably would not have helped much.

Bringing any more than that was not very practical either. Unless an item was recognized by the system, it could not be placed in the inventory. He could hardly run around carrying over a dozen pounds of those things.

"But we will definitely face resistance later. Even if those people speak nicely to our faces because of our current status, there is no telling what they may do in secret..." Tokichiro continued with a wry smile. He understood very well that even a small village, while perhaps not divided into numerous factions, would still have several distinct interest groups.

Families with many members would naturally try to control the village's benefits and seize greater influence, invisibly harming the interests of those smaller households. So there was even less need to mention a castle much larger than a village or town. Besides, Sagiyama Castle was not some newly built castle.

The local powers and old interest groups had developed alongside the castle to this day. While they formed an important part of Sagiyama Castle, they had long since become deeply entrenched and hopelessly tangled together.

"Smiling obedience, secret defiance. Perfectly normal. That sort of thing has always existed. Everyone has their own thoughts, after all."

Gu Mo nodded lightly. He knew that was what Monkey meant, though his tone remained calm. His strange gaze rested on the city below, and no one knew what he was thinking.

"The main problem is that we are not Lord Dosan. We lack his prestige. If we want to accomplish anything, we will still need the cooperation of these local people." Tokichiro chuckled, trying to sound as optimistic as possible. "If we persuade them properly and guarantee that their own interests will not be harmed, there should not be any problem..."

At the end of the day, it all came down to interests and positions—

Those people were not opposing them merely for the sake of opposition. They were mainly worried that changes would damage their own interests. So long as concessions were made in that regard, promises were given, and those who might have stood on the opposing side were turned into allies of their own camp...

Then resistance could instead become assistance. That was how Tokichiro saw it. It was not merely a limitation of the era, because whether in the past or the future, the world operated according to such rules.

"Ah, there is no rush..." Gu Mo nodded, but he seemed noncommittal. He neither objected nor agreed, as though he had some other idea in mind.

Monkey opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but stopped himself in time. He carefully studied the expression of the person before him and felt that Gu Mo seemed to have his own plans. Since that was the case, there was no need for him to keep urging him. Saying too much would only become annoying.

Besides, they had only arrived here today. Taking over and properly managing Sagiyama Castle required gradual progress. They could not be impatient for quick success. Wanting to settle everything in one stroke before understanding anything was clearly unrealistic.

"Ahem, then Brother Gu Mo, shall I go gather some information first?"

With that thought, Tokichiro set aside his previous train of thought. He worked hard to put on a friendly expression, though on his face, it somehow always carried an extra hint of lechery.

"No need to rush. It is already getting late today. Go tomorrow." Gu Mo turned around, looked Monkey up and down, then waved his hand as he sighed inwardly.

Coming from a future society where everyone was equal—or at least where everyone was nominally equal, and equal in most ordinary situations—he was rather sensitive to such things. Whether someone was deliberately arrogant or lowering themselves, he could tell quite clearly.

Perhaps Monkey was simply accustomed to the survival rules of this era and accepted them as a matter of fact. That was why he did not find anything wrong with them. He would even actively conform to those rules and seek opportunities through them.

Flattery, ingratiation, cautiousness, striving to seize every opportunity in order to rise above others. Even after receiving an opportunity, he would remain anxious over gains and losses, constantly worried that things might change before they were finalized. Yet repeatedly asking for confirmation might annoy people, so he could only switch methods and probe indirectly for reassurance.

Gu Mo had no taste for that. Nor did Monkey's changed attitude—from frank and open at the beginning to needing to please him—make him swell with pride. Instead, it made him feel strangely uncomfortable.

"It is fine, it is fine. There is still plenty of time, is there not? I will just go see what the situation is..."

Hearing that Gu Mo wanted it done tomorrow rather than that he did not need him to do it, Tokichiro immediately felt reassured. Beaming, he patted his chest and volunteered, "And it will be quick. I have come to Sagiyama Castle several times before, so I already know it to some extent. I only need to see whether there have been any new changes these past two years..."

He had to seize this opportunity. Whether he could make something of himself depended on this.

Tokichiro was not afraid of troublesome or difficult work. What he feared was having nowhere to be useful and no way to demonstrate his value... These past few days, he had lived in a mixture of excitement and unease, worried that things might change.

Having swiftly settled the matter, Monkey displayed tremendous initiative. He hurried down from the watchtower, intending to make use of the final stretch between evening and curfew to get whatever he could done.

Gu Mo turned back to watch the setting sun sink behind the distant mountains, curling his lips. He felt that if Tokichiro had been born in modern times, he would definitely have been the spokesperson for the spirit of overwork.

After taking one final look, he too turned and descended from the watchtower.

After arranging the rooms, Hidechiyo had gone to rest on her own. Over these past days of traveling day and night, the black-haired girl had borne the greatest pressure, so she was naturally somewhat exhausted. Now that they had finally reached their destination, she needed to recuperate properly.

But Tokichiro was eager to prove himself, while Hidechiyo had gone to rest... Having grown used to being in a group during this time, Gu Mo found himself somewhat unaccustomed to being alone as he looked at the empty room.

He sat cross-legged and thought it over carefully. The twists of fate truly were strange. Who could have imagined that he would one day... travel through time to the Sengoku Period five hundred years in the past, meet the wife he had created, survive by clinging to her thigh, and somehow end up becoming an acting castle lord while clinging to her.

Earlier, he had often been tense, or busy thinking through and agonizing over all sorts of matters, as though everything had simply been natural. But now, alone and calm enough to consider things carefully, he realized that it all felt somewhat fantastical and unreal.

Of course, he did not linger on those feelings for long and quickly got moving again.

For the moment, he was acting as castle lord, which made many things much more convenient. For example—having someone prepare a bath for him.

Once he gave the order, the required things were quickly prepared. A wooden tub large enough to hold his entire body stood there, clear hot water steaming within it. Just imagining soaking his whole body inside felt wonderful. Especially after traveling for days in such a dusty state, it was practically heaven.

However, Gu Mo did not immediately climb in. Instead, he dismissed the attendants at his sides and told them that he did not need their service. Only after carefully closing the door did he return to the large wooden tub. Using the water's white-steaming surface, he barely made out his reflection and opened the Status Panel.

As usual, he carried out today's real-name verification, only to naturally find that there was still no network connection. An effective cure for low blood pressure.

He then switched back to the level-up page, examined it, and thoughtfully assigned the distributable point he had gained from raising his Life Level to LV5 to the "Strength" attribute... He had already added three points to Constitution, which was quite good for now and had significantly enhanced his physique.

It was enough for the time being, at least when facing battles against ordinary people...

To reach the next level, such as effectively resisting blades with his body, probably would not be a matter of adding just one or two more points. So after thinking it over, Gu Mo decided to strengthen his power first and increase his output rather than blindly improve his ability to take hits.

Although he currently had very few skills, and the only one he could really use was extremely strange, if it took effect, the enemy might heavily wound him only to discover that his Health Bar was longer than before he had been wounded. In an evenly matched battle, or one where the difference was slight, that would be the deciding factor.

But he could not keep going on like this. He needed to improve his conventional combat power.

As that incomparably comfortable warm current seemed to flow through every cell in his body, washing over every limb and bone, Gu Mo held back from making a sound. During the process, that mysterious power reshaped his entire body once again, seemingly altering the composition of his skin cells, strengthening the elasticity and resilience of his muscle fibers, and so on.

He knew none of that, of course. The only thing he could confirm was that the Strength value on the Status Panel had changed from 11 points to 12.

If 10 points of Strength represented a normal person's theoretical level of health, then 11 points meant being relatively strong and muscular. As for 12 points...

His strong muscles had not bulged exaggeratedly like those of bodybuilding enthusiasts. Instead, they possessed smooth lines, as though modeled after the human form and endowed with a more ideal, more perfect artistic shape, like a Greek hero statue filled with the beauty of strength.

"Th-This... is a little ridiculous!"

Looking at his vague reflection on the water's surface, then reaching out to feel the firm biceps on his arm and lifting his clothes to touch the sharply defined muscles of his abdomen, Gu Mo's face filled with delighted surprise. This was precisely the result he had guessed at and hoped to see before allocating the point, but it had gone so smoothly that he could hardly believe it.

The change from just one point was already obvious.

He clenched his fist tightly and threw several quick punches, feeling the explosive power contained within his muscles. He nodded in satisfaction. This was all thanks to his own hard work. It felt so good!

The boost from every single point was incredibly powerful. No wonder each level-up only gave one distributable attribute point. If it had worked like so many games, where leveling up gave five or ten points to allocate, he would already have taken off on the spot!

"Mm, fortunately, it does not seem like there are any changes once I put my clothes on..."

His build had always been fairly standard and well-proportioned. He was neither fat nor thin. So although the muscle-sculpting effect brought by reaching 12 points of Strength was rather startling, it was a change only he himself could clearly notice. Other people probably would not be able to tell.

He just did not know whether this effect came from changes based on the ideal state of the human body, or whether every attribute increase would trigger further changes in physique. If he continued strengthening his power in the future, would it become more and more exaggerated...

Suppressing the faint worry in his heart, he quickly browsed the Status Panel and soon found the second thing he needed to do.

That inexplicable Homestead System—

It appeared in the marker at the lower-left corner. When he opened it, a huge map appeared before his eyes. Looking closely, he realized it was an aerial view of Sagiyama Castle, like a scale model with every detail included.

Below and to the left of his field of vision were densely packed displays of numbers and operation options, such as "Food," "Wood," "Metal," "Weapons," "Ashigaru," "Farmers"... and "Market," "Buildings," "Barracks," and so on.

Emmmm...

Wait! He knew this one! Gu Mo blinked, suddenly feeling confident.

If he had truly needed to manage a castle in reality, confronting all manner of tangled and complicated issues, he really would have been at a loss. After all, he had never had such experience before. No matter how much Saito Dosan imagined otherwise, he was still only an ordinary person.

But if the Idiot System could help him turn everything into this sort of data panel he was familiar with, and let him use the mysterious power of that panel to indirectly apply his decisions and dispatches to everything in the corresponding real world... Well, it was time to let Saito Dosan see what true talent in governing the world looked like.

It was only Sagiyama Castle. Who were they looking down on? He had once been an overseer of the stars, directly or indirectly controlling jurisdictions spread across the entire Milky Way.

Gu Mo eagerly rolled up his sleeves and began carefully studying this new mode through the water's surface.

"My lord, someone outside requests an audience."

But at that moment, a cautious voice came from outside. An attendant was reporting something.

"Mm, who wants to see me?" Gu Mo frowned. He did not know anyone, did he? Or had the local officials heard that a new superior had descended upon them and come to pay their respects while testing the waters?

"Outside are an Onmyoji and a... female warrior. They did not give their names, only said that I should report this to you, and that you would understand." The attendant remained cautious in her reply.

An Onmyoji and a female warrior?

Gu Mo raised his brows, and a strange thought suddenly surfaced... Axiu's story involved elements of time travel and mutual cause and effect. Had his arrival inadvertently affected something, changed something?