Demon of Lust in the Land of Water 15 (Patreon)

Commissioned by Kejmur

Demon of Lust in the Land of Water
Chapter 15

-VB-

I knelt in my full “regalia” of ornate priestly robes styled after a mixture of the Roman senator, Roman Catholic Church cardinals, and a hoplite helmet.

… I was kind of trolling but also I kind of wasn’t. Greeks and Romans were the primary worshipers of Aphrodite before me, so I was honoring them with the red of Rome and the Greek helmet, but Roman Catholic Church was also a powerful religious organization, so I was styling myself after them.

After all, they’ve been going strong for over one and a half millennium. They must be doing something right, fashion included.

To me, I looked ridiculous in the get-up.

To my followers and worshipers, I looked like a proper head priest.

They always said ‘cloth maketh man.’ I supposed that this was true for the rest of the world when it came to such things as religion.

‘Well, off to see your mother!’ I joked internally to myself. But in all seriousness, this was a very important meeting that I requested, one granted to me only because of the number of the nobility who backed me up.

Well.

It was time to meet the nominal king of the Land of Water.

Kinda excited.

-VB-

Eldritch powers were good.

It helped me keep my face up as the daimyo of the Land of Water, talked, talked, ranted, ranted, talked, and talked.

The man was a chatterbox of unprecedented significance. If there was a Hall of Fame for chatterboxes, then the slender, tall, and almost feminine daimyo would be up there for all chatterboxes from across the universe to look up to.

It started with his admiration for my “courageous defiance of the inelegant brute of a Mizukage that dared to pose itself as his vassal,” continued on to “declining financial independence of Kirigakure,” implied slyly that he would “gladly support someone who could make something better out of Kirigakure,” led the word support to talk about “disunified state of the Land of Water and how he needed a good and strong vassal,” and right now, he was talking about “meddling foreign agents trying to spy on his court and his country.”

“-the nerve of the Hokage! I know you and the Mizukage have their own spy networks, but I am finding them everywhere, even here in Uoto. Some of them dared to think that -!”

But at the same time, this man, who lived in an era where might was all that mattered, retained his position as the daimyo of the Land of Water despite his demeanor being classified as “unlordly” by most of his vassals because of three factors.

One, this chatterbox act was nothing more than that: an act. He might fool everyone in the world but me, because I was a literal god on a different play level. I read his literal mind without him or anyone else around us noticing in his audience room.

Speaking of which, all of his vassals had very thick and muscular legs (probably from having to shut up and stand in one place for hours on end), including the maidservants and especially the samurai guards.

“-And don’t get me started on the other daimyos! The lord of the Land of Lightning tried to marry his second cousin to my daughter. The nerve of that man thinking that Hana-chan was worth anything less than a powerful daimyo-!”

Second, the man was anything but dumb. The Land of Water was no different from the Sengoku Period, an era in Japan when warlords vied for unification, independence, and power. Sure, there were far fewer lords in the Land of Water than the Sengoku Period at its height - forty plus clans in latter compared to merely half a dozen in former - but he managed those unruly and often feuding vassals expertly.

How expertly?

Let’s just say that there used to be two dozen when he took power, and more than two-thirds of the land those bygone clans once held was now in his possession and not the remaining six.

Maybe that was because the religion was far weaker in the Elemental Nations, which led to a distinct lack of wealthy monks turning themselves into warrior monks, the kind that Oda Nobunaga had trouble with time and time again.

“-Hana-chan is so beautiful and smart! Did you know that -?!”

Third and finally, the man was a monster compared to most people. His hands were calloused from decades of training, his muscles tensed tightly, and his reflexes were nothing to scoff at. His mind was filled with ideas, tactics, and strategy dedicated to war. Though he definitely preferred the hedonistic life he and his five wives had, Daimyo Mahanaka was a competent ruler.

Nothing to a god, but to most people, he was a warrior god incarnate.

Something like this world’s Uesugi Kenshin, if I had to continue using the Sengoku Period comparisons.

“So what do you say, Alan-dono? Do you think you can help me out?”

Still bowing in the same position as I had been for the last one hour, I answered him.

He intended to use me.

I intended to use him right back.

“Hai, Mahanaka-sama!” He was probably going to assign some bureaucrats to help divide and conquer Kiri-.

“Good, good! Then I give you Kirigakure!”

…

Wait, hold up.

What?

“I name you the new Mizukage, because obviously a vassal who comes to actually see his lord is better than the one ruining one of the lord’s holdings!”

Hold on just a minute-!

-VB-

Apparently, you can outwit a god.