Iro stood silent for a moment, her eyes fixed on the blank space where the hologram had just been.
Finally, she turned to Merun with a smile on her face. "To you, a warrior who possesses strength that violates every known rule of our world, the Beggar Sect might look like a collection of the weak. A gathering of people who have nothing else. If you look at us and see only poverty, you are seeing exactly what the Martial Clans want you to see."
She walked toward the door but didn't open it. Instead, she leaned against the frame. "I won't simply tell you what we are. I want you to see the world through our eyes. They are the eyes that Martial Artists choose to ignore every single day. The Great Clans of Sekigahara build towering palaces and fortified jails to prove their existence. They mark the land with stone and steel. The Beggar Sect is different. We are the invisible substrate of human civilization."
Merun watched her, noting the shift in her tone.
She wasn't lecturing him like a student anymore.
She was speaking to him as a prospective member of something much larger.
"We are not a Martial Clan," Iro continued. "We are an intelligence organization comprised almost exclusively of the lowest echelons of society. We are the farmers, the manual laborers, the rickshaw pullers, and the wage-seekers. We are the literal beggars at the gate. You saw the villagers in Sabae struggling with a collapsed cart. To a martial artist, those people are just scenery. They are background noise in a world of high-level duels."
"To us, that man lifting the cart is a sensor. We are everywhere because we are the people who do the jobs Martial Artists are too 'noble' to touch. We have ten thousand ordinary eyes for every one elite martial artist of a Clan."
Of course Merun knew of this. He'd read the Novel. Truthfully this made him quite paranoid when meeting non-martial people. He just decided to treat them all as if they were from the Beggar Sect, and that somewhat made it easier to interact with them.
"Our purpose is the protection of the primacy of the common man," Iro said, her voice growing firmer. "In an age where a martial artist can level a forest with a single swing of an arm, the ordinary human is terrifyingly vulnerable. We work to maintain a global equilibrium. We sabotage movements that threaten to push civilization to the brink. If there is a potential pandemic, a radical political agenda that would lead to mass starvation, or a war that serves only the ego of a lord, we are the ones who quietly cut the strings."
She looked Merun in the eyes. "We are the primary force opposed to Martial Supremacy. We reject the idea that those with power should rule the weak like livestock. And as you saw with Muji, we provide a path for those the 'justice' of the Clans would simply execute. We offer redemption where others offer only a blade."
Merun crossed his arms. The scale of the operation was starting to settle in. It was kind of cool learning this in real time opposed to reading it in the Novel. "The Sage mentioned something about being a hero. Is that part of this equilibrium?"
"In a way," Iro replied. "But there is a deeper layer to our origins. The Beggar Sage is one of the three keepers of immortality. He created the Sect centuries ago with a specific, original goal. He wanted to find extraordinary human beings and geniuses of the mind across history. He realized long ago that Martial Art is often a paltry thing compared to the power of a brilliant mind. Strength can be inherited or stolen, but true genius is a gift to the species."
She let that sit for a moment. "The Sage established this network to ensure that these geniuses are deemed worthy of immortality. We want their gifts to benefit humanity forever. We are, in essence, the search party for the future of our species. We find the minds that the Martial World would otherwise crush in its vanity."
Iro gestured for Merun to follow her out of the hut. "Come. I want to show you, not just tell you."
"You can fly now, right? Can you fly us to the place I want to go?"
Merun raised an eyebrow, "What, am I transportation now?"
Iro smiled, "Yup, how much to go south?" she held out her hand.
Merun laughed, pulled her hand and held her close, "That'd be 3 fish meals, ma'am. Just point to the way we're going."
He utilized his ki the same way he did back in Ise. He could now hover and fly like the Saiyans did!
It wasn't that difficult, actually. If he imagined that he needed to deploy a steady, continuous flow of ki opposing the planet's gravity, he would float. If he wanted to fly, he just needed to expand more ki. If he wanted to go down, he'd use less ki. If he wanted to fly forward, he just needed to push ki from whatever direction it was. It was actually pretty intuitive!
"But for real now... where are we going? Don't countries have protections against illegal immigration and strict protocols against martial artists of other nations?"
Iro's eyes widened in surprise. "How'd you know that?"
"I just assumed." Merun looked away.
She squinted her eyes in suspicion but eventually let it go. "Well, they do... but your suppression technique is effective enough to become nearly invisible to Martial Masters. You've proven that in Ise, with Mangūsu. We'll just land a few kilometers away from the border, and walk past the military complexes in the border as a non-martial, with you as my Martial Apprentice bodyguard."
"...You actually have this all planned out. Are you excited?" Merun smiled.
She smiled cheekily. "It's also my first time leaving Sekigahara. I really want to see it. The harmonious Kandrian Empire..."
Merun froze.
"Wait, we're going to the Kandrian Empire?"
She looked up at him.
"Of course, the Sect operates all over Panama."
"..."
"Anyway, our destination is the northernmost part of Kandria, just south of Sekigahara. The town of Hajin!"