Chapter 511: The Genpei Household
Tarō led Kian into the little village. Not through the front, of course. They circled around through the bamboo grove on the back hill where there were fewer people, or else the whole village would have gotten an eyeful of Kian.
Once they came out of the bamboo grove, Tarō took Kian straight to his home.
Kian looked Tarō's home over carefully. It backed onto a lush green bamboo grove. There were several main buildings of wood and a large courtyard with a well in the middle, and a few peach trees in blossom nearby.
Tarō showed Kian into the woodshed and said:
"Please wait here, sir. I'll fetch you some clothes and let my father know to prepare to receive you."
Kian thanked him and waited in the woodshed.
While he waited, he tried reaching out with his psychic power to the beacon in the Warp, to see if he could pull his weapons and supplies through.
But the Warp seemed to be shrouded in fog. He couldn't make contact with the beacon at all.
At the same time, he noticed that reaching into the Warp had become easier, and drawing on his psychic power took less effort. It was as if this planet was saturated with psychic energy!
Kian couldn't quite make sense of it, but he wasn't worried.
If he died, he'd just respawn on Inquisitor Trasolh's flagship.
With no real downside, he might as well investigate this planet properly.
As he was thinking this, Tarō came back with clothes for him.
"Sir, these are my father's clothes. You and my father are about the same build, so they should fit just right."
Tarō handed him the clothes, but when Kian looked at them he was baffled. They were just a few pieces of cloth. He had no idea how to put them on.
Tarō seemed to sense his embarrassment and began explaining how to wear them.
The clothes were quite complicated to put on. Once they were on Kian, a cloth sash had to be wound around his waist.
Then a garment called a hakama had to be tied on, fastened with a cross knot.
Finally he put on a pair of wooden clogs, and Kian was fully kitted out.
Feeling how well the clothes fit, Kian found it all very novel. He'd never worn anything this loose and roomy before.
He asked Tarō, "Tarō, these are your father's clothes? Your father is really this big?"
As he said it, Kian looked Tarō up and down. Tarō was a hefty young man himself. A kid of fifteen or sixteen, and he was already nearly one metre ninety!
Tarō said:
"Yes, sir. My father is famous in these parts for his size. It runs in our bloodline.
"One of my ancestors was so big and strong that he won honour after honour on the battlefield and became a great general.
"This way, please, sir. My father is waiting in the main hall."
Kian followed Tarō to the main hall. On the way, he thought about how everyone in this family was built like a tank. Maybe it was just in their genes?
The kid was this tall, and from what he said, his family had produced giants before. That meant a dominant gene was at work.
Kian was 2.2 metres tall now, a giant next to ordinary people.
Once a population got large enough, it wasn't impossible for someone to grow that tall. Look at the Mountain, Shaquille O'Neal, or Yao Ming.
They were all enormous, powerfully built, and fully athletic, even exceptionally so.
If Tarō's family had produced giants for generations, maybe it really was genetic.
Before long, Kian followed Tarō to the main house.
Tarō took off his shoes outside, walked in, and knelt formally on a tatami mat.
In the middle of the main hall, a powerfully built man was already kneeling on a tatami.
He wore samurai garb, and the top of his head was shaved in the sakayaki style. His arms were thick enough to gallop a horse along, and his waist was as solid as a millstone. Kneeling there, he looked like a great bronze bell!
On the wall behind him hung a suit of ō-yoroi armour, and in front of the armour rested a sheathed katana.
Kian started to step into the hall, but when he saw that neither of them wore shoes, he politely left his own outside as well.
He went to the tatami that had obviously been left for him and sat down cross-legged.
That way of kneeling, with your butt resting on your heels... didn't their legs ache? He really couldn't handle it.
Once everyone was seated, the big man smiled and said:
"A visitor is a guest. I am Minamoto no Hei, a humble farmer of these parts. Your visit, sir, is my good fortune."
As he spoke, he bowed deeply and respectfully to Kian from where he knelt.
Kian felt goosebumps rise. This was a little too polite. He wasn't sure he could take it.
But he went through the motions and returned the bow anyway. He couldn't quite handle it, but the man had treated him so courteously and even given him clothes. As a guest, he ought to follow the house's customs.
Meanwhile, the man's self-introduction had told him a lot.
This was obviously a feudal world. But unlike Glory's European-style feudalism, this was an Asian-style feudal world.
Japanese and East Asian elements were everywhere: in the buildings, the weapons, and the man's etiquette.
The big man called Minamoto no Hei described himself as a humble country farmer. But how could he possibly be a country farmer?
The ō-yoroi and the katana behind him could never belong to a farmer.
And his family name, Minamoto, was one only ancient Japanese nobility had. The most famous Minamoto was that heavily cyber-augmented hardass who yells "Ryūjin no ken wo kurae!" and starts slicing people up.
When the formalities were over, Minamoto no Hei asked:
"Sir, you are a man of fine bearing and remarkable presence. What special matter brings you to our remote countryside?"
Kian said, "You can call me the Count. I'm on Inquisitor Trasolh's staff, and I ended up here for special reasons.
"Lord Minamoto, could you take me to see the Planetary Governor? I have matters to discuss with him."
Doubt flashed through the eyes of both Minamoto no Hei and his son Tarō at the same moment.
Tarō said, "Sir, are you a noble? You hold a title?"
Kian nodded and said yes, only his title wasn't from their planet.
The two looked even more confused. What did he mean, not from this planet?
The three of them stared at each other blankly for a while, and then they got into a real conversation. That's when Kian was floored.
This planet had no Planetary Governor, no Astra Militarum, no PDF, and no Emperor!
They didn't even know the universe existed. Their understanding of the world was what they called "All Under Heaven": all the lands beneath the sky.
And All Under Heaven belonged to the Son of Heaven.
They had no idea that every race in the universe was locked in a giant brawl. They didn't even know their own planet was round. Their understanding of the world was completely the backward worldview of a feudal dynasty!
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