Book 5: Chapter 15: Unbridled Plunder
“Master, are you sure about this? These Emishi’s Spirits are normally used to cultivate high-level shikigami due to their rarity. It goes without saying that a weak shikigami can achieve greater heights if they started using these at a low level, but most shikigami do not have such a good fortune. These are priceless treasures, the bureau will definitely not let you get away if you take them!” Kagura reminded.
“What can they do to me without any proofs?” Lily countered, “That clairvoyance mirror can detect storage pouch, yet it was unable to detect my old mirror. There’s no way they’ll figure out I can store items inside this old mirror.”
While speaking, Lily made Kagura go back into the mirror as she retrieved Kyūbōzu’s grade 9 wooden pole. She held the blackish pole with both hands and started flinging it around, “I rather keep all these for myself than letting those bureaucrats use them to blackmail or harm the female onmyoji!”
“DONG!!!” Following the loud echo, the carp statue shone brightly and countless Emishi’s Spirits spewed out from its fat lips. The spirits filled the entire s.p.a.ce in mere moments and glittered like the stars in the night sky, it was a sight to behold.
With a quick look, Lily estimated there to be at least three thousand Emishi’s Spirits in the hall. The spirits emitted a magnificent blue-purple light as they floated aimlessly.
Lily opened the sakura parasol again and collected all the floating spirits.
The spirits were naturally unwilling to be confined again and wanted to escape, but there was no way for them to resist the suction force of the sakura parasol.
The treasure-house became dusky again as Lily took in all the three thousand Emishi’s Spirits.
“Mhm…” For some reason, Lily felt a sense of satisfaction.
“Masteeerrr! I-Isn’t this a bit too much? Just a few is enough, but you actually…” As Kagura was already in the mirror, Lily couldn’t see her flushed face.
“Kagura, don’t be such a scaredy-cat! If you want to reap the benefits, then you must take everything unreservedly!” Lily swiped her hair and said coolly1.
“Wow~ Lily, you sound so convincing that even I started to believe it, hehehe2.” Yuki-Onna covered her face with her sleeve and chuckled in the mirror s.p.a.ce.
“Oh, Kagura, are these primal animas beneficial to me? For instance, if I use blade maiden’s spirit manipulation…”
“Master, the primal anima contains a huge quant.i.ty of the ancient spirit world’s essence, it is only useful to the shikigami. They are not much different from an ordinary anima to you,” Kagura answered. Since she was Lily’s shikigami, there was no way Kagura would trick her just so she could monopolize the Emishi’s Spirits.
“Aw…” Lily was disappointed by her answer, but it was equally important to be able to raise her companion’s power rapidly. Recalling what Kagura told her earlier, Lily asked, “Does that mean you’ll be able to advance quickly?”
“For sure! Furthermore, if I can use these Emishi’s Spirit to advance, then I will become several times stronger than when I was at my peak stage! After all, even back then, there was no way we could’ve gotten any primal animas at the early stage of my training,” Kagura replied.
“Hmm…3” Lily placed her slender finger on her cherry pink lip and said, “In that case, that means you’ll be able to use those materials and catalysts soon right4?”
“Oh, now that you mentioned it, that is true.”
“Well, alright then.”
“Huh?”
Lily seemed to have made up her mind about something and that caused Kagura to feel a little anxious.
Lily knocked on the giant copperwood fish again and when she felt like it was completely emptied, she wandered to other areas of the treasure-house.
She arrived before two relatively short wooden shelves that were placed against the wall. There were many talismans piled atop the two shelves, all of which had symbols drawn on them but weren’t loaded with any spells.
“Master, these are the talismans frequently used by the onmyoji. The ones set on the shelves are grade 3 to 6 talismans. It seems like the better ones are stored in those big chests over there.”
Lily opened one of the boxes.
Kagura said excitedly, “These are grade 7 talismans! It’s really hard to get your hands on these.”
“These can still be used by those who slay the demon earnestly, so I’ll take a little less,” Lily said somberly, “200 pieces should be enough.”
“Master, these are grade 7 talismans! And there are only 600 pieces here by rough estimate!”
“That’s why I’m only taking 200!” Lily made a long face.
During this time, a small, red, and very delicate-looking box attracted Lily’s attention. An extraordinary aura seemed to be emanating from that box.
“This is… Kagura, is this box enchanted?”
“None that I know of, master. If I detect any traps, I will be sure to let you know,” Kagura replied.
As such, Lily came forward and directly opened the box.
“T-These are grade 8 talismans! Heian-kyo’s Bureau of Divination is not as simple as they seem, they actually have a whole ten of these grade 8 talismans!” Kagura acted like a child with a new toy.
“Clip!” Contrary to Kagura’s excitement, Lily merely resealed the box.
“Huh? You’re not going to take a few, master? I thought you would…”
Before Kagura finished her sentence, Lily stored the entire box in the mirror s.p.a.ce5.
“Master, you!!!”
“Let’s go over there and see what they’ve got6.”
Lily arrived at another corner of the treasury where all kinds of weapons were stored.
At a glance, most of them were grade 4 through 6 katana, nagitana, spiked clubs, and bows.
There were also a few grade 7 ones.
After making a round, Lily stood still for a while before leaving. The blades she used were at least of grade 8, so she wasn’t too interested in these weapons. As for the armor, the highest was only grade 6. Lily believed they were mostly put there for decorations since she doubt the onmyoji really used these heavy armors.
As Lily possessed the celestial maiden’s inner garment, she was unmoved by these low-level armors, so she didn’t touch them.
Lily went back to the area where the materials were stored and nabbed ample amounts of rare materials, uncommon ores and lumbers, etc. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take more, it was just that there were too many types of materials and there was only limited s.p.a.ce in the mirror, some of which were also used by the shikigami to train and rest.
That room with the Moon Blossom manual was very important, so she obviously couldn’t stash any item in there. Her senior sister’s room was obviously out of the question too, what if there was an item with magical power that could harm her sister’s soul?
Out of the eight rooms in the mirror s.p.a.ce, only four of them were opened. Since Lily had no idea what the other halves were like, she could only take so much7.
Next, Lily moved on to one of the bigger areas in the treasury. This was where most of the weapons and arcane tools used by the onmyoji were stored.
Nothing at this place especially caught Lily’s attention. Most arcane tools and weapons were only grade 4 through 6, with a few grade 7 and 8 here and there. Lily wouldn’t do something to harm others without benefitting herself, and since she couldn’t use any of these tools, she didn’t plan on taking anything with her.
Lily continued to walk towards the other side and finally stopped in front of a row of lockers.
“Kagura, are there any spells or traps enchanted onto the locker locks?
“None. They’re just ordinary grade 5 metal locks, very st.u.r.dy ones at that.”
“Oh.”
Lily retrieved Yastutsuna from the mirror and nimbly drew the blade a few times.
All the locks fell to the ground with a pitter-patter at the same time.
Lily flickered an eyelid the moment she opened one of the drawers8.
Inside the drawer were small bags full of magatama.
Lily didn’t pay attention to the drawers that kept the magatama fragments but just counting all the complete magatama in the remaining two drawers, there were roughly one thousand ordinary matagama and ten life-recovery magatamas. There were also ten to twenty of each attributed magatama.
This was a huge sum of wealth!
Despite the fact that Lily owned a large ore vein, she was currently far from home. Moreover, the annual output was only two hundred magatamas. Even discounting herself, her sisters needed them as well, how could there ever be too much magatama?
Aside from using them to a.s.sist in training, magatama was also a form of currency among the high-level pract.i.tioners. Good stuff could only be bought with magatama and not gold.
Lily helped herself to all the complete magatamas, leaving behind only two empty drawers.
After making a few more rounds, Lily felt that there was nothing else of note to plunder. Seeing that she had stayed in the treasury for half a day now, it should be nighttime by now, thus she went towards the exit to call for the guard.
Hearing that, the guard went to call for Sukeya, but that man pretended to not be around in order to make Lily stay in the treasure-house for one night, most likely a petty attempt to get back at her. As such, Lily went ahead to plunder a few more high-grade materials in a fit of fury.
Sukeya finally came to open the door at roughly early morning the next day.
However, this day seemed to be another extended night as the sky didn’t light up in the morning. The inside of the treasury was as dark as the night sky at the outside.
“My oh my! Sorry about that! I had official business to take care of yesterday and only just got back this morning and received a report from the guard. I feel bad for making Miss Kagami wait so long!” Sukeya said sarcastically.
“It’s nothing, we’re all pract.i.tioners here, it’s nothing to be locked up for a day or two,” Lily said indifferently.
Sukeya peered inside but couldn’t really see anything due to the darkness, “How’s the cleaning coming along, Miss Kagami?”
“More or less done I guess,” Lily dismissed the topic with that.
“Um… Although I have absolute faith in Miss Kagami since you’re sent here by the chief advisor, I still need to scan you in front of the clairvoyance mirror before letting you go,” Sukeya said as he locked the door.
“Mhm, that is a matter of course, Lily will cooperate.”
To be honest, Lily was a little worried as she followed Sukeya to the guard’s quarters. What should she do if the clairvoyance mirror exposed her?
However, Lily believed that the ancient mirror was a lot higher ranked than the clairvoyance mirror that Seimei-something had devised. If the clairvoyance was not able to scan the ancient mirror when she entered, it shouldn’t be able to scan it when she exit either.
Therefore, Lily was still very calm as she followed Sukeya to the guard’s quarter. As she arrived in front of the clairvoyance mirror, she spread her arms leisurely and made a spin.
As a matter of fact, there was no need to spin around. Lily only did that to make sure not to arouse any suspicion.
And it was as she expected, the clairvoyance mirror didn’t have any response.
“Miss Kagami, pray forgive me for locking you in the treasury for one night. You can go back to rest for today. Just make sure to come back to work tomorrow.”
“I understand, then Lily will take her leave first.”
After leaving the courtyard, Lily didn’t rush out of the bureau and returned to the old wooden house on the hillside as if nothing had happened. This was the resting place designated for Onmyo no Jojo.
If she left immediately in the wake of the plunder, wouldn’t she just be announcing to the world that she was the criminal?
Lily had to act like normal even if they found out about the heist later. They didn’t have any evidence to use against Lily, and she was accompanied by Sukeya when she entered and exited, it was a fail-safe plan.9
- Silva: Oh G.o.d… letting Lily into the treasure house was the biggest mistake ever.
- Robinxen: Lily is just a bandit.
- Silva: Start here
- Robinxen: Did she just powerlevel her shikigami for the sake of looting higher level items…
- Robinxen: LILY PLEASE.
- Silva: Oh G.o.d…. Lily is treating this like a shopping trip… I’m scared of the repercussions… How many times have I said oh G.o.d now since Lily entered the treasure-house?
- Robinxen: SHE PLANNED ON TAKING EVEN MORE?!
- Robinxen: Today we learned many things.
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