Chương 7: Followers
"Tamazuki-sama!"
Their voices echoed through the space, showing their loyalty.
The Golden Age of the youkai has passed away. After the end of the Sengoku Period, many youkai had many troubles in their lives since humans didn't believe in their existence anymore. Naturally, it was only for those small youkais.
As for the strong youkai, it didn't matter.
The Nura Clan, the strongest youkai group in this country, had around 10,000 youkai under the group.
The Shikoku Hachijuuhakki Yakou might be a hick on the Shikoku island, but the number of their group was quite a lot. Under his father's leadership, this group had around 8,000 youkai.
Yet, in the original story, he killed most of the youkai to become stronger. From 8,000 youkai turned into 700 youkai. Maybe, many of them ran away, quit the group, or just stayed beside his father, but one thing was for sure, the number of youkai under him was only 700 in the original story.
However, it is different now.
He was speechless and didn't expect that the number of his followers would reach 1,000. It was just a rough number, and he wasn't sure about the details since most of them were weak youkai. He saw some of his siblings, tanuki, and others looking at him with worship expressions. "Why are you all here?"
It was impossible for his mother's house to accommodate 1,000 youkai. Only a few people, the strongest and the original members of his group were in the hall, and the rest could be seen from the outside, trying to catch his figure, sitting in the "seiza" manner while stretching their necks high.
Still, what surprised him the most was that he could see a few people from the older generation who had witnessed the cruelty of the war 300 years ago.
"We're here to show our loyalty to you! We will follow you to show this world the power of the Shikoku youkai!"
The youkai group chosen to enter the hall shouted at the same time before everyone followed. They showed their excitement and willingness to follow him.
"Yeah, show those bastards the power of the Shikoku!"
"Show them the terror!"
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
He was silent for a while before changing into his youkai form. His short black hair turned to knee-length, long white hair. He had pointed ears, slanted golden eyes with a slit pupil, two magenta stripes on each cheek, a magenta stripe on each eyelid, and a crescent moon symbol on his forehead.
It wasn't that his human form wasn't good, but it was like one needed to wear certain clothes during a certain occasion. After all, would you wear only your casual clothes when you go to work?
This situation was something like that.
Hearing his words, they quickly lifted their heads and looked at him in awe. After all, one must admit among all of his siblings and all the Youkai in the Shikoku; he had the best appearance.
Unlike his previous kimono, he wore a black-striped suit, causing his white hair to become even more distinct. As for why he didn't wear a kimono and wore a suit, he wanted to show them that he was going to embark on modernization and let the world know about the youkai.
It was time for the youkai to go international.
"Calm down."
He was young, but his voice brought dignity and calmed everyone.
Everyone quickly turned quiet, wondering what their leader wanted to say.
As for the older generation, they wanted to see whether he was being reckless or not since they didn't want to see the youkai in the Shikoku become even weaker.
"I love humans," he said simply.
"....." Everyone.
"There's someone that I respect so much. His name is Sun Tzu," he said.
"Sun Tzu?"
Everyone was quite surprised, but some people were in doubt, wondering who this person was. After all, the nature of youkai had always been looking down on a human and only the weirdo who learned about human culture.
Yet he didn't feel surprised since a youkai had a natural advantage over a human, especially in their physical ability or innate abilities.
"Well, he's someone in history, so he might be a spirit now. But there is a sentence I love the most from him: "Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak."
They were dumbfounded and murmured the sentence that came out of his mouth.
"I know you're all excited, but we're all weak. The damage from the failure 300 years ago has caused the group to go downhill. While I want to lead everyone on a rampage through this land, the reality...?"
Some of them felt ashamed, but some of them couldn't accept it.
"Tamazuki-sama, we're not so weak!"
"We won't lose to that group of youkai in Tokyo or Kyoto!"
"If we don't try, we won't—"
He just unleashed his aura and made them all shut up. "You can't even hold against my aura. How can you fight them?" It might be because of being slapped by his father before his power had reached a + B rank. "I might seem strong in the Shikoku, and on the outside, I'm just a second tier."
"....." Everyone was in a daze.
However, the older generation nodded. They had been living so long, so they knew how weak the Shikoku Youkai was, yet they must admit Tamazuki underestimated himself. After all, if he was going out, he could become the first-tier youkai.
Tanuki might seem weak, and many people might look down on them because of their gullible appearance, but it would be wrong to underestimate them since they were one of the most popular youkai in the country. They might not be the strongest, but their ability was the most versatile.
"So instead of attacking the outside, I want to strengthen the inside."
"Inside?" Everyone quickly looked at him again.
"In other words, I want to strengthen our voice, authority, and many others in Shikoku. Whether it is a human or youkai in Shikoku, all of them will be under us. Let's dominate this island first."
That was his plan.
Instead of attacking the outside, he wanted to strengthen the inside.
He had this plan previously, but his followers were only a small number, so there were many things that he couldn't do. However, it was different now since he had a lot of followers, so there were many things that he could do.
The first thing he wanted to do was control everything in the Shikoku; whether it was the financial, government, or many others, there would be only one voice: him.
Everything on this island had to be under his rule.
Still, suddenly he felt that he had become a villain.
'No, I'm a villain.'
He sighed inwardly, but he knew that it was impossible for him to become a blood-headed protagonist.
While everyone was excited by his words, they were confused about what he wanted to do.
"There's also another sentence that I like from Sun Tzu, "The supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting." He smiled at everyone and said, "We might not be blessed with powerful strength, but we're smarter than any of those youkai on the outside. They think they have us, yet they don't know they're just our playthings. So do you want to follow me? Do you want to taste the power to control that strong youkai, ghosts, dragons, vampires, werewolves, all the humans in this world, or even a Buddha under your control?"
"....."
They couldn't utter any words at the moment and stared at him in astonishment.
His smile was so charming, yet it was so evil.
It was something that one would never expect from the five-year-old Youkai.
Yet they vowed that they were going to follow him no matter what.
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akikan40
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