Lord Frieza incarnate in Gensokyo

Chapter 28

Gensokyo - Kourindou

-= Rinnosuke Morichika's Point of View =-

Gensokyo shines with silver in the early afternoon.

Pristine white snow falls gently and silently to the earth, turning the land into a fantastical dreamscape. All that could be heard were faint cries like the shrieks of youkai.

Not a footprint can be found in the fresh powder that covered the road. Humans do not often come this far.

At the end of this unmarked path there may be found a mysterious shop, whose proprietor may often be found warming himself by a stove from the Outside World, reading some incomprehensible book.

He always seems to have plenty of time for this on his hands, since within the shop may be found numerous articles from the Outside World.

And although Gensokyo is frozen in what the Outside World would call the 'Meiji Era', many items from the modern times may be found here, yet the purposes of most of these items are unknown, since almost no one in Gensokyo knows anything about them.

On the store's sign are the characters 香 kou 霖 rin 堂 dou.

This is the place of Kourindou Curio Shop.

"Mr. Rinnosuke?"

'It seems we'll finally have a visitor in such a long time.' thought Rinnosuke as he turned his eyes from the book that was in his hands and into the stove in front of him.

I wanted to continue reading, but... as they say : "the customers are Gods".

I couldn't just pretend to be out.

"You're in there, aren't you?"

The goddess dressed in red had no need to bother preventing my potential ruse as she was already behind me.

"Oh, it's just you, Reimu. Don't I always tell you not to just walk into my living room uninvited?"

"Forget that, just listen to me. I ran into a bit of trouble, so..."

This is her. The girl in red before my eyes who doesn't listen to a word anyone says. Her name is Reimu Hakurei. She's the only shrine maiden in Gensokyo, but from her actions one would doubt whether she's truly a shrine maiden or not. Pardon the late introduction, but I'm Rinnosuke Morichika. I run this antique store.

As Reimu brushed the snow off her shoulders she started chattering away.

"I went out to the village to shop today. For what? I was running out of tea, so I figured I should buy some before the lack of tea gets bad enough to kill me. Well, I won't die, but-- Hey, are you listening to me?"

"You don't listen to me, so I'm not listening to you," is what I wanted to say but, "Yeah, I'm listening," is what came out.

"But, you know, there wasn't any good tea... oh, this doesn't have anything to do with it but the traveler's guardian deity in the village was completely covered in snow, I mean, who the heck was in charge of the umbrella? Wait, which god was it anyway?"

Well, it looks like if I don't give her a little push in the right direction, the conversation will diverge into discussing the first chief of the village.

"The God of Harm, who prevents catastrophe from occurring in the village. You said you ran into trouble, so what happened?"

"Well, I finished shopping without anything really happening."

Without anything happening, huh?

"But then on the way back, a youkai was just sitting there minding its own business. And it was enjoying reading a book, too!"