Chapter 3: 2. When is a Temple, not a Temple

Apparently to Shoko, ‘not too early’ meant 8am… Paul seriously thought about telling her to go away and come back later, but as he looked at the young girl standing there, eagerly offering him a tray, he just couldn’t do it. She was dressed in a set of red and white robes which he guessed were some sort of traditional shrine maiden’s garb, and without the make-up her grinning face was rosy cheeked and her hair was a sort of strawberry blonde colour.

He smiled and patted her head, which made her make a soft ‘Mm!’ sound and grin up at him. Taking the tray off her, he sat on the veranda and uncovered the small bowls.

Breakfast appeared to consist of a bowl of vegetable soup, a bowl of plain rice with a raw egg cracked over it, and a dish of something that looked a lot like vomited up dried cat food, with shredded lettuce and pencil shavings sprinkled over it.

Paul was fairly sure the unappetising dish was natto… maybe… or at least it was probably meant to be. He stared at it for a moment, then carefully looked up at Shoko.

“You know, perhaps I’d best get straight to work.”

“Ahhh! You don’t like my cooking?!”

“No! No, I’m sure it’s fine! Just… I’m more used to Western food.”

Shoko pouted at him.

“We are in the West!”

“Of Japan… I meant the kind of cooking I grew up with… Ok, tell you what. I’ll show you. Can you get me half a dozen eggs and some milk please? While I set things up.”

“But, you said the kitchen isn’t fit for use!”

Paul nodded, unpacking his back-pack.

“It isn’t, but I came prepared for that. Get me some supplies and I’ll cook us both some breakfast, ok?”

“Ok!”

Shoko dashed off before Paul could give her money to buy what he’d asked for. Which lead him to wonder just where she was going anyway, as he didn’t recall seeing a shop nearby on his way here. Shrugging, he turned his attention back to unpacking the portable camp stove. For all he knew, she was off to some nearby farm, or to fetch supplies from her own home.

By the time Shoko came skipping back, Paul had cleared an area, and unfolded and screwed together the small metal ‘rocket’ stove he’d packed along with the camping cooking utensils, and was just feeding some sticks and small pine cones to the fire.

“Here you are! Huh, is that stove going to be big enough?”

“Thanks… and yes, it should be, I’ve used the same design before.”

Paul looked up, and blinked. Shoko was carrying a couple of buckets attached to a rope yoke over her shoulders. One bucket was filled with straw in which the eggs were nestled. The other contained milk… which probably hadn’t ever seen a bottle, much less a store.

Shrugging Paul indicated where to put the buckets, and setting the skillet on to heat, started making scrambled eggs with a bits of vacuum-packed dried bacon added for flavour. He also salvaged the rice and raw egg, although he left the natto to Shoko, who put it on the side of her plate.

Shoko poked at her scrambled eggs dubiously, until she tried a bite… and then she attacked it with gusto, her chopsticks flying to her mouth. Paul ate more slowly, with a folding knife and fork that had come with the camping gear.

“Nyah! I like Western breakfast food! I like your cooking Paul-san!”

“Glad you do. Although this is just one sort. Hey Shoko, where did you get the eggs and milk from, so I know where to go in future.”

“Oh, you know… the nearest farm. The goats needed milking anyway. I only took what we needed and left the rest by the door.”

Paul paused for a moment, and then sighing, continued eating.

“I think that might be stealing.”

“Nu-huh… I worked for it! I collected all the eggs and milked all the goats, I only took what we needed, and I’ll bring the buckets back later. That’s what I always do.”

“Well.. if they’re ok with it, I guess not… no shops nearby then?”

Shoko shook her head.

“I don’t go into the town!”

“There’s a town nearby?”

“Yes! It’s on the other side of this mountain, so you can’t see it from here. But the edge is only a day’s walk away, round trip. Or it was… it might have grown since I was last there.”

Paul thought about it. He’d need transport, but a town at least promised more supplies. Then he glanced at Shoko.

“Any reason why you don’t go into town?”

“Too loud. Too many people. It stinks...”

“Ok, three good reasons then. Looks like I’ll be doing the shopping as well.”

Shoko made a small pleased sound while nodding.

“Hey, can you buy me some pocky too? I like the chocolate sort. Tomsa who lives on the nearest farm shares hers with me, but she only has it when they go into market once a month!”

Paul laughed.

“Alright, next time I go into town, which will have to be soon I think. I’m going to need supplies pretty soon if I’m going to make this place half-way liveable.”

“Good!”

“Ok… if you’ve finished eating, lets clean up and then get to work. First order of business, set up the solar panels I brought with me so my laptop has power. Without that I can’t write, and writing is what earns me money to buy pocky.”

“Ok! … Umm… what’s a solar panel?”

“Huh? You don’t know?… Ah, I suppose you wouldn’t. Ok, it’s a bit of technology that turns sunlight into electricity, which can be stored in batteries and used later… like making lanterns light up.”

“Huhhh…?! Wouldn’t it be easier just to bottle up the sunlight?”

“Well, yes I suppose, if you could do that. But light is a slippery thing and almost impossible to bottle. It’s simpler to turn it into something that you can store easily. Besides, you can use electricity for many more things that just lanterns.”

“Like what?”

“Help me get things set up, and you’ll see.”

Shoko watched Paul. He took a blanket-like thing that had been strapped to his back-pack and unrolled it, laying it across the ground in the sun. The inside of it looked like black-stripy plastic. She recognised the red and black plastic cords as cables, which he attached to two screw-like things on the cloth, the red one going to the red screw and the black one going to it’s counterpart. The other end he plugged into a box, no bigger than the ones pocky came in. Coloured numbers lit up, glowing like fireflys under glass. He plugged two more pairs of cables into a large box, and into a smaller bright red metal box, that had a power socket on the front just like the ones in the temple.

Shoko was wondering when the ritual would be complete, when Paul-san plugged in the thing he’d called a laptop into the bright red box, and nodded as a tiny light lit up green on it.

“Ok, that’s done. We have power.”

“Ehh.. that’s it?”

“That part yes… shall I show you what I can do with the laptop?”

Shoko eyed the thing sceptically. It was so thin, it didn’t look like it could be much use.

“Ok, show me.”

Paul opened up his laptop and turned it on. The internal sdd meant it booted almost in an instant. As he sat, tailor fashion, with the machine open in front of him, Shoko came and sat in the hollow of his lap.

“That’s a pretty picture.”

Paul nodded, glad he changed it to fairly neutral pictures of some mountains recently. He didn’t need to show the eight year old girl some bikini clad anime waifu!

“Ok, do you like music Shoko?”

“Yeah, sure... ehh! That little arrow is moving, hows it doing that?!”

“It’s called a cursor, and it moves as I move my finger over this little square here… which means I can point it at these things which are called icons, like this, and when I tap on the square it knows I want to open that icon, like this.”

Paul tapped at file in his music folder, and the laptop brought up the player and started the music. ‘Hearts of Courage’ by Two Steps from Hell started to play.

He could feel the hair on the back of Shoko’s neck bristling as she leaned back against his shoulder. In her reflection her eyes went wide. He smiled and patted her head.

“Like it?”

“YES!!”

“I have more…” Paul glanced at the folder. “Umm lots and lots more, days worth actually.”

“Eh! All in there?! How?”

“It’s, complicated. But basically music, written words, pictures.. they can all be reduced down to numbers and stored as pure information. Which doesn’t really take up any more or less physical space, but does occupy memory. So, the limit is how much memory the machine has, and since I didn’t know exactly how long I’d be gone for, this machine has a lot of memory. I could store thousands and thousands of books, whole warehouses worth of pictures and days and days of music.. and that’s not even half of what it can do.

Shoko shook her head.

“That’s powerful magic!”

“Well, they do say any sufficiently advanced technology, is indistinguishable from magic, and if we had an internet connection. Ah, that’s a way for the machines to talk to one another over phone lines, then I could use video and sound to talk to people, or call up information on anything I wanted to know about. It’s like having all the libraries in the world, right there at your finger-tips.”

Shoko’s eyes were if anything growing bigger in wonder.

“Can... can we get an, what did you call it, internet, too?!”

“Umm… I don’t know. There’s no phone line here, and the mountain blocks any signals. Ah… umm, it’s possible to make a connection with something like a radio, called a wifi, but it needs to be within line of sight of another wifi radio.”

“Oh...”

Paul turned and looked at the mountain top just visible above the ridge of the temple roof.

“Could you see that town you mentioned from the top of the mountain?”

“Yes!”

“Ok… then maybe it’s possible, but I’d have to get some things to make it work, and some tools. Come to think of it, are there any tools here?”

Shoko jumped up out of Paul’s lap.

“Yes! Shoko-san knows where! I’ll show you!”

Shoko tugged on his hand, pulling Paul along as he laughed. She led him out through a gate in the temple wall, and down a flight of stone steps, which he noticed were in rather better condition, to a large, low, barn-like structure. Puzzled, Paul noticed the large, double water-wheels that rested in channels running along one side of the long, low building. The channels were empty, but he could see how a movable sluice gate would close off the canalised stream, diverting water into the mill-race powering the wheels.

Curious Paul followed Shoko, she produced a large brass key from the sleeve of her robe, and unlocked the door of the structure.

The inside was dim, lit by slanting beams of sunlight filled with sparkling dust motes. Shoko darted around, opening the shutters and letting light and air in. As his eyes adjusted Paul could see rows of stone topped work benches, metal tools hung glinting on the walls, and large shapes lurked under dust sheets at the far end of the building. Against one wall was a single huge piece of machinery, from which a belt rose to wrap around a pulley at the end of a shaft that passed though the wall.

For a moment Paul stood blinking.

“Shoko… just what is this place?”

“This is the workshop! It’s as old as the temple, but Hirosha-sama rebuilt it when he took over. He told me I was to keep it clean and make sure none of the tools rusted, and everything was looked after. He taught me to maintain the lathes..”

“Wait, you have a lathe?”

“There’s three.. look...”

Shoko darted over where the large machines lurked under dust sheets and pulled the covers off three of them. Paul walked over, and gently touched a makers plate on one.

“Wow… this is a Monarch 350.. one of the best lathes ever made. It says it was made in 1958… how.. where?”

Paul blinked, and then grinned.

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“Oh! Of course. He was in heavy industry! The old man must have gotten these when the big steel plants closed and everything went over to making electronics, or something. Man, these things cost a ton of money nowadays, every hobbyist-maker wants one and there’s three here. No, wait that’s a 750, the big brother of the family. What else is there?”

“Well, that tall one is Aniang-sama, the power hammer, and that one next to him is Royle-chan, the press… and next to her is ..”

“Ok, ok.. tell you what, let’s just take the covers off and let me see… wow.. this is like a dream..”

In a very short while Paul could see that the barn-like building contained a ccomprehensively kitted out metal-working shop at one end, with a sliding divider wall separating it from an equally well-appointed wood-working shop. The machinery was old, probably brought over as part of the post-war reconstruction effort and then discarded in the 60’s and 70’s for more modern machines. But it was in top-notch condition.

All of which was powered by the big green-painted generator turned by the water-wheels, although Paul could make out the brackets that used to take rows of axles and pulleys, that were used to power belt driven equipment. The building itself was old, probably as old as the temple if not more so.

Paul sat down, feeling a bit faint. He dabbled in DIY and watched a number of youtube channels from various makers.. but this was a professional grade set up, with two large charcoal burning forges, and a newer propane fired one. The base of one of the charcoal forges was clearly part of an earlier forge, and had been rebuilt.. perhaps a couple of hundred years ago it looked like.

“Shoko… what was the old man doing here?”

“Mostly fixing farm equipment. He said the people couldn’t afford to keep buying new, because they had to get it from far away. He made new equipment too. Selling that made money for the temple.”

“I see… but this place is old, and it looks like it’s always had a forge here.”

“Yes! In olden times, the monks made swords. Very good swords. But.. well, people stopped wanting swords, and it was too expensive to make other things at the time.”

“They had an iron mine?”

“Yes! The iron from our mountain never rusts, and makes very good swords.”

Paul stared out of the open, glassless window at the rushing stream. He could see where it had left deposits of red mud in among the water weeds.

“Yeah… that explains a few things. This mountain is probably just one big chunk of high-grade iron ore. Hence, it blocks radio signals. Maybe some developer somewhere got wind of it too. Which would explain why someone wants to buy it so badly. If I recall correctly, the whole mountain belongs to the temple, yes?”

“Yes… but I don’t understand.”

“The mountain contains very high quality ion ore, used to make very, very good steel. At the moment, most of the steel Japan uses either comes from America, and is good quality but expensive, or it comes from China and is cheaper but much poorer quality. So, this mountain is worth a lot of money to someone. It contains high quality stuff which doesn’t have to be shipped long distances, meaning it costs less.”

“Oh… so… they’d mine here again? The temple would have money?”

“Umm… Shoko, I don’t think you understand. Modern mining methods would utterly destroy this mountain, they’d dig it all up, leaving nothing but a huge hole instead of a mountain and an even bigger mess. Every living thing would either have to go, or would be killed.”

Shoko stared at him open mouthed, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Noooo! I don’t wanna leave or die!”

“Whoa, whoa! It’s ok, it won’t happen. I won’t let it, I promise! I’ll protect your mountain home.”

Shoko sniffed, looking at him tearfully still.

“You promise?”

“I do solemnly swear that I shall protect this sacred mountain to the utmost of my ability.”

Shoko flung herself at Paul, wrapping her small arms around his waist as far as they’d go, crying again, although in joy, as she stammered out rather muffled thanks, with her face pressed against his stomach, somewhere between sternum and navel. Paul reached down and ruffled her hair.

Momentarily he paused; his fingers had encountered something unexpected… what felt like a pair of largish, fluffy years. Not unlike a dogs, one of the breeds like a German Shepard, with erect ears. Puzzled, Paul tugged at them, and got an ‘Eep!’ from Shoko.

“Shoko, are you wearing a head-band.. one of those ones with cat ears perhaps?”

“Nooo…. Please, stop pulling my ear!”

Paul let go of the ear as if it was a hot coal.

“Your ear…?! As in, it’s a part of you…?”

“Yes!”

Slowly Paul raised his hand. Peering down, now that he looked hard, he could see the tips of them peeking up though Shoko’s hair, just behind the ribbon she used to tie it back.

“All..right...you have cat ears.”

“FOX ears!”

“I stand corrected, fox ears… Surgery, or are you from Fukushima?”

“Am I from where?”

“Never mind, that was a silly idea anyway. They’re... real, then. What are you?”

“Yes! Of course they’re real… I’m a kitsune, a fox spirit.”

“A… But those are just myths! Not real.”

“I’m real! I’ll kick you if you say I’m not!”

Paul took a deep breath, and let it out slowly…

“Ok then. Kitsune are real. Umm… you mentioned magic? That’s real?”

“Yes... sort of, it’s real here but it doesn’t seem to work any more outside. The further I go away from the temple boundary the weaker it gets.”

“Right, I can see why the idea of leaving would be bad then. Can you even survive without magic?”

Shoko looked down, scuffing the packed dirt floor with her toe, and shook her head.

“Not for long, a day, maybe a little more.”

“Right… umm, is it just you here, or are there other magical mystical beings around?”

Shoko nodded.

“Yes! There are Tengu and Tanuki living in the forest, and all sorts of yōkai, yōsei and koro-pok-guru. Oh and there’s...”

“Ok, ok.. I don’t need the whole list just yet!”

“Oh… ok. But this one’s important. We have a goddess too.”

“A.. wait, what?!”

“Uh-huh.. there’s a goddess living under the main altar in the shrine. Her name is Inari Ōkami. She’s my mother, sort of. Mother of all Kitsune really, and the patron goddess of sword-smiths. She’s nice but she spends a lot of the time asleep.”

“Right…. that’s probably just as well. I’m not sure if I’d cope with meeting a goddess just at the moment. Or ever, actually.”

Shoko giggled. Now that he was looking for them Paul could see her ears moving, and her long fluffy golden tail swished behind her. He frowned slightly.

“Were you using some kind of magic before, to make your tail and ears invisible?”

Shoko blushed faintly and nodded.

“Yes! It’s… not polite to use magic on other people without asking, but I can’t make things invisible. So I just.. made you not notice them.”

“It’s ok, you had good reason to do it and I agree you should probably keep doing it if anyone else is around.”

“Umm, is anyone going to be coming here?”

“Well, delivery people for a start and we are definitely going to need someone to take a look at that wiring. I think it’s older than I am, and not at all safe.”

“Can’t you fix it?”

Paul slowly and firmly shook his head.

“No. That’s a job for someone trained and qualified. Not someone who only sort of half knows. Electricity is dangerous if it’s not treated with respect. Especially in a building made out of very old dry wood and paper!”

“Oh… like powerful magic.”

“I suppose so. It’s better to leave it to people who know what they’re doing.”

“Yes!”

“That said. I do know my way around low voltage dc stuff, solar panels, LED lighting. Which would probably be safer to use in the temple.”

“Huhhhh?”

“Never mind Shoko-san, different sort. Kind of like the difference between high power magic and kitchen sink spells.”

“Kitchen sink spells?”

“Ah, you probably call it something different, Small spells, meant to be helpful around the house, like keeping knives sharp and rust free. That sort of thing.”

“Oh yes!! I know how to do that kind of magic! I am very good at Kitchen Sink Spells! That’s me, Shoko-san, the helpful fox spirit!”

Paul laughed.

“Yes, yes you are. Very helpful!”

Shoko squeaked in pleasure, and hugged herself. Paul grinned, and patted her head, making her make a small “Meep!” sort of noise in surprise. Shoko grinned up at him.

“So, how can I help you Paul-sama!?”

“Well, I still need to go shopping… but while I’m away why don’t you tell the rest of the inhabitants of this mountain that I’ll be looking after the place now. Pretty sure they must’ve been worrying about what the new guy might do.”

“Yes! Ok, I’ll go be your messenger. They’ll want to meet you, some of them..”

“Okayyyy… something tells me I’d better lay in some more food, right?”

“Umm. Yes... but… not right away. The new moon will be rising in three days time. That would an auspicious time for a feast, and I think maybe you’ll need some help cooking.”

“I think you’re probably right. I’ve no idea what they eat and I wouldn’t want to offend someone. They were here first after all.”

“Oh! Yes… ah… so… really, we should be throwing you a feast, to welcome you, maybe.”

Paul thought about it a minute, then grinned.

“Tell you what. Let’s introduce them to a Western custom called a pot-luck. That’s where everyone brings something they cooked to eat, something they want, and something they think everyone else might like, which is then shared. That way, everyone contributes to the feast, no-one has to cook everything, and everyone has at least one dish they can eat.”

Shoko nodded her head so hard she almost looked like bobble-head doll.

“That’s a GREAT idea Paul-sama! Everyone is the host then!”

“That’s the idea. I’ll provide the space to hold it too. Oh boy, I’d better get hustling if I’m going to do all that. C’mon Shoko-san, lets roll.”

“Huh?”

“Means pick up your feet and go!”

“Ok!!”

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