Tokyo Gods Only Want Beautiful Priestesses

"Forget it, there's no point in thinking about it. I might as well leave it to the higher-ups and let them figure it out. There's bound to be someone who can solve it."

After much deliberation, Hanayama Haru decided to give up. Nothing in the world is perfect, and the inability to find problems is simply a matter of ability.

"No need, let me wait a bit. If I can't wait, I'll just kill all the Shadow Demons in Tokyo. That should solve the problem."

Jingu waved his hand, telling Kazanin Haru not to even think about reporting it for a solution. Seriously? Wouldn't that prove he had no way to solve it?

Hanayama Haru stared stiffly at the Shrine, whose very words, such as annihilation of a clan, were... well, surprisingly, consistent with her impression of the Shrine.

A wicked god who acts arbitrarily and recklessly has been replaced by an evil priest whom they would have previously had to punish.

"What is Lord Shrine waiting for?" Suga asked, puzzled.

But before Jingu could answer, Suga Ai's phone suddenly rang. Suga Ai wanted to hang up immediately, but after glancing at the screen, she chose to answer.

The person on the other end of the phone seemed to say something, but Jingu could sense that Soga's mood was gradually declining, and finally Soga hung up on him without hesitation.

“Lord Jingu, it was Soga who conveyed the message that he wanted to see you, but Ai doesn’t think it’s necessary.”

"No, no, no." Jingu laughed.

"This is still very necessary."

Chapter 30 Soga Iruka

As night fell, the car drove into an old manor house in a remote part of Tokyo.

Jingu and Soga alighted from the carriage one after the other, and the servants who had been waiting for a long time quickly stepped forward to lead the way for the two.

Even though it has been in decline for many years, the Soga family still has some heritage. The entire manor is over a thousand square meters in size, but the manor cannot hide its dilapidated state and the population is sparse.

Suga Ai held onto Jingu's arm, her expression unchanged. To her, this was just another unfamiliar place.

In the main hall, the lights were not on; instead, the flickering candlelight illuminated the tables in front of each person. The person in the main seat had his figure obscured by a screen, and could only be identified by his shadow as an elderly man.

Surrounding her sat relatives whom Su Woai could neither name nor recognize; some had stern faces, while others cast smiles my way.

The seat opposite the main seat seemed to be reserved for Jingu and Soga. Jingu led Soga to sit down and looked at the figure in the main seat with great interest.

The first to speak was not the elderly man in the main seat, but a middle-aged man in the side seat. He cleared his throat and gave a kind smile.

"Xiao Ai, do you remember me? I'm your uncle, the uncle you had when you were little."

"do not remember."

Su Woai shook her head. The man's face stiffened slightly, but then he smiled warmly and continued.

“It’s okay if you don’t remember. You were too young to remember back then. But your uncle has always remembered you. The family has declined so much over the years that we haven’t been able to take care of you. You’ve suffered so much all these years.”

"Fortunately."

Su Ai's bland reply seemed to leave the other party unsure how to proceed, so she shifted her focus to Shen Gong and spoke with utmost respect.

"Is the Imperial Decree the revered deity my niece serves, Lord Shrine Master?"

"Well, just get to the point. Stop with the nonsense, it's a waste of time."

Jingu picked at his ear; he wasn't one to hold his temper for long.

This nonchalant behavior immediately prompted some people to jump out and play the bad cop.

"You little mountain god, how dare you be so rude."

Before he could finish speaking, he was slapped hard by an invisible gust of wind and sent flying.

In an instant, everyone stood up in surprise, their faces filled with anger, seemingly about to make a scene, but were stopped by a gesture from the middle-aged man.

"My apologies, Your Majesty. Some of the younger members of our clan are ignorant of divine power and their presumptuous words should not be taken to heart."

"Ah."

The man who had been slapped away was pulled up by several servants and led out of the main hall. The priest simply chuckled twice.

The shrine didn't find it strange. Yingzhou was animistic, and the so-called eight million were 99% just for show, almost like monsters. His nameless god was basically equivalent to a minor mountain deity.

While these large families may appear to consist mostly of ordinary people with only a few having inherited the art of Onmyoji, each of them has its own grand shrine, such as the Kasuga Taisha mentioned by Masato Takatsukasa.

Of course, going into more detail would involve the different types of beliefs in Yingzhou, but we won't go into that for now.

In conclusion, both Takatsukasa Makoto's and Soga's current attitudes are normal.

The infamous reputations of the nameless fox spirit and Tamamo-no-Mae cannot be generalized; the nameless mountain...

Naturally, in their eyes, the wild god could not be compared with the famous gods of destiny.

In Yingzhou, there's not much difference between being a god and being a demon. If Tamamo-no-Mae is willing to put on a fake identity and occupy a shrine, she can directly claim to be the XX God of Destiny.

Ultimately, only by demonstrating strength can one earn respect.

After a moment's thought, the middle-aged man said, "Since Lord Shrine doesn't like nonsense, let's get straight to the point."

“Although the family has not helped Su Wo’ai in the past, it’s different if it’s you.”

Jingu glanced at Suga, while his little shrine maiden remained silent, looking down at her hands before looking up at Jingu again.

"Talk about interests?" Jingu laughed.

"Yes," the middle-aged man replied confidently.

"As long as Lord Shrine Master guarantees that Soga Ai will be your High Priestess and that her successor will be Soga Ai's offspring, then the next head of the Soga clan will definitely be Soga Ai."

"The Soga clan will enshrine your shrine as their family shrine. Although it has been in decline for a thousand years, the Soga clan still has a lot of heritage and we believe it can meet your needs."

“Money, land, personnel, faith, these are not problems. The operation of a shrine often requires continuous investment. With the full support of the Soga clan, things will be different.”

"Moreover, this is not an exchange of benefits, but a normal win-win situation. Suga has the right to inherit the family and is also your first priestess. Isn't this how it should be?"

In Yingzhou, it is very difficult for shrines to be self-sustaining, especially small, unknown shrines. Most shrine maidens and priests run the shrines part-time.

Most large shrines have family or official backing, such as Kasuga Taisha of the Fujiwara family, Hachimangu Shrine of the Minamoto family, and Itsukushima Shrine of the Taira family.

The most famous is naturally the Ise Grand Shrine, which is mainly dedicated to the Japanese imperial family. Shrines like Inari Shrine, which are spread throughout Japan and attract a constant stream of worshippers, are extremely rare.

"What are your thoughts, Lord Jingu?" the man asked Jingu as he sat down.

It sounds like a sincere effort, but

"That's well said, but why do you think I need these things?"

The shrine maiden's gaze swept around, her vertical pupils flashing, and everyone whose gaze swept over her felt a chill run down their spines.

"Belief?"

The air in the room was slowly drawn away, and a substantial sense of heaviness pressed down on everyone.

"Personnel? Land?"

Under this real pressure, some people were already slumped over the desk, unable to get up, their faces flushed.

Money? Ha!

The shrine maiden chuckled, her breath like a long dragon, booming like thunder, and the man was embedded directly into the wall panel by this breath.

"What makes you think I really need these things? Leaving aside the wealth of the world, if I really wanted them..."

As the shrine slowly raised its hand, everyone felt as if their lungs were being pulled up by an invisible hand, rising to their throats, almost suffocating them.

What's difficult about it?

If you do it, there is nothing you cannot do.

"But didn't you agree to the Takatsukasa family's request to settle the conflict with one billion?"

The old man behind the screen finally spoke, his voice hoarse as if he were being pulled by two leather belts.

Reaching out to part the screen, an old man, so aged it was hard to believe he was still alive, sat in the main seat. His exposed skin, besides the signs of aging, also revealed shocking scars and sutures.

It was as if it had been pieced together, each breath was barely a whisper, and there was no sense of inhaling or exhaling.

"You've finally spoken." Jingu lowered his hand, and everyone immediately resumed breathing, panting heavily, their flushed faces returning to normal.

"Please excuse my ignorance. My name is Soga Iruka, and I am just a damned person who did not want to show my face."

The aged old man uttered a name that was hard to ignore, and even Su Woai looked up in surprise.

"Then, Lord Jingu, if you possess such power, why did you accept the gifts from the Takatsukasa family? And why are you living in such poverty and hardship?"

Chapter 31 The Truth

Soga no Iruka lived during the Asuka period, approximately 1400 years ago.

He was a powerful minister who held immense influence at the time, but he was supposed to die in the Yisi Incident. Instead, he was stabbed to death and his body was left in the wilderness.

Even if he hadn't died back then, how could he have survived 1400 years to this day?

But he did indeed claim to be so, and the scars on his body did indeed resemble the manner of death recorded in the records, which made Su Wai somewhat incredulous.

But Jingu didn't care; he simply answered Soga Iruka's question.

"Because it's both troublesome and meaningless."

The reason is very simple, so simple and crude that it makes one suspect that the shrine is just putting on a brave face. But the shrine is simply stating a fact.

Just like Tamamo-no-Mae, who has been active for thousands of years and wreaked havoc on more than one dynasty, would she really be broke or unable to get money?

She simply felt it was unnecessary. If she wanted it, she had a thousand ways to get it and use it at any time, because her moral bottom line was far more flexible than that of the Divine Palace.

The shrine simply doesn't want to do certain things, and is too lazy to do these meaningless things.

To gods or monsters, the values ​​touted by human society are utterly meaningless; money and land are merely things used to support the priestesses who worship the gods.

All the shrine wants is to enjoy some of the pleasures of human society, such as beautiful girls, but if it requires them to go through the trouble of making money for that, then they are putting the cart before the horse.

He agreed to Takatsukasa Masato's request mainly because he was also curious about the mastermind behind it all and found the matter quite interesting.

It would be too much trouble to have the shrine go to the bottom of the sea to salvage some shipwreck treasure just for money. It would have to be some kind of underwater ancient city with mermaids to be truly motivating.

What god or monster would bother working hard for a pile of useless scrap paper? Oh no, maybe there is one.

"Hey, have you been pretending to be human for so long that your thought process has become like a human's?"

Jingu tapped his head, indicating that Soga Irishaka might have some kind of problem with his brain.

"Starting to think about power, class, and money like a human being—is it because human society has such a high degree of assimilability, or because you've been pretending to be human for so long that you've become used to it?"