..."If we're doing this, it can't just be Japaneseized. Earth's culture is vast, man! Some parts need to be Sinicized and Koreanized. We need diversity!"
Ryong lifts his head from the table for a split second. "No need. It will just cause disunity. Keep it simple."
"You don't need it, but I want it!" Comtois bellows back, his face turning red.
Hano shakes his head, but Onaga places a steady hand on his shoulder. "Compromise a little, Hano. To maintain the peace. Let them have their ornaments."
Hano grumbles but falls silent. Lei, sensing an opening, clears his throat. "I haven't even said I want to Sinicize any part yet, but if Comtois is pushing for it..."
"Diversity," Comtois repeats, shrugging his shoulders as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
"We haven't done anything to reflect the local culture yet," Lei points out, his voice more measured. "But we can apply this to the infrastructure."
He begins listing his own additions, his eyes bright with the prospect of grand architecture.
"Palatial Infrastructure: The lakeside buildings will feature red-painted beams and elaborate Dougong bracket systems. It's a statement of power. Hydraulic Engineering: To manage the marshy waters, we implement Chinese-style canal locks and elegant stone arch bridges. The Staithe: A formal wharf to serve as a primary port for Chinese Junks—high-capacity vessels for bulk cargo."
He pauses, looking at Aldo. "And Paifang Gates. Traditional ceremonial gateways to mark the transition from the water to the land. It gives the villagers a sense of arrival."
Lei holds up a hand before anyone can object. "We should only do the Staithe and the Hydraulic Engineering. I don't want to be too obvious. We need to be wary of the Marquis; if he thinks we're building a rival kingdom, he'll get angry."
"What symbol should we use for the lakeside gates?" Comtois asks, looking around.
One of the local businessmen pipes up from the corner. "A forest god statue? Or... a Catholic symbol? The missionaries from the south sometimes bring those."
Comtois shakes his head vigorously, but Aldo is already writing it down.
"The connection to the plain should be the main indigenous culture," Aldo says, his quill scratching against the parchment. "Other cultures will be added peripherally. We need to satisfy the 'local' requirement of the contract, or the Marquis will use it as an excuse to void the bounty."
Hano, seeing the final shape of the plan, outlines the synthesis.
"To satisfy the 'local' requirement, the primary structures won't be imported. They'll be adaptations. Log-Cabin Tollhouses. Heavy, notched pine logs with sod roofs to blend into the forest edge. Thatch and mud-plaster. Walls reinforced with local river mud and straw. Practical. Humid. Local."
He pauses, a smirk playing on his lips. "Maybe we add some Vietnamese culture for balance? To round out the Earthling influence?"
"Not necessary," Aldo says flatly.
"Do you object?" Hano asks, tilting his head.
"Whatever is fine," Aldo sighs, [just let me finish this,] "but stay focused on the local culture for the primary aesthetic."
"Then," Hano continues, his voice playful, "how about carving some Vietnamese cultural symbols on the pillars at the forest entrance? Like the red flag with the yellow star?"
"No," Aldo says, not looking up. "Let's use lotus flowers and phoenixes instead. Keep it subtle. Keep it elegant."
"Okay," Hano agrees.
They lay out the final layers. The room feels charged, the air vibrating with the collision of four different cultures being grafted onto a medieval landscape.
The Korean Layer: Roadside Totems. The Korean Jangseung remain, but carved by local artisans using local pine, giving them a "rougher," hinterland look. Boundary Markers: Small stone stelae at the edge of the plains to signify the end of forest jurisdiction.
The Japanese Layer: Precision Drainage. Stone-lined gutters, perfectly symmetrical, utilizing local river pebbles for a zen-like "dry river" look. A Torii-style transition: A simple, unpainted wooden archway marking the point where the humid forest air gives way to the dry plains breeze.
Aldo stands up abruptly, gathering the notes and maps into a messy pile. The sudden movement startles the tavern cat, which hisses and darts under a barrel.
"That's enough!" Aldo says, his voice agitated, his patience finally evaporated. "Let's get down to business. We have sixteen villages to transform and a road to carve out of a nightmare."
He turns and leaves the tavern, the heavy door slamming shut behind him, the sound echoing like thunder through the quiet morning.
Hano watches the door, a small smile on his face. "Aldo doesn't seem very interested in his own country's culture, does he?"
Onaga stands up, stretching his limbs. "Everyone is different, Hano. Not everyone is the same. Perhaps Aldo is just a pragmatist. He sees the road; he doesn't care about the gate."
One by one, the leaders leave.
The "Earthlings" depart, their heavy boots thudding against the floorboards as the tavern door slams with a finality that shakes the very rafters. For a long moment, the villagers and merchants remain frozen in the flickering candlelight, staring at the empty table where the world has just been re-drawn in spilled ale and ink.
Steward is the first to find his voice, though it comes out as a parched rasp. "Didst thou hear it, Daniel? The little one... the fierce one... he spoke of 'machines.' He said the road itself would be a machine of wood and notched joints."
Daniel wipes a sheen of cold sweat from his upper lip, his eyes darting to the door as if a ghost might re-enter. "I heard it, Steward. And the other—the tall one with the eyes of a hawk—he spoke of gates painted red as blood and stone arches that defy the weight of the water. They seek to bring the East here. Not the East of the Silk Road, but an East from beyond the stars, where they build shrines for the mist and bridges without a single iron nail."
Roy Bowman leans heavily on his counter, his gaze fixed on the beer-stains where Hano had sketched his "Japanized" dreams. "Kigumi," he mutters, tasting the foreign word like a sour grape. "Joinery that tightens when the rains fall. If such a thing be true, our carpenters are naught but children playing with twigs. But didst thou hear the tall one? Red flags with golden stars? Phoenixes carved upon the pillars?"
Ruby Mason steps forward, her hands trembling as she begins to gather the abandoned wooden cups. "They spoke of lotus flowers, Uncle. And shrines... 'Hokora,' they called them. To appease the water spirits." She looks over at her grandmother, Old Nancy, who hasn't moved from her chair by the dying fire. "They want to keep the men from losing their minds in the fog, Nana."
Old Nancy lets out a long, wheezing breath, her knitting needles finally still. "Appease the spirits? They'll need more than a birdhouse on a stick to soothe the Ents if they start carving 'lotuses' into the ancient bark. They speak of 'diversity' as if the forest were a tapestry to be sewn with different threads. But the Pirus is a jealous master. It likes not to be 'Japanized' or 'Sinicized.' It likes to be left in its own dark silence."
"And yet," Steward interjects, his merchant's greed finally wrestling his fear to the ground. "The drainage! Didst thou hear of the stone-lined gutters? If they keep the wood from the rot, my wains will not sink. And those Korean totems... 'Jangseung,' they named them. If they mark the boundaries so clearly, the bandits might think twice before crossing into a land guarded by such stone-faced demons."
"Demons is the word for it," Daniel grumbles, though he is now leaning in to listen. "They spoke of 'Chinese Junks'—great vessels for the bulk cargo. If they turn Lake Admonito into a forest of masts, the Marquis will have his coffers overflowing with our blood and sweat. A 'statement of power,' the tall one called it. Power always has a sharp edge for the small folk."
Ruby pauses, holding a cup to her chest. "But the leader... the weary one, Aldo. He spoke for us, did he not? He told them to keep it local. He spoke of our sod roofs and the mud-plaster of our fathers. He wanted the road to look like home, even if it has the soul of a strange land."
"Aye," Roy grunts, "he has the look of a man who just wants the job finished so he can sleep. But even he agreed to the phoenixes. Imagine it—the Pirus forest, filled with stone shrines, red gates, and wooden bridges that breathe with the damp. 'Twill be a forest out of a dream, or a nightmare."
"Look ye!" Daniel points at a small, discarded scrap of parchment near the table leg. Ruby snatches it up, her eyes widening as she traces the elegant, sweeping lines of a lotus flower sketched in the margin of a road-map.
"They are 'Earthlings,'" Ruby whispers, her voice filled with a terrifying awe. "They bring four worlds into our one. They fight the Lizardfolk with one hand and carve 'zen' gardens with the other."
"Let them carve," Old Nancy says, her eyes closing as the last candle flickers low. "Let them build their Sayabashi and their Paifang gates. But the mud of Admonito is deep, and the spirits of the Pirus have long memories. If they build a road with a soul, they best hope that soul knows how to bleed when the winter comes."
Steward stands, adjusting his belt. "Well, demon-roads or no, I must find the wood-wrights. If there's to be 'notched rails' and 'river-stone trenches,' I'll be the one to sell them the timber. If the world is to become 'smaller,' as they say, I'd best be the first to walk the new path."
The group slowly disperses into the grey morning light, leaving the tavern to the smell of stale ale and the echo of words that have changed the Pirus highlands forever.
Comtois does not even bother with the dignity of a stride; he practically rolls out of his chair and across the floorboards, humming a tune from a world thousands of miles away—a melody that sounds like chirping birds and tinkling glass, entirely alien to the heavy, somber echoes of Admonito. He exits not with the stride of a conqueror, but with the fluid, careless grace of a man who finds the laws of gravity as boring as the laws of the Marquis.
The tavern falls into a stunned, heavy silence.
"Didst thou see that?" Daniel whispers, his jaw hanging low. "He moved like a greased pig at a summer fair, yet he carries the authority of a high magistrate. 'Tis unnatural. A man of standing should walk with a heavy heel, not... slide like a brook over moss."
Ruby Mason stands frozen, a stack of wooden trenchers forgotten in her arms. Her eyes are wide, fixed on the door where Comtois vanished. To her, a man was defined by the iron in his back and the dirt under his nails—like the blacksmith or the grim woodsmen who haunt the bar. But these Earthlings possess a strange, effortless power that defies everything she has been told. "He was like the wind," she breathes, her heart fluttering with a dangerous new idolisation. "He does not care for the mud or the weight of the world. He makes his own path, even if he must roll to do it."
"Fie, girl!" Old Nancy Mason snaps, the wood of her knitting needles clacking like a death rattle. "A man who slumps and hums is a man without a soul's anchor. 'Tis a mockery of the Father's design! A man should be a pillar, upright and stern, not a tumbling jester playing at governance. These 'Earthlings' have no marrow in their bones, only whim and light. Mark my words, Ruby—a man who will not stand straight will not stand true when the winter wolf howls at the door."
The locals and the merchants remain in the tavern. They stay in the shadows, whispering, gossiping, their eyes wide. They have just witnessed the birth of a new world, a strange, hybrid civilization rising from the mud of Pirus, and they don't yet know if they are its citizens or its victims. Outside, the first light of dawn finally hits the lake, turning the grey water into a sheet of cold, shimmering silver.