The court lackeys of the eight-hour workday

Chapter 529 Matsuura Takanobu
"Your Highness! Your Highness!"

Inside the tallest building in Hirado Castle, a samurai stumbled and fell towards the shoji door in front of him. In his haste, he tripped and fell headfirst into the door.

The shoji doors of Japan were made of wood frames and paper, and they couldn't withstand his weight. With a thud, the shoji doors collapsed forward. As he fell into the house, the women's screams filled the air.

"ah!"

"oops!"

He instinctively looked up, only to see a blanket of white.

The disheveled woman clutched her clothes to cover her chest and kept backing away. Her face was deathly pale, clearly terrified, but he could tell that her fear wasn't because of him.

It was because of their shared master.

"what's up?"

Lazy, with a breathy voice due to obesity.

The samurai raised his head, forcing himself not to look at the disheveled women, and instead focused his gaze forward.

In the center of the room, the lord of Hirado Castle, the daimyo Matsuura Takanobu, turned his head and squinted at him. His obese eyes, which appeared grotesque, shifted slightly, glancing at several women near the samurai.

While waiting for the samurai's reply, he casually waved his hand.

Then someone came out from the corner and dragged away the women who were crying and struggling in fear.

The samurai knew that these women were doomed.

Matsuura Takanobu dislikes things that others have touched.

In the past, he might have felt a pang of sympathy for the fallen, and sighed with regret. But now, he had no time to care about the lives of those women, and only spoke urgently in one breath.

"Your Highness! Foreign enemies have invaded!"

"We've arrived at Hirado Castle! Lord Gouteta Yasutsune is currently fighting off the enemy!"

Matsuura Takanobu's expression suddenly changed.

"Who is it! Arima, Ōuchi, Ōyuki, or Kikuchi!?"

He struggled to his feet and sternly named several prominent figures from the surrounding area.

"I don't know..."

The samurai answered with difficulty.

Matsuura Takanobu gritted his teeth and continued to ask.

“How many people are here!”

"one person!"

The samurai answered decisively.

If this conversation had taken place in Daisaku, the samurai would have suspected that Matsuura Takanobu might think he was being mocked, and Matsuura Takanobu would indeed have suspected and questioned the other party about the specifics.

But the two of them continued the conversation as if it were perfectly natural, as if... they had experienced, or at least heard of, such a situation.

Instead of scolding the samurai, Matsuura Takanobu pursed his lips with a solemn expression.

After hesitating for a moment, he finally clenched his fist.

"Gather the men, I'll go myself!"

"Prepare armor and a horse for me!"

The samurai nodded quickly, turned around, and hurried away.

Finally, after about half an hour, Matsuura Takanobu laboriously put on the bulky, heavy armor that covered his entire body and mounted his horse.

He took a few deep breaths, then suddenly drew his knife and pointed it forward.

"March!"

The remaining hundred or so samurai in Hirado Castle, along with more than two thousand soldiers, echoed each other and headed along the street toward the dojo of Kaguteda Yasunori.

Hirado Castle was not large. After only the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, Matsuura Takanobu, who was riding on horseback, heard a series of loud noises coming from not far away, mixed with the roars of wild beasts. His horse was so frightened that it paced back and forth, not daring to move forward.

His face was ashen, and with the help of his warriors, he managed to dismount, thinking to himself.

"What's going on...who is it?"

“Kugeteda Yasunori is a Shintoist. Could it be that Buddhists have come… No, their conflict is escalating in Honshu right now. My Hirado Castle is far to the southwest, connected to Honshu only by a land line. Even if they wanted to attack me, they shouldn’t have crossed the borders of Urakami, Amago, Ōuchi, and Ōtomo!”

"Besides, who... could have driven Yasutsune Kaguteda to such a predicament!"

Clearly, unlike the samurai who were puzzled by the roar, Matsuura Takanobu knew exactly who made the sound and what was happening; he simply didn't know Li Miao's origins or intentions.

After a moment's hesitation, he finally made up his mind. Kaguteda Yasunori was a member of the Akechi Kyoshin-ryu school, whose lineage was fundamentally connected to Shintoism. By taking Kaguteda Yasunori under his wing and entrusting him with important responsibilities, he was essentially surrendering to Shintoism.

No matter who the enemy Kaguteda Yasutsune is currently dealing with is, it is impossible for him to let go of the daimyo of Hirado Castle after defeating him!

"What are you all standing there for! Charge!"

He suddenly brandished his sword and gave the order.

So the samurai, along with their soldiers, surged forward like a tidal wave into the dojo that was constantly making loud noises.

Matsuura Takanobu stared intently at the dojo, carefully listening to every sound coming from it.

A hundred men surged in, the deafening roars of battle never ceased, and the beast-like howls remained unchanged, still filled with anger and pain.

Three hundred people poured in, but nothing changed.

Five hundred people poured in, but nothing changed.

It wasn't until half of his samurai and soldiers were gone that Matsuura Takanobu finally detected something different in the voice.

The sound of water.

Amidst the deafening roar of battle, the sounds of massive amounts of viscous blood being swirled, splashed, and sprayed gradually began to mingle.

Apart from that, there were no other changes.

His armor concealed his face, so the samurai of Hirado Castle couldn't see anything unusual about Matsuura Takanobu. But beneath the armor, sweat soaked through his undergarments, and his lips trembled uncontrollably.

"No, no."

"The person who came is definitely not a match for Kabutada Yasunori, otherwise these samurai and soldiers would have been enough to tilt the tide of the battle... Since there has been no change, it means that everything is under his control!"

"Half of them are already gone. Even if we send the other half in, the result will be the same... Let's go! Let's go now!"

Takanobu Matsuura's greatest strength is his decisiveness.

The moment he realized it was hopeless, he turned sharply, grabbed the reins, and desperately scrambled his obese body onto the horse's back before letting out a sudden shout.

"retreat!"

Before his warriors could react, he drew his sword and slashed at the horse's rump.

The law——

The warhorse, startled and in pain, suddenly reared up.

Matsuura Takanobu gripped the reins tightly, waiting for the warhorse to burst into a frenzy of pain.

However, no.

The warhorse's front hooves landed back on the spot, but instead of galloping forward, it stamped its feet a few times in agitation and panic before stopping.

"Let's go! Let's go!"

Matsuura Takanobu seemed to suddenly understand something, and he frantically pulled on the reins, slashing wildly at the horse with his sword.

But the warhorse only struggled slightly and made no move.

It was as if some kind of fear rooted in their instincts controlled their movements, making them ignore even the pain of being stabbed by a blade.

Matsuura Takanobu finally gave up. He struggled to jump off his horse and ran forward without a word.

Ten feet.

Twenty feet.

Thirty feet.

He was panting heavily, his obese body moving with difficulty. He was somewhat angry, and suddenly turned his head, wanting to scold his warriors for not coming to help him.

But his head had only turned halfway around.

Wow!

A wave of blood rushed towards him, splashing onto his face and mouth through the opening in his armor.

Before he could see what was happening, he cried out in surprise.

A figure in a dark black cloak passed by him, chasing after a familiar figure behind him. A playful laugh rang in his ears before disappearing into the distance.

"Don't run away, you still have one last chance."

"If you run again, I'm going to kill you."

(End of this chapter)