I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

Chapter 67 Hozoin-ryu Spear Technique, Suehiro Moritoyo

Saito gripped his sword tightly, frowned, and glanced left and right at the group of samurai who had surrounded him and Aoto.

Qingdeng's brows furrowed at this moment.

He raised his knife, helped the three women in his arms to their feet, and asked, "...Who are you people?"

The chubby samurai, who had been quite aggressive, immediately froze when he saw the Edo Magistrate's Office inro on Qing Deng's right waist and the jitte with a red tassel: "Hmm? Are you the 'Sanji' of the Edo Magistrate's Office?"

"Mr. Komuro!"

At this moment, Kinoshita Mai was the first to step forward.

She spread her arms and blocked Qingdeng's way.

"You've misunderstood! These two gentlemen are not bad people!"

The Western girl then pressed down on Kinoshita Mai, saying, "Yes! You've misunderstood! These two gentlemen just saved us! They're not bad people!"

The girl clearly has the face of a typical Western girl, yet she can speak such fluent and standard Japanese...

Her accent was so standard that, without looking at her face, it would be hard to imagine that this was Japanese spoken by a foreigner.

The plump, white samurai known as "Komuro" looked at Kinoshita Mai with surprise, then at the Western girl, before finally turning his scrutinizing gaze back to Aoto...

"...I'm sorry, it seems I misunderstood. I mistook you for thieves who were trying to harm Miss Angoulême and the others. I'm so sorry." Komuro apologized to Aoto in a deep voice while waving his hand to his subordinates around him.

Reminded by Komuro's hand gesture, the samurai who were surrounding Ao and Sai all sheathed their swords or removed their hands from the hilts.

The tense atmosphere that had been hanging in the air instantly dissipated.

Although Komuro and the others had put aside their hostility, Saito still held his sword and stood guard closely in front of Aoto.

"...Tachibana, is your leg alright?" Saito glanced at Aoto's leg, which he was protecting behind him, out of the corner of his eye.

"It's nothing, just a minor injury. When I was learning to cook, I cut my hand much deeper than this." Qingdeng lowered his eyes and looked at his right leg, which had just been slashed.

The wound wasn't deep, but it wasn't shallow either. Blood flowing from the wound had already trickled down his leg, onto the back of his right foot, and onto the ground.

The leg issue can be dealt with later.

The most important thing right now is to negotiate with these people speaking in Osaka dialect and figure out what's really going on.

Aoto transferred the sword from his right hand to his left, pressing his right hand against the wound on his leg: "I am Tachibana Aoto, from the Edo Hokuban-sho-cho Doshin. May I ask who you are?"

"I am Komuro Chuichiro, a servant of the Osaka Castle Governor." Komuro lifted the lower right hem of his haori, revealing an Osaka Prefecture inro hanging on his right waist.

People from Osaka Castle?

Qingdeng frowned slightly.

He opened his mouth, about to begin further negotiations with Komuro—

"Young Master, Miss Angoulême, Miss Leroy, we've finally found you."

An aged voice drifted faintly from a distance behind the small room.

An elderly man who looked to be 8 or 90 years old, wearing glasses, walked slowly towards Qingdeng and his group.

"Mr. Kiryu...?" Aoto murmured the old man's name unconsciously.

The old man was the one who introduced Aoto to the Shieikan, the job placement agency: the owner of Senjiya—Kiryu Kazuma.

"Whoa..." Kiryu then noticed Aoto and Saito within the encirclement. "I remember... you're Tachibana-kun, who visited our shop just a few days ago, right? What are you doing here?"

"Mr. Kiryu!" Kinoshita Mai's face immediately lit up with excitement upon seeing Kiryu.

However, after her initial excitement subsided, Kinoshita Mai seemed to remember something, her excited expression froze, and she shrank back.

"...Young Master." The eyes behind Kiryu's glasses looked at Kinoshita Mai with a meaningful gaze. "Later...you'll have to explain to me properly how you ran away with Miss Angoulême and Miss Leroy."

……

……

On an inconspicuous hillside not far from Fujisawa-juku—

"Aha……"

Suehiro, whose status and strength in the Extermination Group are second only to Kamino, was entrusted with a heavy responsibility by Kamino and was in full charge of the assassination operation against Anthony and Elodie. He stood under a large tree on the hillside that had not yet withered.

He stood with his legs apart, mouth slightly open, and exhaled a breath of stale air.

He was holding a two-barreled gun with a dark green barrel in his hands, his small eyes half-open, the tip of the gun and his gaze pointing diagonally in front of him.

"Kan" is an ancient Japanese unit of length, approximately 1.818 meters. The so-called "two-kan spear" is a spear that is two kan long, and it was a fairly common long weapon in ancient Japan.

Suehiro has a height that is very characteristic of this era—his height is exactly 1.5 meters.

Suehiro, who is only 1.5 meters tall, is carrying a spear that is nearly 3.7 meters long... It's strange and incongruous.

It's like seeing a child dressed in adult clothes.

However—Suehiro was able to hold this huge gun, which was completely disproportionate to his height, in his hand without any effort.

Suehiro gripped the spear tightly and steadily, as if he were one with it.

One man, one gun, and they remained standing motionless.

After a long while, a gentle breeze came.

The wind blows, and the leaves fall.

A gentle breeze shook a few leaves off the still-green tree above Suehiro's head.

A fallen leaf, carried by the wind, drifted and landed on the tip of the spear in Suehiro's hand...

Suehiro's eyes, which had been half-open, suddenly widened!

"drink!"

He shouted, straightened his back, and forcefully swung the two-pronged spear in his hand upwards, splitting the fallen leaf that landed on the spear tip in two by the sharp blade.

The fallen leaves, neatly divided in two, fell in two different directions.

Suehiro's offensive has not stopped.

With another loud shout, he spun the gun around, the tip tracing a beautiful arc, further slicing the already halved leaf into four pieces…

Suehiro's marksmanship perfectly exemplifies the meaning of "accuracy" and "steadiness".

The tip of the gun sliced ​​through the leaf, which was being cut into increasingly smaller pieces, again and again.

Finally—when all the fallen leaf fragments had fallen to the ground, the leaf had been cut into a total of eight pieces…

Looking at the fallen leaves and fragments on the ground, Suehiro leaned the gun in his hand against his side and let out a long sigh of regret:

"Sigh... It's really difficult to chop the leaves into more than 10 pieces before they fall to the ground..."

"Mr. Suehiro! Your Hozoin-ryu spear technique has become much more refined than before!"

"Oh... it's Yamada." Suehiro smiled at a young man who was striding towards him from behind. "Well... if we're talking about improvement, he has indeed improved a bit."

"In the past, we could only cut the leaves into 6 pieces before they fell to the ground, but now we can cut them into 8 pieces."

Yamada smiled at Suehiro: "Mr. Suehiro, you are indeed very skilled. If you continue to improve at this rate, it is not impossible for you to become a master of spearmanship in the future."

"What's the use of becoming a marksman? This is no longer the era where you can rise to prominence just by winning military merit."

Suehiro looked with a wry smile at the spear that was more than twice his height, which he was leaning against.

"Alas... I only regret that I wasn't born in the chaotic Warring States period 300 years ago."

“If it were the Warring States period 300 years ago, it wouldn’t be impossible for me and my ‘Wind Cutter’ to fight for fame and become the lord of a city or region, just like the ‘Seven Spears of Shizugatake’ under Toyotomi Hideyoshi!”

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Chapter 68 [Benevolent King]

"Hmph... Who knows, I, Suehiro Moritoyo, might even be able to contend for the throne alongside Lord Nobunaga, Lord Shingen, and Lord Hideyoshi!"

Having said that, Suehiro proudly held his wind-cutting sword across his chest, half-closed his eyes, and imagined himself clad in armor, charging into battle, and achieving great fame.

"Alas...born at the wrong time, born at the wrong time."

After letting out another heavy sigh, Suehiro glared at Yamada.

"Alright, let's stop with the small talk for now."

"You didn't come all this way just to watch me practice shooting, did you?"

Yamada's expression turned serious: "Mr. Suehiro, everyone is assembled! There are 203 people in total, not a single one is missing!"

"Are all the personnel assembled..." Suehiro grinned. "Very good..."

Suehiro put away the gun in his hand.

"Let everyone get a good rest tonight!"

"We'll set off at daybreak tomorrow!"

"Yes!" Yamada responded loudly, then sighed, "Ha... I'm a little nervous... This is finally the first time our Extermination Group has launched an attack on the barbarians since its establishment..."

"Hahahaha!" Mo Guang laughed a few times. "No need to be nervous, Yamada."

"This operation will succeed easily; failure is impossible."

"For this operation, we assembled a total of 203 volunteers and brought 12 muskets."

"And the guards protecting Anthony and Elodie, these two barbarians, numbered only 36 in total."

"The troop strength is 203 to 36, so the advantage is on our side!"

"Not to mention we were prepared to fight the unprepared!"

Having said that, Suehiro, carrying his two-bladed spear which he named "Kazegiri," swaggered down the hillside.

"Mr. Suehiro, where are you going?" Yamada asked.