Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

Taki glanced at Uesugi, who seemed anxious and uncertain, with a strange look, but didn't ask any further questions. Like the others, he left the lobby and entered the game.

Suddenly, everything went dark, and the surroundings were pitch black.

Two lines of text gradually appeared.

Summer of the seventh year of Kan'ei (1630)

Koga

"Ho ho ho"

A wave of exhaustion washed over her. Listening to the panting, Takii gradually transformed from an observer into a participant.

I'm so tired, my body is so tired.

Her vision slowly brightened, but it was still pitch black overall. It was nighttime, and she was on a high place, standing on a flat bamboo pole, with her arms outstretched to maintain her balance. She could see the scattered lights of the houses around her.

[Goal: Complete balance beam training]

what?

Taki was a little stunned.

Is this battle really that well-funded? Not only is there a time and location, but it even shows the target!

In that half-second of distraction, she lost her balance and fell from the bamboo pole several meters high into the pile of dry grass on the ground.

Thud, she was buried in the pile of dry grass.

"Ouch."

She then realized that the character she was controlling seemed to be a little girl.

She looks very thin and small; I wonder if she's even eight years old.

However, considering the average height of Japanese people in the past, she slightly raised her prediction to ten years.

The spot where she had just been was a bamboo pole erected in the yard, about four or five meters high.

It's obvious she's training.

"Dengjiang? Dengjiang, where are you?"

The sound came from the Japanese-style house next door.

"Dengjiang?" She's probably calling herself.

Takii climbed out of the haystack and went into the house.

"Mom, Mom," she called out instinctively.

"Tokyo-chan, you've been secretly training again? Sigh, child, how many times has your father told you that the Koga clan's combat ninjas don't take women as concubines."

A woman sighed and brushed the dust and grass off her clothes.

The story seems obvious: it's about a girl who wants to become a fighting ninja.

So, does the plot develop through battles or training, followed by some major events, to gain the village's recognition and officially become a Koga-shu combat ninja?

If that's the case, it's like a Disney family-friendly movie.

No, wait, the seventh year of Kan'ei. Isn't that exactly the time recorded by Hosei, when the fourth Muramasa went mad and was defeated by him and the Koga?!

So, could this be an additional data expansion for "Demon Blade," also known as DLC?

Chapter 176: Liujia Secret Blessing

Just as Takii felt she was uncovering the game's true background, a faint sound came from outside the entrance hall.

"Alright, your father is back. This time, I can't keep it a secret for you."

It seems this little girl has gotten herself all dirty from secretly training like this quite a few times.

Her mother led her to the entrance hall ahead of time, waiting for her husband to return.

"That's all for now, see you tomorrow."

Outside the door, the two said goodbye, and then the door was opened, and a man dressed plainly, with a lot of black dirt and the smell of gunpowder on his body, walked in.

"I am back."

"Welcome home."

Without a doubt, this is the girl's father.

The mother put away the father's coat, then pulled him back into the inner room and told him about the girl secretly training again that day.

Taki knelt to the side, pretending to be guilty.

This game has revealed a lot of information, but suddenly becoming someone whose background is unknown makes it easy to say the wrong thing and cause trouble.

These are not NPCs; they can be treated as living, breathing people.

Currently, the only known information about this family is that they are a Koga ninja clan.

Ninjas held a peculiar social class, existing outside the traditional social hierarchy of scholars, farmers, artisans, and merchants. During wartime, they served as tools, while during peacetime they became farmers, merchants, or ascetics.

Even the renowned Hattori Hanzo family, despite holding official titles and being formal samurai, were still ostracized by the orthodox samurai groups because they were leaders of ninja forces, used dishonest methods, and lacked proper lineage.

The father drank his water and listened silently as his wife finished speaking.

"Okay, I understand. Akari, do you really want to be a combat ninja? This isn't child's play; your life could be in danger at any moment. Besides, the Koga don't have a habit of letting women fight. Helping with medicine production and intelligence relay from the rear is also a form of helping. More importantly, now that we're at peace, there aren't many requests related to combat anymore."

Takii was certain of this: "Yes, I want to be one!"

The father stared silently into her eyes for a long while before suddenly turning to his wife beside him: "Go and get that thing."

"Oh? Really? Shouldn't it be passed on to a boy? I'll go right now." The wife seemed very surprised, but dared not disobey her husband's order, and left the inner room to get something.

A short while later, she returned carrying a box.

The father took it in his hand, gently touched it, sighed, and opened it to take out a scroll inside.

"This is the Six Jia Secret Blessing Scroll. Every word (Lin Bing Dou Zhe Jie Zhen Lie Zai Qian) was written by a senior who cultivated the 'Heart of Patience' with his spirit, in order to help the younger generation cultivate the Heart of Patience more quickly."

"But in recent years, for some reason, fewer and fewer people have been able to cultivate the heart of forbearance, and it has become increasingly difficult. I have been trying to understand it for ten years, but I have made almost no progress, and the spirit of the scroll has been almost completely exhausted."

"Now, I'll give it to you ahead of time."

He stared intently at Taki, his expression serious: "If you can find your own ninja heart, I will persuade the others to let you officially become a combat ninja."

Find the heart of forbearance.

Taki carefully took the box. Is this the legacy of the ninja?

"When you are fearless, open yourself to enlightenment."

"I understand."

Taki did not open it immediately, but carefully put it away.

The father wanted to say something more, but a faint commotion came from outside.

"Zong Yan! Zong Yan, hurry! Zheng Qing, he's gone mad!"

The door was kicked open, and a disheveled man rushed in, carrying a knife, and spoke urgently to the father.

"What do you mean? I just saw Zhengqing yesterday. He just came back from outside and he was perfectly fine." The father frowned and pressed down on the man's shoulder.

"I don't know, I don't know either. He suddenly went berserk and started killing people in the workshop. The combat team has already gone there, and they want all of us men to go and help—they specifically asked you to go!" the man explained weakly.

Upon hearing this, the father no longer hesitated. He took the Fire-Severing Pill from the knife rack, comforted his wife for a few words, and then hurriedly went out, disappearing into the night.

Objective: Take up arms and kill the "Zhengqing" (a Qing dynasty official).

Others may not know who Masaaki is, but Takii does.

That man was the fourth generation of Muramasa.

Me, a ten-year-old girl, beating up the fourth Muramasa who's gone berserk? Really?

That's ridiculous! How could it possibly be achieved?

But does that mean we should just stay home obediently and ignore it?

After thinking it over, Takii decided to proceed with her plan.

Regardless of whether it's possible or not, let's go to the battlefield and see what we can gain.

With that thought in mind, she avoided her worried mother, grabbed a wakizashi short sword, climbed over the wall in the yard, and headed in the direction indicated by her target.

Although it's called a village, it's clearly different from ordinary villages. It's a ninja village, mainly inhabited by Koga ninja families. There are many militarized facilities, as well as streets and workshops as densely packed as a town.

The noise was coming from the direction where the buildings were most densely packed, and a large fire had already broken out.

Rumble!

An explosion suddenly occurred in a building, which was probably a gunpowder workshop. Fiery debris rained down like meteors.

"That's a wicked demon with a knife! Run, run!"

"They're all dead! They're all dead!"

People kept fleeing from that direction, looking terrified, as if they had been through something.

Aside from those who fled, many more ninjas, armed with weapons, ran against the fleeing crowd towards the scene of the incident, passing by Takii one after another, completely ignoring why such a small child was in such a dangerous place.

You can also see more skilled ninjas moving as fast as the wind on the rooftops, leaping across the buildings.

"Stop him—face me! You demon!"

"Formation!"

Takii finally arrived near the battlefield, where all around was a sea of ​​fire composed of burning buildings, with flames surging like ocean waves.

In an open area amidst the fire, corpses littered the ground.

"Zhengqing! Wake up! It's me, Ban Zongyan!" The girl's father was among them, holding a knife, shouting loudly at the people surrounded by the group, whose hair was disheveled and almost stained with blood.

Zheng Qing didn't react at all. He casually stabbed the ninja at his feet, who was still breathing, into the heart. A red light flowed into the blade along with the ninja's blood.

"Myoho Muramasa."

From a distance, Takii could only see the firelight reflected off the blade, but she was certain that it was the demon sword.

Based on the previous historical recurrence, it is clear that Myoho Village fell into the hands of Tokugawa Ieyasu, who explicitly stated his intention to destroy it.

But what happened in between that caused this descendant of the Muramasa family to reappear nearly thirty years later?

It's highly likely that it's the same person who gave the knife to the third Muramasa who's behind this.

“It seems he has lost his mind and cannot be awakened. Zongyan, leave here. The gunpowder secrets you possess are very important to Koga.” A ninja standing nearby shielded the girl’s father behind him.

The girl's father shook his head: "Our family brought him to the village back then, and we are to blame for what happened today."

The ninja no longer had time to persuade him, because Zheng Qing had already made his move.

Fast as lightning.

The ninjas who had formed a battle formation were killed instantly.

"No, only an adult with a strong sense of patience can deal with this monster!"

Some people couldn't help but take two steps back, their faces filled with fear.

Before Taki's eyes, the original objective, "Objective: Take up a weapon and kill 'Zheng Qing'", began to distort and gradually transformed into "Objective: Rescue Father".

But these words kept flashing, flickering like tangled wires.

She finally understood, from the beginning until now.

None of the given task objectives were achievable by her.

Even the reactions of her current body are not entirely under her control.

A chilling despair and fear spread from her eyes to her entire body, freezing her in place, making it difficult for her to even move her legs.

The girl's father also noticed her at this moment, and shouted something to her anxiously.

But she couldn't hear anything, only a buzzing sound.

The demonic sword danced wildly, staining the night sky with blood.

Even her vision was stained crimson.

As expected, her father was cut in half vertically with a single stroke.