Tokyo: The Player Behind the Scenes

"I still remember him. He was a serious and unsmiling person. He was very good at knife work, which is why we took him into the village. He settled down here, but he never mentioned his background."

"One day, he said he had received a special commission and had to go on a long trip, and he didn't return for more than a month."

"According to Master Facheng, during this period, Zhengqing had actually obtained the demon sword and had been carrying out killings to consecrate the sword in many remote places in Shanyang Road."

"Master Facheng sensed the birth of the demon sword because of this, and followed the trail all the way here, but he was still a step too late."

"On the second night after Zhengqing returned, the demon sword went berserk, and all the combat ninjas and adult men took up weapons to fight. With our four remaining ninja masters as the main force, and with the help of the arriving monk Facheng, we paid a heavy price, losing three ninja masters and hundreds of ninjas, before we could barely suppress the demon sword."

"After this battle, our already declining Koga clan was almost completely destroyed, and many ninja families chose to relocate and abandon their identity as ninjas."

The old man took out a cloth, squatted down and wiped several stone tablets. After a while, he stood up, rubbing his back, and sighed that his back was just too weak for him as he got older.

Seeing that the old man seemed eager to talk, Iwasaki took his rag and wiped the other tombstones for him, while continuing to ask, "What exactly is the heart of forbearance?"

The old man fell silent, as if deep in thought.

"All things in nature can serve as a means of ninjutsu. Coupled with a fearless willingness to die for life, one can awaken the ninja's heart. That is the theory, but in the past few decades, not a single ninja in the village has awakened the ninja's heart."

"Logically speaking, when a ninja with a heart of forbearance dies, that heart of forbearance will return to nature. However, the hearts of the three masters were tainted by the demon sword. If they were allowed to return, they would only bring disaster to the world. Since this heart of forbearance is naturally formed, it is difficult to destroy. Therefore, Master Hosei could only choose to seal it, saying that he would continue to think of a way to completely solve the problem."

"So much time has passed now, there must be no better way."

"However, it doesn't affect us much. It's just that if people with weak wills stay here at night, they might hear some nonsense and do something irrational. So we just need to keep people out at night."

Iwasaki looked around, memorizing the surroundings, thinking he might need them later.

The old man left, leaving Iwasaki alone here.

Standing in front of the character's parents' graves, he cleaned them.

He seems to have gathered enough information, but he doesn't know if he can make use of the three hidden hearts buried here.

Perhaps I should add something.

An idea came to mind.

"What should I put in?"

Iwasaki took out all his belongings, and the only suitable place to put them was the wooden box containing the Rokuka Secret Blessing.

But shouldn't this be a key item, reserved for crucial moments?

After thinking for a few minutes, considering that he had saved the data before he came, he decided to follow the instructions and leave the wooden box in front of his parents' graves.

The character suddenly seemed much more relaxed.

Won't someone pick it up if I just leave it there?

Iwasaki ultimately decided against it. After spending some time at the cemetery, he didn't bother the old man, whom the old man had mentioned. Instead, he left the ninja village and headed to a nearby post town, where he found a reasonably cheap inn and slept there for the night.

The next day, as soon as he woke up, he was back on the route selection screen.

Now that we have weapons, then... um?

Perhaps I should go back to the cemetery again.

The character has the idea of ​​having a companion lamp.

Do we have to go back?

Iwasaki conserved his energy, selected a target location, left the lodge, and headed in the direction of the ninja village from yesterday.

The guard recognized her and, after checking her weapons, let her pass.

"Isn't that old man from yesterday here?" Iwasaki felt that since he was here again, it would be worthwhile to ask a few more questions.

"What old man?" The guard was a little confused.

Iwasaki had a strange feeling: "It's that old man I ran into not long after I went in yesterday."

"Don't joke around. Yesterday, you went straight to the cemetery after you went in." The guard waved his hand.

"."

Iwasaki was silent.

So who was that old man he met yesterday?

I remembered him saying that if I wanted to stay overnight, I could find a man named Old Man Ji.

Following his memory of yesterday, Iwasaki found the house that the old man had pointed to.

But no one answered the door when he knocked. When he opened it, he found that it was an abandoned house.

Iwasaki then went to a nearby house and learned that an old man named Yoshi did indeed live there, but he had passed away a few years earlier.

Could it be that he really encountered a ghost yesterday?

Iwasaki arrived at the cemetery with doubts and found the graves of Banto's parents. He noticed that the box that had been placed there yesterday was gone, replaced by a katana.

【Breaking Fire Pills】

Iwasaki remembered that this was the weapon that Ban-dō's father used in the prologue.

Who left this here?

Judging from the situation, they probably took away the Six Jia Secret Blessing and left behind some belongings, as if they knew she would come back again.

Could it be that old man?

Regardless, this should be given to him.

I picked up the katana, drew it from its sheath, and it was in excellent condition.

Iwasaki wanted to know who the old man was, but he had lost his roots in this ninja village, and asking around would only arouse suspicion.

"Don't wander into towns and cities with a katana like that, or you'll get arrested," the guarding ninja kindly warned.

"Thank you."

This was exactly what he planned: to take a route with fewer people.

However, these routes also attracted many caravans seeking to evade taxes, which led to the rise of bandits and robbers, making them quite dangerous.

The advantage is that there are few inspections and you don't need to worry about greasegue.

Next comes the game's actual difficulty level.

Chapter 179: I am extraordinary

"Hey, it's already 5 o'clock. It's about time to get ready."

"Okay, light the tools and wait a moment."

"Is the crane's power off? It's best to double-check, just to be safe."

Near Koka City.

At a construction site, workers were finishing their shift and preparing to go to a nearby bathhouse for a nice hot bath.

"By the way, when was Kawakami Real Estate established? I don't think I've ever heard of it before," a worker asked casually.

"I heard it's a newly established company preparing to enter the real estate industry. Although I'm not very optimistic about it, why wouldn't we work if there's work to be done?"

"No wonder it felt so awkward to coordinate."

The workers' voices gradually faded into the distance.

Shortly after they all disappeared, a van drove into the construction site.

The car stopped at an empty warehouse next to the main construction site, and the gate closed automatically.

Four men got out of the car. Three of them were middle-aged men dressed casually, while the other one was a younger man in a suit. He got out of the driver's seat and said with a smile to the three of them, "Then we'll have to trouble you three teachers today."

"Everyone says not to call us teachers anymore, it feels weird."

"In short, we'll help you dig, you just need to pay us, and once it's unearthed, we'll pretend nothing happened."

The three of them lit cigarettes one after another, and casually spat a mouthful of phlegm onto the ground.

The man in the suit glanced at the remaining marks on the ground, which had been carelessly wiped with a shoe, and nodded with a smile: "I understand."

After the three finished a cigarette, they took out tools from the car and walked over to lift the tarpaulin that covered two-thirds of the warehouse, revealing a site that looked like an archaeological excavation. The site was more than a meter deep, and it was clear that they had been digging for quite some time.

On the other side, there were also some illegible stone tablets and broken earthenware pots piled up.

These items, which could still be considered antiques, were simply discarded in a corner, ignored by everyone.

They've been working for two weeks now, and it's clear that the construction outside is just a smokescreen; their main purpose is the excavation inside.

All three were experienced veterans, and they could roughly guess that the other party had simply used some means to determine that there were valuable antiquities in this place, which was why they had invited the three professionals to come and dig for treasure.

They are very willing to take on this kind of work, as the risks are generally low.

They naturally won't touch what the other party specifically requests, but they're usually willing to accept some scraps generated during the process. More importantly, they can also get a considerable amount of hush money and service fees.

The only troublesome part of this job was that the area provided by the other party was a bit too large, and there were no underground cavities, so we could only use this stupid method to carefully dig it up little by little, and pile the waste soil on the construction site outside to be transported away together during the day.

"Yes, we explored this location yesterday, and we've basically reached the bottom. What's next?"

"That location seems rather suspicious."

"Unfortunately, he wouldn't say what it was related to."

"Hey, hey."

"Ok?"

The man who spoke was covered in sweat, held his breath, and gently pointed in a direction.

The other two looked in the direction he was pointing and saw a seemingly transparent old man appear there, staring blankly at something.

The group shook their heads and blinked hard at the same time. The phantom figure disappeared suddenly, as if it were a hallucination.

"Did you see it too?"

"Correct."

The three exchanged glances and nodded, then discreetly looked in the direction of the man in the suit. As usual, he was sitting in the car looking at his phone.

If one person sees something strange, it might be an illusion, but if three people see it at the same time, then it certainly isn't.

Therefore, what is buried here may be related to the extraordinary beings who have been in the limelight recently!

Because of the Muramasa Demon Sword incident, an unprecedented craze for antiques has swept the country, and a number of museum robberies have occurred, leading many museums to announce short-term closures.

This country, no, I should say the whole world, has countless people who yearn for extraordinary opportunities. Could it be that they've stumbled upon one?

Thinking about this, their breathing became rapid.

"The old man was looking in this direction, it seems. We..."

"No, dig in other directions first, and then do it around midnight, after he's asleep."

"clear."

They pretended to be nonchalant, deliberately raised their voices to say a few nonsense words, and then continued digging.

midnight.

After confirming that the man in the suit had fallen asleep in the car, the leader began to lead the two men to dig towards that location.

"This...this is a shimenawa? Impossible! The things inside are at least several hundred years old. How could something like this have been preserved for so long without rotting?"

The group unearthed a section of a rope-like structure, and upon closer inspection, discovered it to be a boundary rope frequently used in Shintoism.

You can still see the amulet hanging above, which seems to have some writing on it.

Under the flashlight beam, the words were barely legible.

Namo Myoho Renge Sutra

Isn't Shimenawa a Shinto practice? How come Buddhism is involved?

"Keep going, dig along the rope."

The leader didn't want to give up this rare opportunity, and the more he did so, the more it proved that there was indeed something inside.

One of them glanced around furtively, tapped his phone discreetly in his pocket, and then stealthily looked back.

The other person pursed his lips and touched the soft dagger hidden at his waist.

The three continued digging with different thoughts in mind. Just as they were about to dig it all out, they heard a faint sound beside them.

You'd better stop.