I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

"Among everyone here, I am the youngest. Mr. Saito, who is the same age as me, has been following Mr. Tachibana for a long time, so you are all my seniors. How can I speak to my seniors in the tone of an equal?" - This is how Todo responded to Nagakura.

Seeing that Todo insisted on using honorifics, Nagakura did not force him to change his habit and let Todo continue to use honorifics to talk to them.

Both Nagakura and Harada had a high alcohol tolerance; they drank several cups of sake in succession without their faces turning red.

Todo doesn't have that kind of alcohol tolerance.

He only drank a small glass of wine, and his face turned as red as a monkey's bottom.

Perhaps influenced by the alcohol, Todo, who had been somewhat reserved, relaxed a little.

His words and actions began to become a little unruly.

"Mr. Ju, I am so happy to be under your command."

Sitting to Qing Deng's right, Toudou hiccuped and then said excitedly to Qing Deng.

"After hearing that you defeated those madmen who didn't understand what true 'expelling the barbarians' really meant by defeating the many with few, I've always wanted to meet you."

"I truly admire you! To be able to win a battle with such a huge disparity in numbers!"

"There are so many things I want to learn from you! I hope you will not hesitate to teach me in the future!"

The look that Todo gave Aoto was full of admiration and respect.

His gaze reminded Qing Deng of Okita—Okita often looked at him with the same gaze.

Whenever Okita looked at him with that kind of gaze, for some reason, Aoto couldn't help but imagine Okita with a dog tail growing out of his back and swaying back and forth.

Perhaps it was because Okita's admiring gaze at Aoto was just too much like a little dog with its two front paws raised, tongue lolling out, begging its owner to play with it—and a Shiba Inu that looked a bit silly.

Aoto learned that Kiryu had mentioned to him that Todo admired him greatly, and upon learning that the person recruiting Okabiki was Tachibana Aoto, he immediately expressed his willingness to join Aoto's team.

Recalling Kiryu's words to him, and meeting Toudou's gaze, Aoto took a sip of his drink and smiled slightly at Toudou:

"Toudou-kun, you don't need to treat me like some kind of amazing hero. Just treat me normally, like an ordinary person."

“That won’t do.” Toudou shook his head vigorously. “That would be too impolite to you.”

Seeing that Todo's attitude was quite firm, Aoto could only smile helplessly.

Both Nagakura and Harada have big appetites; they can eat more than twenty pieces of sushi from such a large piece.

Everyone has almost finished eating the sushi, and now they've moved on to drinking and chatting.

After drinking some more wine, the conversation unconsciously shifted to the reasons why each of them wanted to join Qingdeng's team.

"I don't have any special reason, I just thought the pay was good, so I wanted to give it a try."

Harada let out a big burp, then raised his hand and patted his stomach.

“I was born in the Matsuyama Domain of Iyo on Shikoku Island. A few years ago, I failed to die when I attempted seppuku, so I had to leave the domain and become a ronin. I ended up in Edo and make a living by my Hozoin-ryu spear technique.”

"Because by working under Mr. Tachibana, I can receive a monthly salary of 2 taels of gold, which is higher than the salary of any job I have ever done before. In addition, I heard that the work of the Okabiki does not require any brainpower, so I decided to become Mr. Tachibana's Okabiki."

"You committed seppuku?" Todo's eyes widened.

Harada chuckled, then raised his hand and pulled open the lapels of his kimono, revealing a very conspicuous single-line scar on his abdomen.

"See that? That's the scar I got when I committed seppuku!"

Sitting next to Harada, Nagakura glanced at the scar on Harada's stomach with surprise and asked, "May I touch it?"

"Of course! Feel free to touch me!"

Nagakura reached out and pinched the wound on Harada's stomach.

"You survived seppuku...you're really lucky..." Aoto clicked his tongue. After first meeting Harada at the Senjiya and seeing the wound on Harada's stomach, Aoto felt that the wound looked like a seppuku incision, and he was right. "How did you end up committing seppuku? Did you do something wrong in the feudal domain?"

“I didn’t do anything wrong.” Harada picked his nose with his finger. “I just got into an argument with a samurai over some trivial matter, and that samurai mocked me as a ‘petty official who doesn’t even know the etiquette of seppuku.’ I couldn’t stand it, so I drew my wakizashi from my waist and did seppuku in front of him.”

"I just stab myself in the stomach, anyone can do that, even an eight-year-old knows how to commit seppuku."

Qingdeng: "..."

斋藤：“……”

Nagakura: "..."

Fujido: "..."

Everyone stared silently at the wound on Harada's stomach.

The reason given for committing seppuku is utterly absurd! Even looking at the wound on Harada's stomach now, I can't help but find it ridiculous!

“My reasons are similar to Harada’s.” After getting rid of the topic of Harada’s seppuku, Nagakura picked up on why he wanted to join Seito’s ranks. “I am currently traveling around, training as a martial artist.”

"And for those who wish to cultivate martial arts, travel expenses are essential."

"So I want to do the highest-paying jobs possible, and try to save enough money as soon as possible to support my martial arts training for at least several months."

“I want to broaden my horizons,” Todo continued. “Master Ito told me that it wouldn’t work if I just stayed in the kendo hall practicing swordsmanship all the time. In addition to practicing swordsmanship, I should also try to broaden my horizons and not be too closed-minded. So I wanted to try doing some work that I had never done before.”

“I was somewhat interested in Okabiki’s work, and I also admired Mr. Tachibana, so I decided to try being a Do-shin Okabiki.”

"Burp...!" After taking another big gulp of sake and letting out a huge burp, Harada grinned and asked Aoto, "Mr. Tachibana, when will we be able to accomplish some big missions?"

"I can't wait any longer. I want to do some interesting big missions as soon as possible, like stopping radical 'anti-foreign' thugs from attacking some place."

“There aren’t that many big tasks to do.” Qingdeng shrugged. “You’ll officially start work tomorrow.”

"I'll teach you how to patrol first."

"Your primary task is to help me patrol the streets."

"Big missions and the like are things that you can't just stumble upon by chance; it's not something we'll come across so easily..."

"Tangerine, orange, orange, orange, orange, Tachibana-sama!"

Suddenly, a loud shout rang out from outside the sushi restaurant.

Startled by the loud shout, Qing Deng paused for a moment, then turned around and looked—at the entrance of the sushi restaurant stood a young man covered in sweat, breathing heavily and incoherently.

"Lord Tachibana Aoto... Haahaha... Finally... Haa... I've found you...!"

The young man pulled out an inro from the magistrate's office and hurried toward Qingdeng.

"The magistrate issued an emergency summons, requiring all 'three-times' officials on leave to immediately end their leave and return to the Northern Garrison."

"Please report to the Northern Barbarian Office immediately!"

********

********

A new major storyline has officially begun.

Please vote with monthly tickets! Please vote with recommendation tickets! (Leopard crying.jpg)

Many important characters have already appeared in this book. To help everyone get to know these characters, I've listed their ages so far:

Qingdeng: 18 years old

Saito: 16 years old

Todo: 16 years old

Harada: 20 years old

Nagakura: 21 years old

Kondo: 26 years old

Earthwork: 25 years old

Okita: 16 years old

Mai Kinoshita: 15 years old

Kiryu: 92 years old

Elodie: 12 years old

Chiba Sanako: 22 years old

Elodie de Angoulême: 12 years old

Tokugawa Iemochi: 14 years old

Atsuhime Tenshōin: 24 years old

*******

*******

As you can see, everyone at this time was quite young and naive; there were very few people over 20 years old.

Chapter 118 The First Battle of the Qingdeng Swordsmen Group! [5200]

Emergency recall? Leave rescinded? Immediate return to the Northern Garrison?

The sudden influx of information left Qingdeng momentarily stunned.

After the momentary confusion subsided, Qingdeng nodded vigorously as if by instinct: "I understand, I'll go back to the Northern Garrison now."

Aoto's conversation with the young man was overheard by Nagakura, Saito, and others nearby.

Although they didn't quite understand what an "emergency mobilization order" was, when they learned that people on leave were to be immediately canceled and return to their posts, they instinctively felt that something must have happened!

Harada, who had just jokingly asked Aoto, "When will there be a big mission?" blinked hard a few times and chuckled dryly.

"Could it really be some big mission coming up..."

……

……

After quickly settling the bill for the sushi feast, Qing Deng led Saito and the others, along with the young man who had come to deliver the message, to the North Frontier Office.

On his way back to the Northern Garrison, the young man took the opportunity to explain to Qingdeng how he had found him.

He first went to Qing Deng's current residence: Shiweiguan.

According to the young man's description, the person who went out to greet him was Okita.

After learning from Okita that Aoto was not at home but had gone to the Senjiya in Morning Glory Town, he rushed to the Senjiya. However, when he arrived at the Senjiya, he once again missed Aoto.