I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

"...Ms. Kinoshita, let's go." Aoto gestured angrily towards the alleyway.

As for the "Shimizu clan," who are currently trying to win him over and will find it difficult to avoid interacting with him in the future, we can leave them for later and think about how to deal with them.

For now, let's focus on investigating that suspicious teahouse!

……

……

The suspicious teahouse that Kinoshita Mai mentioned is located somewhere in the eastern suburbs of Edo.

Not long after entering the eastern suburbs of Edo, Aoto, guided by Kinoshita Mai, saw a three-story old teahouse in the distance.

“Let’s follow the route I took yesterday and sneak in through the hole in the roof,” Kinoshita Mai said.

Qingdeng looked around the teahouse: "The houses around this teahouse are all very low... There's no way to jump from the roof of the neighboring house to the roof of the teahouse. If I want to get to the roof of the teahouse, I can only climb up the outer wall of the teahouse."

Kinoshita Mai nodded: "Yeah. That's right, you can only climb up there. I climbed up there with my bare hands last night."

"I brought this with me tonight so it would be easier to climb to the top floor."

Kinoshita Mai took off the small cloth bag she was carrying on her back. After untying it, she saw that the bag contained an iron hook and a rope that had been painted black.

“I made this myself.” Kinoshita Mai said with a hint of pride. “I had a hard time climbing the stairs last night because I didn’t bring this. Come with me, I know a place that’s the best infiltration spot.”

Qing Deng nodded and followed closely to Kinoshita Mai's left and right, the two of them tiptoed around to the southwest corner of the teahouse.

As they got closer to the teahouse, Qing Deng clearly saw that every window was tightly closed, making it impossible for outsiders to see inside.

Since they had already approached the teahouse, Aoto and Kinoshita Mai both fell silent and slowed their breathing to avoid disturbing the people inside.

Kinoshita Mai looked around to make sure the surroundings were safe, then unfurled the grappling hook in her hand. Without needing to gather any strength, she raised her hand and swung it upwards, and the iron hook successfully hooked onto the eaves of the teahouse roof.

With a strong pull to confirm that the hook was secure, Kinoshita Mai, who had volunteered to be the first to reach the top, pulled on the hook and stepped onto the outer wall of the teahouse.

Immediately after Kinoshita Mai, Aoto, who had climbed the stairs, also successfully reached the roof of the teahouse.

Kinoshita Mai waved to Aoto, then led him quietly toward a large hole in the northeast corner of the roof.

On the way to the teahouse, Kinoshita Mai mentioned to Aoto that below the hole was a room that was completely empty.

As soon as they arrived at the hole and looked inside, their expressions turned strange – a samurai was standing right below the hole.

Aoto and Kinoshita Mai exchanged a glance.

After carefully confirming that there was no one else below the hole besides the samurai, Kinoshita Mai pointed to herself, then to the samurai standing directly below the hole...

The samurai standing below the hole, his hand on his sword, was yawning listlessly.

The reason this person happened to be standing directly under the hole was simply because he wanted to relieve his boredom.

Feeling stuffy and wanting some fresh air, he secretly slipped into this room and stood beneath the large hole in the teahouse, breathing in the fresh air that was seeping into the room through the hole.

He had been yawning constantly since earlier, and his concentration was extremely poor.

His careless attitude prevented him from noticing that two people were standing in the hole above his head.

Kinoshita Mai, who was crouching on the hole above his head, adjusted her direction and then landed quickly and leaped down!

Hearing the strange sound of wind breaking overhead, the samurai instantly felt a surge of energy and quickly looked up.

But clearly—it was too late.

As soon as he looked up, he felt as if his head was being clamped by something.

Then...

Bang!

The samurai felt a heavy blow to his neck.

The intense pain from the blow was so great that the samurai didn't even have time to scream before his eyes rolled back, he lost consciousness, and fell unconscious...

After successfully knocking the samurai unconscious, Kinoshita Mai waved to Aoto, who was still stuck in the hole.

Seeing Kinoshita Mai's gesture, Aoto nodded, leaped, and landed steadily beside her.

—There really are unidentified samurai lurking inside this teahouse…

Looking at the samurai lying unconscious at his feet, whom Kinoshita Mai had knocked out, Aoto's expression instinctively turned serious, and his vigilance increased.

"Are you ready?" Kinoshita Mai asked Aoto with a look in her eyes.

Qingdeng didn't reply, but nodded vigorously.

Kinoshita Mai nodded in agreement, and then she and Aoto lowered their center of gravity and walked out of the room one after the other.

As soon as they opened the paper sliding door to the room, the darkness of the corridor outside enveloped Qingdeng and the others.

Not long after they left the room, the two spotted another samurai—a rather thin samurai standing at the corner of the corridor ahead.

Like the samurai who had been knocked unconscious by Kinoshita Mai earlier, this samurai probably thought the place was quite safe and that no outsiders could possibly sneak in, so he was very unfocused and just kept yawning.

Aoto and Kinoshita Mai exchanged a glance.

"I'll do it," Qing Deng said to Kinoshita Mai with a look in his eyes.

Kinoshita Mai didn't say anything more, just nodded and stopped where she was.

To avoid the orange juice at his waist from bumping into something and making a noise, Qing Deng carefully steadied the orange juice at his waist with his left hand while crouching down and leaning little by little from behind the samurai who was still yawning.

The moment he silently approached the disoriented samurai from behind, Qing Deng sprang up, forcefully covering the samurai's mouth with his left hand, and raising his right hand high to deliver a sharp blow to the back of the samurai's neck with his forearm.

The floors of this corridor are all made of wood.

Therefore, if someone were to commit murder by drawing a knife, the sound of blood spurting and flowing onto the wooden floor would be particularly noticeable, easily attracting the attention of others.

Moreover, Qing Deng did not want to take up arms before figuring out who these samurai were.

The samurai who was ambushed by Qingdeng rolled his eyes and fainted before he could even utter a sound.

After successfully dealing with the samurai and laying the unconscious man flat on the ground, Aoto gestured to Kinoshita Mai behind him, and the two continued forward.

The two continued along the corridor in the darkness for a while, and then spotted another sentry post.

Two sentry posts were discovered in one go.

The distance between the two samurai on guard posts was extremely close; killing either samurai would be discovered by the samurai on the other post.

Therefore, the only way to avoid being discovered is to kill both of these samurai at the same time.

So Aoto and Kinoshita Mai exchanged glances again.

Without any communication, the two made a decision and assigned tasks simply by exchanging glances.

Qing Deng walked toward the samurai on the left.

Kinoshita Mai walked towards the samurai on the right.

Kinoshita Mai's movements are gentler and less noticeable than Aoto's.

Qing Deng repeated the steps he had taken to knock out the samurai: he stealthily circled behind the samurai and then struck him hard on the neck.

While Aoto knocked out the samurai under his command, Kinoshita Mai also took care of the samurai she was responsible for.

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As promised yesterday, I've released a whopping 1 words today! (Like a leopard crying.jpg)

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Chapter 155 One Man Stands Guard! Copying Talent [Wind Sensor]

There were far more samurai in the teahouse than Qing Deng had originally expected, which made Qing Deng even more suspicious about what kind of trickery was going on in this teahouse.

Fortunately, although there were many samurai guarding the teahouse, their sentry duty was quite amateurish. Although they were standing there, they were either daydreaming or dozing off, allowing Aoto and Kinoshita Mai to defeat them one by one and advance steadily to the stairwell connecting the second and third floors.

There was no one around the stairwell at that moment. They went down the stairs to the second floor of the teahouse, then crossed a corridor and turned a corner before arriving at a spacious room that resembled a hall.

Before this teahouse was abandoned, this main hall was probably used specifically for guests to go upstairs to drink tea and rest.

Now, all the low tables that were used for guests to sit down and enjoy tea and snacks have disappeared, and only two "small mountains" that are even taller than Qingdeng can be seen.

Both "small hills" were covered with thick burlap, making it impossible to see what they actually were.

Looking around, four samurai were patrolling around the two "hills".

Aoto looked at Kinoshita Mai beside him, and at the same time, Kinoshita Mai raised her head to look at Aoto. The two once again communicated silently through their eyes.

Kinoshita Mai raised her hand, pointed to herself, and then pointed to the two samurai to her right.

Aoto nodded knowingly, and then he and Kinoshita Mai crouched down and emerged from the shadows where they were hiding.

Kinoshita Mai walked towards the two samurai she had just pointed to.

Qing Deng's target, naturally, was the other two.

While still hiding in the shadows outside the hall, Qingdeng had already discerned the patrol routes of the four people inside—they all patrolled along a set pattern.

Since that's the case, Qingdeng decided to take advantage of their patrol routes and take them down one by one!

Qingdeng tiptoed to the foot of a small hill, pressed his back against it, and used the hill to conceal himself.

The two "small hills" standing in the center of this hall, slightly taller than Qing Deng, were perfect obstacles for Qing Deng and Kinoshita Mai to conceal their figures.

Coincidentally, the two samurai that Qingdeng was responsible for dealing with were one fat and one thin.

They had no idea that someone had infiltrated their vicinity.

And so—the thinner one, with his hand on the knife at his waist, swaggered past the "small hill" where Qingdeng was hiding, brushing past Qingdeng.

Seeing the skinny man walk straight ahead without seeing him hiding in the shadows behind the "hill," exposing his unguarded back directly to him... Qing Deng stepped forward without any hesitation.

Immediately afterwards, Qing Deng repeated the same steps he had used to knock people unconscious that night—covering the skinny man's mouth from behind with one hand and striking his neck hard with the other, knocking him unconscious.

At this moment, an unexpected event occurred.

As Qing Deng laid the skinny man, whom he had successfully knocked unconscious, flat on the floor, he suddenly saw a figure flash to his right—it was the fat man from the pair of fat and skinny samurai that Qing Deng was responsible for dealing with…

The guy, who was patrolling back and forth along a fixed route, returned to a position where he could see Qingdeng faster than Qingdeng had expected.

So, Qing Deng, who was still half-squatting on the ground while laying the skinny man who had just been knocked unconscious flat, stared at the fat man through the thick darkness...

This unexpected eye contact lasted for less than half a second before being interrupted by Qing Deng's quick reaction.