I assembled the strongest swordsman group.

The archery skills of the two young men standing on the left and right sides were obviously mediocre. Their arrow-changing movements were extremely clumsy, and one of them even almost dropped the arrow in his hand.

Only the middle-aged man with a thick beard in the middle moved with remarkable speed and skill. His movements of taking a new arrow from the quiver and nocking it onto the bowstring were fluid and seamless, clearly indicating that he was an expert archer.

The middle-aged man with a beard then displayed the demeanor of a master archer.

Just as Qingdeng poked his head out of the garbage heap where he and Yongcang were hiding, the "bearded middle-aged man" immediately sharpened his gaze, glared fiercely in Qingdeng's direction, and then raised his bow and shot!

Waaah—!

The extremely sharp, piercing sound of something cutting through the air once again echoed throughout the alley.

The arrow with the brown shaft transformed into a brown beam of light, slicing through the air of the alley. This slender beam shot straight toward Qing Deng's head, which was peeking out from the garbage heap.

With a slight contraction in his pupils, Qing Deng reflexively pulled his head back behind the garbage heap.

puff!

The arrow was deeply embedded in a large sack in the garbage heap, its contents unknown—the spot where the arrow struck was less than two inches from where Qing Deng had just poked his head out.

—That guy with the beard is a master archer…

Qing Deng's heart sank slightly.

The arrival of the rescuers, and their shout of "Quickly take those who are still breathing and get out of here!", jolted the survivors out of their daze.

They hurriedly dragged their still-breathing, alive companions and fled in panic toward the direction where the rescuers had appeared... namely, the alleyway to the west.

Seeing this, Yongcang quickly said to Qingdeng beside him in a deep voice:

"Mr. Ju, what should we do now? If this continues, these people will escape."

"..." Qingdeng did not respond to Yongcang.

Qing Deng, who was focused on finding a way to defeat the enemy, had no time to pay attention to any unimportant information from the outside world.

For Qingdeng, the outcome he least wanted to see was that these people escaped successfully, without managing to capture any survivors.

The biggest problem facing Qingdeng now is "how to deal with the enemy's fire support".

Three archers stood guard at the alley entrance, covering their companions' retreat. One of these archers was particularly skilled in archery.

The garbage heap where Qingdeng and Yongcang are currently hiding is very large and thick. As long as they hide behind this garbage heap, they don't need to worry about being shot by arrows.

However, if one were to casually peek out or leave this garbage dump, one would inevitably be met with a barrage of arrows from these three archers.

The Japanese bow, also known as the "Oogyu," typically has a total length of over 2 meters and is extremely powerful.

Qingdui learned that in his previous life, he had heard of an experiment testing the power of a Japanese bow: after adding 23kg of force to a Japanese bow and equipping it with heavy arrowheads, a high-speed camera recorded that the bow could easily penetrate a human body up to 30cm with an initial velocity of only 34 meters per second.

If you were to be hit by an arrow shot by a master... your body would most likely be pierced through.

Unfortunately, the enemy side happened to have someone whose archery skills were clearly very high.

Upon seeing Qing Deng deep in thought, Yongcang wisely kept his mouth shut, refraining from speaking and slowing his breathing, afraid that his every move and word might disturb Qing Deng's thoughts.

One of Nagakura's strengths is that he is very self-aware of his own intelligence level and never forces himself to deal with intellectual tasks that he simply cannot solve.

When faced with intellectually challenging tasks that he cannot solve, he will either avoid them or delegate them to others.

Nagakura and Harada... could be considered the "idiot duo" in the "Aoto Team".

However, although they are both idiots, they are idiots in different ways.

Harada's "stupidity" stems from a lack of education coupled with a lack of habit of thinking critically. Whenever faced with something that requires mental effort, he habitually gives up and avoids it.

Yongcang was reasonably literate, knew quite a few Chinese characters, and could even recite a few classic lines from the Four Books and Five Classics. His "stupidity" was simply due to a lack of quick wit...

After pondering for a moment, Qing Deng reached for the wakizashi hanging on his left waist, only to find nothing—he had forgotten that his wakizashi was still inside the body of the dwarf he had just stabbed to death.

"Nagakura, lend me your wakizashi for a moment."

Although Nagakura didn't understand why Aoto suddenly wanted to borrow his wakizashi, he still immediately drew his own wakizashi from his waist without saying a word and handed it to Aoto.

After receiving the wakizashi from Nagakura, Aoto held it upright, protruding the flat blade out of the garbage heap, using the smooth, bright blade as a mirror to view the scene outside the garbage heap.

Although the image reflected on the blade was slightly blurry... it was still barely visible.

Those who were still alive had already fled the alley with the wounded who were still breathing, disappearing from Qing Deng and his group's sight.

Only three archers remained at the alley entrance—it's clear they were covering their comrades' retreat, preventing Qingdeng and Yongcang from pursuing them and buying their companions enough time to escape.

"Mr. Tachibana." Nagakura, who was examining the reflection on the blade with Aoto, said with a hint of anxiety, "This is troublesome... those guys have all run away!"

Compared to Nagakura's anxiety, Aoto was much calmer.

"...Who said that?" Qing Deng said calmly. "Aren't there still three people here who haven't left?"

Having said that, Qing Deng tilted the wakizashi in his hand slightly, then stared intently at the reflection of the three archers on the blade with a meaningful gaze.

Having understood what Qingdeng meant, Yongcang's eyes widened, and he smacked his lips a few times: "Mr. Tachibana, are you... planning to capture those three archers alive?"

“There’s no other way. I’ve been chasing and killing people all day… I don’t want to have worked for nothing. I have to find a way to capture someone alive to interrogate and extract information.”

After saying this, Qing Deng handed the wakizashi back to Yongcang.

—About 20 meters...

While using the blade of the wakizashi to survey the scene outside the garbage heap, Aoto roughly estimated the distance between them and the three archers.

From the garbage heap where he and Yongcang were hiding to the alleyway where the three archers were, there was a straight alleyway.

The length of this straight alley is around 20 meters.

To capture the three archers alive, you have to manage to cross the 20-meter distance while enduring their fire.

If we can manage to cross this 20-meter distance and get to the three archers... then the rest will be easy.

Qingdeng suddenly realized that he had experienced so many firsts today.

This was the first time I had ever witnessed Western rapier techniques of this era.

This was the first time I had faced so many enemies all by myself.

First time facing archers.

Qingdeng's initial idea was to find a shield that could be used to block arrows.

Looking around... Qingdeng actually found something that could be used as a shield - a large wooden board nearly 2 meters long and 1 meter wide.

The large wooden plank was thrown into the garbage heap where Qingdeng had used to hide; it appeared to be leftover scrap from the house renovation.

After much deliberation, Qing Deng abandoned the idea of ​​using the large wooden plank as a shield.

Although the wooden board is large, it is far too thin... The thickest part is only about 3 centimeters.

Such a thin wooden board... Qingdeng felt that using it to block arrows shot from a bow was really too much of a stretch...

At that moment, Qing Deng suddenly noticed an empty sake bottle lying at his feet.

Looking at the sake bottle... a flash of inspiration—a bold idea suddenly swept through Qing Deng's mind.

Qingdeng looked up and glanced at the houses on both sides of the alley.

"...Nagakura, come closer. I've come up with a plan that I need your help with."

Qingdeng put his lips close to Yongcang's ear and whispered something to him.

“…Mr. Tachibana.” Nagakura stared blankly at Aoto, his expression as if he had heard some earth-shattering secret. “Isn’t this… a bit too risky?”

Qing Deng smiled fearlessly and calmly: "It's strange—I forget when it started, but I've become less and less afraid of dying."

Qingdeng reached into his robes and pulled out a tissue he always carried. While wiping away the blood and fat remaining on the Dingguishen Blade, he peeked out of the garbage heap again to quietly observe the three archers who were still at the west alley entrance and had not yet left.

“…I understand.” Nagakura nodded solemnly. “Mr. Tachibana, I wish you good luck in your military endeavors.”

Qing Deng smiled and said, "Thank you for your kind words."

Qingdeng casually tossed the tissue he had used to wipe the blade onto the ground and said indifferently, "Let's begin."

Nagakura nodded vigorously, then with a swift motion, grabbed the sake bottle that had fallen to the ground at Aoto's feet.

In the next instant, Nagakura took a deep breath and forcefully threw the sake bottle he had just grabbed out of the garbage heap and towards the three archers!

His muscular body was like a large slingshot, his long and strong arms were the slingshot's elastic band, and the sake bottle was its ammunition!

The sake bottle, thrown with great force, spun and flew, tracing a beautiful parabola as it reached its highest point in the air before crashing to the ground and shattering into countless fragments.

The sound of the sake bottle shattering was like the sound of a gunshot startling countless birds into flight in the forest.

The three archers who covered their comrades' retreat were actually on edge the whole time.

The worry is that his companions may have already escaped far away...

Fear of Qing Deng's strength...

These emotions combined made their nerves feel like a tightly stretched thread, as if adding any external force would cause them to snap at any moment.

The sudden sound of a sake bottle shattering was the external force that snapped their tense nerves.

Upon catching a glimpse of an unidentified object suddenly flying out from behind the garbage heap where Qingdeng and Yongcang were hiding, the three archers immediately turned their gazes as if facing a formidable enemy, trying to track the "unidentified flying object" with their eyes.

After realizing that the "unidentified flying object" was just a sake bottle, the "bearded middle-aged man" and the young man standing to his right relaxed.

But the other young man... the young man standing to the left of the "bearded middle-aged man," didn't have such good mental fortitude.

Overwhelmed by his nervousness, he was startled by the flying sake bottle. In a panic, he raised his hand, drew his bow, and released the arrow that had been resting on the bowstring, ready to be shot. The flying arrow struck the ground not far from where the sake bottle had landed.

To his surprise, he managed to trick Qingdeng into giving him an arrow—a pleasant surprise indeed.

Qing Deng had no intention of using this sake bottle to lure the archers into firing their arrows.

Qing Deng's initial plan was simply to use this sake bottle to distract the three archers outside!

In the instant that the attention of the archers, led by the "bearded middle-aged man," was drawn to the sake bottle thrown by Nagakura, Aoto suddenly leaped upwards, grabbed a rafter under the eaves of a nearby house, and then flipped his body upwards like origami, standing on the roof.

Then, in the next instant—the talent "Leading the Way" erupted!

With his right hand tightly gripping the scepter that could sway ghosts and gods, he charged straight toward the "bearded middle-aged man" and his companions with the speed of the wind and lightning, following the rooftops of the row of houses beneath his feet!

As he glided past the rooftops, the eaves beneath his feet and the scenery on both sides flashed by... Qing Deng, running at high speed, was met with a strong gust of wind, the intense wind pressure causing Qing Deng's kimono and hakama to flutter loudly!

Since he started supporting Kinoshita Mai's "phantom thief career" as "Fox Boy," and accompanied Kinoshita Mai on so many nights of jumping around the streets of Edo, Aoto's parkour skills on rooftops have improved significantly without him even realizing it.

The alley was so narrow that it was a straight road leading from the garbage heap where they were hiding to the entrance where their targets were located.

Without any protection, charging straight down this straight alley towards the "bearded middle-aged man" and others... would only make them easy targets with no room to hide.

Therefore, Qingdeng thought: since it's impossible to get close to the three archers from the ground, let's go to the rooftops next to the alley!