Translator: Snoring Dragon
“What!?” Several hoodlums in the room looked at the tall girl at the door with strange and astonished faces.
The girl was tall but they were not afraid of a sexy and beautiful woman.
A big hooligan with thick chest hair and a wide-open jacket walked toward Lily in a swaying manner. He looked at her and asked: “Girl, who are you? You dare to meddle in our business here? Don’t you know whose territory this is?!
But you are really beautiful. Hey, since you’re here, why don’t you play with us?”
The big man stretched out his rough and dirty hand in an attempt to touch the face of Lily.
In the eyes of Lily, this movement was slow and weak without any suddenness.
Lily grabbed the katana at the big man’s waist and pulled it out along with scabbard at a very fast speed. Instead of pulling out the katana from the scabbard, she struck the scabbard against the big man’s crotch.
“Ah—” for a moment, the big man’s expression became extremely painful and funny. He opened his mouth to speak but failed to do so. He covered his crotch and fell on the ground with a thud.
“How dare this woman fight back!”
Several other hoodlums let go of Isuzu. They pulled out their katana and hacked at Lily.
In the Heian Empire, the status of women was very low. It’s a great shame for a man to be beaten by a woman. It was a normal occurrence for the men to draw their swords and kill the woman in anger.
Several hoodlums chopped at Lily at the same time, but Lily’s eyes were calm and her body didn’t move. She just held the scabbard in her wrist and waited for the perfect timing. Then, with a speed far faster than ordinary people could respond——
The scabbard hit them on the chest, chin, and stomach respectively.
The three hoodlums were paralyzed and fell to the ground one after another almost at the same time.
“What!?” The white-clothed Imagawa was also surprised. This woman actually turned out to be a samurai!
“You ????, I’ll hack you to death!”
However, this Imagawa had quite a poor judgment. His name was Imagawa Ujichika. As the youngest son of Suruga town’s Imagawa Yosh*tada, he ran rampant in Suruga. He had never participated in any war and had never suffered a loss. He directly pulled out the Katana and chopped at Lily!
But Imagawa Ujichika was a junior samurai after all, though he was still much better than the average hooligan.
However, he was no longer facing an ordinary samurai level opponent.
Naturally, Lily didn’t want to kill people in the Saikanji’s fief. This was just a rich kid. Unlike the Hojos or the Daidoujis who wanted to murder her, it was good enough to teach him a lesson.
Holding the scabbard in hand, Lily confronted Imagawa’s katana. She flipped the scabbard and hit it on the back of Imagawa’s katana from the side.
“Pha-!” That extraordinary speed and force directly sent Imagawa’s katana flying on the floor and then Lily’s scabbard drew upward.
“Pop!” Scabbard hit Imagawa’s chin, causing him to take a few steps backward and finally fell on the pile of destroyed debris.
Just a few seconds after meeting, all the hoodlums, including Imagawa, fell on the ground and cried in agony.
Of course, Lily did not use real strength at all. 𝚒𝚗𝒏𝐫e𝒶𝙙. 𝒸o𝑚
“Not ready to roll out yet?” Lily said coldly.
While several hoodlums walked towards him staggeringly, Imagawa rubbed his chin as he tried to get up by himself. He barely got up with the help of several injured people and glanced angrily at Lily, “Woman, you dare to hit me… Do y- you dare tell me your name?”
“My name is Kagami Lily. If you are dissatisfied, you can come to me. Don’t make things difficult for Master Moronobu again.”
“Hmph! Okay! Kagami Lily, you, you wait for me! If you have the guts, I dare you to stay at Suruga!” Imagawa escaped with the help of hoodlums.
“Teacher!” Isuzu wailed and threw herself into Moronobu’s arms, but Moronobu only looked at Lily with a look of surprise and guilt.
“Teacher, are you hurt somewhere?” Lily also called him teacher, of course, with a completely different meaning. She stepped forward to help Moronobu up.
Moronobu looked at Lily. Remembering how he bad-mouthed Lily as a samurai yesterday, he couldn’t help but feel guilty: “Hey!”
The old man had a hard time speaking.
As the three entered the tea house, Isuzu bowed and said, “I was a refugee who fled from the Nation of Mino. My name is Takenaka Isuzu. I ran out of travel expenses and was caught by them as a result. I was treated as a slave and almost got deflowered. It was the teacher who bought back my freedom with a huge sum of money. But who would have thought that teacher actually borrowed that money at an unreasonably high interest rate. The interest doubled in just a few days. And now, the teacher is unable to clear the debt.”
Lily heard it and said nothing in return. She took out two gold coins and said, “Teacher, this is the tuition fee for me to learn painting from you. I will give it to you first.”
This was the money that Lily should have paid. She didn’t ask how much Moronobu owed because it wasn’t her business and she wouldn’t go as far as to help him repay the usury.
“Miss Kagami, thank you… Without you, I don’t know what would have happened today, alas!! How ridiculous of me to still look down on the samurai! Girl, I will pass on my life-long painting experience, techniques, and perceptions to you. You are the most beautiful, kind, and powerful girl I have ever seen. If possible, I hope I can draw a picture of you…”
“Thank you, teacher. I will study hard but I’ll refrain from having a picture of me drawn…” Lily didn’t want to be a model!
“Okay, fine,” Moronobu was a little disappointed but he nodded gratefully and said, “It’s just that, Miss Kagami, your painting talent is actually very high, but even if I teach you with all my strength, I’m afraid you still can’t understand my Ukiyo-e painting style. After all, you are a woman, sigh! If you were a man, with your comprehension ability, it was even possible for you to surpass me in Ukiyo-e style!”
“Teacher, I have practised the Genji swordsmanship. It is also created for man. However, I have changed it slightly according to the characteristics of women so it can also be used by women. Women have their own unique perspectives about other women. They might be different from the concept of teacher’s, but that’s not to say there isn’t a different kind of artistic conception,” Lily said calmly.
Moronobu nodded after hearing it.
At this moment, atop a brownish-yellow barren hill, situated between the giant dead trees and fleeting clouds…
Uesugi Rei, riding on the black horse, traversed through the deep valley between the barren mountains.
However, in front of her was a warrior of medium height, wearing red and black heavy armour, with a golden-horned helmet on his head and a tachi with black handle and yellow scabbard around his waist. His whole body exuded a strong and fierce atmosphere that was no weaker than Uesugi.
This warrior took a horse stance and placed his hand on the sword handle. He blocked the only way in the valley and looked quite imposing when paired with his scary black-gold mask.
Uesugi had long silver hair and a wanton smile appeared on the corner of her mouth as she urged her horse to stop.
“My oh my, isn’t this Itagaki Nobuyoshi? Why are you here? Why are you blocking my way?” Uesugi said with a carefree expression in the face of such a mighty warrior.
The mask samurai’s voice was low and solemn. “Miss Uesugi, this is the Kai province, the territory that belongs to my Lord, the Takeda family. It is only natural that I guard this place. On the other hand, what is your purpose for coming here uninvited, Miss Uesugi?”
After listening to Yohko’s words, Uesugi’s beautiful face was frozen.
“This place is… the Kai province?”