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The autumn wind blew gently across the meadow and swooshed past Lily’s bosom. Indisputably, the gazes of the male disciples weren’t fixed on her face as they watched her speak.
However, Lily didn’t care about this at all and instead greeted Instructor Tanaka respectfully while standing in the center of the disciples, “Instructor Tanaka, I wish to inquire something before I put forward my suggestion.”
Tanaka was taken aback for a moment, but he managed to respond to her question, “Please feel free to do so, Miss Kagami.”
“I wish to inquire what is the purpose of this training excursion.”
“Its purpose?” Tanaka didn’t even need to ponder about it. He stuck his chest out gallantly while standing on the rock and said righteously, “Monsters are creating havoc all around in the Land of East right now and there are even a few who have become corrupted and associate with the monsters without any remorse for the sake of gaining higher power and fulfilling their desires. We can even say that these powers of the Hundred Demons form a net that surrounds the eight provinces of Kanto. As such, our dojos decided to send their disciples to dangerous places to show the courage and camaraderie of the young samurai of the East to the powers of the Hundred Demons and raise the prestige of samurai from Kanto. Thus, we cannot let down the expectations of Lord Kamakura and all the Dojo’s Masters!”
Everyone merely gazed at Tanaka in silence once he finished speaking and didn’t applaud him, which in turn made Tanaka feel a bit despondent.
Lily nodded silently after hearing this and said, “Thank you for your comments, Instructor Tanaka, but I see it a bit differently.”
Tanaka’s brows creased up, “How do you see it then, Miss Kagami?”
Tanaka felt that Miss Kagami was going to find fault in his words.
Lily didn’t respond to him and instead looked towards the Itamoto brothers and Shota, “How do you see it, seniors?”
Since it was a question from an exceptional beauty like Lily, the disciples naturally desired to show their best qualities to raise their position in her mind. As such, they replied to her pretty eagerly.
“It’s naturally the best opportunity to hook up with a female disciple!” Itamoto Kujou blurted out.
“Hah?” The other disciples were all taken aback by his response.
“You actually didn’t stutter this time, you dolt!” Kujou’s elder brother, Yashiro, knocked Kujou’s head with his fist embarrassedly. You really said it, you dolt!
“Hahahaha!” Shota chuckled, “It seems like the two of you have impure motives. I participated in this training excursion only to temper my swordsmanship and gain experience. Naturally, I’ll step forth bravely to protect everyone if we were to face any danger. After all, as a sword master, my strength is a notch higher than everyone else and I am also a bit confident in my appearance! If we really encounter monsters, I shall protect a refined lady like Miss Kagami with my all!”
Saying so, Shota bent down and plucked a wildflower from the meadow. Then, he knelt down on one knee and offered the flower to Lily with a smile on his rodent-like face that had a beard styled into two dreadlocks that curled upwards slightly.
This caused an embarrassed expression to appear on Lily’s face.
Meanwhile, at the back, Shimizu grabbed the handle of her blade silently.
Nanako pulled her sleeves hastily in fear and placated her, “Lady Shimizu, please quell your anger.”
That Itamoto Yashiro, on the other hand, swatted the flower in Shota’s hand away and said, “Put your trash away. Do you believe you are qualified to offer flowers to Miss Kagami?”
Yashiro then faced Lily and said with a smile, “I shall answer your question now, Miss Kagami. This training excursion has two purposes, first is to flaunt the strength of the young samurai of the East like Instructor Tanaka explained, and to promote the… camaraderie between the disciples of the dojo.”
Saying so, Itamoto reached forward with the intention of caressing Lily’s hand that was fixed on the handle of her blade.
However, sharp as she was, Lily stepped back imperceptibly and dodged his hand in a natural manner.
“In this poor monk’s opinion,” the ill-mouthed martial monk continued, “This training excursion is to help the souls of the vengeful spirits find peace and help the distressed common folk. However, it’s a huge inconvenience that so many women are accompanying us.”
Although he spoke such words, the monk stole glances at Lily’s bosom occasionally. He criticized and mocked Lily precisely because he was aware that he could never obtain her and was a model case of calling grapes sour since they are unobtainable to him.
A discussion began with everyone talking at once after this and Lily stepped forth again at this moment to state briefly in a calm tone, “Instructor Tanaka, everyone. In my opinion, we only have one purpose in this time’s training excursion, and that is, to return alive.”
Lily wasn’t trying to scare them with her words or exaggerate things deliberately. The reason she said this was that she truly believed this was the case. Although the mountain woods portrayed the beautiful scenery of autumn and filled her with satisfaction, that was just on the outside. From all the signs she had picked up till now, Lily had a feeling that perhaps this training excursion wasn’t as easy as it appeared and most of the disciples, including Tanaka in it, had yet to realize this.
Everyone was taken aback by Lily’s words and the crowd turned silent for a moment. Lily’s communication skills weren’t actually that good and perhaps most of the disciples also didn’t take her sincere words that well.
“Hahahaha!” Itamoto Yashiro chuckled loudly, “Miss Kagami, you are too timid. It might have indeed been a bit dangerous for the average samurai to venture deep into Mt. Inda, but there’s so many of us here, and each one of us is the cream of the crop chosen by the dojos. The monsters will flee with their tails tucked between their legs if they catch sight of us, so I’m actually quite worried whether we will even see any of them appear before us and just result in a vain trip!”
Instructor Tanaka also expressed his views, “You come from the main dojo, so you need to watch your words when you speak, Miss Kagami. My duty is to protect everyone during this excursion. Moreover, the itinerary we are following was drawn up by the upper echelon of each dojo and through extensive research by multiple instructors. I shall not claim anything else, but I, Tanaka, will guarantee that each disciple shall return alive! Thus, all of you can feel at ease. As long as I have a single breath left in me, I won’t allow harm to fall on even a single hair of you all!”
Tanaka then stepped forth and pulled Lily back into the ranks and said, “You just need to stand still over here, and all will be well, Miss Kagami!”
Lily stood still while Tanaka could only lament and express his displeasure, “I thought Miss Kagami would have some enlightening words for us, but I never imagined it was just fearmongering. This has really disappointed me!”
“Indeed! Lil’ Sister Kagami, you needn’t feel afraid. Your elder brother shall protect you no matter what danger we face!” Itamoto Yashiro stated heroically.
“Tch! You won’t get the chance to do that. I, Shota, am enough to protect Miss Kagami!”
“What did you say? Shall we settle it with a duel, then?”
“So be it then, we shall settle it with our swords. Did you think I’ll shiver in fear just because you are taller than me?”
The two of them competed with each other.
Meanwhile, Lily was left speechless and thought that perhaps it wasn’t suitable for a beauty like her to take the lead. She had stepped forth to point out that cooperating with each other would allow them to respond to any danger swiftly, but it had somehow changed into a duel between the male disciples to earn her favor… this development had really exceeded her control.
Hence, Lily faced the female disciples and said, “Senior sister and junior sisters, I will walk alongside you, so you needn’t panic if we run into any danger as I will protect you all.”
“Wow… Miss Kagami is so cool.”
“I really want to be protected by Miss Kagami,” A few young ladies blushed.
“Hey now!” The horse-faced samurai chipped in, “You aren’t leaving anything for us to do now, Miss Kagami.”
“Hahahaha!” The other disciples also burst into laughter and the mood turned pretty ardent and lively momentarily.
The group continued with the journey and passed through the mountain woods until night approached and they had yet to run into any danger till now. Perhaps it was truly as Itamoto had stated, the weaker monsters didn’t dare to approach the ranks of disciples that easily as they numbered a lot.
Since night had come, the disciples chose to set camp in a valley of the mountain and made it their rest spot.
However, as it was just a lighthearted training excursion this time and wasn’t an operation of the army, they didn’t have tents with them.
The male disciples slept on the ground directly while the female disciples unfurled the folded blankets in their bags on the ground and laid down on it to get some rest.
Lily, Nanako and Shimizu were seated above the two blankets they had joined up and drank some water together before sleeping.
The ponytailed female disciple from Takeshita Town had also spread her blanket nearby to Lily and the others.
“I’ll go bring some more water,” Nanako stated.
“Me too,” the ponytailed disciple didn’t dare to venture out alone and seized the chance to go draw water together with Nanako. If not, she would have had to request the aid of a male disciple, and that might have led to the other party misunderstanding things.
After seeing Nanako leave, Shimizu pulled closer to Lily. As they were situated in the woods, the others hadn’t noticed that the two of them were so close to each other under the veil of the night.
She pulled Lily’s arm and stated in close proximity to Lily’s face, “Could you accompany elder sister somewhere, little sister?”
“Huh? Where are you planning to go, Sis?”
Shimizu whispered into Lily’s ears with a blushing face, “Let’s go… relieve ourselves now, shall we?”
“Hah?” Lily also blushed, but this wasn’t exactly an unreasonable request and was actually quite within reason.
They were in the mountain woods where monsters roamed currently, and it was pretty dangerous for a girl to relieve herself alone as she would be in a pretty defenseless posture at that moment. Hence, it was much safer to have someone accompany you and was also the common sense followed by samurai women when they adventured outside, to relieve themselves in groups.
Naturally, if there was only a single woman within the group, nothing could be done about that. On the other hand, there were also shameless samurai women who would request men to accompany them, and the result of that was quite obvious.
Shimizu pulled Lily’s hand and took her further into the woods as it was best to do such matters far from the eyes of everyone else.
After they had reached a calm spot that wasn’t in the view of their group, the two of them went behind a bush.
“Sis, are you going first, or shall I?” Lily inquired.
“Hehe, you first,” Shimizu smiled lovingly.
“Ehhh?” Actually, Lily wasn’t really feeling the urge to relieve herself and she also didn’t want Shimizu to see that place of hers, so she countered back, “How about you go first, Sis?”
However, Shimizu seemed to have seen through Lily’s intentions, “Nope. You go first, little sister. Listen to your sister’s words, okay?”
Lily blushed and bowed her head helplessly, “F-Fine, then.”
She had almost added the words ‘you aren’t allowed to peep, sis’ at the end, but she refrained from doing so as that would sound too strange. Moreover, she felt that she couldn’t always treat her Sister Shimizu as a pervert and stay vigilant of her.
It actually wasn’t that much of a big deal, but since Shimizu liked her, Lily felt that that the entire matter was pretty weird.
She walked to the other side of the bush and squatted down… but she suddenly discovered Shimizu walking over to her side, so she lowered her skirt in a rush and maintained the posture of her legs parted to the sides for the obvious reasons.
“Sis, what are you planning to…”
“You’ll mar your kimono’s skirt this way, little sister. Why don’t you let me hold your skirt for you?”
“Hah?! No-no! There’s no need for that. It’s not like I am a kid. It won’t splash onto the skirt!”
Lily tensed up when faced with the seemingly conniving gaze of Shimizu and was on her last leg too, “M-Maybe you should really go first, Sis.”
Lily stated blushingly.
Shimizu smiled gently in response to that and said, “Let’s go together then.”
“Hah???”
As she was aware that Lily was embarrassed right now, Shimizu circled to the other side of the bush and said, “It’s fine like this, right?”
“Yes…” responded Lily and then lifted her skirt again…
A chilling wind breezed past Lily and it seemed to possess a sinister and gloomy aura that gave Lily a bad premonition in her heart.
A tender hand reached out through the bush suddenly and groped about randomly at this moment. Lily’s breathing turned rushed as she thought Shimizu was trying to take advantage of her tensed up body and screamed for Shimizu to not do it internally, but she felt embarrassed to put those thoughts into words right now.
However, Shimizu’s fingers just brushed past the side of her butt cheeks accidentally before they fumbled about and grabbed Lily’s hand.
The two girls thus relieved themselves while holding hands through the bush under the veil of the windy night.
“Forgive me, little sister. Your elder sister shouldn’t have doubted you,” Shimizu stated affectionately while facing downwards with blushing cheeks.1