When the scout troops' sharp whistle sounded, the main force was in a very awkward position.
Although the half-slope is gentle, it still takes quite a while to climb up with the ox cart pulling the baggage. There was not much time left for the commander to make a decision - was this the thieves' strategy: to take advantage of the situation where the baggage troops were unable to advance quickly, attack the scouts to divert the main escort force, and then attack east and west to seize the baggage?
He didn't have time to wade through all the possibilities—a common mistake of inexperienced commanders. Narumi decisively divided the team into two, with the heavily armed Ogami and others as the vanguard, and led the more mobile cavalry troops to charge forward.
The infantry ashigaru stayed in place with the sage and others and continued to pull the baggage slowly across the half slope - to a certain extent, he was also equivalent to bringing the rear including the young master Yajiro. Entrusted to Henry.
The cavalry's mobility exploded instantly, and the warriors, fully armed and with their big bows raised, disappeared at the end of the road in just a moment.
"Advance on alert! Big gun - raise it!" Among the Ashigaru, the equipment was relatively complete, and the armor was close to that of ordinary villagers. The "group leader", who was the highest level among the Ashigaru, gave the order with a thick accent. Except for the people who were pulling the oxcart, everyone was a little messy under the command, but they still quickly formed a formation to protect the surroundings.
Despite their lack of actual combat experience, the discipline shown by the Ashigaru class, which is part of the Moon Country's standing army when it comes to action, can still outlast the peasant soldiers of most of the kingdoms in Rigar.
Only a few large empires in the entire Rigal world have standing armies. Most of the kingdoms still rely on elite military aristocrats such as knights and sergeants, and recruit peasants to become militia when war breaks out.
Its advantage is that it does not have to support an expensive standing army for a long time, saving the treasury expenditure, but its disadvantage is that the combat effectiveness of the militiamen who sharpen their guns in battle is extremely doubtful.
The two-meter-long ashigaru gun tilted its head outward in a warning posture. It changed from a relaxed walking posture on the shoulder to a posture where it was held with both hands and could be flattened at any time to form a gun array.
Wearing simple iron breastplates and battle hats - iron hats - the Ashigaru used themselves as shields to surround the baggage. If there was any movement in the jungle on the side of the road, they would immediately launch their guns. defense.
"Crack--!" The wooden wheels of the ox cart rolled over the rocks at the end of the slope, and the group officially stepped onto the flat ground on the hillside - there was no attack, but there was no trace of the warriors ahead.
"Woo--" There was another sound at the corner of the road that was sparsely covered with weeds, but this time it was not as sharp as before.
"It's Mingjian." Lulu, who was in the Ashigaru protective circle, said this. Henry turned his head and narrowed his eyes at her, but said nothing.
"The whistle represents an emergency, and the firing of the arrow is the emergency signal, but whether it is dangerous or not still needs to be considered." The Ashigaru-gumi leader who had given the order before turned back to the group of outsiders and said this. Although the Ashigaru had some opinions on Henry due to a series of reasons, But they still understand that this is a distinguished guest in the house. Whether it was in front of the young master Yajiro that he showed kindness was unknown and it was not important. In short, after a brief explanation, the team leader ordered again: "Big gun - shoulder."
After some untidy but still in place movements, the group of people released their alert posture and sped up to catch up.
The journey was not far, and after walking through this densely wooded road, the warriors immediately appeared in front of them when they turned a corner.
The horses were sparse, and the two scouts who had set out before were not injured. They did not draw up their bows, but they did encounter strangers.
"Child?" Mira was stunned.
"Looking at the clothes, it looks like Hayato." Aya poked her head out from behind and said, and it was at this time that Narumi, who was in front, pulled the reins and rode back - his movements made the skins The swarthy children, who were young but armed with weapons, started to move like frightened owls.
"Your Excellency Doctor, we may need your help." The leader of the warriors on horseback said this, and Ling hesitated for a while and turned her attention to Mira, Henry and Galeva.
"Let's go too." The sage nodded, and the ashigaru in front moved out of the way.
"Mitya." The white-haired girl turned around, and the unicorn nuzzled her and followed.
"Who is Hayato?" Leng Tou Qing, who seemed to have gotten better with Aya, asked rarely, and Miss Doctor answered without any discomfort: "In addition to the barbarians, there are many barbarians on the land of the Moon Country. Other ethnic minorities. Because their culture and language are different from Japanese people, they have not integrated into mainstream society so far."
"The Hayato people are the largest tribe in the territory besides the Kazu people. Although their number is smaller than the Kazu people, they are martial and good at making weapons and armor. Therefore, Xinjing has given them a certain degree of autonomy, and their language and culture are also allowed to retain."
After a brief introduction, Aya muttered again: "But why did I see Hayato so far away from Fuso——"
She said this, and Henry and Mira looked at each other, remembering what they had seen underground in the northern village before.
'——Should I say it? ' Mira blinked.
'-Not the time. ’ And Henry shook his head slightly.
After a short journey, the young and armed Hayato tribe boys and girls looked at the new group. Because they were in the forest, Henry, Galeva and Mira all took off their hats and stood there. The gray-blue eyes of the sage, who was even taller than the knight on horseback, frightened the two children and instantly let go of the short spears in their hands, while the leader, an eleven or twelve-year-old man, immediately Turning his head, he protected them with his hands and whispered to them to pick up their weapons again.
"It seems that this is the leader." Henry shrugged, and Miss Doctor, who knew what Narumi wanted to do by bringing her here, emerged from the shadow created by the three of them.
"Ah——!" The moment they saw the robe on her body, there was a small commotion among the boys and girls. They seemed to relax their vigilance for a moment, but the oldest boy in the lead turned around and glared. After one glance, everyone became quiet again.
"What a leader." Leng Touqing sighed in Laman language.
"Look, a ten-year-old kid is better than you, isn't it embarrassing?" Mira rolled her eyes at him.
The sage glanced at the two bickering people out of the corner of his eye, then looked at Narumi and nodded. Although he was speechless, the senior warrior could still understand Henry's intention from the atmosphere.
"Keep your distance, dismount, and put away your weapons." He ordered the samurai in simple and direct words, and then made a pause gesture to the ashigaru behind him.
"Wha—" After completing the act of storing weapons with great efficiency, the warriors dismounted and untied the ropes of their helmets. They took off their helmets and began to wipe their sweat and pant.
"Huh..." While the boy in the lead was wary of the sage and his party in front of him, he also observed the behavior of the warriors from the corner of his eye. He breathed out thinking he was not noticed, and his expression became relaxed for a while. stand up.
"After all, you are still a child and you can't hide your expression." Mira said with a proud look, and Henry looked at her sideways.
"The Romance of Fairy Wood"
"What, what do you mean?" The Luoan girl keenly noticed her teacher's playful intentions, and she glared at the sage fiercely.
"..." Miss Doctor turned back and glanced at Henry and then at Narumi - the two of them didn't even need to say a word, just a nod, and Henry conveyed the 'show' to Narumi Relaxing her posture and making them less alert created the conditions for her next conversation.
Keen intuition and correct judgment of the situation are both indispensable. She remembered the footnote she had read in some book - if the things they are looking for are the same, they will eventually reach the same destination.
In the past, she didn't quite understand what this meant, but now she felt vaguely aware of it.
After thinking for a while, Ling shook her head, and then looked at the leading boy who was about the same height as her.
"I am Dr. Xingyong." Her Hayato language was a bit unfamiliar, so she patted her chest lightly to enhance her persuasion.
Although he is not Dr. Yue Yong who specializes in language and ancient historical books of the Crescent Continent, as Dr. Xing Yong who travels all over the earth to investigate the stars, weather, animals and plants, mastering several languages is still a necessary skill.
Even if Xinyuezhou does not count the languages of ethnic minorities such as the Yi people and the Hayabusa people, some of the local dialects within the people themselves are very different from the standard language of Xinjing and other places. In fact, when Aya communicates with Sakura and other people in the domain, some words often fail to express the meaning smoothly. The doctor's solution is to write down the different meanings of each word.
In terms of her studiousness, even our Luoan girl, who has always been diligent, feels a little ashamed of herself - after arriving in Crescent Continent, she could only master simple communication because her language was too complicated.
There is a proverb in Luo An that a good friend is a good opponent, or it may be due to young people's desire for comparison. Anyway, under the stimulation of Ling, Mira has begun to work harder these days - but let's get back to where we started.
After Ms. Doctor took the initiative to introduce herself, there was silence for a while, and then the boy who was the leader among the dozen children finally spoke.
They talked back and forth for a while in Hayato language, which is shorter and more powerful than Kazuto's. During this period, several pronunciations sounded familiar to Mira. She turned back to look at Lulu who was not following behind her in the distance—— The Yi people's language also has words with similar pronunciations to the Luo'an language, and the witches and ghosts she encountered before seemed to have discussed her hair color.
How is this going?
Do the Luoans have any connection with this distant continent? She looked at Henry, but the sage looked straight ahead.
The doubts and tangled thoughts in his heart were finally broken by the movement of Aya who turned around after the conversation.
"Ali, Ali." The boy turned around and shook his hand, and all the children put down their weapons. Apparently, Miss Doctor had made them understand through communication that there was no need for conflict between the two parties.
"They are Hayabusa who wandered from Fuso. Many years ago, Fuso suffered a famine due to the locust plague. Craftsmen who rely on armor-making and forging skills can buy food with money, but ordinary farmers cannot live. Go down."
"There was no harvest, but taxes still had to be paid, so I chose to go north and escape into the mountains." Ling's tone became a little lower after she said it, and Mira immediately understood the reason.
"Having land but not farming, evading taxes and defecting, should be tied up and sent to prison!" Someone among the senior warriors who had already relaxed suddenly shouted, causing the group of young girls to panic again.
"..." Ling frowned, while Mira and Galeva turned back to look at the warrior who spoke.
"Quiet!" Ogami shouted to the noisy warriors. After it became quiet, Narumi said to Aya: "So what are they dressed like?"
The samurai leader was obviously a pure soldier, and he was more concerned about the situation at hand than the identity of these people.
A group of children with an average age of about ten years old were wearing simple clothes, carrying adult-sized mountain knives in their waists that were a bit too big for their bodies, and holding small curved tree trunks that were obviously improvised and had bark on them. A short spear.
——Even the martial Hayato tribe would not use such a thing that can really kill people in a war game.
Aya looked back at the boys and girls huddled together:
"Evil Ghost Crusade," she said.
"A ghost appeared in the nearby mountains and injured all the adults in the village. So they formed a expedition team to kill the evil ghosts, but they lost their way due to the mountain fog and heavy rain, and ended up with our team. The scouts bumped into each other.”
"Evil ghost——" "His——" The sound of the warriors inhaling was followed by a period of silence.
Although the ghost tribe has generally surrendered to Xinjing, just like there are murderous bandits and robbers among humans, ghost tribes wandering around and causing trouble are never uncommon.
In order to distinguish between good and bad, Kazuto calls those under the jurisdiction of Shinkyo ghosts, while those outside of this are called evil ghosts.
Perhaps because these Hayato children knew nothing about the power of the ghost clan, they were able to form such a so-called expedition team and wanted to go fight. But in the minds of the Kazuto samurai, those beings who were more than two meters tall and could beat the samurai into a pulp by waving weapons casually, had to pay a very high price for every crusade.
"As for mountain ghosts, we have defeated one before!" Someone shouted in a louder voice.
"But that's not what we defeated." In the face of dangerous creatures, the discipline that the samurai had always strictly observed disappeared. They discussed each other word by word like a group of young boys. Both Okami and Narumi frowned in displeasure, while Lao Qiao tried to persuade them to settle down nicely.
"Speaking of which, the corpse has never been seen in the capital. Is it true?" A somewhat sour voice sounded. Mira followed the voice and looked. She was defeated by Henry in the competition before and was evaluated by Yajiro as "lack of courage." "The middle-aged sergeant Nobukatsu-sama. He is still struggling with this point, obviously he is a little brave, but before the Luoan girl can speak, another young senior warrior refuted Nobukatsu's words.
"Lord Nobukatsu, we can all feel the destruction of that scene and the earthquake. How can we doubt the results of Sir's victory just because we don't have a body!" The warriors were shouting. This appearance made Naru Hailian sighed several times, "What a shame."
"So?" Aya glanced at Henry and then at Narumi.
"..." The leading Hayato boy behind him came forward and pulled the doctor's broad sleeves, and whispered something.
"He said that he hopes we will visit their village, although we may not be able to give the samurai masters a generous banquet." Aya looked back and forth at a loss. After all, she was just a scholar and not a leader. The leading boy was not stupid. Perhaps he was so enthusiastic at first that he really thought he could complete the crusade, but he had already lost his way before encountering the evil ghost. The difficult situation of just finding the direction after eating dry food was enough to calm him down.
His invitation was actually asking the group for help. The ghost clan has never been easy to deal with, not to mention that now they have their own goals and real threats, so it is really not suitable to cause trouble. But if she didn't go, these people would be allowed to be harmed by evil spirits, and Miss Doctor couldn't bear it. Under such entanglement, she had no choice but to turn to other people for help.
"..." The three leading samurai looked at these children who were not very old. One of the girls had a mountain sword hanging on her waist that was obviously an elder's in the family. Because of her thin body, it slipped off her belt one after another. She had to pull it back up several times with great difficulty.
The weather was very hot, and the fatigue on these children was visible to the naked eye.
"..." The silence continued. As the country's warrior class, it is their duty to eliminate harm and protect civilians. But no matter how loud the slogan is, whether it can actually be implemented when encountering problems is another matter.
At this time, even Narumi couldn't make an immediate decision - he looked at Henry, who among all the people present, was perhaps the only one with enough experience to give reliable advice.
"It will be something to learn in the near future. It is a good touchstone." The sage did not directly give a positive answer, but his statement was enough for Narumi and others to make up their minds.
If you are afraid to move forward, what you learn will always remain in your mouth.
"Inform the young master and ask for his opinion." The samurai leader said, but he probably already knew in his heart what answer Yajiro would give.
"Everyone."
"Get ready to go."
