Fujisawa-shuku, inside a certain teahouse—

“Coming through! Honored guests!” A shop assistant with an enthusiastically smiling face carried a tray holding 4 cups of hot tea and a plate of red bean paste steamed buns, quickly walking over to a square table where 4 samurai were seated. “Your tea and snacks are here!”

While efficiently arranging the tea and snacks on the table, the assistant struck up a conversation with the samurai as if they were old acquaintances.

“Honored guests, judging by your accents, you’re from Osaka, right?”

“Oh? You can tell we’re from Osaka?”

“Of course!” The shop assistant grinned widely. “This is Fujisawa-shuku on the Tōkaidō route, you know! This place never lacks travelers from all over the country!”

“I’ve worked here for 8 years! I’ve seen all kinds of people raised by different lands! Over time, I’ve learned to recognize dialects from every region!”

“Not only can I recognize them, I can even speak them!”

“How’s my Osaka dialect?” The assistant switched to perfectly standard Osaka dialect for this sentence.

“Hahaha! Your Osaka dialect is quite authentic!”

“Hehe, thank you for the compliment! Well then, honored guests, please enjoy yourselves! I’ll get back to work now!”

The shop assistant hugged the now empty tray and hurried back to the kitchen.

The table of samurai began distributing the tea and steamed buns among themselves.

“Master Komuro, your tea.”

“Ah, good.” Komuro accepted the tea from his attendant, took a large gulp, then pulled out a hand towel from his breast pocket that was already damp with his sweat, wiping the fresh beads of perspiration from his forehead.

Komuro hated physical activity more than anything.

Because he had the type of constitution that sweat easily—the kind where just walking a few steps would make sweat pour from every part of his body.

“Master Komuro, our escort mission is finally coming to an end…” The attendant who had just handed Komuro the tea sighed lightly, reflecting on their journey. “We’ll reach Edo in another 3 or 4 days.”

“Yes.” Komuro set down his teacup and echoed the sentiment. “The mission to escort that grandfather and granddaughter pair to Edo is finally ending. From Osaka to Edo… it’s truly been exhausting…”

Having said this, Komuro took another large gulp of tea as if trying to wash away his fatigue with the delicious beverage.

“Master Komuro, I really don’t understand. Why did those foreigners Anthony and Elodie insist on taking a carriage to Edo instead of just taking a ship? It’s not like there aren’t ships directly connecting Osaka to Edo.”

“Who knows what they were thinking.” Komuro rolled his eyes. “I don’t understand foreigner logic.”

“Ah… actually, when I think about it carefully, I’m going to miss this escort mission for Anthony and Elodie.” Another one of Komuro’s attendants chuckled. “I quite liked that Elodie girl.”

“She’s quite endearing.”

“Wasn’t it about 10 days ago when Oba accidentally sprained his ankle?”

“When Anthony’s granddaughter found out about Oba’s injury, she personally came with her maid to check on him.”

“We were all quite surprised when we saw Elodie bringing her maid to visit Oba.”

After listening to this attendant’s words, Komuro nodded gently.

“Hmm… that Elodie does have good character.”

“It’s just a shame that among foreign barbarians, people like Elodie are ultimately rare…” Komuro smiled self-deprecatingly before finishing the remaining tea in his cup.

“Alright, everyone has rested enough, right?”

Komuro grabbed the sword resting beside him and slowly stood up.

“Let’s go, it’s time to return…”

“Master Komuro! Master Komuro! I finally found you!”

A young samurai around 16 years old, sweating profusely and looking extremely flustered, pushed aside the teahouse’s curtain.

Upon spotting Komuro’s somewhat portly figure inside the teahouse, the young samurai immediately rushed toward him with an expression that looked like he was about to cry, as if he had found his pillar of support.

Before Komuro could even ask “What’s wrong?”, the young samurai urgently pressed his lips to Komuro’s ear and whispered something that only Komuro could hear.

The young samurai only said one extremely simple sentence.

But this one extremely simple sentence caused Komuro’s expression to drastically change, making him feel as if he had fallen into an icy abyss.

“Elodie and her maid have disappeared.”—this was what the young samurai said to Komuro.

……

If you wanted to kill time in Fujisawa-shuku… then the most famous tourist attraction in Fujisawa-shuku: Enoshima Shrine was undoubtedly the best spot.

Aoto and Saitō walked one after another along the river adjacent to Fujisawa-shuku, heading downstream.

Ancient Japan primarily followed two religions—the native Shintoism, and the imported Buddhism.

Shrines were the communal buildings that revered and enshrined the various deities of Shintoism, much like Buddhist temples.

Before long, Aoto spotted the vermilion torii gate adorned with shimenawa.

The so-called torii gate was a structure that every shrine must have had—a gate shaped like the mathematical symbol for pi, “π”.

The existence of torii gates was to remind visitors that stepping through the torii meant entering the divine realm, and that all subsequent behavior should be particularly mindful.

Shimenawa was the thick straw rope tied with white zigzag-shaped paper streamers, indicating sacred boundaries, often hung on torii gates, shrine halls, sacred trees, sacred stones, and other objects possessing spiritual power.

As the most famous tourist attraction in Fujisawa-shuku, Enoshima Shrine naturally attracted quite a crowd.

Therefore, numerous peddlers and merchants seized this business opportunity, setting up stalls outside Enoshima Shrine selling various small goods.

Those selling water, those selling small snacks like rice dumplings, those selling masks, those selling Kanto region specialties…

Since they couldn’t enter the shrine grounds to peddle these goods, all these vendors concentrated their stalls outside the torii gate.

Aoto led Saitō around the stalls outside the torii gate, but not finding any particularly interesting stalls, he prepared to pass through the torii and officially enter Enoshima Shrine to look around.

Just as Aoto took his first step toward the torii gate—

Crack.

Aoto suddenly felt like he had kicked something.

Looking down and moving his foot aside, Aoto’s eyebrows immediately raised slightly.

“Hoh… this hairpin is quite pretty.”

What Aoto had kicked was a rather attractive hairpin.

Although this hairpin was good-looking, it had broken in the middle and could no longer be used.

A hairpin that was already broken… was completely useless. Aoto glanced at the hairpin once before withdrawing his gaze, continuing to lead Saitō into the shrine’s interior.

Because there were many small stalls and vendors outside the shrine, the area outside was actually more lively than inside.

With his hands crossed and tucked into his haori sleeves, casually observing the surrounding scenery and architecture, Aoto suddenly felt like he had kicked something again.

Moving his foot aside—it was a rather plain-looking inrō that could be bought anywhere on the streets.

This inrō that Aoto had just kicked had a large hole in its bottom, which made sense since an intact inrō would have long been picked up and used by someone.

“Why do I feel like I keep stumbling upon strange garbage on the ground since earlier?”

Aoto smiled at Saitō behind him, continuing in a joking tone.

“Couldn’t I find something more impressive? Like money or something—I’m not exactly financially comfortable right now.”

As usual, Saitō didn’t respond verbally, only nodding slightly to indicate he was listening to Aoto.

And by now, Aoto had grown accustomed to Saitō’s personality of not uttering a single word for half a day, so he didn’t expect any response from Saitō anyway.

After sharing this small joke with Saitō, Aoto tucked his hands back into his haori sleeves and continued striding deeper into this Enoshima Shrine…

*******

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