Chapter 50: Monster Soldiers and Ninjas

After getting the precious sword, Hui Ruomaru's morale was greatly boosted. He spent the whole day clearing out bandits with his elite ronin soldiers who were eager to make achievements.

But the robbers were not fools. They hid in more and more secretive places, because if they didn't hide, they would have been hacked to death long ago.

If it weren't for the fact that Hui Ruomaru and the elite ronin soldiers had a lot of experience, they probably wouldn't have been able to find these bandits.

However, the more secretive the place, the easier it is to encounter danger, including not only robbers but also monsters.

Wearing fish scale armor and with two swords on her waist, Hui Ruomaru led the elite ronin soldiers holding swords deep into the woods. Her face looked a little solemn because she sensed a strange aura.

"Be careful, there is something wrong here." Hui Ruomaru put his hand on the hilt of the knife and said calmly.

"Hey!" The surrounding ronin elite soldiers were not afraid of this, and were even a little excited. They automatically dispersed and were alert to the movements around them.

Karaomaru didn't know what was here, but she was definitely not human.

"We found several corpses. They look like those bandits." A ronin elite soldier with good eyesight knelt on one knee, brushed away the fallen leaves, revealing several corpses that looked like they had been digested, and said with disgust.

"It was swallowed whole, and then the indigestible bones were spit out. It seems that there is a big one here." Hui Ruomaru had traveled around with his master before, and had seen many man-eating monsters, so he made this judgment.

However, there were too many types of monsters, and she didn't know which one it was. She instinctively felt that it was not very dangerous because there were no signs of bites on the corpse, and there was some undigested rotten meat left, which meant that the monster lacked sharp claws and fangs, and its digestive ability was average, which did not meet the characteristics of a powerful monster. After all, eating people without spitting out bones is the standard of being inhuman.

At this moment, a shadow slowly floated over the sky above everyone, just like a hot air balloon. When it stopped above Karakumaru's head, it suddenly fell down. It turned out to be a huge woman's head, which opened its mouth wide and let out a scary laugh, as if it wanted to swallow her.

"So it's the chief." Hui Ruomaru said suddenly, but this did not affect her drawing of the sword.

Dashou is a monster that hides in the dark and eats humans. It has a huge head, but is rather clumsy, otherwise it would not rely on sneak attacks to eat people. Unfortunately, it met Huiruomaru, who was quick-witted and holding a sharp blade. With a single slash of his sword, he actually made the opponent look very different. The slit-mouthed woman saw it and said it was good. She laughed loudly with a flip-up lid, and then she fell down with a scream.

The elite ronin soldiers around were not willing to be outdone, so they rushed forward and started hacking at him. They didn't expect that the leader was just a show-off, and although he looked scary, his flesh was actually soft. The sword cut more than a foot deep into the wound, and he was hacked to death on the spot.

Compared to the unlucky Daishou, Aoandon, whom Karakumaru and his companions met on their way back, was treated better because he was a humanoid, a monk, and could communicate, so Karakumaru brought him back alive.

Qingfangzhu is a tall one-eyed monk, all green, with flat bare feet, and beating a wooden fish in his hand. He looks quite strange, but he is one of the few monsters that is harmless to humans, because what he most often does is to scare children who don't go home when it's almost dark.

During this period, Qingfangzhu wandered around the woods where the big head appeared, scaring away any humans who approached. In a way, this was well-intentioned.

After listening to Hui Ruomaru's report, Yan Xu found it interesting, so he plucked up the courage to chat with Qingfangzhu for a few words. After all, this was the second monster he had seen, so he was inevitably curious.

Qingfangzhu was easy to talk to. Compared to a monster, he was more like a monk who had practiced Buddhism and became stupid, and he talked a lot about Buddhist philosophy. Therefore, when Yan Xu sent him off, he not only gave him a bag of rice balls, but also a copy of the Diamond Sutra, and asked him to tell him some interesting things he had encountered next time, such as stories about monsters.

The reason why Yan Xu did this was that as long as he was in Japan, he would inevitably have to deal with these monsters and demons, so it would be good to familiarize himself with them in advance. After all, it was rare to meet someone with whom he could communicate peacefully.

Qingfangzhu, who was usually driven around, had never encountered such courtesy before, and immediately promised Yan Xu carefully that he would bring some interesting monster stories. Qingfangzhu's arrival and departure were just a small episode for Yan Xu. He quickly put his mood in order and accelerated his familiarity with the command of his soldiers.

The march of three hundred foot soldiers to that station was quite spectacular, feeling like elementary school students doing exercises during recess, except that the mat armor and bamboo spears were a bit distracting.

Yan Xu, who was wearing armor, didn't care and began to try to command the troops.

The fighting power of the Ashigaru does not lie in charging into battle, but in positional warfare, because strict adherence to orders allows them to obey commands 100%, even if they are wrong, and that is enough.

The most important thing in positional warfare is the formation. The formation cannot be too thick or too thin. If it is too thick, the defense area will be too small, and if it is too thin, it will be easy to penetrate. Yan Xu did not understand these very well, so he could only try to use his imagination and think about it from another perspective repeatedly.

The process was not smooth. The original plan was that two teams of foot soldiers would be in the front row with guns, and one hundred foot soldiers with light crossbows would attack from a distance in the back. The problem was that a crossbow was not a bow. Although the arrows shot out had a parabolic trajectory, the greatest damage was still caused by straight-line shooting, because the crossbow arrows used by the light crossbow were short and light, and the lethality of the projectiles was insufficient.

However, the direct shot was blocked by the back of the heads of the first two rows of foot soldiers. When there were no friendly soldiers left unharmed, Yan Xu could only choose to change the formation.

Yan Xu became more and more annoyed and irritated. There were only 300 people and two types of soldiers, but he couldn't figure it out. Finally, he simply separated them, with the spearmen lining up in the middle and the crossbowmen firing crosswise on the left and right. This was considered the completion of the drill, but he didn't know how it would work in actual combat.

As the weather gradually turned colder, Yan Xu knew that the Fukushima family's attack was coming soon.

In ancient times, wars were usually fought in autumn because there was less rain at this time, which was suitable for marching. At the same time, the newly harvested autumn crops also provided sufficient military food reserves.

But it couldn't be delayed too long. In ancient times when there was a lack of warm clothing, dragging the war until winter would be a disaster. Therefore, the Fukushima family didn't have much time. Once they missed it, they would have to wait until after spring plowing, which was a time of shortage of food. Fighting a war would be a test of their own food reserves.

What's more, next year the Fukushima family's main targets will be the Shimazu family, the Sagara family, and Komizu Town, and they will have no spare energy to target the Moroboshi family.

Therefore, Yan Xu was not careless at all. Apart from sending out more ninjas, he continued to prepare for battle.

At this time, the Forest Ninja brought him good news. They found two powerful ninjas, namely Tsuchigumo and Leech.

Although they are wandering ninjas, they all have inheritance, that is, unique skills, which makes Yan Xu very curious.

However, a ninja's unique skills are his life. Once exposed, the ninja will not live long. Therefore, even as an employer, Yan Xu cannot ask these questions.

Tsuchigumo is an artist who carries a wooden box and wears a mask. He makes a living by performing puppet shows and was covered in a lot of dust when he arrived.

Leech was a young and beautiful woman, but her face looked a little pale. She wore newer clothes and behaved politely.

After seeing Yan Xu, the two behaved very respectfully, but Yan Xu didn't know what they were thinking in their hearts. After all, they were ninjas, and if people could see through them at a glance, they would not be alive today.

(End of this chapter)