#53 Massacre on the river

"What the hell was with that "granny" thing" Babara asked me with a furrowed brow, trying to look upset.

We were currently walking alongside the river close to the borders.

"Come on, we know each other already for some time. Where is the harm in calling you granny...auntie is a little bit old for y-" I was talking with a big smile and closed eyes until I sensed something aiming for my neck so I quickly leaned back to dodge Babara's hand wearing metal gauntlet.

"Oops, that was close." I muttered with a playful tone and still closed eyes.

"Never mention lady's age, lad. No matter how strong you are, you can't bear the hatred of all women." Babara replied with a small smile while pointing at me with the index finger of her hand which she tried to grab me with.

"How scary~" I said to myself and resumed walking.

---

"*Hey, Taeko...Is this normal? It's hard to imagine granny fooling around like that yet it is happening right now in front of my eyes.*" Chelsea whispered to Taeko who was watching Katsura and Babara with a small smile.

"*Hm? Well, in the beginning, they were at each other's neck, even their first meeting was "competition". At least that's what granny told me. Right now they are just insulting each other and trying to embarrass one another. It's much better than before when they were always trying to outsmart each other...*" Taeko replied while shaking her head with a small nostalgic smile.

---

"Anyway, if it wasn't for me not knowing you well enough, I wouldn't be able to tell it's you. However, now I don't mean your changed appearance but your aura. You are overly carefree, maybe even slightly mischievous...your aura reminds me of my annoying pupil." Babara said while glancing behind her.

"Eeh? Why am I annoying one?!" Chelsea immediately exclaimed with a surprised expression.

...Are you aware that you aren't her only pupil? She already knows that she is the annoying one yet she asks why...She should already know that since she is so sure that Babara was talking about her.

I glanced at Chelsea with a bit of pity in my eyes.

"Huh? What's with that look?!" She immediately looked at me with a depressed mood.

"Anyway, you are Chelsea, right? I already know those two pretty well but you are a newcomer for me." I said with a smile while looking at Chelsea.

"Ehm, can you not smile while having your entire face bandaged? It looks kinda creepy but it's nice to meet you Katsura, I have heard a lot about you." Chelsea replied with a slightly awkward expression before returning to her cheerful mood.

"You are saying that now but you will change your opinion later..." Babara muttered with her hands folded behind her back and both of us couldn't help but turn at her, however, she didn't explain herself.

"Well...What is the plan?" I stopped fooling around a bit and asked Babara with a slightly more serious tone but smile never disappeared from my face.

"We leaked fake information about Rebel's trading route and this "trading route" is also coincidently on this river." Babara explained with a serious expression.

"Hmm...I see, what is my job here?" I asked with a small nod of understanding.

"Nothing much, I don't want you to do our job but you are here to ensure that nothing goes wrong. And if something goes wrong...forget it, no need to talk about it." Babara just shook her head when she was about to say what I should do in case something goes wrong.

"Hmm? What is it? Don't tell me that great Babara Oarburgh isn't confident. If our Tengu mercenaries heard that...they would definitely piss themselves." I asked with a provoking tone and smile.

"Shut your mouth, will you? It's just that we don't know the identities of those assassins. We know nothing about them. That is also why we will act accordingly to the situation once we start our plan." She glanced at me and cursed at me with a slightly irritated expression before returning to her serious mood.

"Hm?" I glanced at her to show her that I am listening when I noticed the way she was looking at the mercenaries

"It will be better to simply discover their identities without being seen so we can surprise them...Everything depends on the situation, maybe we will be forced to fight in the water." Babara explained with closed eyes and thoughtful expression.

I immediately understood the true meaning of her words.

She is planning to use them as decoys...Not bad strategy, so that's also one of the reasons she didn't make them pay for their idiotic comments. But like she mentioned, everything will depend on the situation, we can be the first boat they will ambush and the entire plan will end up as a failure. Plus I am quite interested in that Chelsea girl, she doesn't look that strong but she is still Babara's pupil which means that she has something good about her.

As for the assassins' identities...I have a rough idea but I can't be exactly 100 percent sure. However that isn't my job and even if it was and my guess would be right, it was around 8 years ago. I don't remember every surviving kid's facial features not to mention that they must have changed a lot after 8 years.

"How cruel of you~" I muttered with a small smile and with my hands behind my head.

"Heh, speak for yourself." Babara chuckled and replied to me this way once she noticed me being so carefree and cheerful even though I knew what her plan is.

.

.

.

When the sky finally turned entirely black, we finally decided to travel by our "trading route". Unfortunately, the sky was covered by dark clouds so no stars were visible and the moon was also obstructed which forced us to use torches. Well, all mercenaries had to use them except for us since we were all trained to fight in the dark.

Our boat was positioned at the back of the line.

We were just talking to each other while observing our surroundings carefully.

Hm? I narrowed my eyes when I saw something quite far away, coming towards us.

"Looks like the single boat is coming our way, but I can't see anyone on board." I informed the 3 of them.

"Hm? You have great eyesight. Mine is no longer what it used to be...When I was young and beautiful I would-" Babara praised me while trying her best to find the boat but it was still too far away for her to see so she gave up and started to talk in a nostalgic mood.

---

'?! Not again! I need to change the subject!' Chelsea immediately looked horrified when Babara started talking about her past.

---

"So they will attack the front first?" Chelsea raised her voice a bit to overpower Babara and she won but she also earned herself a hateful glance from Babara.

"No...that would be stupid from them. If they attacked the front, they wouldn't be able to disturb our formation. Attacking the front won't have any advantage plus they want to kill all of us so their identities can stay hidden. If I were them, I would definitely attack the middle and also let a few of my members remain underwater to kill those trying to escape by diving underwater." I explained with a calm smile.

"? Wow...Did you think about all of that just now?" Chelsea looked impressed by my words, although there was no guarantee that it will happen the way I said, it was still the possibility and also quite a reasonable strategy.

"Your deduction skills are as good as ever...Let's slow down a bit so we have the advantage when retreating if everything will happen as "Katsura" said." Babara praised me and then sarcastically called out my name.

"Hm? Does that mean, we won't be fighting even though we have a rough idea of what their plan is?" Taeko asked with a confused expression while tilting her head to the side.

"Depending on what will really happen...Anyway, Chelsea, it's your time to shine." Babara said with a smile.

"Leave it to me~!" Chelsea took the lollipop out of her mouth and replied with a smile and a few cosmetic tools in her hand.

...Cosmetic tools? If my guess is right...

*Puff* Chelsea suddenly changed into some kind of bird and flew away.

As I thought...

...

We heard some shouts from mercenaries in the front before it suddenly turned into screams.

*Bang* *Bang* We could also hear a lot of gunshots from far away.

"Well, I guess I was slightly wrong, they attack from the front and a few of them attacked from the side. They are confident if they decided to split like that." I muttered with a slightly disappointed smile.

When Taeko heard the gunshots and also occasionally screams of those mercenaries she gripped the hilt of her sword with a cold expression.

"Stop that! We aren't going to fight, this is the ideal situation to retreat. We are quite far away from them and by now, there should be quite a lot of dead bodies floating inside the river." Babara slapped Taeko's butt with her hand wearing the metal gauntlet.

"Eh?" Taeko blushed a bit and looked confusedly at Babara.

...She is really eager to fight even though we just said that we will retreat for now. The entire time we are talking here, the screams could be heard from far away. The dead bodies started to appear even right next to our boat.

They are pretty strong...although these dead guys couldn't be called extremely strong, they weren't exactly weaklings either.

I tried to take a better look at their faces however they were moving too fast and it was completely a dead night without any moonlight and the torches on mercenaries' boats weren't enough for me to see their faces clearly.

"Akashi, let's go dive in, we will take them by the surprise later. This plan was just to lure them out." Babara woke me up from my thoughts.

I turned at her with a serious expression and then...

"Can't I fight with them~? They look strong!" I asked with a spoiled expression while pointing with my index finger at my excited face.

"?! *Smack* I wouldn't be able to really recognize you with your new personality...You are really great actor but unfortunately, you can't fight with them. We want them to think that they killed everyone so we can take them out once their guard will be down." Even Babara facepalmed herself when she saw my change and then explained with a serious expression.

"Tch, I know, I know. Let's go before it is too late" I said with a slightly upset expression and jumped into the river. Babara and Taeko followed right after me.

We swam quite a large distance away from the boats before we decided to finally swim towards the shore.

We entered the forest that was right next to the shore and on the edge of the forest, we found a small ruined shack.

"...That somehow worked, thankfully there were still a lot of mercenaries who decided to jump into the river so while they were being killed, we were able to escape without them realizing it." Babara said with slightly annoyed expression while she dropped her ass at one of the boxes inside the shack.

"...Now I discovered that I hate water if it's not bath..." I muttered with the same annoyed expression while squeezing my wet clothes.

"We have done pretty cruel thing to those mercenaries..." Taeko muttered, however, her face was still stoic as if she wasn't feeling sorry for them.

When I heard her words, I couldn't help but turn at her just to see her squeezing her clothes too however her nipples were visible through the wet fabric.

I rolled my eyes and redirected my gaze somewhere else.

"? Don't-talk" I noticed that Babara saw this and looked at me with a teasing grin so I said with a threatening tone.

After a few seconds of squeezing out the water from our clothes...

"So, who are our enemies exactly? Those mercenaries weren't exactly weaklings yet they were so easily massacred." Taeko asked with a serious expression.

"They are definitely wielders of powerful weapons. Their weapons aren't on the same level as those mercenaries and only strong people can wield those. Not to mention that they wielded them very skillfully, I couldn't take a look at who were they but I saw beautiful slashes of their blades." I answered with a carefree smile.

---

'What Akashi said is the truth...They must be around the Rakshasa demons level. This might be quite hard for just 3 of us...I don't want to use Akashi's strength since it is our job and he is here just in case something went wrong.' Babara thought with a thoughtful expression while holding her chin.

---

We suddenly felt a gust of wind come inside the shack and all of us turned at the source.

...A bird.

Babara immediately moved and appeared in front of it.

"What have you discovered? Depending on your information I might not make a dinner out of you." Babara said with a sinister smile while holding kitchen knife near the bird's neck.

"?!" The bird immediately opened its eyes wide in fear.

*Puff* The smoke appeared around the bird and suddenly instead of a bird, Chelsea appeared heavily panting.

"*Pant* I have *pant* something useful so don't eat me!" Chelsea answered while panting and kneeling on the ground.

---END---

[Name: Akashi Phoenix (Age: 17)

Title: Sloth

Class: Blade Master (Lv. 2; +3 Str, +3 Agi, +1 Const) 11/20 XP

Special Class: Yato (Lv. 4, +13 Str, +13 Const, +13 Agi, +4 Int) 2/80 SXP

[Health: 730/730]

[Energy: 1205/1205]

<Stats>

[Strength: 47 (85)]

[Agility: 50 (86)]

[Intelligence: 40 (53)]

[Constitution: 47 (72)]

[Charisma: 33 (40)]

Free Stat points: 27

Classes: Noble (Lv. 4; +5 Cha) 12/80 XP, Master Blacksmith (Lv. 7; +7 Str, +7 Const) 370/640 XP

*Passive Classes: Assassin (Lv. 10; +15 Agi, +9 Int, +6 Str, + 4 Cha), Warrior (Lv. 10, +16 Str, +11 Const, +5 Agi, +3 Cha)

Special Classes:Fire Monarch (Lv. 10; +28 Cha, +20 Int, +10 Const, +5 Str) ?/?

GOLD: 3210

SILVER: 68

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