My Gang of Swordsmen

Chapter 281: Chapter 120: Aoto, Charge the Formation! [Explosive Update: 10,000 Words]

Did everyone see yesterday’s news?

It was hilarious! I really want to ask the bodyguards responsible for protecting XXXX yesterday: Where is your craftsman’s spirit? Shouldn’t you have risked your lives, showing the spirit of the ”God of Bodyguards” to protect XXXX to death? Is that your craftsman’s spirit? Just that? (Fill in the blanks for XXXX yourself)

In ancient times, Ii Naosuke was beheaded; in the present, XXXX has many schemes.

If yesterday’s assassin had shouted ”Celestial Punishment for the National Traitor,” it would have been even more amusing, and I would have called him the ”Anti-foreigner Warrior of the Reiwa era.”

Assassinating one’s own country’s political figures truly is a traditional Japanese skill. So, stop saying Ii Naosuke’s death was child’s play; reality is always more absurd than novels.

XXXX had a beautiful bodyguard who could kill in 0.2 seconds, yet still couldn’t stop the assassination. What about Ii Naosuke then?

That grave-visiting guy was killed. To celebrate this joyous event, I’m exploding with 10,000 more words today!

Asking for monthly tickets! Asking for recommendation votes!

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A dark silhouette with a hole in its forehead had its eyes rolled back, and its head tilted backward as if being pulled by the upward-turned eyeballs, collapsing to the ground.

”Get to the rooftop quickly!”

Katsu Rintarō used his left index finger to push open the emptied chamber of his revolver while bringing the tachi to his mouth with his right hand, biting the blade to free up his right hand to fish out orange-yellow bullets from his pocket.

”Y-yes!” The terrified youth, under Katsu Rintarō’s repeated urgings, scrambled, crawling and rolling toward the staircase.

Quickly reloading the revolver in his hand with ammunition, Katsu Rintarō returned the tachi held in his mouth to his right hand and stepped boldly toward the darkness ahead.

This revolver of his was a gift from an American friend when he commanded the Kanrin Maru to escort Japan’s envoy to the United States in January.

Colt Revolver, as for the specific model, Katsu Rintarō had forgotten.

Katsu Rintarō had almost no practice with spear technique; he hardly fired this revolver either. He was only confident of hitting targets at close range—like the guy who just jumped in front of him.

But no matter how inexperienced he was with handguns, to protect those apprentices and staff still on the first floor, who hadn’t had time to escape to the upper floors, Katsu Rintarō had to grit his teeth and move forward.

To Katsu Rintarō, every apprentice and staff member at the Foreign Language Research Institute was worth their weight in gold!

Those books and manuscripts could be replaced with new ones.

But the loss of these precious talents cultivated over a long time would take an uncertain length of time to compensate for.

Katsu Rintarō held the tachi in his right hand before him, while his left hand, holding the revolver, was hidden behind his right arm, cautiously advancing in the suffocating darkness.

Suddenly, another dark silhouette leapt out from the right front of Katsu Rintarō!

”Celestial Punishment——!”

The silhouette, wielding the sword in an Upper Stance, swung down towards Katsu Rintarō.

Katsu Rintarō snorted coldly, raising his tachi with his right hand, and with a ”clang,” blocked the silhouette’s blade.

These people had red headbands tied around their foreheads, probably to easily distinguish friend from foe.

Katsu Rintarō also understood swordsmanship.

At the age of 16, he began studying Direct Heart Shadow Stream and achieved quite respectable results.

Until the age of 19 (1841), after witnessing Western-style artillery firing and military exercises held by the cannon art expert Takashima Akihiko, he realized that the swordsmanship schools were completely outdated, that the samurai sword was no match for cannons and warships, and decisively chose to abandon swordsmanship to fully devote himself to Western Studies.

Although he hadn’t practiced swordsmanship in over a decade, his body and the muscles in his arms still remembered how to wield a sword!

The blade coming down from the upper path had already been blocked—the person was now left completely open!

Katsu Rintarō seized the opportunity, quickly raising his left hand’s revolver, and fired two shots into the wide-open upper body of the opponent with a ”bang,” ”bang.” One bullet pierced the left chest, the other pierced the abdomen.

”Cough, cough, cough!” Mouthfuls of fresh blood spewed from the silhouette’s mouth, mixed with plenty of internal organ fragments in the blood he spurted out.

Feeling the weakening force on the silhouette’s blade, Katsu Rintarō took a deep breath, pushed aside the blade he was blocking, then adjusted his tachi into an Upper Stance, and executed a Kasaya Slash at the silhouette, knocking it to the ground.

Just after dealing with one enemy, another silhouette lunged fiercely toward Katsu Rintarō from another direction.

”Wooohhhhhh——!”

——Jigen Style!

Upon hearing the newly appeared silhouette’s cry, Katsu Rintarō immediately identified the swordsmanship school by reflex.

Only Satsuma’s Jigen Style had such a terrifying, piercing cry.

Different swordsmanship schools had different styles.

Some specialized in offense, others in defense; some advocated ”not killing,” and some were only for physical fitness.

The Jigen Style, originating from the Satsuma Domain, was a style maxed out on ”aggression” attributes.

Jigen Style had two main features: Monkey Call and a self-sacrificing offensive style.

”Monkey Call” was Jigen Style’s exclusive qi union vocal technique, loud and intimidating, scaring almost everyone who first faced off against a Jigen Style swordsman with its eerie sound.

The Jigen Style battle tactic was, during combat with an enemy, to first raise the sword high above one’s right shoulder, then fiercely swing down to the left, completely disregarding how the opponent might counter or defend, nor considering what might happen if the strike missed.