"Haha, I had no more time for the dojo because I had to start working."

"He also got a lady." Hirokazu added from the side.

"Had." Kuwahara corrected.

"Oh..."

"It's fine, anyways, I'm with wagon two if you need me." Kuwahara gave me and Hirokazu pats on our shoulders and nodded to Kuro before he went over to his wagon.

"Do you think he's..." Hirokazu said as he glanced back and forth between us and Kuwahara's retreating back.

"It's time to get to work." I said ignoring Hirokazu.

I was approached by two men who would be my coachmen for the trip before Supervisor Emon called out for everyone to set off.

"You're familiar with this." I said when I saw Hirokazu double checking on the wagons and making sure everything was in place.

"I've been on a few trips with Big Brother Teru."

I sat in wagon six next to the coachman while Hirokazu sat in wagon five and Kuro traveled along side the wagons. We had to decided we would rotate throughout the day.

We left through the west gate and traveled west around Yamainu forest before changing directions north once we cleared it.

"Why don't we travel through the forest?" Hirokazu asked the coachman after I had switch spots with Kuro and was walking nearby. "Is it because of the bears?"

Hirokazu stole a glance my way.

"There's that." He said. "But it's also because deeper inside is considered sacred grounds belonging to the guardian protector of Yamainu."

"You mean the wolves that live on the mountain behind Yamainu Castle?" Hirokazu asked. "I thought that was just a legend."

"It is, but we should still show our respect." The coachman said. "Also we'll face a huge fine if we are caught going through the forest."

"Ah, I understand now...you should have said that in the first place."

"Youngsters..." The coachman shook his head. "No respect for the old traditions."

"Patrol!" Someone suddenly called out from up ahead.

The caravan stopped on the road and we were soon approached by four police riders with one being a samurai police who was leading them.

I went up front to see what they were talking about.

"Are you aware that you are nearing the border?" The samurai policeman questioned.

"Yes, we have our documents here." Supervisor Emon said as he brought papers out.

"An awfully dangerous trip." He said after skimming through the papers before he glanced my way. "And some of your guards are awfully young. I'm going to need to see all your weapon licenses."

I received some dirty looks after all the guards were called over. After checking all our papers, the samurai police selected a two random wagons for a search, one of which happened to be one of the wagons I was in charge of—number five.

After the coachman took off the tarp off the wagon, one of the policemen opened a few random crates to find that they were filled with rice, flour, and fruits.

'At least they did a decent job at hiding the goods.' I thought as my heart was beating wildly.

"It looks good here." The policeman said as he grabbed an apple on his way off the wagon and bit into it.

"Alright, you're clear to go." The samurai police said.

I helped the coachman close up all the crates and resecure the tarp before we set off again. We entered a forest thereafter and stopped about two hours later.

"We'll be crossing the border soon, we should stop for lunch first." Supervisor Emon called out as wagon one stopped.

We ate before continuing on, and at evening, as we were about to exit the forest and the sun had just set, we ran across a group of armed men. They were armed with all sorts of polearms, from spears to pitchforks and staffs. And they were blocking our path out of the forest.

"What do you think you're doing? Why are you blocking our way?" Supervisor Emon questioned as our guards moved to the front.

"This is our territory." A man with a red headband said as he stepped forward into the light emitted from our lanterns. "If you want to cross, you have to pay the levy."

"What do you mean by levy?" Supervisor Emon demanded.

"One of the those carts will do." The man pointed.

"You must really be dreaming if you think we'll do that." Supervisor Emon growled as he stared the man down.

I looked over to see what our veteran supervisor was doing to find Supervisor Yuma still guarding his wagon, scanning our sides and behind us.

'Is he worried about an ambush?'

Everyone was tensed as the face off lasted for a good half a minute before an arrow shot out from the darkness and was suddenly blocked.

*Clink*

The sneak attack, which was aimed at Supervisor Emon, was blocked by Kuro. I missed it because I had just used my detection pulse just before the arrow came. Like a spark, it ignited the conflict as both sides began to go at each other.

I put my hand on my katana to respond to any attacks, only to be met with a spear heading for me. With a quick-draw, I cut off the metal head of the spear. The man wielding the spear immediately retreated behind his wall of comrades.

The fight was over shortly after that as the other side retreated and ran into the woods. There seem to be no injuries on either side as well.

"Is anybody hurt?"

"We're all fine."

"That was quick."

"Let's get out of here quickly before they return."

We left the forest at a brisk pace and found an abandoned village before it turned completely dark. The village had rice fields all around it that had been left to grow wildly, with tall grass and weeds all over the place.

We set up around a few useable houses we found, and put up a few tents as well.

"We don't have time to deal with things like bandit attacks." Kuro said as the three of us settled around one of the many campfires. "I say we just quietly leave and do what we came here for."

"But how are we going to get back across the border?" I asked.

"And what about Senior Kuwahara? We can't just leave him."

I was also reluctant to ditch the wagons so soon. And as much as I didn't want to admit how I was getting used to the dangers of this time period, the attack earlier was managable.

'Nothing compared to the ambushes from the men working for Kuro's uncle.'

"Ahhhh, my feet are killing me. You guys are lucky you got extra space to sit." Kuwahara said as he sat down next to us and stretched his legs out.

"Why are you taking such a dangerous job anyways? I thought your family was well off." Hirokazu asked.

"Well...you mentioned it earlier, I had a lady. I thought she was the one. We even went on a trip to the Capital where I must have spent 15, 25 ryo up at Kunijirou's."

Seeing our collective looks of incomprehension he explained.

"It's a famous jewelry store in the Capital, known for selling the rarest gems. Long story short, one night she was gripping me tightly calling me Daikokuten.

'Ryota mentioned him before.'

Seeing Hirokazu's look of incomprehension, I whispered to him.

"He's one of the Seven Lucky Gods, known for wealth and a bunch of other things, like fertility. And not just the farming kind. He's also known for packing a huge fertility tool down there."

"Ohhhhhhh." Hirokazu nodded in understanding before whispering back to me. "So he's showing off."

"And the next night she's with another man." Kuwahara shook his head. "I should have known something was wrong when I first met her, I got into a jam with her ex-man from the Tatsunami Sumo Stable."

"Oh no..." Hirokazu gasped.

"So she's for the town." I said.

"What?" Hirokazu asked and the rest looked at me with a questioning look on their faces.

"She's a woman of the town—the streets, she belongs to everyone. You know? She gets around."

"Ahahahahahahha." Kuwahara held is stomach and laughed so hard he started to tear up. "Your not wrong about that, Zai."

We joined him as he let it all out.

"That's why I had to take a job like this. It's a little dangerous but the pay is good." He said when he eventually calmed down." But enough about me, what about you guys? Why are you taking a job like this? You guys are still young."

Kuro vaguely explained his situation.

"We are looking for something that we need to help complete a family technique of mine."

"I see, even you guys have your own problems."

We all headed over when there was a call for dinner from the main campfire. As everyone was getting their bowl of soup there was a discussion going on about the earlier attack.

"I talked it over with a couple of our guards and we believe the attack earlier was a probing attack." Supervisor Yuma said.

"Really?"

"What do you mean?"

"They were mostly only attacking us from range with their arrows and polearms, and retreated at the first sign of danger. They were testing how we would respond and our capabilities."

"So you think they are planning another attack?"

"It's the logical conclusion. We'll have to be careful going forward."

"They were nothing earlier, even if they attack again we can easily crush them." Supervisor Fusazane said with confidence.

"In any case, it's better to be cautious. Those on watch duty tonight will have to be extra vigilant."

"Will it be this dangerous the entire trip?" Someone asked.

"A couple months back—this was 4 trips ago, we were separated from a wagon and it's team during a night raid by bandits because we didn't know the terrain and camped in a bad position." Supervisor Yuma let out a sigh. "We never found them. That's why we picked up Emon as a navigator, it's an important position. Now that I think about it, weren't you on the trip too, Toichi?"

Kuwahara's Supervisor, a quiet man who mostly kept to himself, nodded.

"This is your first job since then, right? Don't let it get to you." Supervisor Yuma said. "And welcome back."

Everyone settled down for dinner afterwards, and the conversations turned more casual.

"Supervisor Zai is quite young isn't he?"

"I wonder how he's related to his investor?"

A few of them turned to me and questioned.

"Is it true that your investor bought in last minute?"

"What?" I asked.

'Ryota told me nothing about this.'

"Really?"

"Yeah, we were set for four wagons but two more were added just 5 days ago. Mister Asahi had to scramble about to get the wagons ready. Talk about cutting it close."

'That was about when I asked Ryota for a way into the Land of Rice Fields.'

"My cousin works in the money lending business for the Yamaguchi-gumi, he mentioned that someone was running around asking for a huge loan. I'm guessing that must have been Supervisor Zai's investor."

'Ryota said it was a 50 ryo investment, I don't know how to feel about Ryota's faith in me that he could just ask for such a loan last minute and gamble on this trip being successful like that.'

Been listening to Smokin Out The Window by Silk Sonic on repeat, so based Kuwahara on it.

FrostPanda: Lastly is the environment, I am not saying go to Tolkien levels of description, but at times it feels like we are given bare bones descriptions. With that it leaves our minds to fill in the blanks.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll try to add in some small descriptions so it's easier to picture things, at least for the more important characters and scenes.