Chapter 420: Chapter 153: Dual Infiltration! Aoto and Mai’s Peerless Stealth [Bonus 10,000 Words] (Part 2)

Since it’s like this, why not directly accept the returned IOUs and repayments from them.

Harada pursed his lips and looked up at the sky.

He seemed to be pondering what Aoto, Zhouzhu, and the others were just saying.

But obviously—without the habit of thinking, his brain automatically triggered a resistance mechanism.

Only about 5 seconds later, Harada shook his head tiredly: "Although I don’t quite understand what you all just said, this should also be a good thing, right? No need to pay those guys back anymore."

With that, Harada chuckled and reached out to embrace Aoto’s shoulder.

"Mr. Tachibana, congratulations! Your family’s gambling debt is settled!"

"Hmm..." Aoto’s mouth curved into a thoughtful arc.

Since traveling through time, he hadn’t met his father Tachibana Ryuzo, who had long died from illness, so Aoto’s deepest impression of Tachibana Ryuzo was "left him a rather troublesome debt."

And now, this big trouble was finally resolved in an unexpected way.

Aoto folded the IOUs in his hand neatly and contentedly placed them back into his chest.

The "gift" suddenly presented by the Shimizu Clan was considered to have lessened a great burden originally pressing on Aoto’s shoulders.

After being freed from the threat of "owing gambling debts to the Shimizu Clan," the threat pressing on Aoto’s shoulders now only consisted of the Anti-foreigner Group wanting to take his life, which had recently been unusually quiet and inactive!

...

...

Nagakura and Harada, who moved into Shiwei Hall as diners, added much liveliness to the spacious "Dining Room" enough to sleep 10 people.

Although Nagakura and Harada were burly, their sleeping postures were surprisingly calm; they didn’t snore, so their move-in didn’t greatly disturb the original tranquility of the "Dining Room."

Even if their sleeping postures were terrible and they snored like thunder, it wouldn’t affect Aoto’s routine at all.

After all, with "Sleep God," no matter how noisy the external environment is, Aoto can close his eyes and sleep peacefully.

At 2 am, Aoto, who had developed a stable biological clock, energetically opened his eyes on time.

Once open, Aoto heard the steady breathing of the others in the room.

Aoto quietly crawled out of the covers, took the Orange Water from the knife rack at the bedside—without worrying about others "recognizing him by the knife"—and then took out the "Fox Monk Outfit" hidden in the cabinet: black outfit and black fox mask, pretending to head to the dojo to practice sword and left the "Dining Room."

After descending the stairs to the first floor of Shiwei Hall, Aoto hurriedly exited Shiwei Hall, heading straight to the alley behind the nearby ramen shop.

Once in the alley, apart from the dim moonlight and dust on the ground, Aoto saw nothing.

Just when Aoto thought he had arrived early, he heard footsteps from the rooftop of the house to the left of the alley, followed by the voice of Mukiwa: "Ah, seems like I am late."

Aoto looked up following the sound—to see Mukiwa, dressed in the "Cat Monk Outfit" and carrying a black fabric bag with unknown contents on her back, sitting like a cat on the roof of the house.

Aoto shook his head: "You’re not late; I just arrived."

"Oh, then that’s good." Mukiwa flipped her body like a diver from the past, swiftly executing a series of movements from the roof to the ground: jumping, adjusting her posture, silently landing.

"Mr. Tachibana, good evening."

"Hmm, good evening."

The reason for the late-night meeting with Mukiwa was not to chat here.

So after exchanging a few pleasantries with Mukiwa, Aoto got straight to the point: "Miss Kinoshita, have you found a target requiring my help again?"

Mukiwa didn’t mince words; seeing Aoto cut to the chase, she gently nodded:

"Yes. But this time the target is not like last time’s criminal group."

"This time, I want you to assist in investigating a place."

"Mr. Tachibana, do you remember what I said last time? To eliminate the ’Radical Anti-foreigner Faction’ plague as soon as possible, I’ve been patrolling different places in Edo almost every night, searching for traces and movements of the ’Radical Anti-foreigner Faction.’

"Just last night, I found a rather suspicious place that seemed to be a den of the ’Radical Anti-foreigner Faction.’

Den, ’Radical Anti-foreigner Faction’—these two words combined instantly made Aoto’s gaze concentrate.

Aoto signaled Mukiwa with his eyes to elaborate.

Understanding Aoto’s gaze, Mukiwa briefly organized her phrasing and said slowly:

"Just last night, while patrolling the East Suburb of Edo, I accidentally found 3 samurai sneakily entering an abandoned tea house no longer run by anyone."

"It’s a very large tea house, with 3 floors."

Entering such an abandoned tea house in the middle of the night... I found it very suspicious, so I tried to sneak into it."

"In the end, I failed to infiltrate—the tea house was filled with an astonishing number of guards."

"The windows on all 3 floors of the tea house are tightly closed, except for a dilapidated hole on the roof that I used to enter the tea house, where I found many samurai guarding the stairway connecting the third and second floors."

"The guards were too numerous, even approaching was impossible, so yesterday I had to temporarily retreat."