When the scouts' shrill whistles sounded, the main force was in a very awkward position.

Although the slope is gentle, it still takes a lot of time to climb up with a heavy ox cart. There is not much time left for the commander to make a decision - is this a ploy of thieves: to take advantage of the fact that the baggage troops cannot advance quickly, attack the scouts to divert the main force of the escort, and then attack the east and west to seize the baggage?

He didn't have time to dwell on all the possibilities – a common mistake made by inexperienced commanders. Narumi decisively split the team in two, and with the heavily armed Okami and others as the vanguard, he led the more mobile cavalry units to rush forward.

The infantry Ashigaru stayed where he was with the sage and the others, and continued to pull the baggage slowly through this half-slope - to a certain extent, he was also equivalent to entrusting the rear to Henry, including the young lord Yajiro.

The cavalry's mobility exploded in an instant, and the samurai, heavily armed and with their bows, disappeared at the end of the road in a matter of moments.

"Alert forward! Big gun—lift!" Ashigaru was relatively well equipped, with armor close to that of an ordinary countryman, and the highest-ranking "group head" of Ashigaru gave orders with a thick accent. Except for the ox carts, the people were a little chaotic under the command, but they still quickly formed a formation to escort the surroundings.

Despite their lack of combat experience, the discipline of the Ashigaru class, which was part of the standing army of the Land of the Moon, was able to overwhelm most of the peasant soldiers of the kingdom of Rigal.

Only a few large empires in the entire world of Rigal had standing armies, and most of the kingdoms were still dominated by elite military aristocracy such as knights and sergeants, and the practice of conscripting peasants into militias in the event of war.

It has the advantage of not having to feed a standing army with a lot of money for a long time, which saves the treasury expenditures, and the disadvantage is that the militia is extremely suspicious in combat effectiveness.

The two-meter-long Ashigaru spear tilts its head outwards in a vigilant posture, changing from the previous relaxed shoulder walking posture to a two-handed holding posture that can be flattened at any time to form a gun formation.

Dressed in simple iron cuirasses and hats—iron hats—the ashigaruses use their shields around their baggage, and are the first to defend themselves against the slightest movement in the jungle on the side of the road.

——!The wooden wheels of the ox cart ran over the stones at the end of the slope, and the group officially stepped onto the flat ground on the hillside - there was no attack, but there was no sign of the samurai ahead.

"Woo-" There was another sound at the bend in the sparsely weedy road, but this time it was not as sharp as before.

"It's an arrow. Lulu, who was in the ashigaru protective circle, said this, and Henry turned his head and squinted at her, but didn't say anything.

"A whistle represents an emergency, and an arrow is a disarming emergency signal, but whether it is dangerous or not remains to be considered. The head of the Ashigaru group, who had given the order before, turned back to their group of outsiders and said, although Ashigaru had some opinions on Henry for a series of reasons, but they still understood that this was a distinguished guest in the house. It doesn't matter if it's in front of Yajiro, the young master, it's impossible to know whether it's a friendly performance, but after a brief explanation, the head of the group ordered again, "Big gun—leaning on the shoulder." ”

After some untidy but still in place, the group that had lifted their alert posture sped up and caught up.

The road was not far, and after walking through the densely wooded road, a turn was made, and the samurai immediately appeared in front of them.

The horses were sparsely pulled, and the two scouts who had set out before were not injured, and they did not draw their bows, but they did encounter strangers.

"Kid?" said Mira, stunned.

"Looking at the costume, it looks like Hayato. Aya poked her head out behind her, and it was at this moment that Narumi in front of him pulled the reins and rode back—his movements moved the dark-skinned and young children with weapons in their hands like frightened owls.

"Your Excellency, we may need your help. The samurai leader on horseback said this, and Aya hesitated for a moment, then turned her gaze to Mira, Henry, and Kaleva.

"Let's go too. The sage nodded, and the ashigaru in front of him stepped out of the way.

"Mitya. The white-haired girl turned around, and the unicorn rubbed her along.

"Who is Hayato?" Stunned Qing, who seemed to have a better relationship with Aya, took the initiative to ask, and Miss Doctor did not answer in the slightest: "In addition to the Yi people in the land of the Moon Country, there are many other ethnic minorities. Because of their cultural and linguistic differences, they have not yet integrated into mainstream society. ”

"The Hayato are the largest tribe in the territory except for the Wajin. Although they were smaller in number than Wajin, they were martial and good at making weapons and armor, so Xinjing was given a certain degree of autonomy, and their language and culture were allowed to be retained. ”

After a brief introduction, Aya muttered again, "But why did you see Hayato so far away from Fuso-"

As she spoke, Henry and Mira looked at each other, each remembering what they had seen earlier in the northern village.

'—should I say it?' Mira blinked.

—not the time. Henry shook his head slightly.

After a short journey, the young girls of the Hayato tribe who were not very old but were all armed looked at the new group, because they were in the woods, Henry, Kaleva and Mira all took off their hats, and the gray-blue eyes of the sage, who were even taller than the samurai on horseback, were so frightened that the two children instantly let go of the short spear in their hands, and the eleven or twelve-year-old in the lead immediately turned his head and protected them with his hands and whispered to them to pick up their arms again.

"Looks like this is the boss. Henry shrugged, and Miss Doctor, who knew what Narumi had brought her in, emerged from the shadows created by the trio.

"Ah——!" There was a small commotion among the young men and girls at the sight of her robe, and they seemed to relax their vigilance for a moment, but the oldest boy in the lead turned his head and glared at everyone, and everyone was quiet again.

"What a leader. Stunned Qing sighed in Lamani.

"Look, ten-year-olds are better than you, and there's no shame in it. And Mira gave him a blank look.

The sage glanced at the two bickering from the corner of his eye, then looked at Narumi and nodded. Although there were no words, the high-ranking samurai could still learn from the atmosphere what Henry meant.

"Pull away, dismount, put your weapons away. He gave orders to the samurai in simple and direct words, and gestured to Ashigaru behind him to pause in place.

"Uh-hh

"Whew-" And the boy in the lead watched the behavior of the samurai out of the corner of his eye, and exhaled as he thought he was not being noticed, and his expression became relaxed for a while.

"After all, I'm still a child, and I can't hide my expression. Mira said with a smug look on her face, and Henry squinted at her.

"The Legend of the Fairy Tree"

"What, what do you mean. The girl was keenly aware of her teacher's playfulness, and she glared fiercely at the sage.

"......." Miss Doctor glanced back at Henry and then at Narumi - the two of them didn't even have to say a word, just a nod, and Henry conveyed to Narumi that 'show a relaxed gesture and make them less guarded', setting the stage for her next conversation.

A keen intuition and a correct sense of the situation were indispensable, and she remembered a footnote in a book she had read that if everything was the same, it would all end up in the same place.

What exactly this meant, she didn't quite understand in the past, but now it feels vague and she can know a little.

Thinking at a stubble, Aya shook her head, then looked at the leader boy who was about as tall as her.

"I am, Dr. Star. Her Hayato language was a little rusty, so she patted her chest lightly to make it more persuasive.

Although Dr. Yue Yong is not a master of speech and ancient history of the land of Crescent Island, as a doctor of Xing Yong who has traveled all over the land to investigate astrological meteorology, animals and plants, mastering several languages is still a necessary skill.

Even if the language of ethnic minorities such as the Yi people and the Hayato people is not counted, and some of the local dialects within the people themselves, they are very different from the standard language of Xinjing and other places. In fact, when Aya communicates with Sakura and other feudal people, there are often situations where some words cannot express the meaning smoothly, and the solution to this is to write down the different meanings of each word.

In terms of studiousness, even our Luo'an girl, who has always been diligent, felt a little ashamed of herself - after she arrived in Crescent Continent, because her language was too complicated with people, she could only master simple communication to this extent.

Loan has a proverb that a good friend is a good rival, and it is better to say that a young man is a comparator, and anyway, under Aya's stimulation, Mira has also begun to work harder - but let's get back to the beginning.

After Miss Doctor took the initiative to introduce herself, there was silence for a long time before the leading boy among the dozen or so children finally spoke.

They spoke back and forth for a long time in Hayato, which was shorter and more powerful than the human language, during which time there were several pronunciations that sounded familiar to Mira, and she looked back at Lulu who had not followed her in the distance—the Yiren language also had words similar to the pronunciation of Luoan, and the witches and demons she had encountered before seemed to have discussed her hair color.

What's going on?

Does the Loan have any connection to this distant continent - she looked at Henry, but the sage stared straight ahead.

The doubts in my heart were tangled and my thoughts were finally broken by Aya's movements when she turned around after talking.

"Ali, Ali. The boy turned around and shook his hand, and all the children put their weapons down, apparently the Doctor had made it clear to them that there was no need for a conflict between them.

"They are Hayato wanderers from Fuso, who suffered a famine many years ago because of the locust plague. Craftsmen who relied on armor-making and forging skills could buy food with money, but ordinary farmers could not make a living. ”

"I didn't get anything, but I still had to pay taxes, so I chose to flee north into the mountains and forests. Aya's tone became a little muffled when she said this, and Mira immediately understood the reason.

"If you have land and don't plant, you should be tied up and sent to prison if you evade taxes and defect!" someone among the high-ranking samurai who had already relaxed suddenly shouted, which made the group of teenagers and girls immediately panic again.

"......" Aya furrowed her eyebrows, and Mira and Kaleva looked back at the samurai who spoke.

"Silence!" Okami shouted to the noisy samurai, and after quieting down, Narumi said to Aya, "So they are dressed like this?"

The samurai leader was clearly a pure military man, and he was more concerned with the situation at hand than with the identity of these people.

A group of children, average aged about 10, dressed in simple clothes, carrying adult knives at their waists, which were somewhat too large for their bodies, and holding short spears made of small, curved tree trunks that were apparently improvised and had bark on them.

- Even the Hayato tribe, which is still martial arts, will not use such a thing that really kills people as a war game.

Aya glanced back at the teenagers and girls who were huddled together:

"Demon crusade. She said.

"A ghost appeared in the nearby mountains and injured all the adults in the village. So they formed a raiding party to kill the demons, but they got lost due to the fog and heavy rain and ended up colliding with our scouts. ”

"Demons-" "Shh

Although the ghost clan has generally submitted to Xinjing, just as there are bandits and robbers who kill people without blinking, it is never uncommon for the ghost clan to wander outside and cause trouble.

In order to distinguish between good and bad, Wajin called those who were under the jurisdiction of Shinkyo ghosts, and those who were outside of them were evil spirits.

These Hayato children may be ignorant of the power of the oni clan, so they can form such a so-called crusade and want to go into battle. But in the minds of the Japanese samurai, those who are more than two meters tall can beat the samurai and their horses into pulp with the wielding of weapons in their hands, and every crusade has to pay a very high price.

"Haven't we defeated one before!" someone shouted in a louder voice.

"But that's not what we defeated. "In the face of the dangerous creatures, the discipline that the samurai had always adhered to was gone, and they discussed it like a group of little boys. Both Okami and Narumi furrowed their brows in displeasure, while Old Joe tried to persuade them to settle down.

"After all, I haven't seen the corpse, so it's true or not—" A somewhat sour voice sounded, and Mira followed the voice to see that it was the middle-aged sergeant Nobukatsu-sama who had been defeated by Henry in the competition and was evaluated as "lacking courage" by Yajiro. He still struggled with this, apparently a little weak, but before the Roan girl could speak, another young high-ranking samurai refuted Nobukatsu's words.

"Lord Shinkatsu, we can feel the destruction of that scene and the earthquake at the beginning, how can we doubt the results of Mr. because we didn't have a corpse!" The gossipy samurai shouted, and this appearance made Narumi sigh several times. ”

"So?" Aya glanced at Henry and then at Narumi.

The Hayato boy who was leading behind "......." stepped forward and pulled Miss Doctor's wide sleeve and whispered something again.

"He said he wanted us to visit their village, though we might not be able to give the samurai a lucrative feast. Aya looked back and forth a little bewildered, and she was a scholar rather than a leader after all. The boy in the lead was not stupid, maybe he really thought he could complete the crusade at first, but he was lost before he met the evil spirit, and the difficult situation of just finding the direction after eating the dry food was enough to calm his mind.

His invitation was actually asking for help from the group. The Oni Clan has never been easy to deal with, not to mention that they have their own goals and real threats at the moment, so they are really not suitable for extraneous branches. But if she didn't go, she would let these people be plagued by evil spirits, and Miss Doctor couldn't bear it—under such a entanglement, she had no choice but to turn her attention to others for help.

The three samurai in the lead of the "......" looked at the young children, and one of the girls had a mountain knife hanging from her waist that was obviously the elder of the family, and she had to pull it back up several times with great difficulty.

The weather was very hot, and the fatigue of these children was visible to the naked eye.

The silence of the "......" continues, and as the warrior class of this country, it is their duty to eliminate harm and protect civilians. But no matter how loud the slogan is, whether it can actually be done when it encounters things is another matter.

At this point, even Narumi couldn't make up his mind right away - he looked at Henry, perhaps the only one in the room who had enough experience to give reliable advice.

"It's going to be something I've learned in the near future, and it's a good litmus test. The sage didn't give a direct affirmative answer, but his statement was enough for Narumi and the others to make up their minds.

If you are afraid, what you learn will always remain in words.

"Inform the young master, and consult him again. The samurai leader said this, but he probably already knew in his heart what kind of answer Yajiro would give.

"Everyone. ”

"Get ready to go. ”