Book 3: Chapter 10: The Principles and Rules of the Land of Samurai

Nanako stepped forward intending to argue back with an indignant expression on her face but she was pulled back by Lily. Lily whispered to her, “Don’t say anything, Nanako.”

They were after all in front of an Inspector whose authority was second only to Lord Kamakura. Although the feudal lords possessed troops and authority, the Inspectors held higher authority in matters related to the most decrees pa.s.sed down in Kamakura!

Naturally, the Inspectors were also feudal lords as well or had a feudal lord as a family member. For example, Nagasaki Takaki was a feudal lord of a vast territory southwest to Kamakura and held a much larger territory than Lily.

Lily just responded in a gentle and laid-back tone to him, “Lord Inspector. As you have seen, I have just returned from the mountains, and even though I tried my best to protect the disciples who had met with danger, I really couldn’t do much about it and barely managed to survive the deadly battle through sheer luck. As a woman, visiting the Inspector’s residence alone might result in a scandal, and I’m quite tired at the moment. Please come find me some other time if you need something or arrange a location where we can discuss the matter in detail and I’ll gladly cooperate with you to provide an explanation. However, I shall not come with you today.”

Saying so, Lily turned around to leave as if nothing was wrong, “Let’s go, Nanako.”

The Inspector was taken aback.

Shigetsugu yelled out at this moment, “Kagami Lily, the Inspector is inviting you for an interrogation! Do you think you can reject it just because you’re tired?! You have the maximum responsibility for the death of the disciples during the excursion, so don’t think you can escape your sins by rejecting the Lord’s interrogation!”

From the sides, Kashima also chimed in at this moment, “Kagami Lily, do you not know how to read the situation?”

Nagasaki Takaki also twisted his beard in fury, “Kagami Lily. This old man tried to persuade you kindly since you are a woman, but you’re being too audacious here! Don’t make me use force now!”

“Use force?” Lily’s gaze turned cold, “Where were you Inspectors and Clan Heads when Sister Shimizu and I nearly died in the mountains during the training excursion? I barely managed to fight my way out of the encirclement of the numerous demons sent by the Hundred Demons through sheer luck and returned to Kamakura believing I would be safe here. Yet, all of you want to grab me forcefully. The incompetent, cowardly and ostentatious disciples who died at the hands of the monsters have become heroes of Kamakura while I, the person who killed countless monsters, have become the sinner. I wonder if this is what Lord Kamakura really believes. Is Lord Kamakura planning to let down the samurai of the East who fight the monsters on the frontline?”

Lily’s words contained a lot of opinions and could be said to have expressed the indignant thoughts of the others as well.

“You…” Takaki wasn’t expecting the delicate girl to be so troublesome as well, “I never said that you have committed a crime. I just want you to come with me to determine whether you are guilty! This task was entrusted to me by Lord Kamakura personally! If you have anything to say, you can tell me that at my residence. Are you going to defy Lord Kamakura, Kagami Lily?”

“Heh!” Lily grinned coldly and probed Takaki with spirit power blatantly.

“W-What are you doing?! How dare you probe an Inspector using spirit power, Kagami Lily! T-This is pretty rude!” Takaki hollered.

“Hmph! I really wonder how exactly a mere late-stage samurai like you managed to nab the position of an Inspector, Lord Nagasaki,” Lily questioned a bit disrespectfully.

“How dare you! Do you know you’ve just said, Kagami Lily? You’ve have shown blatant disrespect towards an Inspector who performs important tasks for Lord Kamakura! Do you even have any respect left for Lord Kamakura?!” Shigetsugu used Lord Kamakura as a pretext to chide Lily.

“Lord Kamakura found the Land of East based on the samurai code of chivalry. As such, it is a land for the samurai! However, Lord Nagasaki, you are oppressing a samurai by taking advantage of your position! Are the founding principles set down by Lord Kamakura worth nothing in your eyes?” Lily didn’t back down and gave a t.i.t-for-tat.

“Kagami Lily!” Nagasaki Takaki shouted in fury, “You ignorant woman! Do you think you can do anything as long as you have strength?! You need knowledge and wisdom to govern the land. Do you think uncivilized samurai like you who only how to kill are enough to do that?”

“Hmph! Uncivilized?” Lily extended her hand forward and turned her palm around tantalizingly to look at her slender fingers and said, “A group of ma.s.sive men has surrounded a woman who just escaped from dire straits and are making things difficult for her. No matter how I look at it, isn’t your conduct much more uncivilized, Inspector Nagasaki?”

Lily turned around and questioned him fiercely, “I fought with my life on the line against the monsters to protect those disciples, yet you’re oppressing me for that by using the dead disciples as an excuse to frame me! It was obviously the decision of you old fools from the upper echelon that resulted in the death of so many disciples! You were fully aware that I’m the mirror girl, yet you sent me to the frontier where the forces of the Hundred Demons run amuck! I would like to know what exactly you were planning by doing that!”

“How dare a mere dojo disciple like you insult an Inspector of the Kamakura Imperial Palace so blatantly! If I don’t teach you a lesson, Kamakura will lose all its reputation. Grab her for me and slap her twenty times on the spot!” Nagasaki commanded while pointing at Lily.

Everyone was shocked by this statement. Nagasaki’s viciousness was open for everyone to see from the fact that he wanted to have a beautiful girl like Lily slapped twenty times in public!

Lily grabbed her katana immediately and said, “Nagasaki Takaki. Are you planning to humiliate me publicly?”

“Enough! Grab her and slap the impertinent cheeks of this girl who doesn’t seem to understand the rules with wooden rods! Do it now!” Nagasaki pulled out his fan and pointed at Lily in anger.

The ma.s.sive samurai who had encircled Lily approached her intending to hold her down.

The foremost among them reached out to grab Lily’s arm and shoulder.

“Scram!” Lily flung her long, red sleeves aside, and the strong wind generated from it sent the five samurai ahead of her with the strength of late-stage sword masters tumbling onto the ground.

As the samurai who was approaching her from behind, Lily just leaned forward a bit and kicked back with force. The samurai flew back in a straight line like a cannonball and crashed into a willow tree a dozen meters away, splitting the old tree into two halves.

Although he didn’t die, he had suffered dozens of fractures and was in a critical state now!

Lily was really furious right now. She had experienced a lot of hardships this time and Shimizu’s whereabouts were still unclear as well. On top of this, she had suffered such an unreasonable oppression after returning back. She glared at Takaki with a cold gaze.

Takaki shivered all over when he saw this, “K-Kagami Lily! What are planning to do?!”

“Kagami Lily! Are you planning to rebel? Grab her, everyone!” Shigetsugu and Kashima as well as his other lackeys surrounded Lily at once.

Although Lily had defeated Shigetsugu by a lucky fluke last time, it was different this time. He had the support of an Inspector as well as a faction of Kamakura, so he could be bold and confident while besieging Lily and believed he would catch her pretty easily!

“Grab this woman first and give her impertinent cheeks a few good hard slaps so that she would be ashamed to show her face to anyone for the rest of her life!” Shigetsugu seemed like a calm person, but he was even more vicious than Dijon at the opportune moment.

All of them charged towards Lily with wooden swords in hand while Shigetsugu heaved his ma.s.sive wooden sword towards Lily’s face.

“Hmph! The only right thing you all have done today is that you didn’t bring real swords. I’ll let you all live then,” Lily stated icily.

She stomped the ground with force and caused the stone slabs to crack. Then, she jumped up suddenly and delivered a roundhouse kick towards the incoming men, including Shigetsugu.

A dense amount of spirit power covered that leg and even though the power contained in a kick executed via Tsukuyomi Swordplay was less than half the power packed in an attack with a bladed weapon, it was more than enough.

A powerful crimson crescent moon actually manifested alongside Lily’s kick!

“Wham!!”

An earth-shattering tremor pa.s.sed through the surroundings in the next moment!

All the wooden swords had shattered and including the mid-stage sword saint, Shigetsugu, the eight disciples were all blown away with their eyes rolling back and mouths frothing!

A few landed into the bushes while some fell into the river, while the rest hung on the branches of the pine trees.

A hole had opened up in the spot where Shigetsugu landed and his whereabouts were unclear with him losing his consciousness.

“What?!”

Kondo as well as the others were shocked when they witnessed this scene!

Although the general opinion was that Lily had defeat Shigetsugu with her strength, they were also people who debated against it and believed that she had used an exceptional technique to defeat him by a fluke. Thus, the common belief was that the two were almost on par in terms of strength.

But this one kick… had shocked everyone.

“J-Just what is this woman?” Even Kondo found it hard to keep his poise and revealed an extremely shocked expression.

She actually sent Shigetsugu, a mid-stage sword saint, flying, along with eight other samurai! And not a single one of them has managed to get up yet!

How long has it been since the duel? Why has Lily gained such fearsome strength after returning back alive from the excursion ma.s.sacre?!

“T-This is no longer the strength of a dojo disciple… It wasn’t even a sword attack, just a kick! Heavens… Miss Kagami, you…” Kondo stated in a shivering voice.

“Thud!” The ever-elegant Kondo’s legs turned into b.u.t.ter and fell on his b.u.t.tocks subconsciously.

As for the remaining samurai brought by Takaki, they also shirked back in fear. They had also experienced their fair share of battles, yet they had never seen someone who could kick with such force. Moreover, it had been executed with the fair and delicate leg of a maiden.

Takaki was also left dumbstruck by this development, “K-Kagami Lily! T-This is a blatant show of defiance of Lord Kamakura’s orders…”

“Lord Nagasaki Takaki, please don’t use Lord Kamakura as an excuse for everything to intimidate me!” Saying so, Lily’s b.r.e.a.s.t.s bounced as she sashayed towards him step by step.

Frightened, Takaki couldn’t help but take a few steps back. The kick just now had sent even a mid-stage sword saint like Shigetsugu flying, so a late-stage samurai like him would undoubtedly turn into paste if he received such an attack.

“Lord Nagasaki. If Lord Kamakura really wished to capture me for an interrogation, why didn’t he send his imperial bodyguards? As for you, you keep saying Lord Kamakura ordered it, so I would like know whether you have a decree ordering my arrest with you?”

“I… was ordered to handle this matter by Lord Kamakura and have the right to handle it however I want!”

“Hmph! Lord Nagasaki. Have you forgotten what world we live in? Although I don’t have a lot of land, for better or worse, I am still a feudal lord whose clan is allied with the Uesugi clan. I wonder if you are not worried about having Sister Uesugi come looking for you by arresting me today?” Lily smirked charmingly.

“What?! Y-You are allied with the Uesugi clan with just those few c.r.a.ppy territories?” A layer of sweat formed on Takaki’s forehead. The Uesugi clan was a truly tyrannical clan of warlords, and even Lord Kamakura treat them with a fair amount of respect. As for Uesugi Rei, she was always reckless in her actions, so the consequences of her visiting his residence were really too horrible to imagine…

“What a farce this is, Kagami Lily! You have wielded your strength with utter arrogance, hurt the public officials of Kamakura, and even threatened an Inspector! I shall report this matter to Lord Kamakura!”

“Bam!” Lily folded her arms under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and kicked the short and stout Nagasaki Takaki, sending him flying back into an unconscious state with broken teeth and eyes rolled back.

“Not only have I threatened you, I have even sent you flying with a kick now, but what about it? Lord Kamakura governs the populace through might, yet you dare to come enforce the law without enough strength? Hmph!” Lily smirked and flung her hair to the back, feeling refreshed both mentally and physically immediately.

The others, however, were all stunned after witnessing Lily send Inspector Nagasaki flying with a kick!1

1. Robinxen: Those thighs are deadly.