Saving Touma

Chapter 1.B - Mountain Spirits

Ogawa Noburo was the oldest of his apprentices. Ryo met him at Hōki when they took a blade-forging job. He was among the employees they had replaced. 

Despite being in his early twenties, he was already married and with two children. Ryo felt sorry for taking his job away, so he allowed him to join the group. 

Fujita Katsuo, Ito Tadaoki, and Kato Yukimura were the first members of his firm. They were all raised in an orphanage in Izumo and had been looking for a way to escape town. 

Ryo found them loitering outside the restaurant he was eating in, seemingly trying to signal him to share his food. He didn't give them food; instead, he offered them jobs. They immediately accepted his offer when he told them they had to leave town.

Uzumaki Shingen was a runaway. He was a black sheep in the family, lazy and rebellious. They met him at Inaba. Ryo didn't want to hire him at first, but when he agreed to all conditions, including a salary deduction for every mistake he made, he finally did.

Unlike Shingen, Maeda Kogoro and Tokugawa Hiraoki were well-behaved children. Kogoro was the breadwinner of his family, while Hiraoki wanted to help the family that had adopted him. 

Hiraoki's parents had been killed in the crossfire between warring clans on their way home from the farm. His aunt had taken care of him since.

The group found a cheap ryokan in a small village on the outskirts of the town. Ryo managed to get a discount because their group filled two big rooms. 

He knew it might be slightly uncomfortable for his apprentices, but they only had to stay for the night and head out in the morning, so it shouldn't be a problem.

The inn was plain Jane. It was much smaller than those they had lodged in before. The genkan wasn't big enough to accommodate their footwear. Some of them wore waraji, while others wore geta. Those wearing waraji had to hang their sandals behind the door. 

The genkan led to a narrow hallway that extended to the engawa on the other side of the building, which overlooked a shrubbery that stretched toward Mt. Minago. The bedrooms were along the hallway on the left. 

They looked like any other bedroom one would find in a commoner's home—a raised platform with a worn-out tatami floor and sliding paper screens. The kitchen and caretaker's quarter were on the right.

The smell of smoked meat caught Ryo's attention as he was heading to the back to look for the inn manager. He knew he had to have a few slices of it later. 

There were two other rooms on the other side of the inn that could be accessed through the engawa, but other customers had booked them first. 

Ryo took the two rooms along the hallway and let the boys pick where they liked to stay. Five went into the bigger room and the rest into the smaller one.