My Gang of Swordsmen

I’m sorry, I’m so terrible (crying leopard-head.jpg). This Chapter today is extremely important as it reveals the world view of the book and lays the foundation for a lot of upcoming plots. It’s quite difficult to write; the author had been writing until 3 a.m. and still couldn’t reach 10,000 words (exhausted leopard.jpg).

The author misjudged the amount of plot left at the end of Volume 1... It seems another Chapter is needed to finish this volume. (crying leopard.jpg)

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Swoosh...

The sliding door opened.

Aoto saw Mr. Kiryu’s old face, full of wrinkles, with a pair of glasses perched on his nose.

Mr. Kiryu, with his right hand still resting on the sliding door handle, was eyeing Aoto, whose expression was peculiar, and Mukiwa, whose face was still red, with a gaze that was... hard to read.

Even though he hadn’t done anything shameful, for some reason, hearing Mr. Kiryu’s earlier, "What are you doing?" coupled with his scrutinizing gaze, Aoto inexplicably felt a strange tension...

"Mr. Kiryu...!"

Seeing the sudden arrival of Mr. Kiryu, Mukiwa’s delicate body shivered twice, and then her eyes nervously flitted around. Her feet under her peach-buttocks and the hands on her thighs twisted in unease.

It was obvious—Mr. Kiryu must have heard Mukiwa’s sugary-sweet call of "Aoto" just now.

Mukiwa called out very loudly, and Mr. Kiryu, who should have been at the sliding door by then, would have no reason not to hear it.

Having others hear me call Mr. Tachibana "Aoto"... Mukiwa, not yet accustomed to this term for Aoto, felt a strong sense of shame.

Her slightly faded cheeks turned back to a bright red, like they were about to bleed at any moment.

It seemed like wisps of steam were rising from her face and the top of her head.

"W-we weren’t doing anything..."

Just like Aoto, Mukiwa felt an odd tension at that moment.

Not daring to look at Mr. Kiryu, she fixed her gaze on the ground in front of her knees, murmuring softly in a tone that sounded like reciting a spell.

"We were just discussing what to call each other..."

"...Call each other?"

Whether it was Aoto’s personal illusion or not, he felt that the eyes behind Mr. Kiryu’s glasses suddenly sharpened a bit.

"I feel like I and Mr. Tachibana... and Aoto are so familiar with each other, using ’Mr. Tachibana’ and ’Miss Kinoshita’ as terms of address seemed too distant, so we decided to call each other ’Awu’ and ’Aoto’ from now on..."

Mukiwa candidly confessed everything to Mr. Kiryu.

After quietly listening to the entire story, Mr. Kiryu slightly lowered his eyelids, his eyes deep as he looked at the young couple sitting side by side... primarily focusing on Aoto.

His gaze was meaningful.

Such a look from Mr. Kiryu made Aoto feel an intense sense of oppression...

There was a feeling that the air around was pressing onto him.

The tension inside him grew stronger...

Aoto could quite understand why Mr. Kiryu was looking at him this way.

Even though Mr. Kiryu referred to Mukiwa as "Young Master," Aoto could clearly feel that Mr. Kiryu and Mukiwa’s usual interaction resembled that of a "very close grandfather and granddaughter."

Every interaction between Mr. Kiryu and Mukiwa was filled with his pampering of this 15-year-old girl.

And Mukiwa held much respect for Mr. Kiryu.

So simply putting oneself in Mr. Kiryu’s shoes—if he returned home casually and happened to see the girl he treated as his own addressing some boy by first name, whereas before it had always been the polite ’Mr. XX’—Aoto thought he would definitely scrutinize that boy as well...

Aoto couldn’t help but lower his head and eyes awkwardly, feeling guilty like a thief and not daring to look at Mr. Kiryu.

But at that moment, an indescribable feeling quietly emerged and rapidly grew in Aoto’s heart.

In this era when propriety between men and women was still very strict, a girl... especially such a shy girl, suggested using "first-name basis" as such an intimate way to call each other henceforth...

Even someone as clueless about women’s hearts as Aoto, who in his previous life had never had any intimate relationships with the opposite sex, vaguely sensed something in Mukiwa’s courageous gesture.

Once again, his chest was tingling like being gently brushed by high-grade silk.

This tingling feeling was uncomfortable but also brought a peculiar warmth to Aoto’s body.

Aoto slightly turned his eyes, secretly staring straight at Mukiwa’s pretty face beside him with a complex gaze.

Mukiwa’s attention was solely locked on the ground in front of her knees, not noticing the gaze Aoto secretly cast toward her at that moment.

But Mr. Kiryu noticed.

Aoto thought his glance at Mukiwa was very discreet, but unbeknownst to him, nothing escaped Mr. Kiryu’s observation, and all his small actions were fully captured by Mr. Kiryu.

For a moment, the wrinkles on Mr. Kiryu’s face seemed to deepen...

Mr. Kiryu half-closed his eyes and, with a sigh, transformed his multitude of emotions into a long exhale.

"Has it ultimately come to this step...?"

After murmuring in a voice even he could barely hear, Mr. Kiryu casually placed the termite extermination tool he was holding beside the sliding door, then quickly stepped toward Aoto and Mukiwa... behind the counter, while softly speaking as if implying something: