Aman felt as if she had slept a long and comfortable sleep, warm and secure, like returning to her mother's embrace. When she slowly awoke, she saw the dust floating in the room, tinged with gold, and realized it was already dusk.
The remaining glow of the sunset slanted onto her small face, making her body feel limp and her mind blank, momentarily not knowing where she was. In her daze, a familiar male voice came from beside her: "You're awake?"
Aman suddenly remembered last night's unfortunate events and was about to jump up like a startled fish, but the pain in her waist and hips made her control her impulse, tilting her head to observe her surroundings while slightly moving her hands and feet.
This seemed to be the main room she had rushed into last night, and her hands and feet were not bound, but...
She looked down at a strange mat (a thin quilt, recently made today by Yayoi's mother with the help of many women, very efficiently) covering her, and her hand was wrapped in a very soft white gauze she had never seen before, emitting a medicinal smell—her hand was electrocuted, leaving a piece of skin scorched.
Her clothes seemed to be...
She lifted the quilt and glanced inside, instantly becoming furious, shouting at Harano: "You bastard, how dare you... how dare you..."
She was merely dressed as a boy, but she was actually a little girl, and now her clothes had been changed, making her seriously suspect her chastity was lost.
These samurai and courtiers were very perverted; she had traveled the world for years and knew this well!
Harano was arranging a bunch of small gadgets he had found on her and said casually, "Don't rush. The clothes were changed by Yayoi... well, the daughter of this family. Your previous clothes were smelly and had to be changed."
Indeed, it was Yayoi who helped change her clothes, but before changing, Harano had already noticed during the body search that the gender was incorrect. The sharp voice was not entirely because she was a child.
Of course, to avoid further distressing her, he didn't mention these things, preferring to pretend they had not happened!
Aman indeed slowly quieted down, looking at Harano and asking, "You're not planning to kill me?"
"Nobody plans to kill you, so why were you in such a rush to run away?" Harano truly had no such intention, especially after replaying the scene in his mind and becoming more convinced that the three of them were not together— the movements of the two river bandits were sneaky, as if they intended to steal and might slit his throat in passing, while Aman rushed in without regard for anything, seemingly intending to quickly backstab and knock out the two river bandits, not caring whether she would wake him up.
Furthermore, her demeanor and tone when shouting, the implication when she played the lute, her words appeared credible, at least logically coherent and self-justifiable.
"I don't want to hand over my life to others, nor do I need a fool to spare it..." Aman cut herself off after saying half of it, mainly because she hadn't escaped. If she had succeeded in escaping, she would likely mock Harano a lot for not killing her immediately after catching her, even allowing her to shout and twist on the ground, secretly cutting the rope, truly a super big fool, not even as good as a dung beetle.
However...
She turned and curiously asked, "How do you dare to believe I'm not a river bandit? What if I'm lying?"
"Because you're a ninja!" Harano had found two fire starters, a bamboo whistle, a section of an oiler with a thin bamboo tube, a shuriken (meaning "not difficult," a primitive outdoor survival tool, reputed to make any situation easy when possessed) a stone-hanging tripwire, an iron piece shaped like a blade and very sharp along the edges, a flat dried animal bladder, a bag of quicklime powder, and a small pouch of black gunpowder on her.
Her clothes were specially made, although ragged, they were filled with all sorts of things. Finding so many odds and ends even surprised Harano, making him seriously suspect she was a young ninja. This was also the biggest reason he moved her indoors and spent heavily on treating her injuries—ninja were said to generally be well-informed, and he was currently lacking coherent information of the era.
Aman, on the other hand, looked puzzled: "Ninja? What kind of nonsense is a ninja?"
The image of ninja in later Japan was an artistic creation of the Edo Era, with descriptions in various books resembling the "people of the martial world" in Huaxia martial arts novels—resembling some real characters but severely adapted and mythologized, far removed from reality.
Harano knew a little about this area, but he didn't know what to call these people in the early Warring States Period, hoping that the word "ninja" coined in the Edo Era would resonate with Aman, but unfortunately, it didn't.
He directly asked back: "Then who are you?"
Aman hesitated for a moment, feeling that since she was already captured and the other party had treated her with respect, she might as well tell the truth, "I'm Aman of the Koka group."
"Koka clan? Are you from Koka?" Yano was slightly surprised; he thought Aman was a local "Ninja", not expecting her to be an imported one, and even a high-class import that would be famous later.
Aman didn't understand why he was surprised, scratched her face and truthfully said, "Uh... I'm not from Koka, I haven't even been there, but my grandfather is from Koka, so I guess that makes me part of the Koka clan?"
"What do you Koka clan usually do, who's your leader?" Yano continued to interrogate.
Aman found it a bit strange and couldn't help but ask back, "You haven't heard of us Koka clan? We're not that unknown in Owari, right? We've been here quite a few times!"
"Now, I'm the one asking you!"
"Alright, alright!" It's not really a secret, because it'd be pointless to get beaten up by Yano for such a thing, Aman just honestly said, "We don't have a leader, at least we don't have a recognized big leader, we're just small groups.
Take our branch for example, when I was little... when I couldn't remember anything, the Rokkaku family and Asai family were at war, our village got obliterated, my grandfather picked me up and took me wandering around with his fellow villagers—my grandfather is from Koka Jiangnan, he and his fellow Jiangnan clans were hired to gather information, occasionally start fires, and spread rumors.
Other Koka clans do the same, gathering with fellow villagers, like Shuikou, Jiaxi, Ishibashi, Shinetsu, Tushan, all have one or several groups, some with good relationships, some not, so we Koka clan are such a loose organization!"
After finishing, she couldn't help but start to rant, "Actually, according to me, they're just a bunch of useless people! Except for a few with some ability, others are singers, storytellers, beggars, or puppet shadow play performers, and there are some random street vendors who barely have enough to live on, wandering everywhere every day. Even bandits and river thieves are too lazy to rob them; they're a group of useless old men, even dogs avoid them. You're asking for nothing!"
Yano: ...
But this might be true; the so-called "the Ninjas of the world come from two Hegas" refers to Koka County and Iga Province.
These two unlucky places are said to have poor soil conditions, all mountains and clay earth, relying on farming to survive is very difficult, even a minor disaster or calamity would make the whole family starve, so they are habitually out there selling arts to make a living.
At the same time, these places have a strong martial culture, plus generally poor people aren't afraid to die, making them excellent sources of soldiers during the Warring States Period. In the late Warring States period, many local daimyo formed "special operations units," mostly recruited from Koka and Iga.
All this together seems to be the prototype of the future Japanese "Ninjas."
Yano was thinking about this, and then asked Aman, "So, you came to Nagano Castle on a mission? Hired by whom?"
"The viper of Minoh." Aman, lacking professional ethics, directly sold out the employer, and with malicious intent said, "He wants to know about the defense situation from Shoban Castle in Owari Haidong County, Mosen Castle in Haidong County, Gudu Castle, Nagano Castle to Atsuta in Aichi County, Mikisyo Castle, Nagami Castle; and he's really stingy, willing to pay only five hundred wen for all these places, that tight-ass old guy will sooner or later die from being so cheap."
The viper of Minoh?
Referring to the current ruler of Minoh Province, Saito Dosan, I guess? Not very familiar with the place names, maybe later he could consider asking her to help draw a map…
Yano pursued further, "What's Saito Dosan's conspiracy by gathering these?"
Aman thoughtlessly replied, "Who knows what crap he's thinking about, I've never spoken to him, but the Tiger of Owari is rumored to be half-dead, and the Imagawa family and Matsudaira family are stirring again, probably that oil merchant wants to see if the Oda family can still hold on, and whether he can take advantage. But that's not strange, those big shots are just like this, things far away also need concern, otherwise, they wouldn't have survived today."
Yano silently nodded.
Saito Dosan seems to be a merchant selling oil, who struggled and rose to become the protector of Minoh; considered Japan's Warring States first "daimyo" (self-proclaimed, different from court-appointed "protector daimyo"), but what's the situation with the half-dead Tiger of Owari?
Yano felt that it wasn't in vain to heal Aman's injuries, at least this information was very useful; worthy of being an "Original Ninja," indeed a professional intelligence vendor.
With his historical knowledge reserve, he only slightly knew about Oda Nobunaga, Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Tokugawa Ieyasu, mostly from games, anime, and Grand River dramas; right or wrong is uncertain, urgently needing a systematic understanding of this era, he immediately poured Aman a cup of tea to prevent her from getting thirsty and going on strike.
Then he smiled and said, "I'm not familiar with Owari Province, I don't quite understand what you said, can you tell me again from the beginning, starting from the first year of Tenbun?"