Chapter 106 - 65 A Small Investment

Chapter 106: Chapter 65 A Small InvestmentThe future "Number One Man of Japan’s Warring States" personally commanded a battle for the first time, only to get his ass handed to him—he ran like a kicked stray dog, tumbling and scurrying away, leaving seven or eight corpses of his personal attendants and pages behind, almost crying for his mom and dad. You could say he looked as pathetic as humanly possible. This really caught Harano off guard. He’d only come to watch the chaos, never imagining things would turn out like this—but honestly, he thought it was a great opportunity. If he went and pulled Oda Nobunaga out of trouble now, covered his retreat or something, it’d definitely make life a lot easier for him down the line if he ever settled in Owari to develop. Even if, according to history, Oda Nobunaga was 99.99% likely to escape back to Nagano Castle half-rolling, half-crawling, Nobunaga wasn’t a fortune-teller—he’d still remember the favor nine times out of ten. Consider it a tiny investment in the future; Harano figured risking a little bit was a solid cost-benefit trade-off. He shouted to Ah Man and Ah Qing, then slid down the hill, jumped onto his horse, and charged diagonally toward the battlefield. "What the hell are you doing?!" Ah Man chased after him, shouting, sure he’d gone the wrong way. "I’m gonna pull Nobunaga out of the fire! Cover me!" Harano barked back, spurred his little three-flower filly hard, and immediately shot off, leaving Ah Man and Ah Qing in the dust. "Unbelievable!" Ah Man didn’t expect him to go picking fights when they were all set to run, but since he’d already dashed off, she couldn’t do anything but scan the terrain, trying to figure out how the hell she was going to help him retreat later on—and cursing him in her head for just deciding things without ever consulting her. Did that guy have "future great lord" written on him? Honestly! Harano galloped onto the battlefield, intersected it on a slant, and after just over a minute, lined up parallel with Oda Nobunaga’s group—whose situation was already bad. The Matsudaira family’s black-armored samurai were damn good shots; while chasing on horseback, they kept launching arrows straight at Nobunaga. If it hadn’t been for his household retainers and Returning Horse Group blocking for him, Nobunaga would’ve been skewered by now. Even so, several of his people had already been knocked off their horses, and even if they weren’t dead yet, there was no way they’d escape the enemy slaughter. Getting chased down and surrounded is just that miserable—the best you can do is take your beating, barely able to fight back at all. Harano looked over the situation and immediately spurred his horse again, speeding forward a bit before slowing it down. He took down the pulley bow from his saddle hook, steadied his breathing, and got used to the mare’s rhythm—after all, he’d practiced horseback archery at home; wasn’t exactly a newbie, but the horse couldn’t be going too fast. Some samurai from the Matsudaira family noticed Harano, but on the battlefield, Nobunaga was worth more than anyone else—they didn’t care about some random riding slower in the distance with a bow. Their groups were nearly parallel and almost a hundred meters apart; at that range, he’d have to lob his shots, and the accuracy’d be a joke. Unless they were cursed, there was nothing to worry about. But Harano was worried. He’d never shot at a person in his life—living in modern society, there’d never been a chance—so he had zero experience. But it’s not like he needed to kill someone from the Matsudaira side; just slowing their pursuit a bit and making Nobunaga owe him a favor would be enough. He was here to invest in his future, after all—if he could loose a few arrows and then bolt, that already counted as going above and beyond. No way was he about to charge in and die a hero. His life was way more valuable than Nobunaga’s—no way he’d do a losing trade. ...... The black-armored Toriyama Chouhei was the Grand General of the Matsudaira family’s harassment force. This time, under orders from the Imagawa family and Sanhe’s Okazaki Castle, he was told to ramp up the harassment—so he led the team himself, specifically reinforcing his group, determined to hammer the Dongjin and East Wood forts quick and then head south for some real plundering. What he never expected was for the new head of Oda Dan Zhengzhong’s house to run out by himself. This was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. The "Tiger of Owari," Oda Nobuhide, had terrorized the Sanhe region for over a decade, and countless samurai from the Matsudaira family and other local clans had died because of him. If he could bring back Oda Nobunaga’s head, he’d not only comfort the dead, but pull off a world-shaking feat that might even please the Imagawa family—and maybe even get their family head Takechiyo, currently a hostage, exchanged back, reviving the Matsudaira family’s fortunes. Right now, if he could just break up these Returning Horse Group pages, he’d seize eternal glory! He was just a step away! The more Toriyama Chouhei thought about it, the more his blood boiled. For a second, the world held no one but Oda Nobunaga’s shadow flickering in his vision. He readied his bow for another shot, hoping to knock Nobunaga off his horse—when suddenly, a shock hit his arm. A huge force surged from the rear side, and he nearly fell from his horse, the arrow he’d just drawn flying off into the dirt. He was terrified, barely managing to keep his seat. He glanced down—his right arm had been shot from behind, and the force of the arrow was massive—it punched straight through his armor and deep into bone and flesh. Only then did the tearing agony register, draining the color from his face. Damn, what bow strength! Barely catching a glimpse, he reflexively looked back the way the arrow came from. In the distance, he saw a lone black-armored warrior trotting on horseback, at least fifty ken away—and another black dot streaking straight toward him.... That was his last thought. The next second, a feathered long arrow closed the hundred-meter gap, leaving nothing but a blur on his retina before diving straight into his left eye, dropping him from horseback on the spot. ...... Harano quickly loosed two arrows. His arm was starting to ache, but seeing the target drop, he shook out his hand and watched the aftermath. He was honestly shocked it hit—he thought the enemy armor would block the arrows, figured they’d barely slow the pursuit at best. Somehow, muddleheaded as he was, he’d killed the guy. Or, well, it looked like he’d killed him—the last shot seemed to have hit the guy’s face, but it was so far he couldn’t see clearly. While Harano was shaking out his hand, the Matsudaira samurai—who’d been hotly pursuing—just froze. In the middle of their charge, their Grand General had suddenly dropped dead; they all reined in, some yelling in rage, some looking totally lost, and others dropping from their horses to check on Toriyama Chouhei, or racing around circle looking for the "killer." The whole scene devolved into complete chaos. Oda Nobunaga noticed the ruckus behind, and hesitated—he kind of wanted to turn back and counterattack. But his Lang Faction were scattered, armor and helmets gone, running like sheep all over the hills. There was no way to gather them for a counterattack now. If he even paused, the enemy’s long spear Ashigaru would swarm him—most likely, he’d die for real. They’d lost too badly. Even if Sun Wu were resurrected or Zhuge reborn, they couldn’t turn this around; all he could do was curse, shoot Harano one more look, and escape with his pages and Returning Horse Group as fast as possible. At least this time, he was a lot more calm and composed—not nearly as pathetic as before. Harano felt like his "favor investment" had paid off. Spotting the Matsudaira side coming back to their senses and a few enraged samurai charging right at him, he turned his horse to run—and loosed another arrow for good measure, knocking another pursuer right off their mount. "This way! This way!" Ah Man waved to him from afar, then raised her iron cannon (arquebus) and fired a shot at the Matsudaira samurai. Of course, at this range, the hit rate was basically 2%—she didn’t hit a thing, but the noise made the furious samurai instinctively ease up and dodge a bit, with some even returning fire with arrows. Not that it mattered—the shots barely made it halfway before burying themselves in the dirt. Harano didn’t rush to bolt just yet. He hadn’t been fighting until now, and his horse was faster; so after pulling back to Ah Man and Ah Qing’s side, he waved for them to leave first. Then, turning back, he loosed another arrow, yet again knocking another Matsudaira warrior off their horse, while their own arrows hit the dirt thirty or forty paces short—he couldn’t have been safer. After a few hundred paces of this, the Matsudaira samurai’s eyes grew clearer—not nearly as enraged as before. Some of them looked seriously hesitant, as if they couldn’t process what just happened: only seven or eight of them had chased this far, and if they kept going, they might all die out here. But how was the enemy doing it? Searᴄh the Nôvel(F)ire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality. Why was he dropping a man with every arrow, with a bow strength and arrow speed that seemed almost supernatural? Was that guy the number one archer of East Sea Road or something? No one had ever heard of Oda Dan Zhengzhong’s house having such a badass general before! Seeing their pursuit lag, Harano had no interest in pressing the attack. After all, what good would it do to slaughter a few more? Waste of effort. He spurred his horse, telling Ah Man and Ah Qing to run, and Ah Man jabbed her iron cannon’s ramrod in, fired another shot at the Matsudaira—scaring them again, but of course hitting no one. They alternated covering each other’s retreat, constantly keeping max distance from the enemy. At this range, the iron cannon was basically useless; Ah Man fired shot after shot, hitting nothing but dirt, spit a curse, and chased after Harano’s horse. The three of them peeled off at a slant, and, after shaking their pursuers, slowed so Ah Man and Ah Qing could catch a breath—still, they really needed to make some money and buy more horses. One was simply not enough. Ah Man and Ah Qing weren’t fazed, though. Their stamina was decent to start with, and after dining with Harano—meat every day—they were in even better shape. Running several miles in armor was no big deal; in fact, Ah Man was actually bummed she couldn’t bring any heads back for the reward. That was a decent chunk of change gone. Harano didn’t care; he wasn’t short on pocket money. They took turns on the horse and hoofed it back to camp as fast as possible. Back at camp, a few defeated Oda Family Lang Faction guys had already run back—probably natural sprinters, after a tough fight and all-out dash off the field. Even so, they’d outrun Harano’s group, who barely broke a sweat. If you put them in a modern race, they’d probably bring home some medals. Oda Nobunaga’s group hadn’t come back yet; they’d probably been fighting repeatedly, worn out their horses, and had to rest a bit after escaping danger, so their mounts didn’t die under them. It’d still be a while before they made it back. Once the forward defeat was confirmed, the samurai left behind at camp began to panic—sending people to find out what was going on, frantically issuing weapons to the Ashigaru, and trying to organize a defense. Harano couldn’t be bothered with all that—hell, he couldn’t control it even if he wanted to—so he just gathered his own lot, ready to bug out at any time. Luckily, word soon came back by fast horse: the Matsudaira family hadn’t chased them hard and had already gone back to bury the battlefield. Only then did the camp calm down again. Soon after, Oda Nobunaga made it back safely, even reuniting some scattered Lang Faction Ashigaru. Harano started working too—he’d been hired as a "battlefield doctor," after all, and with a pile of wounded, it was his job to patch these guys up. He was soon busy as hell, utilizing the Nightingale system—cleaning wounds thoroughly, keeping things sanitary, changing gauze and bandages as much as possible, doing everything he could to keep infections down. That was honestly above and beyond for this era; with that level of care, most of the wounded would pull through. Of course, that was because these were all light wounds. The serious injuries... Well, if they couldn’t escape the battlefield, the Matsudaira family had probably relieved them of their heads already. Harano kept going until nightfall, finally pulling an arrow from the last lightly wounded Lang Faction guy. He was thinking maybe he’d go around for another check when Maeda Toshie appeared outside the small tent, looking tired as hell, and said, "Lord Nozawa, his lordship wants to see you."