Early the next morning, in a small courtyard within the Daimyo's Palace of the Land of This.
The Daimyo held a delicate white steamed bun and ate it with a bowl of porridge.
It was not ordinary white rice porridge. It looked as though many kinds of rice had been added, giving it a rather rich array of colors.
Just as the Daimyo slowly finished the last mouthful of porridge and prepared to take a bite of his bun, a maid hurried to the entrance of the courtyard with her head lowered and made a gesture of invitation.
"Please come in!"
At the sound of the girl's voice, the Daimyo of the Land of This looked toward the courtyard entrance, where eight people filed in one after another.
These eight were Yushi and the team he was temporarily leading.
Seeing Yushi and the others arrive, the Daimyo of the Land of This warmly asked first, "Have you had breakfast? Did you rest well last night?"
"Thanks to Your Excellency's consideration, everything is well. We had breakfast long ago~"
As Yushi spoke, he deliberately pulled Genma behind him.
If the Daimyo had looked closely, he would have noticed that the dark circles beneath Genma's eyes were painfully obvious.
The group had participated in the Imperial Martial Competition, and some of them had been injured quite badly. If it was discovered that Genma had not slept well last night as well, they might all be persuaded to withdraw.
"According to reliable reports, the Land of Them has hired shinobi too. However, we were unable to determine where those shinobi came from. So..."
"Please rest assured, Daimyo. Since you have hired us, we will naturally deal with them for you. They are shinobi too, so this is precisely the sort of matter we