The Desperate Struggle of the Powerful and the Undercurrents of the Black Market

Cold and damp.

Hojo Tokugawa's nostrils were filled with the rotten stench of dust sealed away in the secret passage for decades, mixed with the sour smell rising from his silk nightgown, soaked through with cold sweat. The hands that had once been accustomed to reviewing official documents and manipulating political schemes were now clawing desperately at the rough stone bricks of the wall. He did not even feel the blood seeping from his broken nails.

Fear gnawed at his sanity like gangrene clinging to the bone.

Yoshikawa Shin—the living evidence of his crimes who had been sent back—kept replaying in his mind like a nightmare: those hollow eyes, the bill branded onto his chest.

He was finished.

No, he was not finished yet!

After his extreme terror burned itself out, it gave rise to a twisted, hysterical madness. Hojo Tokugawa staggered to the end of the passage, where a heavy door of refined iron stood before him. He bit through his finger and pressed his blood-smeared palm hard against an eerie totem on the door.

"Buzz—"

Amid the dull rumble of mechanisms turning, the door slowly opened, revealing mountains of gold and silver, along with rows of pitch-black wooden boxes.

This was the private treasury he had amassed through decades of plunder, the foundation of his power over the nation.

"Ninja... monsters... Do you think you've won?" Hojo Tokugawa panted heavily, his eyes bloodshot and his expression as savage as a beast driven into a corner. "I, Hojo Tokugawa, didn't climb this high just by relying on the daimyo's trust!"

He stumbled toward a corner and pulled a sharkskin-wrapped Scroll from the most concealed compartment.

When he unrolled it, there were no words upon it, only blood-branded codenames representing the Underground Black Market's highest-ranking contacts.

His trembling hands formed