When Xia Xi first saw the words "urgent assistance" in the letter...
His heart really did skip a beat.
He thought Tengen might have been unlucky enough to run into an Upper Rank.
But on second thought, if he really had encountered an Upper Rank Demon...
Why would he bother writing a letter?
He would definitely have sent his Kasugai Crow flying over at full speed to cry for help.
Then this was probably... a personal matter.
As for the string of crooked, incomprehensible symbols below...
They looked a little familiar to Xia Xi.
They looked like a child's doodles, yet also like a deliberately arranged cipher.
Dots, horizontal strokes, slashes, and some strange pictures that looked like ninja tools were mixed together.
They were neither standard hiragana nor katakana.
Much less the Chinese or English characters Xia Xi knew.
He looked them over several times.
Only then did he suddenly remember that this was the encrypted communication used between ninja.
Back when he had been drinking and shooting the breeze with Uzui...
The guy had indeed told him about this stuff, something called "shinobi code."
Flashy Bro had done quite a bit of showing off at the time.
Things like, "Secret operations naturally have to be written in the flashiest way possible..."
"Even if the enemy intercepts the intelligence, they won't understand a thing..."
"This is the most popular jargon among ninja these days..."
He had rambled on and on, and even walked Xia Xi through it twice.
Oh?
Who would've thought I'd have a day when I needed to work like a ninja?
The corners of Xia Xi's mouth couldn't help lifting.
After all, besides the action games he was best at, he often played puzzle games too.
Deciphering a two-hundred-year-old "code"?
He was quite confident!
And so,