I Teach Kendo in Tokyo

Chapter 32: Face the Storm

The next morning, Kazuma woke up normally without any discomfort.

‘It’s weird. I was worried yesterday that my shoulders would ache after practicing so many sword swings.’

Kazuma moved his arms while thinking.

‘Is it because this body is well-trained or because of the cheat?’

Kazuma shook his head, unsure which was the truth.

Anyway, he was not tired, which meant that he could continue to increase the intensity of his practice. Martial arts strength had to be his biggest bargaining chip against Sumitomo Construction at this stage. Since he had the cheat, he had to seize every opportunity to improve his strength.

The problem was that his cheat did not even have a beginner’s tutorial. He had to figure everything out himself.

Luckily, Kazuma hummed a few songs yesterday and realized that humming songs that conformed to the mood after a fight could double the actual combat experience points. If Kazuma kept trying to recite poems, he would have missed getting a ton of experience points.

After all, the bonus experience points were enough to level him up from Actual Combat 3 to 5.

If he had missed it, he would have had to delete the progress and start over!

However, Kazuma was not completely clueless about this cheat. From his experiences these last few days, apart from the need for emotional outbursts, Kazuma speculated that as long as he did something “ritualistic,” there was a high probability that he would receive a bonus.

For example, Nishikiyama Heita might not know that he had a Demon Face note, but he knew that he had to tear his shirt, show his demon face tattoo, and announce his name and family name loudly before a fight.

All of these were very ritualistic, and Kazuma’s cheat had also observed the effect of such behavior.

On the other hand, what Kazuma had done, whether it was reciting a poem before flipping the table or humming to the cherry blossom tree after the fight, had been very ritualistic too.

Kazuma pondered as he put on his clothes.

Japan was a country that paid special attention to rituals, and their pursuit of ritualism had reached a morbid state.

This cheat of his was probably following the local customs.

According to this train of thought, he would have to try his best to do ritualistic things in his daily life.

After school today, he should go to the shopping street and buy a portrait of Guan Yu[1]. From now on, he would first pay his respects to Guan Yu before going into a fight. Perhaps he could get a buff that way.

What other kinds of rituals were there?

Kazuma continued to ponder as he strolled into the kitchen-slash-dining room. Chiyoko was already busy cooking in front of the stove.

“Good morning, Brother.” Chiyoko seemed to be in a good mood. She was even more agile while running before the stove than before.

Kazuma replied, “Morning.”

With that, he picked up the wheat tea on the table and drank to his fill. After that, he turned toward the bathroom to wash up.

“What are you thinking about looking so serious?” Chiyoko asked curiously without pausing from removing fish scales.

It appeared that the Kiryuu siblings would be eating cheap fish for all three meals again today.

Kazuma casually splashed some water on his face and replied while rubbing the eye wax at the corner of his eyes, “I was wondering what other things are considered ritualistic and stylish.”

Chiyoko answered, “I understand ‘ritualistic.’ What is ‘stylish’?”

It was only then that Kazuma realized that he’d spoken those in Chinese. It seemed that there were no Japanese words that had the same meaning.

He thought for a while and said, “Like something that’s very COOOOOL.”

“Brother, are you going to play hip-hop?” Chiyoko was so shocked, her hands stopped removing fish scales.

“No… Forget it. Tell me something ritualistic. It has to be related to kendo.”

Chiyoko tilted her head and said in an uncertain tone, “Erm… Maybe you can cut the falling cherry petals with a sword?”

‘That’s something only a frigging swordmaster can do, right?’

It seemed like he couldn’t count on Chiyoko. He had to find out how to use the cheat himself.

Chiyoko asked, “So why are you suddenly asking about this, Brother?”

“To become stronger,” Kazuma replied.

Actually, he was just telling the truth, but Chiyoko thought he was joking.

“Compared to being ritualistic, I think you should start studying. Tokyo University is not that easy to get into. I remember that you were the last in the entire grade during your last exam, right?”

The Northern Katsushika High School was a public school. There were a lot of students who could not afford to go to a private school but wanted to go to a university, so the overall deviation value was quite high.

The school had admitted the original Kazuma solely because of his talent in kendo, so his grades were indeed at the bottom of the Northern Katsushika High School.

However, the current Kazuma was not the original host of the body. He was not too worried about his academic results.

So he gave a vague reply and started to brush his teeth.

Just then, the doorbell rang.

Chiyoko mumbled, “Who is it? It can’t be that Ito or something from Sumitomo Construction, right?”

She complained as she washed her hands and carefully dried them before jogging toward the door.

Chiyoko would definitely dry her hands after washing them so that she would not spill the water everywhere. In comparison, Kazuma did not care so much. After washing his hands and face, he would just shake the water off.

Suddenly, he heard Chiyoko’s scream coming from the entryway.

He shivered and ran toward the door at once. He even grabbed a bottle of soy sauce as he passed by the kitchen.

This was a glass bottle. If it hit someone’s head, it would definitely break their skull.

He could also sprinkle soy sauce on their face as extra damage.

Kazuma wanted to be a hero that saves the sister in distress. But when he reached the entryway, he suddenly stopped short.

He looked at the scene in front of him in confusion.

A few yakuza members were standing outside the door and bowing to Chiyoko. Meanwhile, Chiyoko was huddled in the entryway, covering herself with both hands as she looked at a small box on the floor with disgust.

Kazuma looked at the box and saw two fingers.

‘Speaking of which, Nishikiyama Heita said yesterday that he would make his underboss cut his fingers as proof of their sincere apology.’

‘He even said that he would send the fingers over.’

‘But I didn’t expect him to really do that.’

As Kazuma thought this, cold sweat covered his back.

Now, the fact that Nishikiyama and his men were real yakuza had been drilled hard into his brain. They were capable of doing all kinds of vicious things.

Since Nishikiyama could force his underboss to cut his fingers, he could also force Chiyoko and Fujii to do the same thing.

Chiyoko shouted, “Take that away! Our family doesn’t want such things!”

“We can’t take it away! Boss’ order is that we can’t go back until Young Master Kiryuu has accepted it!” the yakuza men replied in an even louder voice.

Chiyoko wanted to say something, but Kazuma interrupted her immediately. “Alright, we have received the apology fingers. Tell Family Chief Nishikiyama that I will bury these fingers under our cherry blossom tree.”

Ritualistic! Wasn’t that ritualistic?

Chiyoko objected loudly, “No! What if something comes out? That baldy must be an evil spirit!”

Kazuma picked up the small box containing the two fingers and patted Chiyoko’s shoulder with his other hand. “Chiyoko, I also think that the baldy will become an evil spirit when he dies. However, humans will not die from losing two fingers. He should still be alive.”

Chiyoko looked at Kazuma.

“Oh, I see.” She seemed to have just realized this.

Kazuma put away the box and said to the Nishikiyama Family underlings, “Don’t just stand there. Go now. It won’t be good if the neighbors mistake our family for yakuza members too.”

“Alright!” The yakuza little brothers responded in unison, then turned and ran.

Kazuma watched them leave, then closed the front door.

“Chiyoko, get a shovel.”

“Are you really going to bury them?” Chiyoko asked in surprise.

“What else? Leave them at home?”

“No, no, let’s bury them.”

A moment later, Kazuma dug a small pit between the intertwined roots of the cherry blossom tree with a shovel and put the fingers in.

After filling back the soil, Kazuma could not wait to meditate under the cherry blossom tree. He wanted to see if there were any strange buffs.

Unexpectedly, there really was.

The buff was called “Under the Cherry Blossom Tree,” and the description was “The cherry blossom tree is swaying quietly.”

Kazuma ended his meditation, not knowing what to feel.

However, it was still a generally good thing. Although he did not know the effect of this buff, at least he had found the right direction.

He had to do ritualistic things. No matter whether they were meaningful, ritualism was the key.

This was similar to the time when he chose the Storm Swordsman Yasuo in the League of Legends.

It did not matter if he had enough DPS[2] or whether he could win. Using Yasuo was in itself ritualistic, and Kazuma wanted to beat his opponents and annoy his teammates with Yasuo’s handsome face.

What was the essence of playing as Yasuo? It was to type in the open chat box before the battle had even begun. “Face the Storm!”

In the end, when he lost the battle, Kazuma would quote Sue Harukata’s death poem—

“Don’t mention victory and defeat,

“It was only temporary.

“A lifeless land,

“Surrounded by cold mountains and clear oceans.”

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Although such behavior would cause Kazuma’s teammates to flame him to death, he felt happy about it.

Happiness was all that mattered.

Kazuma thought this and smiled. He felt that joy was in the air.

[1] A Chinese military general during the late Eastern Han Dynasty of China

[2] Damage per second, a gaming term