"Where is Yokokura Keinosuke?!"

"Hey! Tell me quickly! Where is your leader... that Yokokura Keinosuke?!"

"I found you! Kinosuke Yokokura! I took off your head!"

"Whoaaahhhh——! Wait, wait a minute! I'm not Kinosuke Yokokura! Sir! You, you have the wrong person! I just happen to have a big belly like Kinosuke Yokokura! I vote

, surrendered! No more fighting! Please don’t kill me! Please don’t kill me!”

"Go and find him quickly! Kinosuke Yokokura is a very fat man! His size should be very conspicuous!"

As the leader of the Souma clan, Yokokura Keinosuke's head is of course far more valuable than ordinary minions.

According to the price indicated on the wanted warrant, Yokokura Kinosuke's head is worth at least 50 gold.

50 gold... For the team members of Huo Fu Thief Kai, this is an extremely large amount of money.

Even from a political and military point of view, killing the leader of the Xiangma people personally is undoubtedly an extremely high-ranking achievement and is completely worth striving for.

In order to obtain this great achievement, the soldiers of each team went crazy. They stretched their necks and looked around for the huge fat man.

As the west wind spreads eastward, the eating habits of residents in big cities such as Edo, Osaka, and Nagasaki, which are more receptive to novelty than those in remote rural areas, have gradually changed. More and more people are willing to try and accept meat.

.

But even so, there are only a very small number of people who can afford to consume meat for a long time.

The eating habits of most people are no different from the past, one or two hundred years ago - the main side dishes on the table are pickled radish, tofu and other vegetarian foods, and the only meat is seafood, mainly fish.

Therefore, it is not easy to maintain a fat body in Japan today.

Yokokura Keinosuke's huge body is like cotton in a pile of coal - he can't hide it even if he wants to.

After a while, someone raised his hand and pointed to the northwest and shouted:

"Found it! Over there!"

Everyone, including Aonto, looked up - Yokokura Keinosuke was wearing a black standard haori made by a fire bandit that he got from nowhere. While the battlefield was still very chaotic, there was nothing wrong with it.

When people had enough energy to notice him, they led seven of his men and fled toward the mountains and forests in the northwest direction.

Because Yokokura Kinosuke is too fat, and the original owner of the haori he is wearing is obviously a thin man, Yokokura Kinosuke’s two front wrists are in line with the high bulge

The belly is completely exposed outside Haori's body, which looks extremely funny.

Any gangster in the Soma clan can be spared, but Keinosuke Yokokura, the leader of the Soma clan, is the one who must be eliminated no matter what. He must be seen alive and his body must be seen dead.

But the cottage has not yet been completely pacified, and if everyone rushes to chase Yokokura Keinosuke in a disorderly manner, everything will be in chaos.

At this time, Kanazawa Chusuke played his role as "deputy general of the entire army":

He raised his head and shouted:

"Tachibana-kun! Mizushima-kun! Kazama-kun! You quickly bring your troops to chase Hengkura! The rest of you will follow me and continue to clear out the cottage!"

With Kanazawa Chusuke's clear instructions, everything will be easier to handle.

In an instant, the flow of sound suddenly changed - a large number of shouts and footsteps, like torrents pouring out from the mountains, rushed towards the northwest, towards the direction where Yokokura Kinosuke fled!

"Chase! Chase quickly!"

"Keep an eye on that big fat man! That big fat man is our target! We must not let that big fat man go!"

"Don't let that big fat guy get away!"

Aoto, Mizushima Rensaburo and Kazama Nobuyoshi led their respective subordinates, namely the Third Division, the Fourth Division and the Eighth Division, and plunged into the lush mountain forest.

Suddenly, the silence of the mountain forest was broken.

The mountain forest, which is usually quiet, as quiet as the depths of the sea in the middle of the night, suddenly ripples.

"Ripples" connect with each other, expand, and quickly transform into "waves" with astonishing momentum.

Countless wild birds flew out of their nests and circled repeatedly in the sky above the mountain forest, daring not to land for a long time. The sound of flapping wings complemented the noisy footsteps stepped on by Qingdeng and his party, and together they formed an inspiring horn.

At first, everyone thought that arresting the broad-minded and fat Yokokura Keinosuke would be a very easy task.

However... everyone soon realized how wrong their thinking was.

Although Keinosuke Yokokura is fat, his steps are surprisingly agile. He is a nimble fat man!

Like a flying swallow cutting through the waves, he bent his knees, raised his ankles, and hooked a tree root that protruded high from the ground, like a ferocious blood vessel.

In a flash, he jumped onto a huge rock; in another flash, he jumped into the bushes.

While jumping, his huge belly was constantly swaying and shaking under the action of gravity and inertia - this formed a funny but shocking contrast with his body that was as fast as flying, climbing mountains and wading as easily as walking on the ground.

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The figures of the gangsters who followed Yokokura Kinosuke closely and escaped with Yokokura Kinosuke were also so strong. The rugged mountains were like a flat stone road under their feet.

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With just a brief thought, you can realize that this is just a very normal and natural thing - as a bandit who lives by the mountains, how could he not be familiar with the mountains? How could he not be good at walking in the mountains?

On the other hand, Qingdeng and others - they were in bad luck.

Kai is a "mountain country" that is unrivaled in all of Japan in terms of its mountainous area and complexity of mountain shapes. Many places maintain an undeveloped, original "purely natural" style.

A tree root protrudes here; a huge rock flies up there.

Here is an impenetrable primitive jungle; there is a huge, bottomless canyon.

The miraculous craftsmanship of nature has turned into a terrifying enemy that will bring disaster.

The team members of the Fire Bandit Kaiju were basically city dwellers who grew up in Edo. How had they ever seen such a formation?

Yokokura Keinosuke is obviously very familiar with the landforms of this area - he specializes in walking the kind of path that a bird has nothing to do with, which is totally not the path that normal humans should take!

Looking up: the "meandering" scenery that primitive people would shake their heads upon seeing fills every corner of the field of vision.

Countless rugged rocks, thick ancient trees, tangled bushes, scattered gravel, as well as swamps, wild bee nests and other objects that appeared from time to time, all hindered the pursuit of Qingdeng and others.

The "Ouch" battle cry of the pursuing troops gradually changed into screams of "Uh-huh".

Someone here accidentally stepped on the air and sprained his ankle; someone there accidentally kicked a stone or a tree root and fell down.

Someone here accidentally stepped into the mud and half of his leg got stuck in the mud; someone over there accidentally disturbed the beehive and was stung all over his head by wild bees as thick as a thumb.

Even Qingdeng was almost injured.

Snapped!

Qingden felt a pain on the instep of his right foot - he accidentally kicked a tree root covered with a layer of protective color under the cover of dense fallen leaves, and almost fell to the ground.

Fortunately, just at the critical moment when his face was about to come into close contact with the ground, Qingden used "Cat Turn +1" to stabilize his figure in time and prevent himself from losing his appearance.

What a pity, among the pursuing troops, the only person who could use his excellent balance to stabilize his body when he was about to fall... was Qingdeng.

Countless people have stepped on the air, tripped over, and been injured due to a moment of negligence.

If we also include the people who were unable to get up to pursue Yokokura Keinosuke due to other reasons such as stepping into the swamp and disturbing the wild bees... the non-combat attrition of the pursuit force has reached a terrifying level.

The complex and changeable road conditions in the mountains are also a great test for physical strength.

For the same journey, mountainous terrain consumes far more energy than flat terrain.

Although some people were not injured, they slowly fell behind due to lack of physical strength.

Under the dual pressure of physical strength and complicated road conditions, the originally tight formation of the pursuit troops was continuously stretched and scattered, and finally became scattered. Here was a lump, there was a patch, and the formation was scattered.

.Looking down from above, it looks like a handful of "black pepper powder" that has been randomly thrown everywhere.

One side is struggling to move even an inch; the other side is like a fish entering the sea and a dragon born in the sky - the gap between the two sides is getting wider and wider.

At the same time, there are trees, rocks, vines and other objects blocking the view.

Therefore...even though he was very reluctant, Kinosuke Yokokura's huge figure still escaped from the eyes of hundreds of pursuing troops.

In order to catch Kinosuke Yokokura, Aomori and others worked hard to chase them so far. It would be really unacceptable if they just come back empty-handed.

As a last resort, Aoto and others could only divide their forces - Aoto, Mizushima Rensaburo and Kazama Nobuyoshi led their respective subordinates and searched in different directions.

"Team 3, follow me!"

In the third division, there are only 32 soldiers who have not fallen behind and are still able to keep up with Qingdeng.

After hearing Qingdeng's cry, the remaining soldiers had to cheer up and follow Qingdeng.

Naturally, Qingdeng would not be so stupid as to run around aimlessly and look for things like a headless fly.

At this critical moment, Qingdeng's "Wind Perceiver" came to the rescue in time!

Identifying the location by listening to the voice - this is the specialty of Aoto who is currently practicing the cloud-ryu ninjutsu!

I saw Aoshinobu closing his eyes, skillfully relying on the extraordinary hearing created by the superposition of "Gathering God" and "Wind Perceiver" to search and identify the direction of Yokokura Keinosuke. His left hand became a palm.

He was walking through the bushes, holding a knife in his right hand to chop the vines; while walking through the mountains and fields, he raised his ears high, not letting go of any slight sound around him.

Whether this will be effective... Qingdeng is not sure.

Ultimately, this search method is just trying your luck.

If Keinosuke Yokokura had not fled to the direction Aoto was responsible for, then no matter how powerful Aoto's ears were, it would still be useless no matter how hard he pricked up his ears and listened carefully.
To be continued...