Chapter 548: Men...It's Better to be More Focused!

Chapter 548: Men...It's Better to be More Focused!

"Playing dumb won't help; we already have evidence," said Kyuubei, standing before a rubber raft bearing Toujou, a swimming ring around her waist. She spoke slowly, her eyes closed.

"There's absolutely nothing like that!" Toujou, crouching on the raft, quickly defended, "We don't have those indecent thoughts! Right, Lord Kawaki? And Lord Jouichirou!"

"Stuffing swim trunks..." Jouichirou, sitting cross-legged on the raft, pinched his chin and frowned slightly, pondering for a while with his eyes closed before opening them and saying, "Indeed, I have no interest in that. Butts or... breasts, there's no comparison in my eyes. The two are incomparably different."

"Shut your mouth!" Kawaki yelled, annoyed.

"Huh?" Jouichirou was taken aback, then showed a displeased face and retorted, "Wait a minute! I was just speaking in your defense! Why the attitude? Looking for a fight? Jerk!"

"It may be so, but the way you said it is irritating," Kawaki grimaced, then turned to Kyuubei and said, "Anyway, we don't have any indecent thoughts."

"So..." Kyuubei pointed behind Kawaki, "What's that?"

Hearing this, Kawaki turned his head to look, only to see a colossal club standing erect between Sadaharu's legs, with Kagura standing on Sadaharu's back directing, and the club's owner—Umibouzu—acting as the 'flag bearer' or rather 'club bearer.'

"Depart!" Umibouzu raised a yellow flag labeled 'Adventure' tied to the club's top, apparently found somewhere.

[It's the Adventure indeed!] Kawaki's mood plummeted.

"Do you intend to inspire our spirit of adventure with that, dragging us into a perilous journey?" Kyuubei pondered and replied.

"How can that pose possibly inspire anyone's spirit of adventure!" Kawaki pointed at Sadaharu, whose private parts were pixelated, and ranted furiously, "No matter how you look at it, he's just a victim!"

"Seeing such a hole, one might be compelled to plant a flag, right?" Kyuubei, serious, a slight blush on her cheeks, replied earnestly, "What a shameless trap..."

"Those wanting to plant a flag there are even more shameless!" Kawaki yelled, his veins bulging in anger.

Then, Kawaki quickly turned and ran to where Sadaharu was dutifully sticking his rear end up, lying on the raft, and urgently called out, "Little General—!"

At that moment, the overplayed Sadaharu, his face buried in the raft, murmured, "The Adventure has always carried famous adventurers..."

"Pull yourself together!" Kawaki shouted urgently, "You're not the Adventure, you are the Shogun!"

Then, standing not far behind Kawaki, Kagura spoke up, "If you want to see a wardrobe malfunction, we might as well change the rules, huh~"

"Eh?" Kawaki blinked and turned back to look at Kagura.

Three minutes later...

"Let's cut out all the nonsense," Kagura stood before everyone and suggested, "Whoever has a wardrobe malfunction is out. That's it."

"That sounds good," Tsukuyo clapped, complimenting the idea.

"Good idea," Kyuubei agreed.

"It'll be great to see wardrobe malfunctions freely," Tsukuyo voiced her support.

"We agree too!" the host of Yoshiwara courtesans chimed in unison, their gaze toward Jouichirou growing fiercer by the moment.

"Hold on!" Kawaki hastily shouted, "There's no benefit to doing that in this chaotic situation!"

However, the ladies completely ignored Kawaki's objections and collectively shouted, "Alright, then... let's start!"

No sooner had Tsukuyo and the others spoken than Shinpachi, Kondo, and Toujou began to wrestle. In contrast, on the other side, the courtesans pounced on Jouichirou, who seemed like an enemy even to Umibouzu.

"Hey, why start without permission!" Kawaki shouted, standing in front of Sadaharu.

"That..." Sadaharu, standing confidently with his hands on his hips on the raft, said thoughtfully, "I... want to go there..."

Following Sadaharu's gaze to where Jouichirou was struggling against the fierce expressions of the Yoshiwara courtesans and Umibouzu, Kawaki replied emotionlessly, "Maybe not that direction, those women... are not something you can handle, General. Their level is too high for a beginner adventurer like you. You'd be wiped out in one round. For now..."

Saying this, Kawaki grabbed the rope on the raft and, gritting his teeth, pulled with all his might, heading for the shore, "We absolutely can't let the General lose face again!"

At that moment, not far behind Sadaharu, Toujou, who had been tugging at Sadaharu's underwear, pulled it several meters away and called out, "I won't let you escape! Young master! Did you see my heroic figure?"

"We love you, Jouichirou-sama!"

At that moment, Sadaharu, who had removed his swimming cap and goggles and was being worshipped by Shinpachi and the others, watching Jouichirou being cheered by the crowd of Yoshiwara courtesans, quietly remarked, "I... am still far from that man..."

Sadaharu turned to Kawaki, saying, "I've caused you trouble; the swimming pool is indeed an interesting place; thank you for giving me a wonderful summer. I hope I can come again next summer..."

Before he could finish, Sadaharu was suddenly hit by a surfboard coated in lubricant, which slid down the slide at high speed, carrying Katsura.

Katsura, having safely reached the shore, utterly unaware of Sadaharu floating in the water with his underwear pinched, holding the surfboard, called out to Jouichirou, whom the Yoshiwara courtesans still surrounded, "This slippery thing is great, worthy of being our organization's secret weapon! Ahahaha! With this, we might even overthrow the Shogunate! Alright, once more!

Looking at Katsura walking away, Kawaki then looked at Sadaharu floating in the water, and after a long silence, squinted his eyes, expressionless, and finally said, "That's enough..."

At that moment, on the poolside, Tsukuyo, standing with her back to the pool, one hand crossed over her chest, the other lightly pinching her smoking pipe, standing beside the Yoshiwara members, looked at Jouichirou in front of her, squinting and smiling, and softly remarked, "He is an incredible man..."

However, just as she finished speaking, Tsukuyo suddenly heard the sound of fabric tearing and after a moment of surprise, looked down to see her upper swimwear slowly falling off, then raised her head to look at Jouichirou, who was now determinedly looking away.

The air froze...

...

At dusk, as Jouichirou and the others were on their way back to Yoshiwara.

"That, it wasn't my fault!" Jouichirou, his body barely intact, said to Tsukuyo, whose face was already red, "It was your own doing standing next to everyone at that time! Just when I was tearing off everyone's masks! I didn't even notice you were there then! If anyone's to blame, it's only yourself! But then again, at that time, I did feel something odd about the feel of the mask, it turns out it was the strap of the swimsuit..."

"Shut your mouth!" Tsukuyo, blushing, furiously jabbed several kunai into Jouichirou's head.

"Jouichirou-sama!" All the unmasked Yoshiwara courtesans immediately rushed to help Jouichirou up.

"And, after all, I didn't see anything!" Jouichirou got up, his eyes wide with anger as he retorted.

"Really... really?" Tsukuyo, her mosquito-eye makeup not wholly faded, asked intermittently.

"Mm-hmm! I didn't see anything at all!" Jouichirou nodded earnestly.

Tsukuyo breathed a sigh of relief, but a slight sense of loss crept into her heart.

"Jouichirou-sama was whispering '90 points' at that time," one of the Yoshiwara courtesans raised her hand and said.

"Indeed, I heard it too."

"I heard it too,"

"And me..."

...

Listening to the voices of the Yoshiwara courtesans, Tsukuyo's forehead darkened, and several veins throbbed on her face; then without any hesitation, she pulled out several kunai from her bosom.

"Hey! You did that on purpose, didn't you!" Jouichirou shouted at the Yoshiwara courtesans nearby.

Tsukuyo: "Wash yourself—!!"

"Ah—!!" Jouichirou's scream.

...

"Jouichirou-san, Tsukuyo-san, today I was alone practicing at the dojo all afternoon!" Shinpachi, who ran into Jouichirou and the others by chance at the gate of Yoshiwara, grinned and gave a thumbs up to Tsukuyo, who was blushing, and Jouichirou, who the blood-drained Yoshiwara courtesans were supporting, "But speaking of which, where did everyone go? Why does Jouichirou-san look so weak? What exactly happened?"

"The pool... it is dangerous," Jouichirou said weakly.

After a long silence, Shinpachi raised his grievance-filled face, pouted, and a tear glistened in the corner of his eye.

"Why—?!"