I Formed the Strongest Swordsman Group-Chapter 53: The Adorable Loli from France

If Aoto remembered correctly... a few days ago while patrolling the road, after unexpectedly meeting Kinoshita Mai, the girl had told him she was going to Fujisawa-shuku on the Tōkaidō to meet a friend.
After 1603, when the Edo Shogunate was established, in order to strengthen control of the country, the shogunate built five major roads collectively known as the Five Routes, all starting from Edo and connecting the nation’s major economic and military centers.
Those five routes are: the Tōkaidō, the Nakasendō, the Nikkō Kaidō, the Ōshū Kaidō, and the Kōshū Kaidō.
To facilitate movement of people and goods and to promote commerce, the shogunate set up many post stations and waystations along these five routes.
Among them, the Tōkaidō, which connects Edo and Kyoto, was the busiest and most heavily trafficked of the Five Routes.
The Tōkaidō had fifty-three post stations; Fujisawa-shuku, the post station Arima had just mentioned and the very place Kinoshita Mai planned to go to meet her friend, was one of those stations.
Besides being used for government and military purposes, ordinary travelers and merchants could freely use the Five Routes and any of the post stations along them for travel; demand for lodging, food, and shopping surged as a result.
Consequently, large settlements gradually gathered around most of the post stations on the Five Routes and eventually developed into castle towns.
A castle town formed around a post station was called a shukuba-machi.
Fujisawa-shuku was a typical example.
Nominally still a post station, Fujisawa-shuku had in practice already become a fairly sizeable castle town.
Teahouses, izakaya, brothels, gambling houses, bathhouses... everything a typical castle town might have could be found in Fujisawa-shuku.
"Arima-sama." Aoto asked, "Has something happened at Fujisawa-shuku?"
"A band of very skillful thieves has appeared in Fujisawa-shuku recently," Arima said. "They specialize in stealing travelers’ money at the post station."
"The amount involved has already reached two hundred ryō of gold."
"Faced with thieves they cannot catch no matter what they try, the local officials in Fujisawa-shuku have completely run out of options, so they appealed to our Magistrate’s Office in Edo, requesting we send Dōshin to assist them."
"Fujisawa-shuku is one of the most important post stations on the Tōkaidō and not very far from Edo. After weighing the pros and cons, Usui decided to accept Fujisawa-shuku's request for assistance and personally named you, Tachibana-kun, to take charge of the case."
"Usui personally named me?" Aoto was momentarily stunned.
"Your excellent performance in that case involving Granny Apple clearly changed Usui’s opinion of you. That he would personally designate you to handle this case is a sign he’s truly begun to regard you as a member of the Teimachi squad."
"In short—work hard, Tachibana-kun."
"Try to produce another performance at Fujisawa-shuku that will make everyone take notice."
Aoto let out an awkward laugh. "A theft case... Arima-sama, saying it like that puts a lot of pressure on me."
"I'm not a god either. It's impossible to miraculously solve every case perfectly."
"Do your best."
With that, Arima drew a document stamped with the Magistrate’s Office seal from the desk, then took out two ryō of gold from a lacquer box beside him.
"This is your travel pass—keep it safe. If you lose it, you won't be able to eat, sleep, and stay free at the post station."
"This two ryō is your travel money; don’t squander it. The more joyfully you spend your travel allowance, the more painful it will be when you have to your expenses afterwards. Last time Butagaya went on a trip, he spent most of his travel money entangling himself with a woman and received a harsh scolding from Usui."
When government business brought an official to a post station, the post station was required to provide free "person-and-horse relay" services.
Each post station had to have a certain number of support staff and horses. The "person-and-horse relay" meant the station would assist officials in replacing personnel and horses, and provide lodging and meals to officials free of charge.
So the travel pass Arima handed Aoto was quite important: without a document proving he was on official business, he wouldn’t be able to get free food, lodging, and horses at the post stations.
After accepting Arima’s travel pass and travel money and bowing solemnly to say farewell, Aoto strode out of Arima’s office to prepare for his trip.
Just as he turned onto the corridor leaving the Magistrate’s Office, he suddenly ran into one of his seniors: Butagaya was walking toward him.
Butagaya had one hand on his hip and held a palm-sized paper in the other, smiling oddly as he walked, delighting in whatever he was staring at on that paper.
"Mr. Butagaya!" Aoto greeted proactively.
"Oh?" Hearing Aoto’s voice, Butagaya finally took his gaze off the paper. "Oh ho, Tachibana-kun."
"What are you looking at?" Aoto cast a puzzled look at the paper in Butagaya’s hand. "You're so absorbed you nearly walked right into me and didn't even see me."
"Heh heh..." Butagaya made a strange chuckle and turned the paper toward Aoto.
It was a small picture.
A portrait drawn in the ukiyo-e style.
Aoto didn't really understand paintings from this era.
He examined it more carefully and gradually made out that the portrait seemed to be of a little girl with blonde hair and blue eyes.
"This is something good I got yesterday when I went to Yoshiwara to... ah, no, to meet a friend," Butagaya said. "Tachibana-kun, do you know Elodie de Angoulême?"
Aoto shook his head blankly.
"She is the granddaughter of a French merchant currently settled in Osaka," Butagaya chuckled. "I heard of her name long ago."
"Though she’s a foreigner, they say her skin is smoother than silk, and her face is unbelievably pretty—just the sort of look we Japanese like."
"This portrait in my hand is supposedly painted by an artist who saw Elodie up close."
Butagaya turned the portrait back toward himself with a look of admiration.
"Truly beautiful... if this portrait really shows Elodie’s true appearance, then she must be a little beauty..."
"Heh heh... I really want to see what she looks like in person... heh heh heh..."
If he didn't wipe his mouth soon, drool might start running from Butagaya's lips.
How exactly he could tell from a painting that Elodie was so beautiful was something Aoto, who had no appreciation for ukiyo-e, could not comprehend.
"If this portrait is really Elodie's true likeness... she looks so young," Aoto frowned as he looked at the picture in Butagaya’s hand. "She’s very small."
"Yes, Elodie is indeed very young; they say she’s only twelve this year."
"Twelve?" Aoto's eyes widened, and he gave Butagaya a strange look up and down. "…Mr. Butagaya, as a man in his early thirties, you can't—at the very least, you shouldn't be attracted to a twelve-year-old girl..."
"I'm not attracted," Butagaya’s face went serious as he spoke earnestly. "I’m merely appreciating a beauty in a normal way."
"Does appreciating beauty require you to care about her age?"
Butagaya tucked the portrait of Elodie back into his chest.
"All right, it's best not to talk about this at the Magistrate’s Office."
"If Arima-sama found out I was talking about women during official hours, he'd scold me again."
"Tachibana-kun, why do you look in such a hurry? Is something urgent?"
Aoto took out the travel pass he had just received from Arima and waved it at Butagaya. "I’m heading to Fujisawa-shuku on official duty."
He briefly and concisely explained to Butagaya the reason for his business trip to Fujisawa-shuku.
"Oh ho... Fujisawa-shuku..." Butagaya grinned. "A trip there isn’t bad; it's close to Edo, not too tiring. When I went to Kyoto on business last time, that was really exhausting..."
"Want me to bring you back a local specialty from Fujisawa-shuku?" Aoto asked half-jokingly.
Butagaya laughed: "Fujisawa-shuku is only three days' walk from Edo—what local specialties are there? You don’t need to bring anything back; just focus on investigating the case."