Wanjin is covertly implementing "responsibility system," and while everyone else is overjoyed, Ah Man is in a fury.

In about a year, she had completely integrated into the Ainu community. According to Ainu custom, she had also painted a huge mouth on her face with purple pigment. Since she always cared a great deal about her status and identity, she used the deep purple reserved only for highly respected women in the tribe—it was so purple it looked almost black.

At the same time, she draped herself in the black-brown pelt of a bear cub, with the bear's head sitting right on top of her own head. This "bear-head robe" was likewise a status symbol worn only by elders of great renown among the Ainu.

She even gave herself an Ainu name, "Aizaka," which literally means "a person with wisdom"—or simply, "Wise Man."

Anyway, now any Ainu who saw her would immediately know her status was absolutely extraordinary, at least at the "Tribal Leader" level. Ah Man fully deserved this: she had personally commanded the Zair Tribe in raiding the Lizi Family's immigrant villages, killed all of the Samurai and Lang Faction members, and packaged up and delivered all the commoners who'd been tricked there to settle in Wanjin.

Yep, most adult men in the Zair Tribe were hunters—excellent soldier material—but the Zair Tribe had little war experience, so putting this half-baked "veteran" Ah Man among these wilds made her basically a "famous general." And she was shameless enough to just take command, no questions asked.

After that, she led the Zair Tribe in successfully ambushing a Lizi Family reprisal force—killing more than thirty Samurai and Lang Faction men on the spot, and capturing over seventy.

Fact proved, when there's no big difference in weapon tech—so it's not bows-and-stone-spears vs iron armor and steel sabers—on Yakushima Island, Samurai can't beat Ainu hunters. At least in skirmishes of about a hundred people, Ainu hunters have the upper hand. Even the Samurai's beloved archery duel turned into their disaster once Ainu hunters got decent bows and arrows—sometimes Lizi Family Samurai would get shot dead without ever spotting the enemy.

Maybe if they lined up with long spears and relied on the Samurai and Lang Faction's discipline, they'd do better, but they never got a chance for a head-on fight, and just muddled through to a loss.

Then Ah Man led the Zair Tribe to… run for it.

Yeah, by then winter on Yakushima Island was over, and it was time for Zair Tribe to switch from hunt mode to gathering mode, so they were due to leave the valley and head for the riverside anyway. Besides, the whole Zair Tribe only had about a thousand people—just two hundred and thirty or so adult men able to fight. If they tried to go head-to-head with the Lizi Family, they'd lose; decades ago, when crushing an Ainu uprising, the Lizi Family could field five or six hundred men—and if it came to life-and-death, raising two or three thousand now wouldn't be a problem.

So Ah Man ran for it, opened up the distance with the enemy, kept moving all the time, and let the Zair Tribe hit Lizi Family's immigrant villages whenever they felt like a raid—while the Lizi Family found it impossible to land a decisive blow on the Zair Tribe.

The Lizi Family wanted to fight back, but their main move was just to ban all villages and trading posts from doing business with the Zair Tribe—wouldn't sell them salt, iron, or cloth. But the Zair Tribe had latched onto Wanjin's thick leg, so they couldn't care less.

After word got out, a lot of other Ainu tribes felt inspired. After all, they'd been bullied by the Lizi Family for decades—tricked into bad deals, swindled, and had their land blatantly grabbed. They'd been simmering with resentment for ages. Seeing someone else start the fight, and now with the Lizi Family jumpy and on guard against every Ainu clan, the number of conflicts between the tribes and the Lizi Family suddenly exploded.

Ah Man, of course, was delighted. Stirring up trouble was her whole purpose—the more chaos, the better. She didn't spare herself and rushed around trying to network, dreaming of building a great "Ainu Alliance." If she could gather a couple thousand strong young men, she'd smash the Lizi Family once and for all.

If she could crush the Lizi Family, drive them out of the Matsushima Region, then her task would basically be done and she could return to Wanjin to enjoy the good life again.

But dreams are always rosy, reality always skinny. Before long, she deeply understood a weird line Harano had once said: This damn world is a total ragtag troupe!

Originally, she thought if she called out from the rooftops and offered some food, weapons, and armor, of course the Ainu would gladly follow her to fight the Lizi Family. Yet, tribal leaders aren't always wise, crowds aren't always rational, and people's personalities are bizarre in every way. The Ainu themselves didn't even consider themselves one people—anyone not from their own tribe was just an outsider.

Ah Man rushed around for a month, threatening and tempting them, but couldn't persuade these tribes to unite—at best, she barely got them together to talk over the situation. But once these "Tribal Leaders" sat down for a meeting, they all wanted to call the shots themselves. And even the nature of these "leaders" was all over the place—some Ainu tribes were run by "rule of elders," letting senior folks decide; some were "chieftain rule," following the strong; some even let the witch decide—primitive religious rule—so when they got together, it was pure bedlam.

After two days of "forming an alliance," Ah Man kind of wanted to kill them all. She felt that them getting their asses kicked all the way into Yakushima Island was totally deserved—hardly any of them were worth shit as doers.

"Aizaka, don't be mad. Have some water first!" A girl who was just over 1.5 meters tall, lovely-faced, with tawny curly hair, wearing an otter-skin skirt with a short cotton jacket, her lips painted with a light red mouth, brought Ah Man a full cup of water and spoke gently.

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