Japan, Era Keichō, year sixteen, being Emperor Go-Mizunoo. The ōgosho Tokugawa Ieyasu has ordered the construction in secret of a western-style ship in a remote place in the province of Mutsu, to the north. Its objective is to establish a new commercial route with the viceroyalty of New Spain taking advantage of the black current. The project advances at a good pace, until, with the arrival of the first moon of autumn, the death of a series of peasants makes the workers refuse to continue. Everything seems to indicate that the person in charge is a kodama, a spirit of the forest, determined to protect his home. Willing to find out the truth, daimyō Date Masamune, lord of those lands, sends his Special Investigator, Miyamoto Tsunetomo, and his adopted son and disciple Aki to the place; any delay in the delivery date of the shogun's ship may mean that the clan falls out of favor. But an unexpected setback forces Aki to continue alone. The only help he will have will be that of a shugyōsha, a mysterious wandering samurai he has met along the way. The wandering samurai is an adventure novel faithfully set in Japan in the early seventeenth century, an era in which everything is changing, from the new system of government established by the Tokugawa after the unification of the country, to the functions and the own reason for being of the samurai class, now subject to the bureaucracy and the growing power of a new social class, the chōnin. Japan needs fewer and fewer warriors and more merchants. An exciting story that will delight all kinds of readers, from the most demanding with the historical novel and adventures, to the most faithful followers of the most mystical and traditional Japan, with its folklore, its magic and its mysteries.