Nagakura had a redeeming quality—he was very aware of his own intellect, and he never forced himself to handle tasks beyond his mental ability.
When faced with a conundrum he couldn't solve, he would either evade it or delegate it to someone else.
Nagakura and Harada, well... they were the "dumb duo" within the Aoto team.
However, while both were fools, their follies lay in different directions.
Harada's "dumbness" stemmed from a lack of education and a habit of not engaging his brain. At the mere hint of a problem requiring thought, he'd habitually give up and avoid it.
Nagakura had a decent education, knew many Chinese characters, and could recite a few classic lines from the Four Books and Five Classics. His "dumbness" was purely from a lack of nimbleness in thought.
Aoto pondered for a moment, then reached to his left waist for his Wakizashi, only to find it empty—he had forgotten he left it in the body of the dwarf he had just stabbed.
