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While doing the main story ofAssassin’s Creed Shadows, you’ll meet plenty of NPCs that’ll help you in your hunt for the Shinbakufu, and Imai Sokun will be one of them. When you finish the required assassination where he’s involved, you can go back to him and get a side quest.
This is called the Iron Hand Guild quest, and in it, Imai asks you to find clues about the Iron Hand from the merchants and take him out of the picture. However, if you want to complete this quest, you’ll have to find some specific locations.
What Should You Do With The Merchants?
When you finish theGolden Teppo assassinationand go back to Imai for this side quest, he’ll specifically ask you tospare the merchants and only assassinate the Iron Handso that he can sway the merchants in his favor and make them work for him. However, this is not a necessity for the quest.
Regardless of whether you assassinate or spare the merchants, the rewards you get from the quest will remain the same. However, Imai will be much happier if you keep them alive. He’ll have different dialogues based on how many merchants you assassinated.
You don’t have to follow adifferent path to spare the merchants except for one, and we’ll mention that in their locations below.
Where To Find All Merchants
When you look at the separate circle for the Iron Hand Guild in the objective menu, you’ll find four merchants on the lower part of the circle with the Iron Hand at the top. While the Iron Hand’s location is obvious, youwon’t find him there until you get clues from all four merchantsby either assassinating or sparing them.
Here are all the locations you have to visit to find these merchants:
Merchant Kanta
Entering Omi from the southern direction on the left side of the river in the middle, you’ll firstencounter the Mouth of Seta region with a settlement just to the north of it. you may find the Otsu Upper District area in this settlement, and using observer mode here will show you the merchant.
He’ll be sitting in his house peacefully. you may either assassinate him from behind orget a hold of him first and then knock him out to spare him. Either way, this part of the quest will be finished here.
Merchant Ginroku
The second merchant can befound in the northwest region of the Tamba province. You can find him on the southwesternside of the city right above where Mizuyu Bay is written on the map. He’ll be in the open and you can assassinate or spare him in the same manner as above.
Merchant Tamao
To find Merchant Tamao, you have to get to theeastern part of the Honnoji Temple in the lower middle part of Kyoko. You’ll find the Honpoji Temple to the east of this one and on the left of this temple, the merchant can be found inside a building that you can’t enter.
In front of the building’s main door, you’ll findmultiple jars that you’re able to break to bring the merchant out. However, you have to be careful here as the merchant will detect you when he comes out, and you have to avoid that if you want to spare him. As soon as he comes out, go behind him and use thesame grabbing and knocking out process to spare him.
Merchant Kin-No-Suke
Merchant Kin-no-suke is the one where you’ll have to follow a bit of a separate path if you want to spare him. Before going for the merchant, you have to get to the Kata location on thenortheast side of where Onyu Pass is written on the map. On the shore to the north of the Kata, you’re able to find a letter guarded by a few bandits.
Defeat the bandits and take the letter, after which you canhead to Obama City to the northwest of the bandit location to find the merchant. You’ll find him to the right of where Obama is written on the map in 3x zoom, and you’re able to give the letter you got from the bandits by talking to him.
Kin-no-suke will then take you to a separate location. In this location, enter thewarehouse building near you to get another clue about the Iron Handand finish this part of the quest.
Where To Find The Iron Hand
After getting the clues from all four merchants, you’ll pinpoint the Iron Hand’s location in theFukuchiyama castle on the northern side of Tamba province. To get to him, you can first start by teleporting to the fast travel in this castle ormaking your way to its southern partif you haven’t been there yet.
You’ll find the Iron Hand in a set of buildings to the southwest of the viewpoint, andhe’ll be heavily guarded by a bunch of fully armored enemies. The best thing to do here is assassinate the enemies one at a time without alerting them. However, if you’re planning to take a head-on fight, make sure to disable the alarm bell here first.
This willprevent your active character from becoming wantedin the region.
you’re able to also get the attention of these enemies once and then hide to scatter them, which might make it easier to single out the Iron Hand and defeat him. Once defeated, you canhead back to Imai to get 5,000 EXP, a Gold, and Fujin’s Tempest trinket.
