By dawn, the four of them arrived at the outskirts of the target Village.
The Village was smaller than what was written in the mission scroll.
Twenty-something wooden houses were arranged along the valley, backed against a cliff, with only one road leading in and out.
Murakami Takuya led them around to the eastern highland, found a thicket in the woods, and from this vantage point, they could overlook the entire Village.
“Get down, don’t make a sound.”
The four of them crawled into the thicket.
Tsunade was on Kitahara Kaede’s left, and Jiraiya was on his right.
The morning sun had just climbed over the ridge, shining on the rooftops below.
The Village was quiet.
Tsunade spoke first, her voice very low: “The cooking smoke isn’t right.”
Kitahara Kaede followed her gaze and looked over.
Out of the twenty-something houses, only three or four were emitting smoke.
“Even if it’s a poor Village, they should be cooking once it’s dawn.” Tsunade’s brows furrowed.
Her observation skills had always been good, just usually overshadowed by her temper.
Kitahara Kaede didn’t reply, shifting his gaze from the rooftops to the road.
Everyone walking around was a young, able-bodied man.
No women, no elderly, no children.
Not a single one.
Jiraiya, lying on the right, stretched his neck out long, squinting down for a long while, then suddenly patted Kitahara Kaede’s arm: “Over there—the one moving the crate, look at how he walks.”
At the far west end of the Village, near the cliff, there was a large warehouse with the door wide open.
Two people were carrying a wooden crate inside; the crate wasn’t light, and the two of them were carrying it together, their steps heavy.
“Their center of gravity is on the balls of their feet,” Jiraiya muttered, “When I was dozing off in class before, I vaguely remember the teacher talking about this…
This stance isn’t for working; it’s for being ready to fight at any moment.”
Tsunade was stunned for a moment, scanned the people in the Village again, and her expression changed.
“All of them.”
Kitahara Kaede had counted.
Fourteen people, all with the same stance, the same gait.
Murakami Takuya, lying at the very front, swept his gaze back and forth across the Village three times, his face darkening.
“Do you smell anything?”
Tsunade sniffed.
Then she froze.
She had been studying the basics of Medical Ninjutsu for over a year and had encountered the scents of various medicinal powders in her pharmacy classes.
There was one she remembered very clearly—lime.
Spreading lime over a large area; the battlefield disposal regulations stated clearly that it had only one purpose.
To cover the smell of rotting corpses.
She didn’t say it out loud, her fingers subconsciously gripping the grass beneath her.
“There’s also the smell of blood,” Kitahara Kaede said in a low voice, “It’s mostly covered by the lime, but not completely.”
Three seconds of silence.
“What about the villagers?” Tsunade’s voice lowered, as if asking, yet also as if she already knew the answer.
“The mission scroll said wandering samurai were occupying the Village, harassing the people and stealing money,” Kitahara Kaede’s tone was flat, “But there are no wandering samurai down there, nor are there any harassed civilians.”
He paused.
“The original villagers are no longer here.”
Tsunade’s fingers loosened and then clenched again.
“This isn’t a Village,” Kitahara Kaede said, “It’s a stronghold disguised as a Village.
They slaughtered the villagers to silence them and replaced them with their own people.
The crates in the warehouse are military supplies, and the lime is covering the place where they buried the people.”
Jiraiya’s face turned pale instantly; his mouth opened, his Adam’s apple bobbed twice, but not a single word came out. Find the original chapter at g.com.
His hand subconsciously reached for his Ninja tool pouch.
Murakami Takuya turned to look at Kitahara Kaede, his gaze steady, without surprise.
“I confirmed it before you spoke,” his tone was heavy, “But your reasoning was faster than I expected.”
“The four people last night—” Kitahara Kaede didn’t stop, “Carrying standard-issue food pill from a Ninja Village, they weren’t wandering samurai; they were the outer patrol guards for this stronghold.
It wasn’t a coincidence that they stumbled upon our camp; it was a fixed patrol route.”
Murakami Takuya nodded.
“They should have returned before dawn to change shifts.”
The four of them fell silent simultaneously.
They weren’t coming back.
Those four people fell next to the camp and would never return.
And it was already dawn.
Tsunade was the first to react: “The people for the shift change didn’t come back, they will—”
“Send people to investigate, or directly raise the alert level.” Murakami Takuya took over, lowering his voice, his speech speed increasing, “Listen, the nature of the mission has changed.
This isn’t a C-rank, it’s at least A-rank.
The commission to expel wandering samurai was just a shell—”
He didn’t continue.
“Retreat, retreat now.
Go back the way we came, return to Konoha and report.”
Tsunade bit her lip.
She looked down at the quiet Village below.
Twenty-something wooden houses, three or four wisps of cooking smoke, fourteen “villagers” walking like Ninjas.
The people buried under the lime might have once built fires and cooked in these houses.
Perhaps there were elderly people sunning themselves at the door, and children running around on the road.
Her fists clenched; the urge to rush down was firmly suppressed by reason.
She withdrew her gaze.
“Let’s go.”
Jiraiya didn’t make a sound; he was already bent over and moving backward.
Kitahara Kaede took one last look at the direction of the warehouse.
A bald man stood at the door, arms crossed, his gaze constantly sweeping toward the outside of the Village.
He wasn’t looking at the people moving goods; he was waiting for the people who should have returned.
The four of them retreated from the thicket, bent over, and withdrew along the edge of the woods.
Fallen leaves were crushed underfoot, with everyone muffling their sounds.
Kitahara Kaede walked at the back, looking back every few steps.
Tsunade walked in front of him, her steps fast and steady, without saying a word.
They retreated about two hundred meters.
Murakami Takuya stopped.
Kitahara Kaede braked at almost the same time.
Chakra fluctuations.
Very weak, coming from deep in the woods on the left—a sensory type; someone was scanning this area.
Kitahara Kaede looked at Murakami Takuya.
Murakami Takuya’s hand was already on his sword hilt, his face livid.
“We’ve been discovered.”
Tsunade’s body instantly tensed up.
Before his voice even faded, the tree canopy on the left exploded.
Three Kunai dragging explosive tags struck over.
“Scatter!”
Murakami Takuya slammed his hands on the ground—Earth Wall. Visit g.com for the full chapter.
The earth wall rose from the ground, blocking it in front of the three children.
Boom.
The explosion made their ears ring, the blast wave poured in from both sides of the earth wall, and debris and leaves showered them.
Kitahara Kaede grabbed Tsunade and rolled to the right, turning his side to block the explosion.
The moment Tsunade hit the ground, she grabbed his wrist with her backhand, pulling him toward herself—not out of fear, but not wanting him to block in front of her again.
Jiraiya lunged to the left, his movements much sharper than last night.
The second wave followed closely.
Shuriken flew in simultaneously from three directions, angles intersecting, covering their retreat path.
Murakami Takuya drew his sword to parry the wave coming from the front, sparks flying onto his face.
“There are some from the north too!” Jiraiya shouted.
His voice was trembling, but the Kunai in his hand was held very steady.
Footsteps surged up from the direction of the Village.
Not one or two—but a whole swarm.
Those “villagers” moving the crates were closing in.
Kitahara Kaede let go of Tsunade and looked back at the direction they came from.
Between the shadows of the trees, figures swayed, already cutting off their retreat.
The retreat path was blocked.
He quickly scanned the surrounding terrain—the north was woods, dense but low, impossible to run through; the south was a downward slope, open but exposed;
The east was the way they came, already blocked off.
The only opening was in the southwest corner, a gap between two fallen logs, but he wasn’t sure if there was anyone behind it.
“Get close!
Everyone get close!”
Murakami Takuya’s voice was tight—this was the first time Kitahara Kaede had heard this tone from him.
Kitahara Kaede pulled Tsunade and rushed toward the earth wall.
As she ran, Tsunade backhanded two shuriken, forcing back the figures intercepting from the right.
Jiraiya rolled over from the other side, a shuriken stuck in his right shoulder.
Blood flowed down his sleeve, dripping onto the grass.
He gritted his teeth, didn’t make a sound, and didn’t stop moving.
The four of them huddled behind the earth wall.
There were already cracks on the wall.
Kitahara Kaede looked out from the gap.
At least twenty people were closing in from three sides.
Some were still wearing the coarse cloth clothes for moving goods, but their hands had changed to Kunai, katana, and explosive tags, with Ninja tool pouches tied around their waists.
The bald man at the front walked in the very center, a smile hanging on the corner of his mouth.
He looked in the direction of the earth wall and spoke.
The voice wasn’t loud, but it carried clearly through the valley.
“Where did these little rats come from?
No wonder the patrol team hasn’t come back until now.”
His gaze swept over the top of the earth wall, landing on those young faces in the gap, and his smile deepened.
“From Konoha?
Just little brats…
coming here to die?”
Tsunade’s teeth gritted loudly.
Jiraiya pressed his shoulder wound with his right hand, holding a Kunai in his left.
Kitahara Kaede looked at the twenty-plus figures closing in outside the gap, the Kunai in his hand turning half a circle, switching from a forward grip to a reverse grip.