Pokémon Ninja Scrolls of the Mizukage

Chapter 38 New Mission
The next morning, the Hidden Mist Village was shrouded in fog as usual.

Jianchuan Ju arrived at the training ground early today, mainly because today's daily tasks were a bit strange and did not include the most common training tasks.

Instead, tasks like "say hello to ten people" and "walk ten kilometers" appeared. The system usually gives tasks that can be easily completed under the current circumstances.

This reminded Jianchuan Ju of the situations when he left the village twice before.

Considering that Qing did not come to the training ground yesterday, Jianchuan Ju guessed that there might be some new tasks today.

Sure enough, not long after, Ao and Zabuza arrived at the training ground one after another. Ao did not start to instruct the two in training as usual, but said to wait for Mei Terumi to arrive first.

Seeing Zabuza's expression of 'I knew it a long time ago' next to him, Jianchuan Ju was even more certain that today was definitely not a simple training or an ordinary mission.

Not long after, Mei Terumi also came to the training ground. She looked at Jianchuan Tachibana, who had listened to her confession yesterday, with some embarrassment. Then she found that the three of them were staring at her with wide eyes, and Mei Terumi was also a little puzzled.

"Why are you standing here instead of training? Are you waiting for me?"

Qing, who was about to speak, looked at his disrespectful disciple and immediately began to doubt himself.

Am I being too easygoing? Should I be more serious with them next time?
But after thinking about it, I realized that I had important things to do today, so I put aside my complicated emotions for the time being.

For safety reasons, Qing first formed hand seals and performed perception ninjutsu. After confirming that there was no one else around, he explained the whole story to the two disciples who did not understand the situation.

"That's basically the situation. Today, the Jounin Karuji will arrange for a ninja tool shop funded by civilians to assign us a task. We will escort a clerk to the Land of Craftsmen to order ninja tools."

"Of course, although this mission is to cover up a secret investigation, if you don't want to have another failure record in your mission resume, we must complete this open mission as well."

After listening to Qing's account of the series of events, Jianchuan Ju felt that his imagination was still not rich enough. Such a task was just thrown to his team?

Even though there is a senior ninja named Qing leading the team, there is too little known information right now. Where should we start the investigation?
"We only have information about a merchant who is suspected to be from the Kingdom of Craftsmen. Which direction should we start our investigation from?"

Before Jianchuan Tachibana could speak, Terumi Mei asked Qing the same question.

Qing did not answer Terumi Mei's question immediately, but instead asked the three disciples a question.

"How much do you know about the Kingdom of Craftsmen?"

Seeing that neither of her teammates had the intention to speak, Mei Terumi answered directly, "The Land of Craftsmen is a small country located between the Land of Fire and the Land of Water. The country is very short of armed forces, and the Craftsmen's Village is basically full of highly skilled craftsmen. Their combat power ranks last in the entire ninja world."

"However, thanks to the excellent ninja tool forging ability of the Artisan Ninja Village, the ninja tools they forged are highly respected in the five major countries. Not only do they have regular ninja tools, they even often forge some advanced weapons containing chakra metals. This allows them to get along with all the major countries."

Ao nodded. What Mei Terumi said was what they learned in class at the Ninja School.

"You are right, but what I want to say is that due to political pressure from all sides and the taxation of the Country of Craftsmen, in fact, all the sales of ninja tools and the import of materials in the Country of Craftsmen are strictly controlled by the chief of the ninja village. His status in the Country of Craftsmen is not inferior to that of the Daimyo of the Country of Craftsmen."

Jianchuan Ju asked thoughtfully after hearing this.

"That is to say, unless the smuggling was done by the leader of the Artisan Ninja Village, but that doesn't make sense. Privately reaching a deal with the internal forces of his country will not bring him much benefit. On the contrary, it may offend our Kirigakure. For a small ninja village with no strength, it is too costly."

"Or maybe it was done by some profit-driven people in the Kingdom of Craftsmen. If that's the case, then the Craftsmen Village, which has strict control over domestic materials and finished products, should have more or less known where these things went." "But all this is based on the premise that the merchant is indeed a merchant from the Kingdom of Craftsmen, or the materials are indeed from the Kingdom of Craftsmen."

Qing gave him an approving look and added.

"Yes, so our main target for this investigation is the chief of the Artisan Ninja Village. The clerk of the Ninja Tool Shop who is to be escorted in the open mission will also trade with the chief of the Artisan Ninja Village under our accompaniment, which will facilitate our investigation."

Terumi thought about it and asked her own question.

"So how long do we stay here? After all, what if we can't find any results in a short period of time?"

"Don't worry, the person who issued the mission was arranged by Yagura Kuji. He will cooperate with us and stay longer. And it doesn't matter if we don't find any results in the end. After all, it's just a personal commission from Yagura Kuji."

Zabuza, who had been watching his two teammates and Qing discussing the mission without being able to get a word in, raised his head slightly when he heard Qing's last words, but still didn't say anything.

On the contrary, Jianchuan Ju agreed with Qing's words. To be honest, when he saw the village destroyed by pirates during the mission and the children who were abducted and trained as assassins, he was also very angry and wanted to punish the murderer.

However, so many days had passed since the incident, and Jianchuan Ju had long lost his original indignation. After all, in this chaotic ninja world, everyone's life was worthless.

Jianchuan Ju felt that it was not wise to get involved in the struggle between the civilian faction and the ninja faction for the sake of some strangers and offend either side.

Of course, if he had the strength of the Six Paths level at this time, it would be a different situation. Jianchuan Ju might hold high the banner of justice and sanction these people.

"How dare you, you scoundrels, do such a thing! Spicy Tiansai!"

"Okay, now that you understand the details, let's go to the Mizukage Building to receive our mission."

Qing spoke again, interrupting Jianchuan Tachibana's daydream of punching Pain and kicking Six Paths, and signaled his disciples to follow him and head towards the Mizukage Building.

In cases like this where the client designates a person to complete a task, the village usually verifies the task and then notifies the task team to come and collect the task.

However, since Team Qing has already arrived at the mission acceptance point, it saves the village a lot of effort.

Although the reward for a designated mission is often higher than a normal mission, it is still the price of a C-level escort mission after all.

The Qing team will also conduct investigations in secret.

Therefore, the entire team, even Zabuza, did not think there was anything wrong in earning a little more money from Karatachi Yagura.

Because they didn't want to attract too much attention from other people, especially those family ninjas, they didn't rush to the Kingdom of Craftsmen after receiving the mission.

Instead, just like an ordinary mission, he took his time to go to the Ninja Tool Shop to meet the person who issued the mission to understand the mission situation.

They each went back to make their preparations before departure, and then took the clerk with them and left the Hidden Mist Village.

(End of this chapter)