Bandit's Attack

Tanzaku village is around 500 km away from Konoha. Usually, by us, it will take around 2 to 3 days. But the mission is to escort the merchant and his goods carried by two horse carriages. Approximately the horse carriage travels around 150 km per day. So, it will take four days to reach Tanzaku village, if there are no interruptions. The merchant has three carriages including his carriage and five servants helping him ride carriages.

I divided six people into three teams to monitor the goods from all sides.

Team one, Inabi Hyuga, and Tsunade Senju will secure the goods from the front of carriages. Inabi will use her Byakugan to constantly check and monitor. Tsunade will provide support to her.

Team two, Orochimaru and Daiki will secure and monitor the carriages from the back.

Team three, I and Jiraya will take one on each side of the carriages to avoid any mishaps.

This is a very long journey, compare to continuous training which is a different type of experience. I feel this is an exercise of stamina and patience-testing. So far all we know is bandits will attack us our way. But what we don't know is when they will attack us. This is why we decided to be alert at all times.

The journey is good and smooth, but as time passes I started to feel insecure. I felt this is like the calm before the tsunami. After two days of travel, we decided to rest for the night and set up our camp next to the merchant. I don't know why I decided to stay focused tonight. I have this hunch; they will attack us tonight for sure.

"I don't know why I feel they will attack tonight. Given the distance from Konoha and Tanzaku, this will be the right place and time. So, let's prepare for it. You all will sleep but ready for impact"

Everyone looked at me and said ok. We set up traps to find any movement near us. Soon everyone sleeps. I decided to monitor the surroundings using a B rank jutsu, "Barrier: Canopy method formation".

It forms a barrier with a radius of 10m from the user that allows him to sense any movement. I am training the usage of barriers and maintaining them for hours as a part of enhancement.

After three hours I felt some movement into my barrier range. I woke everyone except the merchant group.

Soon 20 people with various weapons in their hands surrounded us. I jumped onto the cart and looked at them one by one to find any ninja among them. As expected none of them s ninjas.

"oryaa… we found large goods. We made a large profit today. The leader will be happy."

"These kids bid higher prices since they are a ninja. Especially those two girls"

I simply ignored them and looked at my team.

"Can you handle them?", when I asked them, everyone nodded.

Orochimaru, "handling them is ok but protecting goods at the same time is difficult. May cause causalities"

I have the perfect answer, "don't worry about goods. I will protect them. You guys take care of them as soon as possible so it won't be any disturbance for the merchant. if not this shitty merchant may use this as an excuse and complaint about us."

Yes, traveling with him for these two days. We can see his true nature. Although he is looking and behaving well that is on the surface to lower our guard. He uses every chance to criticize us as though we are wasting his money.

"Multi shadow clone jutsu"

I created five clones to replace them and guard the goods. They already know about this jutsu of mine so they smiled and launched a full-scale attack on the bandits.

After ten minutes the battle is over. That is how a battle between civilians and ninjas takes place. The ninja trained capable of using chakra is at least ten times stronger than a civilian. So, this type of battle is simply a massacre.

Out of 20 bandits, fifteen of them were killed and the remaining were injured and run away. I sent Inabi and Orochimaru to follow the runaway bandits to identify their lair and their strength. So that if they did not come for revenge we can later wipe them on our way back home.

After an hour, Inabi and Orochimaru were returned.

"Their lair is around 7 km from here and approximately 30 people were present in the lair. We didn't go into their lair, so not able to identify their leader."

Tsunade, "Total number can be expected to be more than 30 since we don't know exactly how many people were present inside the lair. This is beyond our scale. Even if they were civilians, facing such a large number is equivalent to death."

Indeed, but since our mission only includes eliminating the bandits along the way of escorting. So, let's pass this information on to the village and let them decide what to do.

"Ok, our mission is to escort the goods and eliminate any bandit along the way. So, let's stick to the mission since the difficulty is increased"

After that, we cleaned the battlefield and went to rest.

----------------- BANDIT LAIR -------------

*knock* *knock*

"Who is disturbing me at this time?"

A loud sound comes from behind the closed door.

"Leader there is a problem. The group that went after merchant goods suffered heavy casualties."

The doors burst open, and a bulky middle-aged man, with a naked upper body came out.

"Tell me everything"

The fatty person who came to report shuddered and explained everything that he heard from the survivors to the leader.

The leader laughed, "hoo… it seems some people were eager to become my playmates. I can enjoy the show. Tell everyone to prepare, we will attack them tomorrow morning"

"Yes, sir"

"Now, leave if you want to live", just when the sentence ended the fatty runs as fast as possible to save his life.

Looking at the back of fatty, the leader chuckled and went back into the room and the doors closed slowly.

--------------- NEXT DAY -------------------

We started our remaining journey towards Tanzaku village. After two hours of journey, our journey is obstructed by trees falling onto the road blocking the path.

I went to investigate but found several people hiding in nearby trees. I send a signal,

"This is a trap. Prepare for enemy impact"

Jiraya, Tsunade, Daiki, Inabi, and Orochimaru surrounded the carriages in a formation and took out weapons for enemy attack.

That's when the loud laughter heard from the bushes keeps getting louder and louder. A tall man wearing a ninja jacket and Konoha headband scratched across came from behind the bushes.

Looking at him I can tell he is missing-nin of the first great ninja war. Missing-nin is a ninja who abandons their village with no intention of returning. They are criminals during or after abandoning their duties. The missing-nin is listed in their village's Bingo Book to be killed on sight.

The merchant Goro looked towards the missing-nin and trembled. Looking at Goro, the missing-nin eyes glowed, "hahaha… Mr. Goro, the greedy merchant. You are greedy. Usually, you were paying half of the goods as tax and now you were using these kids to save your greedy money. Do you believe these kids can save you from me?"

Bandits were hiding behind bushes and trees coming out one by one and standing behind him revealing their greed and happy faces. After a minute, a total of 30 people were gathered behind him.

That when a spark ignited in my brain, 'now I see it, this is not a simple C-rank mission. This is probably a test for us to eliminate bandits along with supplying goods to the destination. But this merchant is greedy for money and not informed about a Konoha missing-nin being the bandit, probably the bandit leader. This merchant does not care for lives at all.'

Merchant Goro looked at us, "what are you waiting for, quickly kill them. What I am paying for?"

I looked toward my team. Everyone is feeling the tension and tightening their grip on weapons. Looking at their faces, I can see they understand the situation.

Nobody moved even their muscle, looking at us, merchant Goro got even angrier and shouted at us,

"What are you standing there like a statue? KILL THEM, NOW"

Hearing merchant Goro shout, Orochimaru, Jiraya, and Daiki were prepared to attack. But I signed them to not move. Looking at my sign, everyone is shocked and wanted to ask why when I signaled them with a smiling face. While the merchant Goro is baffled, his mouth is opened but no words are coming out of it.

Looking at this situation, the missing-nin laughed loudly, "Mr. Goro did you believe in them? Do you think they can protect you from me? Now you see the consequence of opposing me. If you would have handover the goods willfully, it would have been half but now it is full. I should thank you for being greedy, stupid, and generous ha…ha…ha..."

Listening to their leader laugh, bandits behind him also started to laugh. The merchant Goro's face becomes red and black due to frustration and fear.

Looking at them, I decided to wait for a few minutes and reap the most benefits by escalating the situation. Of course, this is wrong and not fit for ninja code, but the fault does not lie in us. The mission information provided is purposefully concealed. This is no longer C rank mission but a B-rank mission.

After two minutes of waiting, I decided to intervene. I went to merchant Goro, "Mr. Goro you concealed information and told us the bandits were civilians. So, this mission is revoked under the laws of Konoha mission center, and looking at the situation this mission is probably a B rank mission."

Merchant Goro looked at me with bloodshed eyes, and took a small breath, "isn't the mission information verification part of the procedure before accepting the mission? If you back out now, I will announce to this world about your inadequate behavior."

Soon his frustrated face turned into a smiling, exactly smile with greed. Looking at him, a thin smile appeared on my face unknowingly.

"Mr. Goro this is indeed our fault for not checking the information authenticity. But you requested this mission under a special clause, which doesn't need information authenticity, and you accepted. So, under these conditions, there is no need for us to complete and we can abandon this mission."

I stopped for a moment and looked at his face to see his mental status. The more I talk the more his mental status is deteriorating.

"Until and unless you upgrade this mission to B rank", I told him like a clue.

His mode is elevated, "yes… yes… I will accept mission upgrade"

"But that can only happen by jonin or mission center"

Listening to it, his mood degraded and I continued, "But I can write an agreement using my authority as leader. Do you want it or not?"

His eyes brightened again, "yes… yes… absolutely"

I took a scroll and got him signed and that's it the mission is upgraded to B rank with double rewards. This will be our first B-rank mission.

The missing-nin got irritated, "what is the use of mission upgrade? Do you think a mere six genin were able to defeat me?"

Since the stage is already set up, now it is my time to shine.

"I do know you Konoha missing-nin, Jiro Watanabe, bingo book no 20, bounty 100,000 Ryo. You abandoned your team and leaked information which caused the death of five people including your teammates."

Everyone is shocked including Jiro Watanabe. I looked at their faces, "I know every missing-nin in the Konoha bingo book."

During the first great ninja war, some Konoha ninjas became missing-nin and the village added them to the Konoha Bingo book with several bounties based on their status. Accidentally I read the Konoha bingo book, which was normal for jonin would have.

I put clone seal, "and now this is where your story ends. Multi shadow clone jutsu"

During the learning stage, I set a limit to 10 clones. Since, I am using these clones for learning other jutsus at a time, which overloads my brain when I dispel them. But for fighting, I no need to limit the number of clones to ten.