Chapter 74: Control

After arriving outside the village, you changed your clothes to look like a wandering warrior, then circled around to the main gate of Konoha, pretending to be a traveler trying to enter. As expected, the gate guards drove you off.

At the same time, you tracked down the merchant caravan being escorted by a Chūnin squad, as detailed in the mission.

The caravan consisted of five wagons. At the very front was a dual-purpose wagon carrying both people and goods—mostly food and water, as well as a resting space for the workers and guards.

The next wagon was much more luxurious, clearly reserved for the merchant and his accompanying concubines.

As for the remaining three wagons, they were loaded with expensive cargo such as tobacco, liquor, fine silks, and tea. On the surface, the caravan looked no different from any other traveling merchant group.

In terms of security, aside from the lead wagon, every other wagon had at least two samurai bodyguards. The merchant's personal wagon was even flanked by six guards.

In addition to these, there was a Chūnin from Konoha at the head of the convoy, and three Genin—fresh graduates from the Ninja Academy—dispersed through the middle and rear of the group. For a caravan of this scale, such a security detail was top-tier, though not overly conspicuous.

Following Root's line of thinking, you guessed that the caravan's owner was either a shrewd merchant who left nothing to chance, or a noble-born youth out to "experience the world"…

Given Root's usual target profiles, the latter seemed more likely.

You followed the group for a while, gradually learning the routines of both the caravan and its ninja escorts, including their rest times and shift rotations.

Your next step: clear out any obstacles on the route to the capital of the Land of Fire. That way, there would be no unexpected delays to the caravan's guard shifts or travel schedule.

You noticed the caravan was moving at a snail's pace—frequent stops, slow travel. It felt more like a pleasure trip than a delivery mission.

Still, that gave you ample time to clean up bandit activity along the way.

Within a week, you wiped out seven mountain bandit camps and crushed at least ten small ronin groups roaming the area.

Many of these groups were led by individuals who could refine and utilize chakra. The largest bandit camp even had three chakra users capable of basic jutsu, and their leader's strength was close to Chūnin level. But they were all dealt with.

You also took the opportunity to polish some of your less-used jutsu—new techniques you'd developed, as well as others like the Mind Body Switch Technique and Chakra Threads. It was good practical experience, especially in fighting multiple enemies at once.

The caravan was so slow, in fact, that you had time to mount a stolen horse and make several trips to nearby towns and villages, selling off the loot you'd taken from the bandits. After a few runs, you'd earned a tidy sum—two to three million ryō.

If this group had taken any longer to reach the capital, you might've become a top-tier black market supplier yourself!

...

In the capital, you tagged along as the caravan visited izakayas and other local attractions. But with your body still only three years old, all you could do was watch—nothing else.

After several days, once they seemed to have had their fill of sightseeing, the caravan wagons finally rolled into the trade district. After selling off their transported goods, they headed straight for the black market.

You followed closely behind.

There, the caravan spent every ryō they'd just earned, buying a batch of standardized weapons and armor—over a hundred weapons, dozens of sets of armor. If handed to trained soldiers, they could outfit a small army capable of wiping out a minor village-state!

It seemed that while Root might have its own agenda, it was still doing its job as Konoha's shadowy enforcer—clearing out local instability and chaos.

The moment the caravan left the black market, you followed suit, finding a black market dealer of your own and trading a portion of your cash at a discount for a lump of chakra metal mixed with impurities.

This stuff was far more valuable than money—sometimes even more reliable than gold itself.

The caravan stashed the weapons and armor beneath the wagons, filling the rest of the space with straw and burlap, and then set out again.

However, once they left the capital, their attitude changed completely.

Even though their wagons were now much heavier, their travel speed suddenly increased dramatically—far faster than before.

You had to kick into high gear, scouting ahead even faster than a standard Chūnin squad, hoping to find a bandit group along the route.

But this time, your goal wasn't to exterminate them—it was to find a group powerful enough to wipe out this heavily armed caravan, Konoha ninja and all.

Unfortunately, you encountered no large bandit groups, and the caravan kept getting closer to its destination.

Just as you were preparing to take matters into your own hands and directly eliminate the group—planning to create a fake scene afterward to cover your tracks—a group of around thirty ronin appeared before you.

None of them showed any signs of being able to use chakra, but if you organized them properly and they were willing to endure casualties, they might just be able to take out the caravan's samurai guards and the three Genin.

As for the Chūnin, you could handle him yourself.

All you had to do afterward was destroy his brain, leaving nothing behind for Konoha's interrogation teams.

The problem was, these ronin weren't exactly the "fight to the death" type. Even a few casualties might cause the entire group to scatter in panic.

Fortunately, you're a member of the Uchiha clan—and with your Sharingan, you can hypnotize and control them.

That said, when it comes to controlling humans—even non-chakra users—you're still a novice.

Thankfully, you had a basic Sharingan Genjutsu. After testing it successfully on some stray dogs by the roadside, you selected your targets from among the ronin.

You started with the night watchmen and a few unlucky guys who wandered off alone to relieve themselves.

On your first attempt, you successfully took control of five individuals—but controlling all five at once noticeably strained you. It was clear your Sharingan level and Spirit stat still weren't enough.

Still, you had a workaround.

You didn't need to maintain full control constantly—just leave a mark in their mental world, like how Danzō tried to manipulate you with Kotoamatsukami. That way, they'd behave normally until you activated the control, at which point they'd fall under your sway.

It was similar to how Obito controlled the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura. Not full-time control, but enough to take over when needed.

The five men you controlled simply thought they had spaced out for a moment, then returned to camp as if nothing had happened.

You used one of them to lure others out of camp in small batches. One by one, you marked each with your Sharingan, then sent them back as if nothing had happened.

You repeated the process throughout the night.

By the end, you had successfully taken control of the entire ronin group—without raising a single suspicion.

----------------

Pls Drop some Power Stones

+100 chapters and support me on Patreon(.)com/Jixo