Chapter 231: Special Trial - Supreme Benevolence and Goodness
[World Load Complete]
[Mission World: Naruto Derivative World Y7781 (This derivative world has not yet been influenced by other Reincarnators)]
[World Type: Team Cooperation]
[Challenge Difficulty: Low ~ High]
[Time Limit: 30 Days]
[Notice: Due to the effect of your Karma status, your appearance and identity information have been modified (Appearance/identity will be corrected by hidden stats).]
[Notice: You have been granted permanent language comprehension in this world.]
[In this world, you can obtain and unlock the following Milestones. Milestones will affect your mission rating and Title acquisition.]
[Assassin: Kill over 10 people without being detected.]
[Bounty: Have a bounty placed on you by any nation.]
[Wonder Scholar: Encounter over 10 types of special magical beasts.]
[Thousand Eyes (Rare): Simultaneously possess over 3 different types of special ocular-jutsu eyes.]
[Alien Visitor: Make contact with a living member of the Otsutsuki Clan.]
...
Chirp-chirp~
A short bird call sounded, somewhat abrupt in the night. Kaito Shirogane's consciousness returned to his body. He opened his eyes and found himself in a room.
His surroundings were dead silent, which made the short bird call seem eerie and strange.
By the moonlight streaming through the window, he could see the room's layout clearly. His current constitution was already capable of seeing in low-light conditions.
It was a typical Japanese-style room, complete with tatami mats. A low table sat on the mats, holding a flask of sake, two small dishes, and a cylindrical scroll resting beside the flask.
As Kaito Shirogane picked up the scroll, his ears twitched. He heard faint footsteps nearby—someone was padding barefoot on the wooden floor. The movements were light, but he still caught them.
Kaito untied the red string on the scroll. Unfurling it, he saw clear red writing. This was the Nexus's usual method for issuing main missions.
[Special Trial: Supreme Benevolence and Goodness]
[Trial Mission Phase 1: Ensure the survival of the story character, Hana Hiranaka, for seven days.]
[Mission Description: A woman named Hana Hiranaka has hidden a piece of vital intelligence, drawing pursuit from multiple shinobi villages. Ensure her survival.]
[Mission Reward: Unlocks Trial Mission Phase 2.]
[Mission Penalty: Activation of the Special Sequence - Virtue fails. The card will be lost from your inventory.]
"Supreme Benevolence and Goodness..."
Kaito Shirogane looked at the [Virtue] sequence's special trial with an inexplicable smile. He was long used to getting inexplicably tangled up with the villains of mission worlds. To suddenly receive a mission titled [Supreme Benevolence and Goodness]...
He found it quite novel.
"Tsk. It's like it was tailor-made for me."
Kaito pushed open the window. The creak of the wood was stark in the night.
As he opened it, the scent of blood, carried on the wind blowing from the forest, wafted into his nostrils.
"Hey, watch out! The enemy is still here! Don't come out!"
Kaito's action had drawn a reaction from someone in the street below. The person was dressed in black shinobi gear, completely covered, their face hidden.
But Kaito noticed that in the small house behind the ninja, a woman was peering out through a crack in the window, cautiously scanning the surroundings.
Kaito knew his target must be close. Otherwise, the Nexus wouldn't risk a mission-failure scenario where the Reincarnator couldn't even find the character.
Swoosh!
The sound of slicing air cut through the night. The black-clad ninja held a black kunai in his right hand. He raised it, accurately deflecting a shuriken. With two sharp flicks of his wrist, he sent two shuriken back into the darkness where the attack had come from.
Thud! Thud!
The sound of the shuriken sinking into the wooden building told him he had missed again.
Kaito watched this scene from above, not acting rashly. He was in what looked like the commercial street of a small, nameless town. A stone-paved road, four or five meters wide, ran down the middle, flanked by two and three-story wooden buildings.
Kaito's position was on the second floor of an inn.
The street was long, over a hundred meters. Bodies were scattered everywhere—some in ninja uniforms, but most were ordinary-looking civilians.
A brutal massacre had taken place here.
Creak.
At that moment, windows in other buildings on both sides of the street began to open.
These individuals glanced at each other, and all confirmed the others' identity as Reincarnators. Suddenly, they noticed Kaito. Their expressions changed.
"Mercenary Tao..."
Kaito smiled and waved at them. This mission, whether it was the world selection or the mission type, seemed to have a reduced difficulty.
It was likely due to his low evaluation last time, which had caused the Nexus to lower his rating.
Seeing that Mercenary Tao wasn't going crazy as rumored, but was instead waving at them—and given this was a "Team Cooperation" world—they all relaxed their guard slightly.
Kaito saw one of them pull out a pair of optical binoculars and start scanning the street below. The other person in the same room, meanwhile, set up a machine gun on the windowsill.
Swoosh swoosh swoosh~
From the darkness below, a hail of shuriken shot through the air, aimed at these people who were ignoring the corpses and casually chatting by open windows.
The ninjas below must have realized that anyone behaving this way in this situation was no ordinary person.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
A series of impacts rang out. The shuriken were stopped by a protective shield.
The high-end combat power in the Naruto world was set at a very high bar, both in terms of versatility and destructive power.
But the vast number of low-level ninjas relied on kunai, shuriken, poison, traps, and exploding tags to fight. Against Reincarnators who were armed to the teeth, they didn't stand much of a chance.
Furthermore, even the Kage-level ninjas in the Naruto world had the weakness of being physically fragile. This was probably one of the reasons Reincarnators favored this world so much.
Everyone thought they had a chance to assassinate some big shot and get a massive reward.
But...
Kaito tilted his head. A kunai grazed past his ear and shot into the room.
Siss... The exploding tag burned incredibly fast. The moment it embedded itself in the room, it detonated.
BOOM!
Flames instantly engulfed the entire room.
The Reincarnator [Rampage], who had just set up the machine gun, felt his eyelid twitch.
"Hey, hey... Mercenary Tao wasn't just blown up, was he?"
The woman next to him, who was using optical equipment to find enemies and mark coordinates, snapped at him.
"Don't dream on. We should use this chance, while Mercenary Tao isn't making a move, to rack up some mission completion. And those Reincarnators who entered this world before us really did their job, huh?"
"Tsk. So you're saying, in the Nexus's judgment, if we didn't have a powerhouse like Mercenary Tao on our side, we would have been steamrolled on this main mission with no chance at all?"
The woman had shoulder-length hair, but with bangs covering only one side.
Swoosh-swoosh~ Two more kunai, also tied with exploding tags, shot toward them. The woman didn't even look. She raised her left hand, and the air instantly stagnated. The two kunai were frozen in mid-air, as if caught by an invisible hand, before exploding harmlessly.
At the same time, [Rampage] pulled the trigger.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The intense gunfire completely tore through the silence. The ninjas' silent slaughter was shattered by the Reincarnators' unbridled desire for destruction.
(End of Chapter)