Although Fūmori Masaki showed no hostility, for this girl from a farming family, the act of Fūmori Masaki killing the Ronin without saying a word was too shocking, leaving her speechless for a moment.
Fūmori Masaki felt it was inappropriate to leave a girl in a room with a corpse, so he said, "Let's leave here," and gestured for the girl to follow him out.
The girl froze, subconsciously glanced at the corpse on the floor, felt a chill run through her, and hurriedly followed Fūmori Masaki out of the room to the outside. Although the girl's scream had already carried, there was still no major commotion in the bandit stronghold.
The girl didn't realize the current situation. Once her emotions calmed down slightly, she looked at Fūmori Masaki's back and asked cautiously, "May I ask who you are?"
"A Ninja from Konohagakure," Fūmori Masaki said. "Mr. Ichiro from your Village asked us to come. We happened to run into this, so it counts as timely."
The girl remembered. The Village had pooled the financial resources of every household to raise a sum of money, allowing Uncle Ichiro, who was highly trusted in the Village, to take the money to that place called Konohagakure, hoping to get help. Even so, the others in the Village had no confidence. They knew nothing about Ninjas. Even if these people were hired to do a job, would they really agree to the request of their small Village?
The girl didn't know what the outcome would be and could only hope that Ichiro would be able to bring back reinforcements. But today, she was brought here by those bandits. While she was worrying about her fate, that person from Konohagakure actually arrived at this very moment, which made her both nervous and relieved.
At this moment, she heard Fūmori Masaki say in a low voice, "It should be about time."
Before the girl could understand what Fūmori Masaki meant, she heard a loud bang. In fear, she looked over and saw two people fly out, fall to the ground, and twitch. Then, she saw a handsome young man walk out of the broken room, with black hair and red eyes—
When the young man saw Fūmori Masaki and the girl, his red eyes instantly turned black. The girl thought she was hallucinating, and then the young man walked over and said, "Masaki, it was your side that had a problem just now, right?"
Fūmori Masaki nodded.
Uchiha Kagami glanced at the girl and said to Fūmori Masaki, "Her scream really gave me a start. I was prepared to take out the four people inside." He pointed to the broken room and smiled bitterly. "As a result, they were alerted all of a sudden. I had to immediately take action to kill two of them. I thought the remaining two would be easier, but they still made a commotion. These two guys are actually quite capable."
Fūmori Masaki looked at the two guys who were clearly not going to survive and laughed, "They're not that impressive. You still managed to take them out before they could even make a sound."
"Um..." the girl asked uneasily, "Did I affect you?"
Although Fūmori Masaki said he was here to help her Village, she was still very afraid of these people with ruthless methods. Hearing Uchiha Kagami say that her scream had affected them, her heart tightened, worried that they would blame her.
"No, it doesn't matter." Uchiha Kagami was slightly taken aback. Seeing the girl's fearful expression, he knew what she was thinking. He smiled and waved his hand, indicating she shouldn't worry, then turned around to look at the other areas and said, "The others should be finished too. Looking at the current situation, Masaki and I have lost."
"It's fine, lost is lost," Fūmori Masaki said.
After a while, Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others rushed over from other parts of the bandit stronghold. Seeing the girl behind the two, they knew where that scream had come from, and the room with the broken wall told them the reason for the other noise.
"Masaki, Kagami, what a pity." Hiruzen Sarutobi spread his hands. Making noise meant losing. Although they summarized it, Kagami had killed the most people, but having made such a loud noise, it could only count as a loss. The others had quite evenly killed three people each, so there were only two losers in this competition.
Fūmori Masaki and Uchiha Kagami didn't attach much importance to this competition and expressed their helplessness. The competition just passed like that. Then, the two were responsible for sending the girl back to the Village, while the others had to deal with everything in the bandit stronghold.
Fūmori Masaki and Uchiha Kagami accompanied the girl toward the Village. After getting far away from the bandit stronghold, the attitude of the two people beside her was very friendly. The girl gradually shook off her fear and felt very grateful to Konohagakure for coming to help this time. They took action immediately after receiving the money, which was so trustworthy.
When they returned to the Village, some villagers saw the girl return and, overjoyed, hurriedly gathered around, busily asking if she was okay. The girl smiled and answered that she hadn't encountered anything, but had been saved by people from Konohagakure. Just as she was about to introduce the two to the villagers, she discovered that Fūmori Masaki and Uchiha Kagami had disappeared at some point.
For the girl and the villagers, the actions of Fūmori Masaki and the others could be considered a timely help in a moment of need, but Fūmori Masaki and the others were only fulfilling the contract and had no need to stay and accept the villagers' thanks. Therefore, Fūmori Masaki and Uchiha Kagami returned quickly, met up with Hiruzen Sarutobi and the others who had finished dealing with things, and turned to embark on the journey back to the Village.
When Ichiro woke up, he hurriedly asked people about the results of his commission. At this time, Hashirama happened to send someone to invite Ichiro to the Hokage Residence. Arriving at the Hokage Residence, he saw that the seven young people were already there, and Hashirama smiled and told him that the bandits in his Village had all been driven away and would never return to their Village.
Ichiro didn't expect that in the time it took him to just take a nap—although it was a bit long—they had actually completed the mission. This sounded truly incredible, making Ichiro doubt if what the other party said was true. But when Hashirama showed the evidence from the bandits that Fūmori Masaki and the others had left behind, Ichiro finally believed that they had really driven all the bandits away.
Ichiro felt ashamed in his heart. He had actually doubted such a dedicated place. He now had deep trust in Konohagakure and asked, "This lord, may I ask if there is anything needed in the future, can I still trouble you?"
Hashirama smiled, "Of course, no problem. If there is anything you need to trouble us with, just commission our Village. As long as we accept the commission, our Ninja Village will do its best to complete the mission for you, and we will never go back on our word."
"Thank you all so much." Ichiro was overjoyed and bowed to express his gratitude to Hashirama.
Ichiro left the room happily, prepared to return to the Village. With the client not present, Hashirama could talk about some internal matters. He said to the seven people in front of him, "You did well. This mission can be considered practice for you. What do you think?"
"Very easy, didn't encounter any troublesome opponents," Hiruzen Sarutobi said. "However, it's quite surprising that these 'bandits' were all Samurai."
"Just some low-class guys," Tobirama said indifferently. "However, this also shows that the interior of the country will not be that stable, and we can gradually accept some similar missions. You may feel that this kind of mission has no challenge, but there is no help for it. Since the establishment of the Village, you haven't executed many missions. Although simple, it can allow you to familiarize yourselves so that when truly major missions appear, you won't have no experience at all."
"We understand." The seven people replied hurriedly. When Hashirama said that Ichiro could continue to come and commission them in the future, some of them indeed felt it was not worth it and that there was no need to mobilize for such small missions. But once Tobirama said this, they also felt it made some sense. Even a mosquito is meat; it's better than having no experience at all.
"Review the details of this mission carefully. Whatever mistakes you made, remember not to repeat them next time." Tobirama looked at them and said, "If you are like this in troublesome missions, beware that you might really lose your lives!"
"Yes!" The seven people answered in unison once again.