Chapter 24: Arrival

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“What a joke. I don’t have that much money to give you. Besides, I’m a ninja, and I’ll be protecting you on the road. You should be praying that I’m not charging you a commission!” Asuma Sarutobi shouted deliberately at the caravan once again.

He did have a mere thousand ryo on him, but given his current identity, producing that money would be far too suspicious. Even an idiot would realize that something was wrong.

“Where did this brat come from, claiming to be a ninja? Then let me see what you’re made of. If you can last a while against me, I’ll let you travel with us for free.”

This time, the one who stepped forward was a man wearing a tattered ninja vest. Yet he bore no forehead protector from any ninja village. Clearly, he was a wandering ninja.

No one in the caravan said anything else. That amounted to tacit approval, and such things were hardly unusual for them. Every trading journey brought them into contact with one or two such cases.

If the brat truly possessed the ability he claimed, there was no harm in bringing him along. Should trouble arise, they would have another fighter at their disposal. But if the boy was merely boasting, they would not mind adding another basket of prepared medicinal herbs to their cargo.

As for whether they might gain anything else—what a joke. What good things could a brat like this possibly have on him?

After Asuma Sarutobi settled Kawaki Aoba off to one side, he went into the open space and began a one-on-one match with the wandering ninja.

That was right: a match. Compared with a battle to the death, this was more like a contest intended to assess their strength.

In a place this chaotic, finding even an ordinary physician was extremely difficult. Thus, even when dealing with an unremarkable-looking brat, one had to proceed carefully and avoid getting injured.

As for the truly stupid ones, they had already been reduced to scraps of corpses in a place like this.

The wandering ninja cautiously probed Asuma’s strength, while Asuma constantly kept Yuhi Shinku’s teachings in mind. He acted like someone who had never experienced a proper battle, yet knew how to use chakra.

While dealing with the wandering ninja’s attacks, he made every effort to appear as disheveled as possible. To make the performance convincing, he even rolled across the ground several times, dirtying his worn-out clothes further.

After exchanging blows several times, the wandering ninja thought he had figured out Asuma Sarutobi’s strength and withdrew from the fight.

“Hmph. Not bad. Your combat experience is a complete mess, brat, but you can barely be considered a ninja. I acknowledge you. You may bring your younger brother and join the caravan.

“But let me make this clear beforehand: we will not provide you with any food or water along the way. And whenever a battle is required, you will have to fight. If you can accept that, then come along with us.”

After putting on a show of authority, the wandering ninja returned his kunai to its sheath and went back to the caravan.

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Those words made Asuma Sarutobi draw a sharp breath.

It had ended that easily? And that man had just said he acknowledged him as a ninja. Was becoming a ninja really that simple?

The wandering ninja’s ignorance had successfully opened up an entirely new world for Asuma.

The standard of the ninjas from these minor countries seemed hardly higher than that of the bandits in the Land of Fire.

If Asuma had not known that he was still only a genin, he might have developed the illusion that he was invincible.

Still, although he had countless complaints he wanted to voice, the fortunate thing was that they had successfully joined the caravan without arousing anyone’s suspicion.

Once inside the caravan, Asuma Sarutobi was assigned to the far-left edge.

If sand bandits attacked from the left along the way, his position would be the first to bear the brunt of the assault.

After joining the caravan, Asuma could not help studying its composition.

With a single glance, he spotted more than a dozen groups of various sizes.

The hired ninjas, ronin, and other assorted characters were a mixed lot of wildly varying quality. Every imaginable appearance could be found among them.

Asuma also noticed, among a small merchant group positioned closer to the center, a guard dressed like a samurai with a child beside him.

There was no need to doubt it. That was their team leader, the jounin Yuhi Shinku.

Asuma had no idea what method Teacher Yuhi Shinku had used, but at that moment he was laughing and chatting warmly with another samurai from the small group.

Compared with the treatment Asuma and Aoba were receiving, it was vastly better.

After an entire day, the caravan had traveled only from Tuyuan City, near the Land of Rain, to a position barely past the border of the Land of Wind. For ninjas, that pace was slower than a tortoise crawling.

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The sluggish speed even made Asuma Sarutobi think that they would have been better off not joining the caravan at all. Their four-man team could have reached the destination directly.

That thought, however, vanished once the entire caravan entered the interior of the Land of Wind.

The environment there was utterly absurd. Apart from a few stretches of barren land near the border, every scene they encountered along the way consisted of either wasteland or endless yellow sand.

In particular, after entering the desert, even Asuma Sarutobi—a ninja whose theoretical knowledge placed him somewhere above average—lost all sense of direction.

The blazing red sun hung directly overhead, making it impossible to distinguish east from west, north from south.

Without following an experienced caravan, even a ninja who had never received the relevant training could genuinely become lost in the desert.

Of course, thanks to a ninja’s mobility, the chances of being trapped and dying in the desert were not particularly high unless one’s luck was catastrophically bad. But losing time on the mission was certain.

After traveling for a full day and night, they finally reached an oasis town within the Land of Wind. Only then did the three members of the team besides Yuhi Shinku finally understand why no one had taken the initiative to attack the Hidden Sand Village during the first two ninja wars.

There was truly nothing worthwhile in this miserable place for anyone to covet.

And the Hidden Sand Village was located even deeper within the heartland of the Land of Wind.

All they could do was marvel at how talented the First Kazekage, Reto, had been. He had chosen an astonishingly remote location.

Great Lake City was the first city the caravan encountered after entering the Land of Wind, a city rooted in an oasis. It was also the caravan’s first destination.

Likewise, it was the meeting place for Yuhi Shinku’s team and the spy hidden within the Hidden Sand Village. This was naturally no coincidence, but the result of Yuhi Shinku’s careful arrangements.

That was the advantage of having an experienced jounin leading the team. If they had been assigned someone with little mission experience, who knew how far they would have had to wander around the Land of Wind? They might even have exposed some flaw along the way. But now, everything appeared perfectly natural.

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