The next day,
Overcast. Camp.
After assignments had been handed out and everyone had set off.
"So... so this is the Ninja Engineering Corps' camp?"
A man in white clothes and a white coat stopped before the camp's ten houses. After looking around the empty camp, he spoke in a soft murmur, slightly out of breath.
"Hm? Doctor Watanabe, you're here?"
Just then, the door of one of the houses suddenly opened. A child of about eleven or twelve stepped out, apparently holding washing supplies and looking rather bleary-eyed. The moment he looked up after coming outside, the boy spotted the man in white and spoke.
"Chiba, whew! I finally made it. The road over there was really hard to travel."
At the sight of the boy, the man beamed. He shook the mud off his rain boots and walked over with a backpack slung over his shoulders.
"Oh, sorry. I didn't take the road over there into consideration. You're not a ninja, so it really was difficult for you."
Chiba hurried over to greet him, opening with an apology.
The route map he had drawn for Doctor Watanabe was the route he himself took back and forth to the village. He had thought that, since he traveled it often, he was familiar with it and it was safe. However, he had overlooked the fact that he possessed Chakra. He could leap over obstacles with ease, arriving quickly and leaving conveniently. But Doctor Watanabe was not a ninja—he was just an ordinary person with exceptional medical knowledge. Having to slog through all that mud on the way here must have been quite a hardship.
"It's fine, it's fine. So, where's the infirmary?"
Hearing Chiba's apology, Doctor Watanabe repeatedly shook his head and immediately asked where the infirmary was.
"Over here!"