"I understand. From here on, focus on the expansion plan."
The smile on Minato Namikaze's lips that said just as expected slowly faded. His expression turned slightly serious as he spoke to Chiba.
"Yes, Fourth Hokage-sama."
With his goal achieved, and Minato Namikaze's meaning already made clear, Hirohiko's merit would naturally be credited to Hirohiko himself. There was nothing more for him to worry about. He could leave everything to this Hokage, who had already demonstrated his wise abilities.
Such enormous merit, capable of determining the advantage in a war, was something even the Hokage could not treat unfairly because of an internal crime. Whether Minato Namikaze intended to help Hirohiko or not, Hirohiko's imprisonment was coming to an end.
There would be no shortage of surveillance, nor would restrictions on his movements be lifted, but at least he would not be sent back to the confinement room.
That settled one of his worries.
All he needed to consider next were the expansion plan and Yukina's Caged Bird Seal.
"Mm. Then go get busy."
Minato Namikaze did not say anything further and directly dismissed him.
"Yes. Then I'll return to the engineering team's camp."
Hearing this, Chiba bowed in acknowledgment and left the Hokage's Office.
That kid... Besides constantly surprising me, he really does keep giving me difficult problems.
After watching Chiba leave, Minato Namikaze took a deep breath and slowly leaned back in his chair, his face full of bitterness.
Both the actual executor and the planner deserved credit, and their respective contributions were roughly equal. Capturing an enemy spy, whether or not they could get any information out of them, was a tremendous achievement for Konoha as it was now—one at the level of "saving the village." It fell only slightly short of Chiba's previous feat of stopping