The end...
As he watched the square, metal-like poison mist emitters strapped to and embedded diagonally beneath the branches slowly stop working, the relieved smile at the corner of Hada Ryuhiko's lips gradually faded.
Up on the branches, the two Hidden Rain ninja had already stopped breathing. Or rather, their respiratory systems had ceased functioning. Death was inevitable.
Together with the other man who had tried to ambush them from behind and whom Anna had pounded into pulp, this Hidden Rain squad had now been completely wiped out.
They had won.
It was all used up.
What a waste! It could have been used one more time.
Yet Hada Ryuhiko felt little joy inside. On the contrary, he found it rather regrettable.
The source of that regret was the poison: those colorless, odorless gaseous toxins were exceedingly rare. Not only were their raw materials scarce, but the refining process was especially complicated. Even Hada Ryuhiko did not dare claim that he could successfully refine them now.
Or rather, the finished poison had been obtained by chance in the first place. He had yet to find the correct refining method.
Moreover, he had secretly used up the village's entire stockpile of materials needed to refine this poison.
That meant he would not be able to obtain this poison again for quite some time.
And now, he had used up even the last bit of it.
What was more, he had not originally needed to use up all the gaseous poison he had prepared at once. Based on his calculations and experiments, there should have been enough left for another use.
Once the two of them showed signs of paralysis, he could have stopped releasing the gas.
However, he had no way to recover it. The poison-release device he had made was