Southguard Post and the Cloth Merchant's Doubts

Southguard Post and the Cloth Merchant's Doubts

Southguard Post. Dawn had only just broken, but the post town was already boiling over. Packhorses neighed, wooden cart axles groaned under unbearable loads, and the rough shouts of caravan guards blended together. The air was thick with the pungent smells of livestock, dust, sweat, and cheap oily food. Wagons piled high with goods clogged the already narrow streets, while porters and merchants hurried through the gaps, creating a clamorous scene of people scrambling to make a living.

Shuji led Itachi and Anko through the surging crowd. Following the address on the Mission Scroll, they found their client for this trip—the cloth merchant Hongshan Cheng—in the rear courtyard of an inn bearing an old sign that read "Pine Breeze."

Hongshan Cheng was a typical middle-aged traveling merchant. His slightly plump body was wrapped in a dark brown silk robe of decent quality, though it was stained with dust. Round spectacles rested on his round face, and behind the lenses, his eyes darted rapidly over the clerks moving cargo. Six clerks carefully loaded bundles of brightly colored, finely woven cloth onto reinforced carts, their movements revealing how dearly they treasured the goods.

When he saw Shuji's group approach, especially after his gaze passed over Anko in her brand-new dark purple coat and impatient expression, then Itachi with his ninja tool pack and still-boyish face, Hongshan Cheng's professional smile instantly froze. A flicker of unconcealed shock and doubt crossed his eyes.

Two adults and one child? These were the guards Konoha had sent... just them? That girl looked hard to deal with, and that little boy... was he even ten? My shipment of southern cloth...

Countless thoughts churned through his shrewd mind, and his worry over the goods abruptly intensified. Yet the instincts he had honed through years of trade made him suppress every emotion at once. Hongshan Cheng quickly plastered on exaggerated enthusiasm and hurried forward, his booming voice sounding somewhat forced. "Ah, the Konoha ninja lords have finally arrived! You must have had a hard journey, a hard journey!" Rubbing his hands together, his eyes swept quickly over the three forehead protectors before settling on Shuji, who stood at the front. With a probing look, he asked, "This distinguished gentleman must be the captain? May I ask your name?"

"Special Jonin Shuji." Shuji's gaze passed over him and landed on the six carts of obviously valuable cloth.

"So you are Captain Shuji! My apologies, my apologies!" Hongshan Cheng hurriedly cupped his hands, his smile still warm, though his merchant's shrewdness had not faded. Seemingly casually, he glanced again at Anko and Itachi and asked tentatively, "And these two... spirited young ninja lords are...?"

"Anko Mitarashi. Uchiha Itachi." Shuji's reply was as concise as a blade, with no further explanation.

The moment Hongshan Cheng heard the name "Uchiha," his eyes behind the lenses visibly lit up. The smile on his face seemed half a shade more sincere, but his doubts about their age and experience remained, like an undercurrent beneath thin ice. He warmly invited them, "You three have traveled through wind and dust. You must not have had breakfast yet, right? There's a ramen stall by the post gate. The broth is authentic, and the noodles are nice and chewy!"

"Fine." Shuji nodded naturally. Travel had drained a fair amount of energy, and replenishing it was necessary.

Hongshan Cheng immediately turned around and raised his voice at the clerks loading the carts. "Move those hands faster! We leave as soon as I return with our honored guests!"

Anko curled her lip, unimpressed by such behavior. Itachi, meanwhile, stood quietly in place, his calm gaze sweeping over the busy clerks and stacked goods. He spoke softly to Shuji. "Senior, I'll stay and watch over things."

Shuji nodded and led Anko away from the noisy rear courtyard with Hongshan Cheng.

The supposedly "authentic" ramen place was nothing more than a crude roadside stall at the post gate. Several greasy low tables were crowded with merchants and porters setting out early. The air was filled with the rich scent of pork bone broth and cheap soy sauce. Hongshan Cheng familiarly ordered three bowls of the house tonkotsu ramen from the owner.

When the noodles arrived, the broth was cloudy, with several paper-thin slices of char siu and wilted yellow bamboo shoots floating on top. Shuji picked up his chopsticks, lifted a mouthful of noodles, blew on the steam, and began eating in large bites.

Seeing her captain start, Anko picked up her chopsticks as well. She frowned at the greasy broth in her bowl, but still picked at the noodles and ate. Hongshan Cheng, however, appeared distracted. He symbolically stirred the noodles in his bowl, his mind clearly elsewhere.

"Captain Shuji," Hongshan Cheng said, setting down his chopsticks and leaning forward slightly. His face took on the peculiar expression of a merchant, mixed with worry and grievance. "As you can see, what we're escorting this time is premium southern cloth from the Land of Fire. It'll fetch a sky-high price once shipped overseas! To be honest, I, Hongshan Cheng, have staked my entire fortune and life on this shipment!"

He paused, watching Shuji's reaction. Then he lowered his voice, speaking with an earnestness that seemed to come from the heart. "That's why I gritted my teeth and scraped together one hundred thousand ryo for this mission! I originally thought that while the journey was a bit long, the route from the Land of Fire to the Land of Tea had always been safe. At most, it should have been a C-rank mission, and hiring a few Chunin to escort us would have been enough. But I never expected..." His face showed perfectly measured gratitude. "The Hokage is so kind and considerate of us struggling small merchants that he actually rated this commission as B-rank! And even sent a Jonin like Captain Shuji to lead the team personally! This... I truly don't know how to thank you!"

Shuji swallowed the noodles in his mouth and lifted his bowl for a sip of broth, his movements smooth and natural. He set the bowl down and looked calmly at Hongshan Cheng. The information hidden within the merchant's words rapidly came together in his mind like scattered puzzle pieces.

A reward of one hundred thousand ryo.

His entire fortune staked on the goods.

The mission's expected rank: C-rank.

The reward range for C-rank missions was thirty thousand to one hundred thousand ryo, while B-rank missions paid eighty thousand to two hundred thousand. Hongshan Cheng was willing to offer one hundred thousand. That sum was the absolute ceiling for a C-rank mission, but the very bottom for a B-rank one. His deliberate emphasis on having "scraped together" one hundred thousand showed that this was already his limit, while also hinting at his original assessment of the danger—it had not been enough to warrant B-rank.

The object of his "gratitude" was that the village had "proactively" raised the mission rank. What did that imply?

Mission classification was no trivial matter. A C-rank mission meant the party carrying it out was expected to face no ninja-related hostilities. It was usually assigned to Chunin leading Genin, or an experienced Genin team. A B-rank mission, however, explicitly carried the possibility of combat against hostile ninja. It generally required an experienced Chunin team, and might even be led by a Special Jonin or Jonin.

Hongshan Cheng's words and actions revealed a critical contradiction: he himself did not seem particularly concerned about the central threat that had prompted the village to raise the mission to B-rank—the rogue ninja group known as the Black Erosion Corps. Or rather, the people he feared were not ninja.

If Hongshan Cheng had truly been worried that the ninjutsu-capable Black Erosion Corps would raid his caravan, then considering he had staked his entire fortune on this shipment, he would never have been satisfied with merely the maximum reward for a C-rank mission. Nor would he have regarded the village raising its rank as an unexpected blessing. At the very least, he would have tried to squeeze out several thousand more ryo to ensure the mission securely fell within B-rank, thereby matching it with stronger protection. One hundred thousand ryo looked more like the highest C-rank protection fee he was willing to pay against a major threat that did not involve ninja.

The village's intelligence pointed to the Black Erosion Corps threatening the trade route, which was why the mission rank had been raised. Yet Hongshan Cheng's expected enemies were likely someone else. Did he not know the Black Erosion Corps existed, or was there...

"Boss Hongshan," Shuji's clear voice cut through the surrounding clamor. "What were you most worried about originally? Or rather, what made you think this shipment was worth spending one hundred thousand ryo to hire Konoha ninja to escort?"

Hongshan Cheng had not expected Shuji to ask so directly. He froze for a moment, then revealed a bitter smile. His gaze flickered behind his round glasses. "Captain Shuji, you have sharp eyes. To be honest, the road to Chujie Port has always been relatively safe. There haven't been any major bandit problems. But a big forest has all kinds of birds. There are always a few petty thieves who amount to nothing, groups of twenty or thirty who rely on their familiarity with the terrain to prey on isolated small caravans. My goods are worth too much this time. I'm afraid some fool will set their sights on them and try to seize them by force with superior numbers. An ordinary guard company probably couldn't hold them off."

He paused, seeming hesitant before continuing in a lowered voice. "And when we get close to Chujie Port, we'll pass through an old forest called Wild Tea Slope. That place has been unsettled these past few months. There's a local bully called the Tea Mountain Gang. They've gathered a group of desperate men—supposedly two or three hundred of them..."

"The Tea Mountain Gang..." Shuji quietly repeated the name. A bandit gang of two or three hundred people would indeed be a catastrophic threat to an ordinary caravan, enough to make a merchant risk his entire fortune to hire ninja as a deterrent. This was probably the real "maximum C-rank" danger in Hongshan Cheng's eyes. As for the Black Erosion Corps? The name had not even come up from his mouth.

There was an obvious disconnect between the village's intelligence and the client's understanding. This was no coincidence. Either the village's intelligence was wrong, or the Black Erosion Corps operated with extreme secrecy and had not yet caused widespread panic among ordinary merchants; or... the area where the Black Erosion Corps operated, or their target, did not fully overlap with the route and value of Hongshan Cheng's shipment. There might even be something else going on.

"Understood." Shuji did not press further. He merely nodded, lifted his bowl, and drank the remaining noodle soup. Setting the bowl down, he glanced at Anko, who had nearly finished eating. "Once you're done, return to the rear courtyard. Prepare to depart."

Anko had long since lost interest in the greasy noodle soup. At his words, she immediately put down her chopsticks. Hongshan Cheng also hurriedly stood, his face once again piled with smiles. "Yes, yes, let's go, let's go! With Captain Shuji here, I can finally put my mind at ease!"

When the three returned to the rear courtyard of the Pine Breeze Inn, the six carts had already been fully loaded. Sturdy oilcloth covered the brightly colored cloth tightly from view.

Itachi stood quietly beside one of the carts. When he saw Shuji return, he gave a slight nod to indicate that everything was normal.

"Set off!" Hongshan Cheng ordered.

The cart axles creaked, the packhorses snorted, and the heavy caravan slowly rolled out of the inn's rear courtyard. It merged into the noisy main road of the post town and set out southwestward on the long journey toward Chujie Port in the Land of Tea.