In just one short month, Sunagakure had undergone sweeping changes.
The village kept expanding, and the road leading to it kept widening. What had once accommodated two carts side by side could now fit three, then four. The Elder Council was even considering widening it further.
By now, no one was worrying about the village's security. The clans were making far too much money.
The migrants brought by the war had arrived with vast wealth and advanced technology, making the area more prosperous than ever. Its once-poor location and harsh environment seemed insignificant compared to the security it offered. Even after news came back that the Sunagakure Shinobi had fought their way to Konoha's doorstep, the brief lull in the housing boom ended, and the rush to buy homes flared up again.
Hoshino Maki even had people hang a banner at the entrance to Sunagakure:
If you come, you're one of us!
If bulls had anything to do with Sunagakure, he would have liked to put up a statue of a pioneering ox, too.
Hoshino Maki wasn't in Sunagakure, but through Chiyo and Chōjūrō, he had the village developing at breakneck speed under his influence.
Though the clans on the Elder Council claimed most of the profits, even what trickled through their fingers made life much better for ordinary villagers.
They still couldn't match Konoha, but they were already close to where the Cloud Ninja villagers had been before the war—and they had a good chance of taking first place.
It wasn't that Sunagakure would become better. It was that Konoha, mired in a prolonged war, was bound to get worse.
Many problems in the world were complicated, and couldn't be solved in the short term.
But when you were starving, whoever gave you food was the greatest benefactor in