After the Chunin Ninja Exams, reconstruction work in Konoha proceeded at a fever pitch. The entire village had become one enormous construction site, filled with deafening noise and busy workers.
Perhaps thanks to their victory, Konoha's economic climate had improved dramatically. Even the exhausted laborers on the construction sites would proudly puff out their chests whenever someone mentioned how Konoha had killed the Third Kazekage, who had tried to provoke a war, during the Chunin Ninja Exams.
But unlike some empire where the sun never set, Hiroki could genuinely feel that life in Konoha was getting better.
With the Chunin Ninja Exams over, Sunagakure's reparations had quickly arrived, and more merchants and markets were pouring into Konoha. The mission desk at the Hokage's office was practically packed every day.
Whether they were traveling merchants or street vendors, everyone tried to post a few missions just to show off.
Konoha really was getting rich.
But all of that seemed to have nothing to do with Hiroki anymore.
Ever since the Nine-Tails transfer incident ended, he had entered a strange "standby" state.
The Third hadn't given him any new missions. He'd only told him to "get some good rest" and, while he was at it, "spend more time with Kushina." Danzo seemed to have gone to the front lines in the Land of Rain and didn't have time to bother with him.
As for Orochimaru and the others, they still hadn't returned.
And so Hiroki's life had shifted in an instant from a battlefield full of danger and a political maelstrom full of hidden currents to a leisurely daily routine.
Hiroki was happy to have it that way.
Ever since the Cloud Ninja incident, he'd been constantly on the go. Over the past few months, he'd first faced Jiraiya's test, then Orochimaru's,