Escort Mission

Touma hadn't forgotten his mission. He handed the transcribed intelligence scroll to Jiraiya.

However, Touma and the others had worried a little too much earlier. The infiltration unit they'd encountered had actually slipped in a long time ago.

After Jiraiya took over command of Sunny City, he had already searched out and sealed off nearly all the underground passages and waterways in the border regions.

He had even set up a series of trigger-activated traps on the Land of Fire's side of the Fire-Rain border. Any Earth Release ninja trying to pass through would set them off and be killed underground.

Thanks to all these preparations, Sunny City had the chance to wipe out the ninja who had blindly trusted Hanzō's call to arms.

By the going rates in the Shinobi World, the ransom for a Genin ranged from fifty thousand to a hundred thousand ryo, a Chunin's from two hundred thousand to five hundred thousand, and a single Jonin could fetch over a million.

The captured ninja currently held in Sunny City could bring Konoha at least nearly a hundred million ryo in ransom, enough to ease the village's already strained finances.

To be honest, even a carefree ninja like Haruno Kizashi had noticed the changes in the village. The Training Ground C they often used, for example, had gone over half a month without repairs because it had been so badly damaged.

Although repairing the training ground only required posting a C-rank mission, which professional Earth Release ninja in the village would take, the village still had to agonize over whether it could afford to offer thirty or fifty thousand ryo in mission pay.

After all, that thirty or fifty thousand ryo could cover the medicine needed by a combat squad at the front. Delaying repairs to the training ground wouldn't cause any problems, but a shortfall in medical supplies would.

Fortunately, ninja weren't deployed on the battlefield all the time. They also had plenty of ways to recover their own strength.

For instance, the Konoha ninja currently handling the cleanup in Sunny City were sorting through the belongings of those who had been poisoned and knocked unconscious. In other words, they were "looting the bodies."

Of course, "looting the bodies" wasn't as simple as yanking off a ninja's equipment pouch. It took professionals to handle the job, since most ninja set traps inside their pouches to protect their possessions.

Touma himself, for example, had set up a passive, chakra-triggered Reverse Summoning Technique trap in his equipment pouch. If foreign chakra activated it, the Reverse Summoning Technique would summon both the pouch and whoever had triggered the trap to the entrance on the first floor of the Hokage's office building.

By then, it would be too late for the person to react and run. There were at least twelve Anbu on standby on the first floor of the Hokage's office building. Even if the person were strong enough to break through them, the commotion would be enough to alert Lord Hokage and his two advisors in the third-floor office.

That was one of the more vicious traps. A more ordinary one would usually hide an Explosive Tag or a flash bomb inside, enough to blow all the projectile weapons in the pouch out at once with considerable force.

So Sunny City had ninja specifically assigned to disarm traps in equipment pouches. They helped the others sort through the loot and took a small cut.

Don't assume a little equipment pouch wasn't worth much. A typical ninja carried three to five sets of projectile weapons, a bag of Military Ration Pills, and two or three Explosive Tags.

A set of projectile weapons usually consisted of a bundle of Kunai and Shuriken, along with a bundle of smoke bombs and flash bombs. The secondhand purchase price was around eight hundred ryo.

Military Ration Pills and Explosive Tags couldn't be reused, so their purchase price could generally reach ninety percent of the original. Military Ration Pills usually sold for around 130 ryo, while Explosive Tags went for 1,500 to 1,700.

So in most cases, the loot from a standard ninja was worth at least 4,000 ryo.

If they came across Rain Ninja, who specialized in ninjutsu involving large quantities of ninja tools, that figure could rise to five or even six thousand ryo—about the same as a D-rank mission.

By Touma's estimate, the nearly thousand ninja Jiraiya had wiped out in Sunny City had at least four million ryo worth of loot on them. Split among the two hundred Konoha ninja stationed in the city, that meant each person could get a cut of twenty thousand ryo.

That was why Touma could clearly see the garrison ninja gazing at Jiraiya with uncontrollable fervor. The saying "Fine wine makes a man blush; money moves the heart" certainly rang true!

Jiraiya had only been acting commander for half a year, yet after handing out a few small favors, he had already won the hearts of the entire garrison.

Of course, though the haul this time was worth more than four million ryo, Jiraiya didn't care about that kind of money. He might have been an orphan, but ever since he became a ninja, he had never been short of cash.

For some reason, he had extraordinary luck with money. He hadn't started making money from writing yet, but after missions, he often left some money with ordinary people in the area who had been affected, out of kindness.

Quite a few of the people he had helped used that money to start businesses. Within a few years, their enterprises had grown, and they began to repay Jiraiya's kindness.

Jiraiya couldn't say exactly how many shares he owned in how many companies across how many countries. All he knew was that the balance in his account at the Land of Fire's central bank grew rapidly every year. He wasn't quite the richest man in the Land of Fire, but he was certainly among the wealthiest.

That was why Orochimaru and Tsunade had gone to him for money in the early days. For one thing, he had so much that he could never spend it all. For another, he really didn't care much about money and was happy to cover such trivial expenses for his friends!

After handing in the intelligence and saying goodbye to Uncle Umino, Touma didn't get to rest. Before he returned to the village, Jiraiya specifically assigned him an escort mission.

The cargo to be escorted consisted of three members of the Lin Clan from the Land of Rain. They were all children—two girls and a boy—and Jiraiya had found them by chance during his first team's infiltration into the Land of Rain.

According to the information the children had provided, Hanzō's seizure of power as Amegakure's leader had been illegitimate. Some of Amegakure's senior figures were unhappy with his rise to power, and even the elders of his own Lin Clan had strong objections.

So after Hanzō seized power by force, he brutally crushed those who opposed him. He killed most of them, while a few who had sensed trouble coming in advance managed to send their family's children away.

These three children were direct descendants of different factions within the Lin Clan. One of the girls was even the only daughter of the former daimyo of the Land of Rain, Lin Shiyu. In a time of crisis in the Land of Rain, she had the right to serve as acting daimyo.

Unfortunately, when Jiraiya found Lin Qianyu, the former daimyo's daughter, she had nearly starved to death in the sewers of the Land of Rain alongside the other two children.

Over the past few days, with care from the medical ninja and plenty of food, they had regained some color. But word of the three children's presence in Sunny City had still gotten out after a spy exposed them.

The attack on Sunny City had only been the first wave. According to the intelligence they had gathered earlier, a second wave was about to arrive. This time, Amegakure wouldn't send rogue and wandering ninja to attack; they would send their own troops.

Jiraiya also believed the empty-city ploy couldn't work a second time, so the three children had to be moved to Konoha.

As for how Konoha's High Command would use them, that was beyond Jiraiya's control. At least until they were put to use, the three of them could enjoy a good life in Konoha for a while.