Judgment

After leaving the tavern, Yuehua Ai took Yahiko and the others to ask a few villagers about the bandits. The information they got from them wasn't much different from what the tavern owner had told them.

After analyzing the information they had gathered, Yuehua Ai was certain that the bandits who had rampaged through the area a few days earlier were most likely staying on a small mountain not far north of the village.

From what the locals knew, there had once been a village on that small mountain where the bandits might be staying. The villagers had carved out a sizable cave there that led into the mountain's interior, where there was enough space for quite a few people to live.

The cave had originally been built as a refuge for the villagers in case of disaster. Unfortunately, fate had other plans. The shelter the villagers had gone to such lengths to build had now become the bandits' hideout.

Now that they had roughly established where their target was, they didn't linger in the village. After asking the village elders for directions to the small mountain, the four of them hurried off. It was still before noon, and they estimated they would arrive close to lunchtime.

Bandits were ordinary people, after all, and their daily routines were much the same as everyone else's. The bandits generally wouldn't go out at noon, and those who were already out would mostly return by then. Yuehua Ai and the others decided it would be best to catch them all while they were gathered, so they wouldn't be scattered and leave plenty of stragglers behind even if the group found most of them.

In fact, it would have been best to act at night, which would have ensured that as few bandits as possible escaped. Unfortunately, the bandits weren't shinobi, just a bunch of ordinary people who had gone astray. They weren't worth wasting too much time on.

Yuehua Ai checked the rough map he had drawn several times. Once he was sure the route was correct, he signaled to the others. They put on their raincoat hoods and headed north along a path out of the village.

Shinobi could cover ground far faster than ordinary people. With chakra to support them, their speed far exceeded that of normal people. Although Yuehua Ai and the others hadn't yet learned to use chakra for Water Walking or tree climbing, their physical fitness and athletic ability let them brush aside most of the obstacles on the road.

After a year of training, they had become quite adept at using chakra. They still remembered how, at first, they could barely manage a journey of a few dozen kilometers. Now, as long as they weren't mentally exhausted, they hardly felt tired while traveling.

Extracting and controlling chakra had long since become second nature to the boys. As they traveled, their steady breathing and well-timed strides conserved their energy as much as possible. With every step, chakra circulated through their bodies on its own, helping their muscles recover as well.

The boys leaned forward, their hands held naturally straight behind them as they raced through the forest. This was the traditional way shinobi ran while traveling. Leaning forward helped them maintain momentum as they moved, while holding their hands behind them reduced wind resistance and kept their arms relaxed. That way, if an enemy suddenly appeared, their hands would be in the best position to react quickly, and they could more easily grab weapons from the tool pouches at their waists. This distinctive posture could, to some extent, reveal whether someone was a shinobi. Ordinary people without chakra couldn't move at such a speed, much less keep their balance while leaning forward.

In about twenty minutes, they reached the spot they had planned for.

A huge boulder came into view. It was nearly three stories tall and dozens of meters wide, with a forked path winding around it. The boulder had stood there for a long time. According to local legend, it had rolled down from the mountaintop more than a hundred years ago. Several villages had later been established in the area, and the boulder stood between them. When the villages built connections between one another, they carved out several paths, and the boulder became a local landmark.

The boulder was a single, separate formation. Stones of this size, standing alone instead of being joined to a mountain, were extremely rare. Yahiko and the others knew little about rocks or geography and had no interest in them. They only glanced at it casually. Yuehua Ai was the only one who paid it a little more attention. A single, intact boulder that large was quite rare. After all, the famous Ayers Rock in his previous life was known for being one massive rock. Of course, this boulder was nowhere near as impressive as Ayers Rock, which stood 348 meters high and stretched nearly ten kilometers. Still, it was a rare sight, and Yuehua Ai admired it briefly before turning his attention elsewhere.

The boulder stood at the foot of the northern mountain. They went around it and continued north, entering the mountains.

The rain pattered down, making it a little harder to search for signs of the bandits. The rain had washed away so much that even Yuehua Ai had trouble finding traces of them. It wasn't that the bandits were skilled at covering their tracks; in fact, they hadn't tried to hide them at all. The weather and terrain had simply worked in their favor.

The small mountain beneath their feet was made of rock. Years of rain had washed away most of the soil, so finding footprints was practically impossible. Even if someone had walked through the mountains and left the occasional mark on the ground, the rain falling from the sky had long since erased countless traces.

So there was no need to talk about deliberately covering one's tracks. Even deliberately leaving a trace wasn't easy here. The gray-brown rocks covering the area were not only smooth but extremely hard.

Yuehua Ai found a relatively open spot and climbed to the highest point nearby. Holding the brim of his raincoat hood with one hand to keep it from blocking his view, he rose onto his toes and surveyed the mountain's contours.

The main route up the mountain didn't lie to the south, so the group hadn't approached by the usual path. Instead, they had come from the south and taken a shortcut straight up the mountain.

The regular route led directly to the cave on the mountain. Since they had taken a shortcut, Yuehua Ai and the others had little idea where the cave was.

Yuehua Ai wanted to use what they knew to work out where the cave was. If the bandits were indeed here, finding the cave would mean they had found their target.

Although shinobi could see much farther than ordinary people, Yuehua Ai frowned deeply after looking around. The rain had filled the mountain with mist. Even from the best vantage point, everything in the distance was shrouded in white, leaving very little visibility.

With visibility so poor, Yuehua Ai couldn't study the mountain's contours. He had planned to use the shape of the mountainside to work out where the cave was. The villagers had said that the cave connected to the mountain's interior, which contained a large open space. The fact that such a large space existed inside the mountain without collapsing suggested that the surrounding terrain had to have certain distinctive features.

Rock had its own patterns, and mountains had their own contours. If Yuehua Ai could make out the mountain's general shape, he would have a good chance of figuring out where the cave was. Unfortunately, the mist hanging over the mountain had put an end to his plan before it even got started.

"Did you find anything?" Seeing Yuehua Ai frown, Yahiko couldn't help asking.

Yuehua Ai nodded. "The terrain here is unusual. I can't make out the mountain's contours, so it's hard to figure out where the cave is."

"The mountain's contours..." Yahiko rolled his eyes, his face full of helplessness. To be honest, he knew nothing about geography or terrain. Neither did Nagato or Konan. The only person who could discuss these things with Yuehua Ai was Jiraiya.

Yuehua Ai just shrugged at Yahiko's eye roll. He didn't mind that Yahiko knew nothing about geography and terrain. There weren't any dedicated geography classes in this world, after all. Jiraiya could talk with him only because of the experience he had accumulated over many years of living. Even Jiraiya could discuss only the basics with Yuehua Ai, let alone Yahiko and the others, who had been orphaned when they were young.

If he couldn't make out the shape of the mountains, he could look for something else!

Yuehua Ai continued surveying the area from where he stood. After looking around for a while, he called to the others and motioned for them to follow him. He switched locations several times, taking only a quick look at each place before moving on.

The others kept following Yuehua Ai, but they had no idea what he was looking for. While Yuehua Ai surveyed the area, Yahiko and the others did the same, but they had no idea where to begin. After they had changed locations a few more times, Konan couldn't help asking,

"Ai, what are you looking at?"

"The rain!" Yuehua Ai smiled at Konan.

"The rain? What can you tell from looking at the rain?" Nagato asked, bewildered.

These kids really were on another level when it came to knowledge and experience! Faced with their confusion, Yuehua Ai gave them an exasperated but adorable eye roll.

He nudged the stream of rainwater gathering by his feet with his foot.

"I'm looking at the direction the water is flowing."

"The mountain's contours? The flow of the water?" Yahiko looked utterly out of his depth.

"The cave must be in a place suitable for people to live. Since it's habitable, it's probably somewhere the rainwater doesn't collect. I can also use the direction of the water's flow to get a rough idea of the terrain. Put the two together, and I should be able to work out where the cave is."

Since the method involved geography and mathematics from his previous life, Yuehua Ai didn't explain the specific formulas or calculations. He just described how he planned to figure it out.

Although they didn't know how Yuehua Ai had reasoned it through, Nagato was deeply impressed that he had even thought of using the flow of water to determine the terrain.

"Ai, you're amazing!" Konan couldn't help praising him.

She couldn't understand how Ai knew so much, but that didn't stop her from feeling proud of him. In all these years, she felt that the luckiest thing she had done—and the thing she was proudest of—was picking Yuehua Ai up and bringing him home.

"Uh, heh-heh!" Yuehua Ai smiled bashfully. He was quite pleased by Konan's praise.

Once he had gathered his thoughts, Yuehua Ai combined everything he had observed and pointed east.

"The cave should be in this direction. Let's go take a look."

"Let's go!" The others nodded in agreement.