Watch the Red Dots, Stab at Them

"Raimon, work with me. Naruto, act alone and adapt to the situation..." Izuno Akigiku assigned their tasks.

After two months together, the three had gained a basic understanding of one another. Izuno Akigiku had only become the temporary leader out of necessity.

Naruto was undoubtedly the strongest of the three, but his communication skills clearly made him unsuitable for leadership.

Raimon Koshireki had enough brains for it, but his basic combat strength was too weak. Problems could easily arise during an intense battle.

So, they could only pick the best of a bad lot. Izuno Akigiku stepped forward, which happened to align with her aspirations.

Naruto nodded. He had voluntarily given up the position of leader.

He knew his own limits. He had fought alone his entire life, and certain habits had long taken root. Making him the leader would only harm the other two.

The two-month leveling phase had finally passed.

Starting with this mission, they would officially take on real ninja assignments.

When training newcomers, starting easy and progressing to harder tasks was the obvious choice.

The first C-rank Mission for newcomers like them was generally quite simple, such as their current mission to eliminate bandits.

Even if ordinary people were bandits who had seen blood, a ninja with chakra could still easily deal with them one-on-one.

The only issue was that youngsters who had never experienced real combat found it difficult to consistently perform at their full strength.

Ninjas were, obviously, a class with high offense and low defense.

Other than extreme specimens like Kakuzu and Hidan, whether one was a jonin or a genin, getting stabbed in a vital spot with a sharp weapon still meant death.

Even an ordinary person holding one could easily kill you.

"Gulp..." Raimon Koshireki swallowed. Anyone who claimed not to be nervous would be lying.

On a tree trunk not far away, Hayate Gekko quietly watched the three of them. Fledglings would eventually spread their wings and fly. He was merely their guide; how far they could go would be their own choice.

Even if someone wanted to give up now, he would not say anything. It was their own choice.

But once they chose to give up, the rest of their lives might have nothing to do with being a ninja.

He was not worried about Naruto Uzumaki. Izuno Akigiku might have been a little weaker, but she was still a child of a Ninja Clan and had surely prepared herself long ago.

The only one he needed to worry about was little Raimon Koshireki.

The boy's parents had also been ninjas, but they had died early in the Third Shinobi World War. Without a family to teach and guide him, this step would be much harder for him to take.

"Move!" Izuno Akigiku took a deep breath and shouted softly.

Naruto gave the other two one last look, then vanished from where he stood.

Stealth and assassination, especially assassinating fodder like this, were familiar territory for him. There was no difficulty at all.

He carefully avoided sentries and traps, then drove Kusabimaru into one red dot after another, carrying out assassination after assassination.

If Shuriken served at most as a distraction in battles between ninjas,

then for these bandits, Shuriken and kunai fired from blind spots were no less than the reaper's scythe.

After dealing with the planned hidden and visible sentries, Naruto carefully made his way behind the other two.

Izuno Akigiku came from the Izuno Clan. Though it was one of Konoha's smallest Ninja Clans, it possessed its own unique ninjutsu—the Cat Transformation Technique and the Cat Demon Summoning Technique.

Its style was somewhat similar to that of the Inuzuka Clan, but the Izuno Clan did not raise Ninja Beasts. Instead, they transformed themselves into cat demons for battle.

Raimon Koshireki, on the other hand, was the complete embodiment of a civilian ninja.

The three basic ninja techniques and Electrification, a Lightning Release ninjutsu left behind by his father, were all the ninjutsu he currently knew.

The bandits' hideout was not large, with only around twenty people.

Subtracting those Naruto had already dealt with, there should have been about ten left. As long as the two performed steadily, there should not have been any problems.

Five minutes later, the last bandit fell beneath Izuno Akigiku's cat claws.

The battle had gone very smoothly. Aside from Raimon Koshireki making one mistake that woke the remaining bandits,

the two had completed this C-rank Mission fairly well.

Generally speaking, this was also how most ninja teams' first C-rank Missions ended.

Mistakes from newcomers were unavoidable, but the overwhelming difference in combat strength ensured that the outcome would not deviate too far.

But the world was unpredictable. It was not unheard of for a first C-rank Mission to fail, such as if a Wandering Ninja suddenly appeared among the bandits.

Setting Naruto aside for the moment, given the two's current condition, they would most likely fail.

Still, such things were low-probability events and could be ignored entirely.

Ninjas might seem to be everywhere in Konoha, but this was Konoha. Some countries could not even afford to establish a ninja village, which showed just how costly it was to train ninjas.

"Clean up the scene." Hayate Gekko appeared beside him in a Body Flicker and spoke.

While cleaning up the scene, the three carefully checked it again to make sure no one had escaped.

After Hayate Gekko gave a brief summary, the group set out on the road back to the village.

Generally speaking, D-rank Missions paid little, but they also took relatively little time—one day at the shortest, and no more than two or three days at the longest.

C-rank Missions were more troublesome. Taking ten days to half a month was common, and even one or two months was not unheard of. This time, they had merely eliminated an ordinary bandit group, yet it had taken twelve days—two days traveling, around ten days scouting, and less than half an hour actually fighting.

But that was unavoidable.

Without detailed intelligence on the enemy, acting rashly—especially in a situation where they were outnumbered—could easily lead to trouble.

After all, who could guarantee that there really would not be a Wandering Ninja among those bandits?

As for how much time B-rank, A-rank, and even the highest S-rank Missions would take, that was still unknown.

As the saying went, the greater the risk, the greater the reward.

Ninjas were professionals who traded their lives for income. Without correspondingly high pay, not many people would be willing to become ninjas.

The payment from this single C-rank Mission had already caught up to an entire year of his relief allowance. That did not even include the extra money they had made from the bandits. Bandits might not be rich, but even a mosquito's leg was still meat.

But it also indirectly illustrated something: relief allowance was just relief allowance, money meant only to keep you from starving to death.

Once the belly was full, lustful thoughts arose.

The saying was crude, but the logic was sound.

There had been many things he had not dared to consider before. Now that he had a relatively stable source of income, he could think about more things.

Why did he rarely use Shuriken and kunai?

Was it because he considered himself powerful?

Bullshit!

One word—poor!

Shuriken and kunai were not cheap.

Not to mention the more powerful Explosive Tags. He had not even touched one yet.

Only with better equipment could he handle more problems.

Maintaining a blade was another expense. It might only cost one or two days' worth of food each time, but this was not something that could be solved by maintaining it once or twice.

From a long-term perspective, it was also a major money sink.