The first reaction of the bandits upon suddenly seeing someone emerge was to go on alert.
But what appeared before them was a frail-looking woman and a small attendant.
Although the frail woman was taller than they were, they did not spare it much thought.
To them, these two women were spoils of war.
At the sight of the woman's beauty, this group of mountain bandits who only thought with their lower halves instantly lost the ability to walk, directly abducting the two of them and taking them back to their camp.
Inside the bandit camp.
At that moment, several bandit leaders were holding a meeting inside a thatched hut.
"So where did Third Brother run off to? You still haven't found him?"
Sitting at the head of the room, a one-eyed man with one blind eye issued orders to those below.
At this moment, a dark-skinned ninja seated nearby spoke up.
"People already went out to look for him. He probably went down to one of the villages nearby to have some fun again, didn't he?"
As he spoke, the ninja's tone was exceedingly hostile, and he swept his contemptuous gaze over the other bandits.
In this ninja-dominated society, they truly looked down on everyone who was not a ninja.
This gave the ninja an extremely high status among them.
Seeing the situation, the leader spoke.
"Forget it. We won't wait for him. It makes no difference whether he's here or not."
Upon hearing their leader say that, the quiet discussions below ceased. After all, they had to give their boss some face.
"Since entering the Land of Fire, we've obtained plenty of food and a favorable environment that we could never have had before."
"But what we're doing may very well draw a purge from Konoha's ninja, so