Ordinary Genin Equipped with Gatling Explosive Tag Guns? How Were They Supposed to Fight This?!

A squad of wandering ninja who had defected from the Leaf Village, heedless of the consequences, accepted a black-market job to assassinate the leader of an Iwagakure merchant caravan.

The autumn wind swept dry sand and dirt through the deathly silent yellow-earth canyon, striking the hard rock walls with piercing whistles.

Several pitch-black figures lay hidden behind a pile of rocks in the grass. Their clothes reeked of sweat ground out by armor that had not been washed in days, mixed with the earthy smell of mud.

Sha Shizi dug hard into his ear with his rough thumb, flicked a small lump of earwax onto a dead leaf, and wore an impatient scowl.

"Keep your heads down. Don't show yourselves. The moment that fat sheep enters the encirclement, rush in and chop off the leader's head."

"Boss, we've been squatting here for three hours and haven't even seen a ghost. Is this intel even reliable?"

The skinny man beside him, who had a scar across his face, shifted his leg, which had gone numb from crouching, and muttered dejectedly.

He spat out the rotten grass root his companion had tossed him, wiped the greasy sweat running down his forehead, and frowned from the sticky discomfort all over his body.

"Those Leaf Village higher-ups are broke out of their minds. They've skimmed so much of our mission pay. If we don't score big this time, we won't even be able to afford a bowl of hot porridge!"

"Thirty million ryo. Damn, if this works out, we won't have to spend the rest of our lives taking those pathetic D-rank sweeping missions from the Leaf Village."

Sha Shizi shot him a vicious glare and lowered his voice, his tone carrying the pride of a former Leaf Village Anbu.

"We're elite ninja from