The next day.
Eight in the morning.
Yechen arrived near the Hokage Building on time.
"Yechen, over here..." Before he even drew close, he heard Abe Rō calling out and waving to him.
Ito Miyuki stood to one side with her arms crossed. As Yechen approached, she remarked,
"You're always the last one here."
Yechen shrugged it off.
"Getting here early doesn't mean anything. When has Teacher Nakagawa ever shown up less than half an hour late? With that much time, I'd rather train for another hour or so at home. Besides, I'm not late, am I?"
"Yechen, you train in the morning too? I train for an hour every day after I get up," Abe Rō said with a smile.
Beside them, Ito Miyuki began muttering to herself. He was already so strong, yet he was still this disciplined. She would have to increase her daily training from one hour to two.
They hadn't gained their current strength by playing around. It had taken grueling training day and night. Laziness would never make anyone strong.
Yechen rubbed his nose, feeling awkward. He always woke up after seven, so when would he have time to train? He had only been making an excuse, but they had actually believed him.
Sure enough, at half past eight, Nakagawa Ichirō appeared before the three of them.
"Teacher Nakagawa, you're always doing this. Why don't we just change the meeting time to eight thirty next time? You're cutting into my training time," Abe Rō complained bluntly, as oblivious as ever.
Nakagawa Ichirō gave an awkward smile.
"Sorry, I was helping an old lady cross the road, so I was late."
All three nearly keeled over. It was the same excuse every time. Couldn't he make up a different one?
"All right..." Nakagawa clapped his hands.
"Everyone's here. Let's go in and pick up a mission."
Entering the hall, the four approached a ring of wooden counters. Several Chunin, both men and women, sat behind them. They were the staff responsible for reviewing and issuing missions.
On the way, Abe Rō started complaining again.
"Teacher Nakagawa, we're not taking another mission to pick up trash, babysit, or pull weeds today, are we? I'm sick of them. Please, give us something harder."
"All right..." Nakagawa Ichirō nodded. "As you wish. We'll take a C-rank mission today."
"Great!" Abe Rō jumped for joy, thinking that he would finally be free of babysitting little brats.
The experience had already left him scarred. Looking after children really wasn't easy.
Take last time, for example. They had sung and danced to keep the little brats entertained, leaving all three of them utterly exhausted.
C-rank missions were different. D-rank missions generally didn't involve combat and were mainly meant to give rookie Genin some practice.
Once a mission reached C-rank, it involved combat. Though they wouldn't be fighting ninja, there was a fair chance they would encounter vicious criminals such as mountain bandits, brigands, or robbers.
That meant things wouldn't be quite so easy.
Of course, that was exactly what the three of them had been hoping for. Eight mundane missions in half a month would make anyone sick.
Yechen was no exception. He also wanted to hone his skills in a real fight, and there was no better practice than dealing with villains who preyed on civilians.
At the same time, another thought struck Yechen. Under the usual rules, they had to complete fifteen D-rank missions before taking a C-rank one. Nakagawa Ichirō was making an exception now, which meant their batch of Genin would soon be heading to the battlefield.
"Great, we finally get to leave the village!" Abe Rō hadn't grasped the implications yet, and even if he had, he probably wouldn't have cared.
Yechen and Ito Miyuki followed quietly behind. She had probably figured it out too.
At the counter.
Nakagawa Ichirō spoke with a staff member for a while, then soon returned with a scroll marked as a bandit extermination mission.
Details: A band of roughly a hundred mountain bandits has entrenched itself on Aconite Mountain, severely disrupting travel along the mountain road. They must be eliminated as soon as possible. Rank: C Requirement: Kill all the mountain bandits. Reward: 50,000 silver coins.
Seeing the mission further confirmed Yechen's suspicion. A combat mission, and a bandit extermination at that-they wanted the three of them to get used to killing as quickly as possible.
After reading the mission, even the lively Abe Rō fell silent. There were over a hundred bandits, and the mission required them all to be exterminated. In other words, the three of them were being told to slaughter more than a hundred people.
It wasn't just Abe Rō. Even the proud and ambitious Ito Miyuki's expression changed.
Ultimately, they were still only children around ten years old.
Even if they had the ability to kill, they still hesitated at the thought of actually taking a life.
Not just them-even Yechen was worried. As a transmigrator, he was more mature than they were, but after learning the details of the mission, he couldn't remain calm either.
But this was a path they had to take, a hurdle they had to overcome. Besides, their targets were bandits who committed every kind of evil. Killing them would rid the people of a scourge.
For now, Yechen could only comfort himself with that reasoning.
Seeing the three of them standing in silence, Nakagawa Ichirō spoke.
"We've already accepted the mission, so we can't abandon it. You'll have to take this step sooner or later. Go home and rest today. Meet at the village entrance at nine tomorrow morning. I hope none of you will be late."
Before leaving, Nakagawa Ichirō offered one final remark.
"If you want to become true ninja, killing is unavoidable. What we must do is learn to accept it. Only by enduring what others cannot endure and shouldering responsibilities others dare not take can you become qualified ninja."
With that, he used the Body Flicker Technique and left the mission hall.