About half an hour later, everyone bound for the Land of Rain Battlefield had assembled.
At that moment, a Konoha Jonin stepped forward. Yechen recognized him as Mano Taniguchi, the head examiner for the second round.
He was now their captain and would lead them to the Land of Rain Battlefield.
Mano Taniguchi took his place at the front and cleared his throat twice, signaling for everyone to quiet down.
"Most of you have returned from the Land of Rain Battlefield, while some of you are heading there for the first time. But..." At this point, Mano Taniguchi's tone grew more serious.
"Whichever group you belong to, I expect you to follow your assignments and obey orders in the days ahead. Understood?"
"Understood!" everyone shouted in unison.
Aside from Mano Taniguchi, their only Jonin, the group's strongest fighters were three Special Jōnin. The rest were either Chunin or Genin.
Naturally, no one stepped forward to object when he demanded that they follow his command.
Yet Yechen felt that something was off, as though something had happened without his knowledge.
In fact, quite a lot had happened in Konoha recently.
Over the past half month, teams departing Konoha for the various fronts had been ambushed one after another, suffering devastating losses.
The higher-ups had concealed this, so most people knew nothing about it. Only a handful of Jonin were aware.
Normally, the village should have taken such incidents seriously, either assigning more guards or suspending reinforcements until the threat had been eliminated.
But the war had reached this stage, and Konoha was already short-handed. The front lines could not go without personnel, so they could only send these teams out despite the risks.
That was why Yechen had noticed something wrong with the atmosphere. The Jonin leading them seemed far too