The villagers who learned the news stopped working, immediately returned to the village, and began spreading it.
For a time, cries of "Is that really true?" rang throughout the village. Once the news was confirmed, weeping and wailing followed.
Uchiha Takashi exchanged glances with the Uchiha clansmen. After leaving two clansmen to guard the entrance, they formed hand seals, transformed, and swaggered into the village.
Just as they had seen that night, the entire village was utterly dilapidated. Run-down houses stood everywhere, their wooden timbers already moldy yet still unreplaced.
The wooden doors were battered, as though they had been kicked countless times, and the stone-paved paths were covered in moss that no one had cleaned away.
Seeing this group swagger into the village, the nearby villagers fearfully hid inside their homes.
"Hey! What are you lot doing here?" a voice called out, stopping them.
Uchiha Takashi looked toward the voice and saw a burly man approaching with several scrawny, monkey-like men in tow.
"Who are you people? Haven't seen you in the village before. New here?" The burly man folded his arms across his chest, speaking with the air of a thug.
When had the Uchiha Clan ever encountered anyone more arrogant than themselves? Their anger flared immediately, and a clansman with futatsudomoe stepped forward. "What do you want?"
The burly man looked them over. After confirming that they had fewer people than he did, he sneered twice and said, "What do I want? Don't you know all newcomers have to pay me protection money?"
The futatsudomoe clansman laughed in anger. "Protection money? I-I call that outright robbery!"
"What? Don't want to pay? Then you want to find out how hard my fists are?" As he spoke, the burly man rolled up his sleeves and flexed his muscles.
The futatsudomoe clansman watched rather speechlessly as the burly man flexed his muscles in an attempt to intimidate him.
Seeing that this Uchiha clansman was not frightened, the burly man immediately felt he had lost face. He waved his hand. "Beat him up! Make them hand over their money!"
The lackeys behind him charged without another word. The futatsudomoe clansman wasted no words either. Drawing a kunai from somewhere, he used the Body Flicker Technique several times and instantly killed every lackey who had charged at him.
Seeing all his lackeys killed in an instant, the burly man wet himself in terror. Pointing at the Uchiha clansmen, he said, "You... you've murdered people! I'm going to tell... the village chief!"
Another Uchiha clansman approached and looked down at the burly man, the three tomoe of his Sharingan slowly revolving in his eyes.
At the sight of those scarlet eyes, the burly man froze at once and forced a few words from his throat. "You're... Uchi... ha..."
Before he could finish the last syllable, the mitsudomoe clansman slit his throat without hesitation.
Naturally, such a bloody scene drew the attention of the other villagers. Several immediately screamed, "Murder! Murder!"
The mitsudomoe Uchiha clansman turned toward the people screaming, making no attempt to conceal the killing intent in his eyes.
Uchiha Takashi immediately reached out to stop the mitsudomoe clansman. Then he released the Transformation Technique and addressed the villagers.
"From today onward, anyone who breaks the law will, at worst, meet this fate! Later, we of the Uchiha Clan will post the new laws throughout the village!
"At the same time, we'll assign people to explain them to every villager. Don't worry if you can't understand them; someone will explain them to you. If anyone still breaks the law after today, they'll end up like these corpses on the ground.
"We'll also establish a Guard Force to patrol the village. Anyone who attempts to commit crimes or violate the law will be arrested by the Guard Force and brought to justice!
"Of course, you can also seek help from the Guard Force. As long as it falls within the law, the Guard Force will handle it." Just kidding. Even if it falls outside the law, the Guard Force will handle it.
After delivering this speech, Uchiha Takashi looked around. Quite a few villagers had gathered by now, most wearing expressions of fear and reverence.
It seemed the Uchiha Clan had already established its authority among the villagers. Next came consolidating the Uchiha Clan's rule.
"Drag these bodies out and burn them." Uchiha Takashi waved his hand, signaling for two clansmen to step forward and drag the corpses away.
Only once the area was completely clean did Uchiha Takashi continue walking through the village.
After making a circuit of the village, Uchiha Takashi arrived at the village chief's home.
It was the most lavish house in the entire village, as well as the largest and tallest. While everyone else lived in small, single-story houses, this building alone had two stories and occupied an exceptionally large area.
Looking at the luxurious house before him, Uchiha Takashi said to the clansmen beside him, "From now on, this will be our Uchiha Clan's gathering place here.
"The first floor will serve as living quarters, and the second floor will be offices. Once we've built more houses, we'll move out and turn the entire building into offices."
The Uchiha clansmen replied, "Yes, sir!"
With that, Uchiha Takashi headed upstairs. The reason he had designated the first floor as the Uchiha clansmen's resting area was that it had many rooms.
The first floor alone had a full twenty rooms. Each was a small private room, lavishly decorated and no less impressive than those in the clan compound.
Even if each clansman took a room of his own, there would still be three left over.
As for the second floor, perhaps it had always been where the village chief worked, so its furnishings resembled an office: a desk stood on the tatami, and there was nothing else.
Uchiha Takashi walked over to the desk and sat down. He had already turned the house upside down the previous night and found quite a few good things.
To think the village chief's home had concealed ten full sets of samurai armor! Every set was finely crafted, and there were also weapon packs sufficient to equip ten people.
Kunai, shuriken, katana-it had everything, even explosive tags. Had he not known the village chief was a civilian, he would have suspected this was some ninja clan's treasure vault.
"Fū Uchiha!" Uchiha Takashi called toward the door as soon as he sat down.
An Uchiha clansman immediately entered. "Third Elder, what are your orders?"
Uchiha Takashi tapped the desk. "Find a way to compile a list of the village's total population, annual grain output, and everything else it produces, then bring it to me.
"I need to know the exact figures before I can make plans. Otherwise, things will be troublesome."
Fū Uchiha was specifically responsible for this work within the clan, and he handled the compilation of various statistics as well. He was therefore very familiar with such matters, and the assignment matched his expertise.
After receiving his orders, Fū Uchiha nodded, withdrew, and began his work.
And Fū Uchiha truly lived up to his reputation as an elite specializing in this field. Uchiha Takashi had only waited a short while before Fū Uchiha brought him what he wanted.
"This is the information on the entire village. After excluding some false reports and concealed information, the final results are all there," Fū Uchiha added from beside him.
Uchiha Takashi nodded and praised him. "Well done."
Fū Uchiha replied, "For the glory of the Uchiha Clan!"