The village was even more dilapidated than Shinsei had imagined. The dozen or so houses were all thatched, without a single tile on the roof.
The villagers, hiding in their houses, became nervous when they saw a group of people approaching the village from afar.
After seeing Momotaro and Maritaro clearly and observing them for a while, they realized that they were not being coerced. Finally, they rushed out of the house and surrounded the Konoha group.
Momotaro enthusiastically introduced everyone's identities to the villagers. Shinsei had previously told Momotaro to call him Hagoromo. He felt that this town was a bit strange and couldn't reveal his identity.
The villagers invited Shinsei and his group to a fairly large thatched hut and poured them water. Momotaro's wife hurriedly went to cook for them. The four little ones were also hungry and did not refuse the villagers' kindness.
When the food was served, it turned out to be nothing more than ordinary rice porridge and wild vegetables. Momotaro apologized very embarrassedly, "I'm sorry, esteemed ninjas, the village is too poor! We really have nothing good to offer you."
Konohamaru stood up, went to the kitchen, and lifted the lid of the large jar, finding only a thin layer of rice stuck to the bottom. Hanabi handed her portion of porridge to the little girl and asked, "Don't you have anything left to eat?"
Tears streamed from Momotaro's wife's cloudy eyes.
"Master Ninja, if there wasn't absolutely no other way, why would my Momotaro go to Konoha to seek your help?"
We've already sold all our remaining food to pay for adults...
Before she could finish speaking, Momotaro hurriedly interrupted:
"We've made a fool of ourselves in front of the ninjas. We still have some rations left. If we can just hold out for a while, the crops in the fields will be ready for harvest."
Shinsei didn't touch the rice porridge in his bowl. He knew that when they passed through the village, the fields around them looked like they had plenty of grain, but there probably wasn't much left for the villagers. Several students also found the food in their bowls hard to swallow and put down their chopsticks.
Seeing this, Shinsei took the initiative to pick up the bowl and drink the rice porridge.
He was Shadow Clone and didn't need to eat these foods, so he used his Chakra to crush the food that entered his body and expel it, saying:
"Eat up. Now that you've eaten the villagers' food, you should help them."
Upon hearing their teacher's words, the four students picked up their bowls and gulped down the rice porridge. Momotaro smiled happily when he saw the ninjas eating.
Konohamaru finished his rice porridge in a few gulps and said to Momotaro, "Our mission this time didn't specify a concrete objective, only that we wanted to help you. So, how do you need our help?"
Momotaro looked troubled. To be honest, he was only forced to listen to his son's words and seek a glimmer of hope in Konoha.
He hadn't expected to actually bring these ninjas back, including the future Hokage of Konoha. But now that the time was right, he didn't know exactly what to do with these ninjas, or rather, he dared not even think about it.
Standing beside his father, Maritaro said to the four young ninjas, "Master Ninja, we just don't want to be bullied anymore, we want to have enough to eat, and we don't want the villagers to disappear for no reason."
Then he began to explain in detail.
The surrounding area, spanning several kilometers, all belongs to Mima.
Most of the harvested grain was handed over to the lord, with only enough left for a meager subsistence. If there was a natural disaster, the amount of grain handed over remained the same, but the remaining grain was insufficient for sustenance, and the lord would not help, telling the villagers to find other ways to survive.
The villagers could only survive by digging for wild vegetables and eating tree leaves. Every now and then, the lord would gather the villagers, who would bring their own provisions, to help him repair his mansion.
The villagers were suffering terribly, but they dared not run away. If they were caught, they would be hanged by the roadside.
The four students were stunned, and Konohamaru blushed deeply. He simply couldn't believe that such a tragic place existed in the Land of Fire.
Shinsei had carried out more than one mission, and he knew that such situations were common in this world.
Hanabi stood up angrily and said, "We'll go find that lord right now and make him renegotiate the treaty with you!"
Shinsei glanced at his foolish disciple discreetly, but said nothing. The little girl was still naive, believing she could reason with these lords.
Even if the lord verbally agrees to renegotiate a reasonable treaty with these villagers, how can he guarantee that these villagers won't be held accountable by the lord after the Konoha ninjas leave?
Or perhaps a bolder lord would simply recruit wandering ninjas to kill off the Konoha's ninjas. There's no shortage of fools in this world; don't overestimate the intelligence of these pampered individuals.
Shinsei did not interfere with his disciples' actions. This mission was intended to let these disciples see the true face of this world, so that when he reformed in the future, he would gain their strong support instead of being misunderstood and outwardly compliant but inwardly defiant.
He focused on cultivating ninjas in Konoha who shared his values, rather than trying to change everything based on his status as Hokage or his superior martial prowess.
Otherwise, how could he guarantee that the replacements wouldn't follow the same path?
After settling the little girl at Momotaro's house, the four students hurriedly Earth Flow the lord's mansion, several kilometers away.
In the magnificent hall, a large, pale-skinned man was eating heartily, his mouth dripping with oil. The butler rushed up to him and said, "Sir, those few young ninjas from Konoha want to see you."
A maid gently wiped the fat man's mouth with silk.
The chubby man frowned and said with displeasure, "Why are you coming to my house again? Can you tell what they're here for?"
The butler looked troubled. "Sir, I don't know what they've come for, but they all look unhappy."
A cold snort came from the fat man's nose. He waved his hand irritably, "Take all this away and let them in." The maids hurriedly cleared away the food from the table and cleaned up after the fat man.
Before long, four teenagers, two boys and two girls, entered the main hall. Moegi looked around at the magnificent hall and could tell that the entire mansion was exquisitely designed and must have cost a lot of time and money.
The chubby man said seriously to the young ninjas:
"I know your Konoha's Hokage assistant, Lord Shinsei, so I'm not exactly an outsider."
"Having come to my territory, is there something you need my help with?"
The four students had already heard from their teacher that their teacher and this chubby guy were not familiar with each other, having only met once at most. At that time, the chubby guy praised their teacher as a rare young genius in Konoha.