bookbashuk Chapter 3 Explosions and Rout
Chapter 3 Explosions and Rout
In the rainy night, there were no streetlights in Chiyan Town.
Only the occasional flash of lightning could illuminate the uneven rooftops.
Sosuke ran through the alley.
He wasn't running very fast.
The mud on the ground was slippery.
And he was holding a bag of precious brown rice in his arms.
This is his fate for the next few days.
The dying ninja's warning echoed in his mind.
"The demolition squad from Iwagakure will raze this place to the ground tomorrow."
tomorrow.
This word is vague.
Is it midnight? Early morning? Or noon?
Sosuke dared not gamble.
In the ninja's war logic, night raids were the norm.
He must leave the city immediately.
But how do we get it?
A curfew has been imposed in Chiyan Town.
The city gates were closed at sunset and guarded by soldiers.
Circumventing the Great Firewall?
That's courting death.
There were patrol teams on the wall, and the wall was slippery and ten meters high.
Sosuke stopped at an intersection.
He hid behind an abandoned manger, panting heavily.
The cold air stung my lungs.
He needs to calm down.
If you try to force your way through, you will surely be stabbed to death by the guards.
If you stay in the city, you'll be bombed.
He needs to create the right opportunity.
Sosuke looked at the other end of the street.
There was a tavern there, its lights still on, from which the faint sounds of drinking games and cursing could be heard.
That was a place where wandering samurai and local thugs gathered.
Sosuke squinted.
He took something out of his pocket.
It's not silver.
It was that piece of salted meat, bought from Tanaka Trading Company, covered in a thick layer of salt.
He scraped the salt off the salted meat and carefully wrapped it in a dry leaf.
Then, he produced another piece of gold.
Only the size of a fingernail.
He found a sharp stone on the ground and scratched the gold, leaving it covered in marks.
He threw the "broken piece of gold" into the mud puddle at the entrance of the tavern, leaving only a corner sticking out, reflecting a tempting yellow hue under the dim light.
Then he hid back in the darkness.
wait.
A minute later, a burly man, drunk and slurring his drink, pushed open the door and came out to urinate.
He unbuckled his belt and relieved himself against the corner of the wall.
Just as he was shaking himself and preparing to go back into the house, he caught a glimpse of a mud puddle out of the corner of his eye.
That is humanity's most primal sensitivity to precious metals.
The burly man was stunned for a moment.
He crouched down and reached out to pick at it.
It feels heavy in your hand.
Although it was dirty and covered in scratches, its firm, dense texture was undeniable.
"gold……"
The burly man sobered up a bit.
He instinctively wanted to hide the gold in his pocket.
But just then, Sosuke threw a stone out of the darkness.
The stone hit the wooden door behind the burly man.
"Who?!"
The people inside were alerted.
Two companions came out.
"What's wrong, third brother?"
They saw what the third brother was clutching tightly in his hand, and the glaring golden yellow that was showing through.
Greed is the best fuel for fire.
"Is that gold?"
"Third brother, everyone who sees this gets a share!"
"Get lost! I picked it up!"
The argument erupted instantly, followed by shoving and then the drawing of knives.
For these wandering samurai who risked their lives, a single piece of gold was enough to make them turn on each other.
Chaos began.
The sounds of fighting attracted the patrol team.
The guards rushed over, carrying torches.
"What are you doing! Fighting during curfew!"
The captain of the guard had a violent temper and immediately started hitting people with the barrel of his gun.
The bloodthirsty warriors paid no heed to the guards; the gold was kicked around in the mud, each change of hands accompanied by bloodshed.
"That's mine!"
More people were woken up, and more windows were opened.
While the guards were distracted, Sosuke crouched down and moved along the wall to the other side of the city gate.
The number of guards at the city gate has been reduced by half.
The remaining two guards craned their necks to watch the spectacle.
Sosuke did not rush straight at them.
He is waiting.
He needs a better opportunity.
Just then, the sky brightened.
It wasn't lightning.
A beam of white light descended from the sky, piercing the rain like a shooting star.
Sosuke's pupils contracted violently.
The ninja lied to him.
Or rather, that ninja's concept of time was different from that of ordinary people.
When he said "tomorrow," he probably meant the time after midnight.
Now is "tomorrow".
The white light landed on the lord's mansion in the center of the town.
No sound.
For the first second, the world seemed to stand still.
Then, a huge, fiery red lotus bloomed in the rainy night.
boom--!!!
The shockwave, mixed with debris and rainwater, pushed in like a wall.
The ground was shaking.
Sosuke felt as if he had been slammed against a wall by an invisible hand.
My ears are filled with a sharp tinnitus sound.
explosion.
This is the method of ninjas.
No nonsense, no declaration of war, just pure destruction.
Chiyan Town is in chaos.
Things are really in chaos.
Screams, cries, and the roar of collapsing buildings instantly drowned out everything.
People rushed out of the house like headless flies, without even having time to put on their clothes.
"Enemy attack!"
"The Iwa ninja are here!"
The guards at the city gate had long since stopped guarding; they were human too, and they were afraid of dying.
Someone threw down their spear and ran away.
The gate was forced open by the panicked crowd.
Sosuke mingled in the crowd.
He was jostled and pushed around, but he held tightly to the bag of rice in his arms.
That bag of rice was even more important than his ribs.
He spotted the one-eyed man in the crowd.
The one-eyed man, missing a shoe, was dragging the little girl along as he desperately tried to squeeze his way out.
The little girl was crying, her face covered in mud.
The other two companions are missing; they were probably separated in the chaos or trampled to death.
Sosuke did not go to say hello.
He lowered his head and covered his face with a tattered cloth, trying to minimize his presence.
Beyond the city gates lies the wilderness.
The crowd scattered and fled.
Some people ran up the mountain, while others went into the woods.
Several more streaks of white light fell from the sky.
This time it's detonating clay.
This is the signature ninjutsu of the Iwagakure (Hidden Stone Village) demolition squad.
Each explosion takes away dozens of lives.
Sosuke did not run up the mountain.
Although there is cover on the mountain, it is also an easy target for ninjas—because it is a high vantage point.
He did the opposite.
He jumped into a roadside ditch.
The ditch was full of stinking water, up to knee-deep.
But he doesn't care.
He ran along the ditch toward the low-lying riverbank.
The area is open and free of buildings, so ninjas usually don't waste their precious chakra on open ground.
He ran wildly through the ditch for half an hour.
Until the flames behind them shrank to the size of a fingernail, until the explosion turned into a low rumble like thunder.
He climbed onto the riverbank.
This is a rocky wasteland.
The rain was still falling, washing away the mud and dirt from his body, and also taking away his body heat.
Sosuke found a crevice in the rock and crawled inside.
It was so narrow that you could only curl up.
But he is safe.
He placed the rice bag at the very back and used his body to block the wind.
With trembling hands, he pulled the scroll from his pocket.
The scroll that the dying ninja gave him.
By the occasional flash of lightning, he could make out the words on the scroll.
It was stained with blood.
"Basic Chakra Extraction Method - Modified".
The handwriting is very messy; it's not a printed copy, but a handwritten one.
Sosuke didn't rush to open it.
He first checked the surroundings.
nobody.
Only the sound of rain.
He took a deep breath to calm his wildly beating heart.
Tonight, he witnessed the real ninja war.
Life is as insignificant as grass.
Even a town like Red Rock Town, with its walls and guards, was as fragile as a paper toy in the face of the ninja's demolition squad.
Neither the "one-eyed" man nor the shrewd boss Tanaka could fight back against absolute power.
Only power.
Only chakra is the passport to this world.
Besides, even if he could create mountains of gold and silver, he would still be a fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered.
Sosuke slowly unrolled the scroll.
The first line of text stunned him.
"Chakra is the combination of physical energy and spiritual energy."
He had heard this sentence countless times in the original story in his previous life.
But the next sentence was one he had never heard before.
"Refining chakra is like squeezing out cells. Every refinement is a drain on life. Commoners without bloodline limits must be extremely cautious."
Overdrawing one's life.
Sosuke's fingers rubbed against the rough paper surface.
This is a cultivation method for ordinary people.
The ninjas of the Great Ninja Village receive nutritional supplements, medicinal baths, and medical treatment from a young age, which allows them to refine their ninjas without restraint.
Ordinary people eat brown rice and drink dirty water. If they are forced to refine it, the result will be premature aging or even sudden death.
"No wonder..."
Sousuke remembered the appearance of that dying ninja.
His complexion was sallow, and his eyes were sunken. He looked like he was fifty, even though he was only about thirty years old.
This is the price to pay.
Sosuke took a grain of raw rice from his pocket, put it in his mouth, and chewed it slowly.
The rice grains were hard and had a dusty smell.
But he chewed it very carefully, until it was a paste, before swallowing it.
He has unlimited gold and silver.
This means he has unlimited potential for wealth.
As long as he can survive, and as long as he can find a way, he can buy the best food and the best medicine to make up for this loss.
This is his bottom line.
Sosuke closed his eyes.
According to the records on the scroll, I began to try to sense the so-called "body energy".
The rainy night was cold.
In a crevice of the rocks, a young wanderer is taking his first step on the path to becoming a ninja.