Chapter 109

"I'll wait, Mito-sama," the hostess smiled, seeing the guest off to the door.

"And don't worry, I'll send Ryo a message through the summons, so he'll find out about our daughter very soon and without interception," Uzumaki added before leaving the house. "Maybe that will make him behave more cautiously and hold on until he's sent home."

"We can only hope and pray to the gods," Senju agreed.

***

Sighing, I cracked my neck and stretched my upper body, trying to loosen muscles that had stiffened from long hours of sitting. What can you do, there are no comfortable chairs in the field hospital to spend the night in, and all the beds are occupied after yesterday's return from a deep raid behind enemy lines in the Earth Country.

So, I have to make do with roughly assembled stools, the work of local craftsmen who manage kunai and shuriken. And I can't afford to not stay alert — three of the severely injured barely held on even after surgery, so I have to check on them literally every hour for complications. The shortage of medicines exacerbates everything — old supplies are melting away before our eyes, and new deliveries are rare and in small quantities.

Chakra is important, but the timely application of medicines should not be underestimated. With such blood loss, pills alone won't do, especially when the patient's body is already on the verge of exhaustion by all parameters.

I've pressed the commander constantly upon hearing about the request for a new supply convoy with everything necessary from the main camp, and even then, I'd only get crumbs at best, which we have to economize and use in critical situations. What am I saying — even the bandage kits for herbal compresses have to be brought in from Kusagakure through acquaintances with jounin!

Thankfully, it's only a three-hour trip one way from our location, and they gladly accept seals as barter. Yeah, it's come to this — having to stock up on our own when the village should provide everything. Ikki-san blushed, paled, but didn't object to my frustration with the situation — after all, it's the commander's duty to provide his fighters with everything necessary.

So, I have to sacrifice sleep to ensure that none of the "heavies" who arrived die in my absence. Of course, I could have left Uchiha, but the girl was so exhausted during the day that she literally fell asleep on the go. I didn't have the heart to burden her with watch duty on top of that. So, I had to manage it myself.

In principle, I'm capable of staying awake for three days without any harm to myself; all it takes is some light brain stimulation with medical chakra to avoid yawning every five minutes. But it gives me a chance to think in peace and quiet — soothing the wounded has become a habit, so they don't suffer from pain, get proper rest, and I don't get distracted by every moan.

And what was I thinking about? While I haven't participated as much in the forays from the camp as my teammates from the squad, over time, I've accumulated a decent amount of combat experience both as a lone unit and with the support of several teams on raids into enemy territory. And recently, I've started to feel a sense of wrongness around. However, the reason turned out to be extremely simple and banal — the shinobi and kunoichi surrounding me are overwhelmingly lazy and blockheads!

No, I'm not calling them idiots, because not a few specimens from the majority are quite capable of using their brains, they just don't do it as often or as well as they could. Unlike the Iryō-nin who read a huge number of books and constantly improve themselves not only through experience and training but also through absorbing new knowledge, the average shinobi over their short life might read only a dozen or so books, and those are mostly about combat or different techniques. In other words, the knowledge acquired in the academy remains basic.

Only combat experience is perfected. So it's not surprising that a very large part of chakra users simply don't get used to thinking about something for a sufficient amount of time. Hence the somewhat poor options for tactics, the inclination to engage in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy even in unfavorable battle scenarios, instead of retreating and trying a different approach.

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