To the Capital (3)

After we brought Yoshiro's luggage to his room, we went down to get dinner. The inn was not just a place to stay, it also functioned as a restaurant and tavern for travellers. There were roughly two dozen other travellers who were having their own meals as well. We even spotted a team of Sunagakure shinobi who looked to be escorting their own client.

Asuma exchanged a cordial nod with them before warning us to refrain from approaching any foreign shinobi when out on a mission, even if they were allies. One could never know if we had conflicting mission objectives that would cause either party to disregard that alliance.

I wondered to myself if these Suna shinobi knew of the upcoming plan to invade Konoha during the chuunin exams. Probably not. They were too far down the chain of command to be privy to such sensitive information.

We sat down to take our meal, a humble offering consisting of just plain rice and some side dishes. Contrary to his appearance, Yoshiro did not have extravagant tastes when it came to the food he ate. To him, food taken in private, that is, not in the company of other distinguished figures, was purely for the sake of nutritional sustenance. His clothes, while ostentatious, was worn entirely for the sake of keeping up appearances. It seemed to me that the merchant was not a stranger to hardship nor the inconveniences of poverty.

As Yoshiro lifted up a cup of tea to take a sip, Asuma's eyes suddenly sharpened and without warning his hand flashed forward with the chopsticks he was holding. The ends of the chopstick stopped an inch above the cup of tea Yoshiro was about to drink from.

We were all taken aback by the sudden action of the jounin before I caught sight of a bead of silvery liquid accurately caught by Asuma's chopsticks. I looked at the space above the tea cup to find a thin thread leading up to the ceiling and through a tiny hole made in the wooden boards that was the floor of the second storey.

I then realized that the drop of liquid must have flowed down the thread silently and nondescriptly. If not for Asuma's perceptiveness and quick actions, the liquid, presumably poison or something similarly nefarious, would have entered the tea cup and be drunk by Yoshiro with no one the wiser.

The atmosphere at the dinner table suddenly turned tense as Asuma eyed the hole from which the thread had emerged. "Hinata." He quietly instructed while motioning for Shino and me to assume defensive formations around the client.

Yoshiro was confused beyond measure and was about to ask what was going on before Asuma gestured for him to stay silent and keep his head down.

"Two men, dressed in black, exiting the eastern window. One of them is holding a small vial." Hinata promptly reported with her Byakugan active.

Asuma turned to us, momentarily contemplating the next course of action, looking throughout the room at the rest of the occupants before his eyes landed on me. "I am giving chase. Shinji, you're in charge. Escort Yoshiro to his room and stay there until I return. Do not, for any purposes, leave the client alone."

Not bothering to wait for a response, Asuma dashed out of the inn in pursuit of the assassins.

Had I not been through multiple life and battles through dungeon boss fights, or had I not possessed [Gamer's Mind], I might have been frozen with indecision at the sudden turn of events. But I was able to remain coolheaded enough to call out orders.

"Hinata, continue surveillance. Shino, defensive perimeter. Yoshiro-san, please come with us. Quickly." I moved to lift the client from his seat, who still couldn't figure out what was happening.

My eyes flickered to the Sunagakure shinobi, the group I recognized to be the biggest threat in the room. But they appeared indifferent, seemingly not even having noticed what just happened. To make sure of their innocence, I casted [Observe] on the group, and saw nothing out of place. They were a group of three veteran genin and two chuunin but none of them appeared a match for me.

Seeing that there were no obvious immediate threats in our vicinity, Team Ten quickly escorted Yoshiro up the stairs and to his room.

Once the client was in his room, Shino posted a swarm of kikaichu on all possible points of entry, namely the door and the window, while Hinata maintained concentration on scanning the surroundings with her doujutsu. I remained next to the client who I had crouching in one corner of the room.

I focused my senses and tensed my body, ready to act at any moment.

"What in the world is going on!?" Yoshiro demanded, slowly losing patience for our behavior. I thought that a merchant as experienced as he would have recognized the danger he was in, but I guess not.

"We think that there might have been an attempt at your life, Yoshiro-san. Asuma-sensei has gone off in pursuit of the assassins. Don't worry, we will keep you safe." I answered quietly, my eyes never moving away from the window which was the most likely point of attack for any would-be assailants.

"A-Assassins? Why would there be someone after my life!?" The merchant questioned, but it was not a question I had an answer to. I glanced at him, searching his face to see if he was acting. I suspected that this might be a situation similar to the Wave mission, wherein Tazuna had lied about the mission difficulty so that he had to pay less. Such a motive would track with the merchant's stingy personality.

But I could not detect any deception in his expressions. Either Yoshiro was a world-class actor, or he genuinely had no idea who or why someone would be seeking his death.

"I don't know. For now we will need you to remain calm while we figure things out. Asuma-sensei will soon be back, and hopefully he will have some answers for us." I replied, turning my gaze back to the window.

At that moment, Hinata suddenly spoke up, "Four armed men approaching, dressed in black. Two are going for the door and two scaling up the wall for the window."

I furrowed my brows. "Shinobi?"

"…I don't think so. They are scaling the walls with shinobi shuko (metal claws), but their chakra reserves are paltry."

"Okay. Hinata, Shino, you two take the ones coming up the window. I will handle the other two."

"Understood." The two of them acknowledged before Hinata settled into the traditional Gentle Fist stance while a swarm of kikaichuu emerged from under Shino's clothes and flew out the window. Hinata.

I readied myself infront of the door, my eyes closed but ears focused, listening intently for any movement in the corridor. A pair of muffled footsteps approached the room - I could distinguish the faint sound of their shoes wrapped in cloth to minimize unnecessary noise.

The moment they reached the door, my eyes flashed open, and chakra surged through my arm and fingers. Forming a spearhand, I thrusted my arm through the door and directly into the chest cavity of the assailant, my fingers reinforced with chakra and [Shinkyoken] puncturing and destroying his heart. A muffled scream from the victim did little to hide their demise. It was a near instant death.

I withdrew my arm and blasted the door off its hinges with a strong kick. I heard an exclamation in surprise coming from Yoshiro behind me, but I ignored it. The door had flown forward, slamming my first victim against the wall before both the door and the assassin fell to the ground. I stepped out of the room, my eyes finding purchase on who was to be my second victim looking wide-eyed at his fallen compatriot.

Now that I had a good look at the assassins, I could see that they were dressed in black clothes and similarly masked with a black scarf. Honestly, they looked like the stereotypical version of what a ninja actually would actually look like in my previous life.

An instinctual [Observe] brought up his information for me. He was only level 17, with a max CP well below the average of any shinobi of the same level. A threat to an untrained merchant, but to me he was less threatening than one of the zombie minions I faced in the rank E dungeon.

The assassin thrusted a dagger at me, but in my eyes his movement was so slow I didn't even need to even utilize [Chakra Enhancement] to strengthen my physical capability.

My arm flew forward, sliding against his extended arm. Though the assailant admirably attempted to fend me off, it was an exercise in futility since I moved faster than the man could even react and stuck out a thumb that pierced in to his shoulder. My thumb, coated in chakra and strengthened from [Shinkyoken], crushed one of his acupoints and disabled any further use of his right arm.

With my other arm, I grabbed his one remaining good arm and twisted it behind him. I kicked the back of his legs and forced him to his knees before knocking him out with a solid chop to the back of his neck. After confirming that he was under the [Unconscious] debuff in his status page, I returned to the room to see Yoshiro still cowering at the corner of the room while Shino and Hinata had already neutralized the threats.

One of them was unconscious on the ground while the other was on his knees, his arms above him in a show of surrender and a kunai poised at his throat courtesy of Shino.

In just a span of five seconds, we had neutralized four assailants. It wasn't exactly the epitome of efficiency and competency, but for a team of greenhorn genin, it was pretty impressive.

My teammates turned to me, glad to see that I was unharmed and dragging two unmoving bodies behind me into the room though their eyes immediately moved to my blood soaked hand.

"S-Shinji-kun! Your hand!" Hinata exclaimed, moving towards me with worry.

I released the two bodies which slumped to the ground before waving her off, "I'm fine, it's not my blood."

"O-oh, I'm glad. Right, of course Shinji-kun wouldn't have any trouble with these lowlifes." Her words had a more biting tone that I expected from the usually gentle girl, but I shrugged it off.

Now that the fight was over, I had time to notice the system notifications that had appeared during the commotion.

[+854 EXP]

Huh, I had always assumed that only creatures from dungeons gave EXP, but I guess all beings would give EXP. Defeating enemies did nothing, I had to actually take their life for there to be EXP rewarded.

Right… I killed a person. Oddly enough however, I couldn't care much about it. I wasn't sure if it was [Gamer's Mind] suppressing a mental breakdown or if I was just desensitized from killing so many already in dungeons, but the act of killing didn't affect me much.

I knew what needed to be done, and even if I disliked it, it was a life I had chosen. One didn't need to love killing, one just had to love the people they were killing for.

The second and third system notification were slightly more surprising.

[Congratulations! You have killed your first human!]

You have received the title [Murderer]!

[Murderer]: +10% damage dealt to humans.

I didn't really know what to feel about the title I received. On one hand, the effect of the title was pretty good. Since I was mostly going to fight other humans in this world, the ten percent extra damage would apply to most of my enemies. But receiving the label of murderer when I had killed in self-defence was slightly unnerving.

[Through the effects of [Lifesaver], you have earned +1 Point.]

I had nearly forgotten that I had the [Lifesaver] perk that gave me a free stat point every time I saved a life. Turns out, within the safe walls of Konoha, there were hardly any opportunities to save a person's life. I didn't trigger its effects even once ever since I received the perk, but it seemed that the system had judged that I had saved Yoshiro's life, thus it rewarded me with the free stat point.

It was arguable that even without me being present, Hinata and Shino would have been more than enough to neutralize the threat to Yoshiro's life. Unless… had I not been on this team, might another team have taken the mission instead and without an elite Jounin like Asuma present would they have missed the initial droplet of poison? So through the laws of causality was it a direct consequence of my existence that Yoshiro's life was saved?

Nope. I'm not going to dive head first into this rabbit hole. I saved a life, the system granted me a free stat point. That was all I need to know. As the saying goes, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Nothing would come of me over analysing how the system worked. If the system generously rewarded me with something, then I'll just gratefully accept the gift and say thank you.

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the captured assailant move his hands slightly but stopped when he felt the sting of the kunai against his throat press deeper into his skin.

"Stop." Shino apathetically mentioned.

I went forward and unmasked the man before widening my eyes at the sight of a capsule between his teeth. He smiled and bit down on the pill, its contents immediately flowing down his gullet. "Too late, shinobi." He choked out.

I was slightly shocked at the complete lack of self-preservation instincts in the assassin. It reminded me of Danzo's ROOT agents, except it couldn't have been the old war hawk. He wasn't the type to send well-trained but chakra-less operatives to do a job his own shinobi could. It'd be pointless.

Smirking, my hand moved to his throat and green medical chakra flowed into his gullet, "Did you think it was going to be that easy?".

"Wh-what are you-?"

The poison in the capsule was only just consumed, it had yet to reach his stomach to be dissolved and distributed to his bloodstream. That meant that I still could easily remove the toxins with medical ninjutsu.

I traced my hand up his throat, to his jaw and pulled out the captured poison trapped in my medical ninjutsu chakra. It was the same silvery substance they had tried to lace Yoshiro's tea with. Most likely a fast-acting, fatal poison designed to achieve a quick death through suicide. Because the alternative, as in interrogation and torture, was much more unbearable than a quick death.

Upon seeing the futility of his suicide attempt, the assassin went crazy and tried dashing towards Yoshiro, in a last ditch effort to complete his mission. He didn't make it half a step before my hand reached out and gripped his face before slamming his head into the ground and knocking him unconscious.

"Shino, Hinata, check their bodies for any more of those suicide pills or other hidden weapons."

As they rummaged through the clothing of the unconscious assailants, Asuma landed on the window sill of the inn's room carrying two more of those assassins over his shoulder.

He saw the results of our short battle and smiled with palpable pride then turned to our client, "Yoshiro, we need to talk."