Chapter 14
Chapter 14
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 1
Chapter Title: Eastern Coastal City of the Land of Fire
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Eastern coastal city of the Land of Fire.
In this world, Menma had left the village for the first time. He had changed into a simple outfit and was strolling along the port docks of the city.
"Sir! Looking for a worker? I can do anything!"
On the streets near the docks, some unemployed civilians were desperately seeking jobs.
Most of them were in ragged clothes, gaunt and malnourished. When they looked at passersby by the port—especially those in fine attire—their eyes were filled with fear and longing.
Menma had seen far too many ordinary folk displaced by war on his journey from the Hidden Leaf Village.
The war between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning was now in its final stages. The two nations' ninja forces were facing off within the borders of the Land of the Moon and the Land of Hot Water. Though there were occasional small-scale clashes, both sides had remained relatively restrained.
With the Hidden Cloud Village having sent a special envoy to the Hidden Leaf for "peace talks," the war was on the verge of ending. Coastal cities in the Land of Fire were gradually regaining their pre-war prosperity, with merchant ships coming and going—including quite a few from the Land of Lightning.
The shinobi world was far from peaceful.
Beyond the wars between great nations, bandits roamed freely. The shinobi world's level of civilization was still stuck in the feudal era, structured rigidly around "daimyo, nobles, merchants, ninja, and civilians."
Yes, even though ninja possessed combat prowess far beyond that of ordinary people, their social status was roughly on par with merchants. Most of the time, they were even hired by merchants to earn rewards.
Ninja, who specialized in combat and killing, held a status only slightly above civilians.
Of course, some rogue ninja or wandering ninja would kill merchants and seize their goods by force.
This usually happened to small merchants. Big merchants typically had noble backing, and ordinary ninja couldn't afford to cross them.
After all, if a noble was killed by a ninja, it would alarm the nation's highest ruler—the daimyo—and the entire noble class might pool resources for a bounty on that ninja.
To maintain the nobles' rule.
This bizarre social structure had persisted for nearly a millennium.
During his time in the "Tsukuyomi of Limited Duration World," Menma had studied this structure in his spare moments between training, finding it utterly baffling.
Though much in the "Tsukuyomi of Limited Duration World" was the opposite of reality, the social structure remained unchanged. Ninja wielded supernatural power but rarely meddled in national governance.
A delicate symbiotic relationship existed between national governments and ninja: ninja had no desire to seize state power, and the states had no intention of supplanting ninja clans or villages.
Menma stepped into a small seaside diner.
"Welcome, sir! Table for one?"
The server greeted him warmly, without looking down on him for appearing to be just a teenager.
Speaking of which, the shinobi world's social structure was odd in other ways too. Some major cities had advanced technology, while others seemed straight out of ancient times.
In the manga and anime, classical architecture would appear one moment, modern buildings the next—and in some movies, they even had aircraft carriers.
Menma took a window seat with a view of the docked ships at the pier. He pulled out two bills and dangled them in his hand. "One ramen set meal—no narutomaki. Also, any merchant ships heading to the Land of Lightning lately? The safer, the better."
As a ninja, Menma had no need to hitch a ride on a merchant ship. He was just using it as an excuse to find out who the most powerful merchant in the area was.
The server boy took the two hundred-yen bills with both hands and enthusiastically replied, "The safest has to be Lord Gato's shipping company! They even have samurai and ninja escorts."
Though ninja dominated this world, samurai hadn't vanished entirely.
Not to mention the samurai of the Land of Iron—most countries had their share of samurai ronin, who often worked as yakuza, thugs, or bodyguards.