The Fallen Ninja Village (4)
“—Aaah.”
Crack.
The bald man’s surging fist split the rock clean through. Every time his gauntlet smashed into stone, black light wrapped around it—definitely magic gear.
“—Slow.”
The attacks packed both speed and raw power, but like every strike in existence, they were worthless if they never landed. I danced aside and drove my longsword straight at the bald man’s eyes. Only at the last instant did he twist his head.
Woooom.
His helmet flared with the same black light as the gauntlets and bounced the blade away. Damn, that magic equipment was ridiculously good.
“You filthy traitor bastard!”
I slipped the punch he threw and backed off about ten paces. Cakewalk my ass—the information gap was huge. Neither I nor the original Candidate 567 who used to live here had ever seen gear like that. A world without Tree Wiki… I felt all over again just how dangerous this place was.
“Acting crazy, spouting that nonsense—I knew something felt off about you. How long have you been planning this, you lunatic? What’s your goal? Why did you do it?”
The bald man pretended to open a dialogue while catching his breath and buying time. But there was nothing to discuss with third-rate villains. The only things they deserved to hear were one-sided Q&A and technique names.
“Nin-nin.”
The longsword’s edge was already ruined—useless now. He wasn’t especially strong, but that armor was tough; this was going to be a long, boring fight. I really needed Kakashi’s ninja blade right about now, yet the girl was nowhere in sight—probably off in a corner doing combat makeup or something.
I considered dragging the bald man into a war of attrition until the other candidates finished off the instructors and we could all dogpile him…
“Team up! I said team up!”
“Fall back a little!”
“Fuck!”
Forty candidates were getting pushed back by only five instructors. Their attacks weren’t landing at all. Still, whenever an instructor tried to land a finishing blow, 568 stepped in at just the right moment to block, so the line was somehow holding.
“Seriously, how useless can they be?”
A sigh escaped me on its own. To win they needed to use a few people as meat shields and force their way in, but no candidate was going to volunteer for that. And I wasn’t cold-blooded enough to order anyone to die either. These instructors had soaked plenty of blood; the candidates’ mindset was completely different.
“Those guys are nothing! Just take this bastard down and it’s over! Rally on me!”
The bald man had finished reading the situation and called the other instructors. The ones who’d been packed in a circle protecting each other’s backs exchanged glances.
“Don’t let them go! What are you doing?! Surround them again!”
568 screamed the order, but the candidates hesitated, terrified of the chain-sickle the woman in the sedge hat was whirling in wide circles.
The curly-haired male instructor locked eyes with the bald man and muttered quietly.
“352 and I will support 132. You three hold the line.”
“Got it.”
At that signal the sedge-hat woman stopped spinning her chain-sickle, and the curly-haired man pulled daggers from his coat and flung them at the candidates. While some fell or scrambled to dodge, the woman and the curly-haired man broke free and sprinted toward me.
“Stop them!”
A few candidates tried to block the way, but one instructor swung a massive club and swatted them aside like a butcher shooing flies.
The sedge-hat woman arrived and took a mid-range stance; the curly-haired man planted himself a little farther off and started throwing daggers.
“Even better.”
Honestly? Free loot. They hadn’t come to kill me—they’d come to restock my weapons.
I swatted a few daggers aside with the longsword and hurled the blade itself at the bald man’s helmet. He flinched, raised his guard, and scrambled backward. Watching him flinch told me the defensive magic on the helmet had either durability or a limited number of uses. Of course a ninja of this caliber couldn’t be walking around with true broken gear.
Wooooom! Clang!
While the bald man hesitated, the sedge-hat woman flung her chain-sickle. I twisted, dodged only the blade, and grabbed the chain. It suddenly grew heavy—another magic weapon.
She gave me a smiling eye-crinkle and yanked hard toward herself. Naturally that level of strength wasn’t nearly enough.
“Hiyah!”
I simply held my ground.
“Ah?!”
The sedge-hat woman broke into a panicked sweat. I checked the bald man with a light feint while keeping an eye on the curly-haired guy. He seemed to think he needed a better position and was shifting around.
Now.
I exploded with power, yanked the chain, and slammed the sedge-hat woman to the ground, then slipped the bald man’s punch.
Whoosh—
“Ubujaat!”
As she fell, a sharp gravel stone punched straight into the bridge of her nose; she made a weird noise and collapsed. Dark red blood spread across the floor—she’d definitely returned to the Buddha’s embrace.
Clang!
I flicked another incoming dagger away with the chain and, still bent low, drove the sickle into the bald man’s crotch.
“You crazy bastard!”
“Slow.”
He barely caught the sickle; I immediately wrapped the chain around both his arms twice. Just as I thought—the defensive magic engraved on that armor only activated against direct attacks. That was why it only glowed black on impact.
“Ninja Bondage Play.”
I vaulted over the restrained bald man, looped the chain around his neck, and clung tight. The way it bit and squeezed felt pretty good.
“Ghk…!”
Out of daggers, the curly-haired man drew a machete-like blade and charged. He was screaming as he came—clearly he knew the odds had flipped. Had the real ninja’s transcendent combat sense shattered his mind so thoroughly he couldn’t even think of running?
Easing that anxiety forever was a true ninja’s duty.
I kicked one of the daggers lying on the ground with my toe and buried it in his left eyeball.
Thud.
He toppled with his mouth still open. Probably went straight through to the brain.
Crack!
Finally I twisted the oxygen-starved bald man’s neck until it snapped.
“No—noooooo!”
“This can’t be…!”
“S-spare me!”
The remaining instructors facing the candidates must have watched the triple kill; they suddenly started screaming. One even dropped his sword and begged for mercy.
“Fuck off!”
“Stab them!”
Sensing victory, the candidates swarmed the three instructors and hacked them to pieces. Murder always feels lighter when everyone does it together. There’s a reason group beatings and bullying keep happening.
Drunk on triumph, 568 ran over to me.
“567! We won!”
“Not we—I won.”
Trying to freeload again? Still, he’d bought time with the rallying, so I let it slide.
“Where’s Kakashi?”
“Kakashi? What’s that?”
“The short-haired dead-eye girl.”
“Girl…?”
Shit, the language barrier was a pain. After I roughly described her, 568 said he hadn’t seen her once since the fight started. Had she just straight-up bailed? Whether she was here or not, the result would have been the same.
The real problem was Kakashi’s ninja blade. Fighting the bald man had driven home just how important gear was. Top-tier magic equipment could turn an ordinary person into a superhuman—that much was clear.
Wait. Ordinary people?
“Where did all the villagers go?”
It was my first real fight and we’d been outnumbered, so I’d been too focused to notice. That was a demerit. What was the point of fighting this hard if the people I was supposed to protect all died?
No matter where I looked, the bound people were gone. Time for a ninja seppuku?
“The ones who were tied up? We freed them all earlier and some of the kids guided them out the entrance. Those kids probably escaped with them… but it doesn’t really matter.”
“Nin-nin.”
Thank goodness. That made this a pretty solid debut overall. What’s done is done. I’d just treat it as a lesson to pay attention to that stuff next time.
Now it was loot time.
Rummage, rummage.
I stripped the curly-haired guy’s top—closest to my size—and put it on. The bald man’s armor looked tempting, but it didn’t suit my fighting style, so there was no point taking it. I was casually gathering daggers, short swords, and blades when I felt the candidates’ stares burning into me.
“….”
Gulp.
I could even hear them swallowing. They were trembling. 568, who had been looting right beside me, spoke up.
“They’re scared stiff. You should say something.”
True enough—if I felt like it, I could massacre all forty of them right here. They knew it too. Weaklings before an overwhelming powerhouse; Poppy and Mongi in front of the mountain king; Kkami’s situation.
“The Snake’s Tail disbands here.”
But they were innocent victims too.
“How you live with the skills you learned here is up to you.”
And they were runaway ninjas like me—more precisely, freeloading group-project runaway ninjas. Unlike a pure runaway ninja like myself, they didn’t have to shoulder any duty or responsibility.
“But if you spill the blood of the innocent…”
Still, they had to keep the bare minimum of honor.
“I will find you.”
Thud-thud-thud!
I dropped the threat, then vanished with a stylish Floating Shadow and left the cave. Running so hard that my already-ruined shoes slammed gravel into my soles made tears prick my eyes, but I held them back.
“Hmm.”
The clean air and bright light felt strangely alien. I was brushing blood off my clothes and massaging my feet on a convenient rock when 568 came sprinting up, out of breath.
“Hah… hah… You’re not from the Iregal Kingdom, are you?”
He ran all this way just to ask that? I ignored him and kept rubbing my feet.
“Do you know the currency? The writing system?”
“Runaway ninjas don’t study.”
“Runaway ninja? Is that what they call you in your country? Anyway, I can help. Let’s travel together. I’ll serve you. In exchange… could you take me as your disciple?”
“Runaway ninjas don’t take disciples.”
“Th-then just spar with me sometimes. Please?”
Honestly, I did need a lackey. The information gap had made this fight harder than it should have been. That bastard 567 had been an orphan with almost zero common knowledge. 568, compared to the others, clearly had some “ink” in him—probably some kind of noble in this world.
Anyway, I needed an exposition dump. A housekeeper for meals, dishes, and laundry would be a free bonus.
“Follow me. Yakuza Slayer.”
“What the hell is that…?”
My stopped heart began to beat again. The time had come to fulfill my duties and responsibilities as a runaway ninja. A runaway ninja who fights for the innocent people never forgives yakuza, samurai, yokai, or fallen ninjas.
“First… we become merchants.”
I, Shin Nobin, had finally reached the end of my childhood.