Chapter 23 The 1st Murder

The location of the bandit suppression mission was not far away, and it would only take a ninja half a day to walk there, so the few people who set out in the morning arrived at a nearby village in the evening.

However, the three of them did not enter the village. Instead, they stopped in the woods surrounding the village after being stopped by Ling.

"Why did you stop here?" Madara looked a little confused. "Didn't they say that bandits often harass the village? Shouldn't we go investigate now?"

"Well, that's what Madara thinks." Ling smiled and said gently, "Although it is a method, it is still a bit risky... Kenji, can I ask you to do the investigation?"

"Well, sure. Wait for me to find it..." Uchiha Kenji reached back to the ninja tool bag behind him, and finally took out a small spray bottle filled with light green liquid and handed it to Ling, "Use it sparingly. Hong's price is too high."

"what is this?"

"A reagent that only shows color in cats' eyes." Uchiha Kenji didn't mean to hide it. "I have a little difficulty in finding my way... so when we need to separate, I usually let my teammates take the color reagent, and after the investigation, I ask the summoned beast to help find the way - I have a bottle myself, and the color effect will last for about half a day."

Madara's heart suddenly became complicated, but he just nodded coldly to show that he understood, then turned to look at Ling, "What are we going to investigate?"

"Investigate the possible connection between the village and the bandits." Ling said in a gentle voice, "After all, according to the known information, this group of bandits has been lingering near the village for a long time, and they can always distinguish between the merchant caravan and the soldiers disguised as soldiers... Do you understand, Ban?"

Madara glanced at Uchiha Kenji who was already running towards the village quietly, and understood a little, "So... there might be spies of the bandits in the village? So in order to avoid alerting the bandits, they sent people to collect intelligence in advance?"

"That's half right," Ling nodded, a faint smile on his lips, "The other possibility is that the whole village is full of [bandits]."

This time, Madara didn't quite understand, so he asked directly, "Why do you say that?"

"Because the taxes and laws of the lord to whom this village belongs are very strict, I've even seen farmers send messages to bandits to rob their property in order to avoid having their belongings taken away. After all, there is a tax law here that states: "If you are robbed by bandits, you can be exempted from taxes for that month, and the unpaid taxes will be paid by the local responsible officials."

Ling paused for a moment, "But I'm not sure if this law has been amended yet, but it's always better to be cautious."

Madara nodded thoughtfully, "It seems that I have to pay more attention to these hidden intelligence in the future... If only my brother and I come, this mission may be a little difficult in terms of investigation. After all, I am better at direct combat..."

"No, if there are two people, there are two ways of doing things," Ling shook his head. "The mission is static, but people are alive. There is no absolute rule for completing missions. We should be flexible and adaptable according to the situation...Okay, let's go to the surrounding mountains to explore the bandits' settlements."

Madara responded and followed Ling's pace, and Ling took this opportunity to teach Madara many tricks on concealing his breath and identifying traces. Many of them were different from the teachings within the clan, but were faster - but the tolerance for error in operation was also smaller.

Soon after the two found the bandit camp, Uchiha Kenji also came back with his ninja cat. "The village is mostly inhabited by old people and children, with relatively few young and middle-aged people, and each household has no more than ten days of food in stock - but each family's fields are well managed. How about you guys?"

"It's just the opposite of you." Ling turned his head, the smile on his lips faded a lot, "It's really the situation you least want to encounter... Rest in seclusion, act in the early morning, and don't let anyone in the village go."

Uchiha Kenji nodded and said nothing more. Madara also seemed to understand something, but he didn't care. No matter what connection those [bandits] and [villagers] had, it had nothing to do with him. After all, this was just an ordinary mission.

When the moon was setting and the sun was not yet rising, the three people who were resting started to move almost at the same time. Ling lowered his voice and said, "Xiansi, go to the sentry tower. I'll go to the house. Kill them if you see them passing by. Try not to make any noise. Madara, follow behind and finish off the enemies to prevent them from pretending to be dead."

Taking advantage of the cover of night, the three men easily crossed the wall of the mountain village. As the sword light flashed, red flowers representing the withering of life bloomed silently. A one-sided massacre was taking place in this mountain village.

During this time, Madara also stabbed the dagger into the neck of the person in front of him. The feeling of the blade cutting through flesh and blood, and the hideous and resentful expressions of people when they were dying made him extremely uncomfortable.

After walking through the village, the three of them no longer traveled together, but instead separated to search for survivors in the village.

Madara also chose a direction and searched house by house, but he still couldn't help but recall the feeling of the sticky and warm blood spilling on his hands and then quickly losing its temperature.

[Is this what it feels like to kill someone? It's really unpleasant.]

Stopping in front of a door again, Madara frowned when he heard the heavy breathing behind the door. After gathering some strength, he concentrated the chakra on the soles of his feet and kicked the door open.

The wooden board flew apart the moment it was stressed, and the person hiding behind the door fell to the ground with a cry of pain. Ban walked into the door, drew the short knife from his waist, and planned to kill the man so that he could search the next house. But at this moment, a young voice sounded, "Bad guy! Don't touch my dad!"

Madara looked in the direction of the voice, only to see a young girl looking at him angrily, while the woman behind the little girl was pulling the girl with horror, and when she saw Madara looking at her, her eyes became even more desperate, "Please, please at least let the child go, she is still young, she doesn't understand anything, and she will soon forget all this, so please, have mercy!"

The woman's tearful plea made Madara pause slightly, his eyes unconsciously swept across the simple yet warm decoration in the house. He lowered his eyes, but the hand holding the knife became more and more powerful, "Sorry... This is my mission, I will give you a quick death."

As the words fell, the knife in Madara's hand flashed and stabbed straight into the chest of the man who had just been kicked away by him and was about to launch a sneak attack on him. As warm blood spilled, the room fell into silence.

[Once again, the content of this book is purely fictional, and the behavior of the characters in the book does not represent the author's three views. Please do not imitate the behavior of the characters in this book and speculate on the author. 】