Soon, Gekkō Kumomi led the team into a village called Yoshida Town, where they met the client for this mission.
An elderly man named Yoshida Inamori, with hair and beard both white, leaned on an old walking stick whose surface had been worn smooth and glossy with age. He was the village chief.
Village Chief Yoshida still seemed fairly vigorous. He cheerfully greeted the four members of the team and, after completing the task handover, led them outside the village to the farmland.
A small river wound its way along, forests on all sides standing like walls. On the many low hills by the river were terraced fields layered at varying heights.
The higher dry fields were planted with wheat. At this time of year, the wheat stalks had already formed ears but had not yet turned golden, presenting a stretch of lush, sturdy green.
Along both banks of the river at lower elevations lay continuous paddies, already leveled and resembling mirrors inlaid into the earth. In quite a few of them, farmers were already hard at work.
Yes—Higashino Makoto and the other two had today's assignment: transplanting rice seedlings.
According to Village Chief Yoshida, several households in the village were advanced in age, with their children away seeking their fortunes, leaving them short on labor. Every year during the busy farming season, they would go to Konohagakure to post some D-rank missions, asking ninjas to help.
Although D-rank missions were expensive for them, ninjas were highly capable—one ninja could do the work of ten people—making it quite cost-effective.
Of course, the Konohagakure side was not foolish either. They would not treat genin like draft animals. After assessment, a fixed area of farmland was counted as one D-rank mission. For today's commission in Yoshida Town, there were a total of five mission units.
Having ninjas who wielded extraordinary power come to farm?
This was the peculiar shinobi world. A mission was a mission, and ninjas were those who endure everything.
After Village Chief Yoshida finished explaining to them the scope of the farmland they were to work on, he left. There was no need to say more—after so many years, he had seen this plenty of times. He knew that ninjas had extremely strong learning ability, even if they looked like nothing more than children.
After that, there was nothing much to say—pulling up the seedlings, bundling them, carrying them to the edge of the field, and tossing them out.
Ninjas were ninjas; you could tell the difference from ordinary people just from the details.
The three of them were extremely fast. Through their earlier observation, they had already calculated how much distance one bundle of seedlings could cover. When they tossed them out, they even used the technique of throwing shuriken—each bundle landed not a hair off, as if it had been measured with a ruler.
When people are extremely busy, they always say they "lack the ability to split themselves," but the problem was that ninjas truly knew the clone technique. Gekkō Hayate and Uzuki Yūgao themselves also knew the Shadow Clone Technique.
So the three of them formed hand seals. Hayate and Yūgao only dared make two, unlike Higashino Makoto, who—with a series of "poof, poof, poof"—made more than a dozen.
So having ninjas do farm work—"one person can be used as ten" was not a figure of speech, but a fact.
To conserve chakra, neither Hayate nor Yūgao used the water-walking technique. Instead, they directly took off their shoes and stepped down into the paddy, not minding at all that their feet got covered in mud.
Even Uzuki Yūgao, a fair-skinned, pretty little girl, did not say anything. Before going down into the field, she did not even furrow her brows.
Ninjas had never regarded themselves as nobles. For a thousand years in this world, no one had ever instilled any similar concept into them. On the contrary, the idea that ninjas were tools was deeply rooted.
Higashino Makoto had no interest in changing that way of thinking—or rather, there was no need for him to change it. The change had long since begun.
Ever since the establishment, decades ago, of the one-village-one-country system—which ended the era when ninjas were bound together by clans—a large number of commoners without clans had begun to become ninjas.
In the several wars that followed, a large number of rogue ninjas were produced. These people did not have the guts to confront the ninja villages, but when it came to going into the world of ordinary people to lord it over others, they not only had the nerve—they had plenty of it.
Then everyone discovered, damn it, that ninjas could actually live like this—happily.
Was it interesting for ninjas to bully ordinary people who had no power to resist?
Those rogue ninjas who lounged with women in their arms and hauled in huge sums of money would tell you: you can't even imagine our kind of happiness.
At some point unknown, whenever civilians in the shinobi world saw ninjas, they had to address them with fearful respect, calling them "my lord." This change was a good thing for ninjas, but for ordinary people, it was a disaster.
But the world was just like that. Even the ordinary world of Higashino Makoto's previous life could not achieve so-called equality for all, let alone this shinobi world that wielded extraordinary power.
Any attempt to promote the concept of equality for all in this world was extremely unrealistic.
...
The villagers of Yoshida Town once again witnessed the efficiency of ninjas at work, even though they saw it several times every year.
In the paddy fields smooth as mirrors, more than a dozen figures moved with lightning speed. Clumps of green rice seedlings were rapidly planted into the fields, and the paddies were turning into rice fields at an exaggerated pace.
The amount of work that would take an entire family a full week of labor could be finished by a single ninja in less than a day.
Every time they saw such a spectacular scene, the villagers would sigh inwardly: it was such a pity that ninjutsu was not used for farming.
Soon, through the efforts of the three of them, the mission was completed at around 3:00 p.m. This made Higashino Makoto unable to help but sigh: chakra was truly great, truly wonderful. After working continuously for most of the day, he actually did not feel any soreness in his lower back or aching in his shoulders.
Even Gekkō Hayate and Uzuki Yūgao were only a little tired.
Gekkō Hayate was just about to suggest that they go wash the mud off their bodies together when Uzuki Yūgao looked at the villagers who were still working and said, "Well, since it's still early, let's keep helping them so they can finish sooner and go home earlier."
Hayate looked at Higashino Makoto. The latter shook his head slightly and said nothing.
Yūgao was a kind-hearted little girl, but sometimes enthusiasm was not a good thing—especially for ninjas.
Gekkō Kumomi had disappeared after assigning the mission in the morning and did not reappear until evening. When he returned, he happened to see Yūgao and the other two accepting the villagers' praise.
The continuous paddy fields by the riverbank that had been smooth as mirrors in the morning were now planted with seedlings. In the expanse of silvery-white water, specks of green had emerged, beautiful and pleasing to the eye.
After confirming the completion of the mission with Village Chief Yoshida and obtaining the other party's signature, Gekkō Kumomi led his disciples away from Yoshida Town.
On the road, Uzuki Yūgao happily recounted the team's good deeds to her sensei.
After listening, Gekkō Kumomi did not praise her right away. Instead, he shot a glare at Higashino Makoto and Gekkō Hayate. The two immediately averted their gazes and began admiring the fiery clouds of the evening glow.
"Yūgao, you did very well—but don't do it again next time."
Gekkō Kumomi did not explain further. Instead, he stood in the forest outside the village, as if waiting for something.
Gekkō Hayate said softly, "If we help every time, it will make the villagers develop some unnecessary thoughts when posting missions in the future, bringing losses to the village."
"At the same time, it will make it very hard for companions who carry out the same missions later."
Uzuki Yūgao did not quite understand, but she knew that she seemed to have done something foolish.
After about seven or eight minutes, Gekkō Kumomi finally spoke. "Alright, let's go. It's not far anyway—we'll walk back slowly."
It was quite a strange decision.
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