{Ozawa Village, Land of Hot Springs}
{12:17 PM, 27th May 13 Yrs ANB}
{3rd Person POV}
"...there are several groups of people who have gone missing in the last couple of weeks, some of the merchants saw tracks leading to the caves northwest of the village and some bandits that are lurking around that area." Murata Akiko finished speaking as he gave Hayate a revised scroll with more details regarding their mission.
Hayate read through the scroll and Murata started explaining once again, "We weren't sure how long it was going to take for Konoha to respond to our request so we also sent a mission scroll to Kumo, they should be arriving here in a couple of days."
Hayate paused and looked at Murata with narrowed eyes, the older man shrugged, "If it were any other mission I wouldn't have done that, but I'm under a lot of pressure as more and more people are being kidnapped. Anyway, Kumo shinobi should be arriving here in a couple of days even if they even decide to show up this far."
'Why is this happening again, this is just our 3rd mission out of the village, I thought a mission in the Land of Hot Springs would be more relaxing than dealing with unknown circumstances once again.' Hayate thought and then simply nodded to Murata and motioned for Ren to follow as both of them walked out of the room.
Ren on the other hand was looking at the blue box that appeared after the talk just now, the mission that he got this time was a chain mission. Just now he got one box telling him that they had completed one part of the mission, that was reporting to the head of Ozawa Village, and now they had to clear the bandits in the cave northwest of the village.
'The problem though is the fact that there is no way that hidden missions aren't something dangerous, either we're extremely unlucky or something is up with whoever is selecting these missions for us.' Ren thought as he looked through the updated mission.
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[UNIQUE CHAIN QUEST Generated!]
[An Underground 'C'ult! - II]
[The mission's objective is to find the missing residents of the Ozawa Village. According to the village elder Murata, there is a cave about 5 km northwest of the village where many bandits have been seen rummaging around by some merchants and farmers.]
[Main Quest: Make sure that the missing residents of the Ozawa Village are escorted back to Ozawa Village.]
[Hidden Quest I: ???]
[Hidden Quest II: ???]
[Rewards:]
[Main Quest: +10,000 Ryo, +10,000 EXP, +1000EXP for every villager rescued safely.]
[Hidden Quest I: ???]
[Hidden Quest II: ???]
[Failure: +1000 EXP]
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...
'Should I increase my INT and sensing range to take a look at the caves...' Ren debated the idea in his mind as both of them walked out of the village.
'The caves weren't far from the village or at least from the newly expanded village, Ozawa Village had a new entrance created purely for merchant use to facilitate more trading and improve the economy. I'm guessing that's why they were targetted by a bandit group because of that, and the bandit group must have found this natural cave and decided it was too good of an opportunity to pass up...'
Ren closed his eyes and concentrated on using the Ram seal, past month of training had improved his sensing skill by 3 levels meaning he could sense around 255m all around him, luckily all of the cave was covered in that radius so he didn't have to put more points into INT.
'The problem is that I can not sense what is in the room at the end of the cave, it's like my senses are blocked and they are hitting a wall...'
"So what did you sense?" Hayate Sensei asked.
"It's weird..." Ren concluded as he stood up, there were two men dressed up like typical bandits at the entrance of the cave. Ren looked at them and tried to sense for any weird seals on their body but they looked and felt like normal bandits.
"They are bandits all right, most of them have civilian chakra reserves with some of them having academy student level to low genin level reserves..." Ren spoke and Hayate took a small sigh of relief, it wasn't a controversy most of the bandits have this configuration.
"What's weird is that I can't sense one part of the cave, it's at the very end and my senses are blocked from locking into anything in there," Ren concluded his report and then looked at Hayate sensei from deciding their next course of action.
'Somethings always gets fucked up... the only way to block a sensors insight is through seals, and if they have seals then no way this is just a simple bandit group...' Hayate thought and then he looked at the two 'bandits' who were guarding the entrance.
'No point in revealing our existence right now when I can ask for backup.' Hayate used hand signs to tell Ren to quietly back away.
The two of them rushed back out of the woods and then stopped on a tree, Hayate indicated Ren to keep watch before he summoned another messenger hawk. He requested for some backup just in case and quickly explained about the sealing queries before letting the hawk fly away.
Ren watched as the hawk flew away and then waited for further instructions. Hayate looked back in the direction of the cave and spoke, "If there are shinobi in there then they might know that Konoha shinobi arrived in the village, we need to go back to Murata and tell him that the caves were clear but we found some tracks so we are going to follow where they lead."
Ren nodded and the two of them left for the village, after some more walking they once again stood in front of Murata.
"What happened did you find anyone?" Murata asked, he looked anxious and a little sweaty which Hayate quickly noted.
"The caves were clear but there were some signs of bandits living there, there is a trail leaving from the caves so we are going to follow that and figure out where they moved, they still might be around the village but in a different direction so make sure your people stay away from the cave. I'll get back to you when I can..." Hayate lied and then nodded as both of them started walking away.
"Did you at least find some clues if someone was held captive or something?" Murata hurriedly asked making Hayate stop.
'Interesting... so he's actually worried so about the people captured, so at least he shouldn't be lying about the bandits. But then why wouldn't he hire for a B-rank mission if the opponent was unknown.' Hayate observed Murata for a few seconds and then nodded.
"Yes, the trails revealed that the bandits were careless as the most likely cause for the trail would have to be trail marks left behind by chains being dragged along. That's why we are in a hurry to go..." Hayate assured the village elder who quickly nodded.
Hayate and Ren left the village once again and went in the direction of Konoha, after a while Ren scanned their surroundings and they double-backed toward the cave and found a small hiding spot on the way from Ozawa Village to the 'bandit' cave.
"Now what?" Ren asked.
"Now we wait..."
...
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{Hokage's Office, Administrative building, Konohagakure}
{10:02 PM, 27th May 13 Yrs ANB}
"...Team #21 went on a standard 'C'-Rank mission to eliminate a bandit group in Ozawa Village in the Land of Hot Springs, earlier today they scouted the area and found a sealed area in the bandit cave that is resisting Ren-kun's sensing. Seeing that the only possible explanation for that is an area under concealment seals I want Team #7 to back them up and finish the missions."
Hiruzen looked at Kakashi and the rest of team 7 who were standing in the room, their team had just come back a couple of days ago from their training trip and were currently working on D-Rank missions.
Normally Kakashi and Team 7 should not be allowed to take a B-Rank backup mission but since the problem is about an unknown force hidden behind a seal, Kakashi was the only one with the power to deal with most situations and at the same time crack most basic seals.
"Don't worry old man, we'll be back in no time, Dattebayo!!!" Naruto replied, his excitement revealing his tick as he thought about the horrible missions they had to do.
As Kakashi ushered his team out of the room Hiruzen spoke, "The King..."
Kakashi paused and looked back at the aged Hokage, "First priority is always to keep the 'King' safe..."
Kakashi nodded and led his team to the north entrance, Naruto had quietened down again, he was back in mission mode as they left the village. Kakashi looked at his three students, they weren't the same as they had been 3 months ago.
'They'll be fine, I'll make sure they come back safe...'
'Finally, a mission where I can actually fight someone, wait wasn't Team #21 supposed to be from our class...'
'I hope nothing goes wrong, I should have packed more healing cream...'
'Ren... I can finally check my progress against you, and when I beat you I'll work towards my next goal...'
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AN- A new mission and a reality check! It's been a while had some trouble with migraines and according to doctors' orders, I was advised to rest my eyes. So my upload schedule would change from daily like before to alternate days as my screen time is reduced for at least a month.
Some changes to the P.atreon, as my writing quantity decreases I decided to abolish the $20 tier and now all of the chapters will be included in the 10 bucks share. The P.atreon is also changed to subscription billing so now the date at which you subscribe doesn't matter.
P.S- Special offer, 7-day free trial, till the end of the month, for the $5 tier, 5 chapters ahead of regular release.
P.P.S- Read 10 Chapters ahead at- P.atreon/Version_401