Miwa Masayo asked in a low voice, "What about your suggestion?"
Uchiha Yoru gave an awkward smile. "Wait a little longer. Just a little longer."
"What are you waiting for, meow?"
"A mission."
"The village chief is very sensible. He just told me he wants to add a temporary mission—protect Jiusen Village from being flooded."
"Meowu?"
"Yes, yes. And I've already completed that mission. The chief is especially thoughtful too. He's willing to classify the flood as a ninja-level threat and set the mission at C-rank."
"Is it because the money is better, meow?"
"One hundred and fifty thousand ryō. Maximum rate."
Uchiha Yoru proudly raised his right hand, stretching all five pale, slender fingers as straight as possible, doing his best to show off.
Miwa Masayo narrowed her eyes at her contractor and sneered, "That's it?"
"You, Uchiha Yoru, a dignified Sage, care about a mere one hundred and fifty thousand ryō, meow?"
"You're the man in charge of the Uchiha Clan's revival funds, meow!!"
"You're carrying a full forty million ryō in cash! Forty million, meow!!"
"It's different."
"How is it diff—owu!"
The furious calico cat pounced on him, grabbed his head, and bit hard into his ear.
Of course, that "hard" bite didn't hurt Uchiha Yoru in the slightest.
Instead, when Miwa Masayo's tongue brushed his ear, it only made him feel unbearably ticklish.
Uchiha Yoru laughed innocently, wrapping his arms around the cat and gently patting her body as he explained, "That forty million was something I cheated out of them."
"But this one hundred and fifty thousand? I earned it."
"So of course it's different."
Once Miwa Masayo realized she couldn't bite her contractor hard enough to hurt him, she obediently let herself be held in his arms.
Still, she questioned him. "That one hundred and fifty thousand definitely wasn't cheated out of them. But the smell of violent intimidation is obvious."
"How is that any different from robbery or protection fees from hooligans?"
"Lihua-chan, that's not right."
"Did I protect Jiusen Village?"
"You did, meow."
"And did I say a single threatening word?"
"…When you've already made it this obvious, is there any need to say it?"
Holding the calico cat in his arms, Uchiha Yoru leapt from one section of the rock barrier to another.
Wherever he landed, the rocks rumbled and began retracting back into the mountain.
He explained it to the villagers like this:
The stone dam had been drawn out from the mountain itself, so it had to be pushed back in. Otherwise the mountain body would become brittle, making future landslides more likely.
After saying that, he immediately began taking action, stuffing the rock dam back little by little.
There had originally been a few villagers who questioned the chief, thinking they shouldn't hand over money and mission rewards to a ninja, because otherwise—
No one needed to finish that thought anymore.
Every villager shut up.
Now they all felt that the chief's judgment had been completely correct, filled with wise foresight.
As expected of the man the whole village had chosen to lead them.
When the entire rock dam had vanished, the village chief handed Uchiha Yoru the mission completion certificate, a document explaining the additional task, and the payment.
The highest reward for a C-rank mission was one hundred and fifty thousand ryō, but the mission issuer actually paid more than that, since Konoha would take its cut.
Still, Uchiha Yoru accepted it.
After all, the chief only wanted to give him money.
But what Uchiha Yoru actually wanted—
Was not the reward.
It was the time that performing the additional mission entitled him to spend.
Miwa Masayo was right.
He no longer lacked money.
But time—
Time was what he lacked.
Uchiha Yoru needed time to delay the day he would be drawn into the war.
He needed time to investigate the natural energy of the newly discovered barrier lake.
Arranging for the Cat Castle to occupy the lake, and constructing the eternal flame node Miwa Masayo needed—
All of that required time.
He also needed time to think about Foundation Establishment.
As the days passed, the feedback from his body was making one thing increasingly clear—
The first phase of the Foundation Establishment realm was almost complete.
When something this important happened, what would Uchiha Yoru face?
There were no existing examples in the ninja world for him to reference.
And even in the immortal path he knew, there had never been any precedent.
Every single step forward on the immortal path—
Could only be explored by relying on himself.
Under such circumstances, what Uchiha Yoru needed most was luck.
If he had a protagonist's halo of fortune, then no matter the hardships or dangers, disaster would always turn into blessing, and every crisis would become an even greater opportunity.
But luck was too vague.
In his previous life, he had never once won any kind of major prize.
Uchiha Yoru did not believe in the slightest that he could depend on luck to get through everything.
Luck was unreliable.
What he needed—
Was time.
With time, he could think more deeply about the details of meridian circulation.
He could observe the changes in his own body more carefully.
He would have more chances to trigger his premonitions, and through them judge what dangers might arise during Foundation Establishment.
Once everything was in hand, Uchiha Yoru confirmed one last time that he had erased all traces of the rock dam's existence and had also left behind a large amount of fresh soil.
He thought it over again and again for several minutes.
Only after confirming that there were no problems did he open his eyes and look at the equally nervous village chief.
His pupils had already changed into a pair of Sharingan.
Even before he fully opened his eyes, the three tomoe had been activated at full force, spinning so fast that each comma-shaped mark was reduced to an afterimage.
Sharingan: Suggestion.
Suggestion was not memory wiping.
Against ordinary villagers, no ninja would use mind-probing techniques.
Their brains couldn't withstand exploration, nor could they withstand the ninjutsu needed to hide memory tampering.
Any skilled ninja only needed a simple technique to hypnotize villagers and make them recall every detail they thought they had forgotten.
Chakra and ninjutsu had long since created a gulf between shinobi and ordinary people—
A class barrier even greater than money or capital.
Uchiha Yoru's suggestion was simple.
He did not forcibly alter any facts.
He did not change the fact that he had appeared last night, but he made the timing a little earlier.
He did not change the fact that he had jumped out of the water, but he separated the huge wave and the flood from the timing of his appearance, making people subconsciously judge that the flood and Uchiha Yoru's arrival had not occurred simultaneously.
He did not change the fact that he had saved Jiusen Village with a miraculous ninjutsu, but he changed the name of the technique to "Earth Flow Rampart."
Combined with the row of destroyed houses, any investigating ninja would confirm that account without issue.
And then, naturally, they would fill in the gaps themselves—
Some foolish Konoha ninja had desperately resisted layer by layer along the roads of Jiusen Village, and though the village suffered enormous damage, he had still managed to preserve all of the timber and two-thirds of the houses.
With that, the two most dangerous details—
That Uchiha Yoru had leapt out of the flood right as it was reaching its peak,
and that he had suppressed the surging flood with a single technique—
Were completely buried beneath the villagers' own spontaneous assumptions.
People's self-generated explanations had a natural consistency.
Even if those explanations were flawed, they themselves would never notice.
When a ninja investigator later arrived and found that the memories and impressions of the ordinary villagers all aligned, they would not go to the trouble of exploring deeper into their minds.
They would simply assume the information was accurate and end the investigation there.
Once all of that was done, Uchiha Yoru left with Miwa Masayo.
The two of them openly headed south, downstream, in full view of everyone.
But the moment they left the village's line of sight, they turned back north and rushed at top speed toward the unnamed barrier lake.
Standing on the now-dry barrier dam, Uchiha Yoru spread his arms as if embracing the whole lake and said happily,
"With one sweep of my arms, every piece of land, mountain, and lake within my sight…"
"Belongs to the Cat Castle."
"And to you and me."
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