Journey to the West: Life Simulation of Sun Wukong

At this moment, Haruno Sakura and the others swaggered into the stronghold, where they found buildings similar to those of a village – row upon row, house upon house, all quite authentic.

However, the ground was littered with people, each of whom had a bunch of white mushrooms sprouting from their bodies, every mushroom the size of a fist.

Naruto's body shook, "Sakura, these mushrooms can be used as a backup for Chakra, surely we don't really need to eat them, do we?"

"Of course not!"

Haruno Sakura rolled her eyes, "I can barely consider myself a perfectionist, how could I possibly research such disgusting mushrooms? Kakashi-sensei, you can try it out."

"Uh, how do I try it?" Kakashi asked.

"Just pick a mushroom and you'll know," Sakura said.

Kakashi picked a mushroom and held it in his hand, immediately sensing the Chakra flowing within it, which was very pure and could be used by him, probably enough to release a B-rank Ninjutsu.

"First, let's drag all the people in this stronghold to the open space, then tie them up, and collect the mushrooms," Kakashi ordered.

"No problem." Naruto used the Shadow Clone Skill, and a hundred Naruto clones set to work, carrying all the people from the stronghold to an open space near the gate based on the map Sakura had sent to his mind earlier.

Haruno Sakura then helped Sasuke with the tying up and collecting of mushrooms.

All these mushrooms were eventually sealed by Kakashi within a scroll, to be used as reserve Chakra, since with these mushrooms he could fight more enduringly.

"Speak, where exactly are you from?" Kakashi woke up the bandits who could control Chakra and asked coldly, "You'd better tell the truth, otherwise things will get pretty ugly for you."

The bandit leader with white hair snorted, "Aren't you ninjas? Why all the nonsense? Just make it quick!"

Kakashi's brow furrowed slightly, "They're definitely not ordinary bandits."

Ordinary bandits, faced with such a situation, would first think about how to stay alive, rather than, like in drama, proudly court death for the sake of so-called morale.

These weren't bandits, they were soldiers.

"Even if you don't say it, I have a pretty good guess. You're definitely soldiers, or perhaps, samurai who have learned a bit of Ninjutsu," Kakashi said, taking out a kunai, "But since you're being tight-lipped, I don't plan on digging into the details."

"Kakashi-sensei, what are you going to do?" Naruto called out to Kakashi, "Are you going to kill them?" Thischapterwas

firstseenonMV^LEM^PYR.

There were more than a hundred people here, were they all to be killed?

He was struggling to accept it.

Kakashi replied coldly, "Yes, they are bandits, and our task is to exterminate them. Naruto, this is one of the main duties of a ninja, you should learn to accept it."

However, the main reason was that Kakashi didn't want to delve too deeply into this matter.

It was just a routine mission to wipe out bandits.

If it ended up involving nobility, things would become complicated, and Kakashi had no desire to pull the veil off the nobility... even though he had no idea which nobles were behind these bandits.

But Haruno Sakura had a different opinion.

"Whether these bandits deserve to die is another matter, but Kakashi-sensei, I think you can be a bit more clear-headed at this moment."

"These bandits are well-trained, obviously not ordinary civilians, and there must be someone behind them."

"If we just kill them and then go back to report the mission, other bandits will show up after a while."

"I think we need to solve the problem at its root."

Uchiha Sasuke also expressed his opinion, "I agree with Sakura's view; we must find the person pulling the strings behind the scenes, otherwise bandits will definitely reappear and cause harm to nearby villages again."

Apart from trusting Sakura, Sasuke also wanted to see who was behind these bandits. If he, too, had noticed something was amiss, why was Kakashi-sensei so eager to end the mission quickly?

"As a Genin, you should abide by the orders of a Jōnin," Kakashi said sternly.

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"But if a jonin betrays the village, we don't have to listen to them," Haruno Sakura said indifferently.

"What?" Kakashi was stunned, he had betrayed the village?

"The meaning of the Will of Fire is to burn dead leaves, providing nutrients for new leaves to grow. Therefore, the rotten leaves and the tree trunk's borers must be eliminated," Haruno Sakura spoke with conviction, "If you, Teacher Kakashi, pretend to be confused and intentionally let the mastermind behind the scenes go, wouldn't that be a betrayal of the Will of Fire? Wouldn't that be a betrayal of Konoha?"

Naruto nodded solemnly, "Sakura's right!"

Sasuke chimed in, "Teacher Kakashi, are you planning to become a rogue ninja of Konoha?"

Kakashi: "..."

These guys, this Will of Fire thing could be more flexible, really no need to be so rigid.

However, Kakashi felt that Sakura understood what he was thinking, so she wanted to provoke him, then coerce him into joining them to capture the mastermind behind these bandits.

Clever little brat...

Most annoying!

And now, he didn't even have the option to refuse, because he couldn't beat Haruno Sakura, or perhaps Naruto Uzumaki—if they were to break his legs, hiss—

Was all this planned by Sakura?

Once he got involved, he would have to withhold some information when reporting the mission to the Third Hokage and then exaggerate, putting all the blame on the nobility.

"Ha ha!" Kakashi suddenly laughed cheerfully, "I was just testing you all. You've passed. Now, what we need to do is to find out from their mouths who the person behind this is."

"No wonder you're Teacher Kakashi. So that was your idea," Sasuke realized, "That's the true mark of an upright jonin of Konoha!"

"Hehe." Kakashi scratched his head, only able to give a sheepish smile.

The bandit leader looked at Kakashi and Haruno Sakura's group strangely, momentarily unable to discern who the jonin were and who the genin were. However, he wasn't about to reveal a word.

"However, these guys are tough-mouthed, we can't get any useful information from them," Kakashi said solemnly, "What do we do now?"

"I have a way," Sakura waved her hands in front of the bandit leader, her arms and fingers creating illusory trails in the air, making the bandit leader's eyes gradually lose focus as he fell into a hypnotic state.

"Now, tell us everything."

"Yes..." the bandit leader spoke woodenly, "My name is Yamamoto Ichiro. I was following Kosaburo's orders to pose as bandits here, stealing food to sell in the Land of Wind."

"The Land of Wind? Why sell it there?" Naruto asked, puzzled.

"Because it's almost all desert. There are very few places where food can be grown, so they have to import food from other places," Kakashi explained, "Therefore, the food that's cheap here can be sold at a high price there."

But the two couldn't appear out of nowhere. The food within the Land of Fire had to be used in the corresponding places, so if the nobles wanted to pad their own pockets, they had to resort to methods like "bandits" or "brigands."

"Damn it, that Kosaburo, I'm going to teach him a good lesson!" Naruto said indignantly.

"Where is Kosaburo?" Kakashi asked.

"He's gone to the ninja fighting arena," Yamamoto Ichiro said woodenly.

"The ninja fighting arena!" Kakashi was surprised and explained to the others, "It's a competition hosted by rich people where the contestants are all sorts of wandering ninja, or rogue ninja abandoned by the great villages. Their fight is only meant to please the wealthy."

"What? How can a ninja fight just to please someone else?!" Naruto exclaimed, "Doesn't the village deal with such things?"

"Didn't I tell you before? If a ninja wants to make money, they have to accept employment. Aside from fighting, we don't, or rather, we disdain learning any other skills that would help us survive," Kakashi said calmly, "Those of us who can control Chakra can't put aside our pride."

"Ninja from great villages like ours are somewhat better off, but those from smaller ninja villages, or ones that just learned a bit of Chakra Refining Skill, since they don't have much culture and are usually greatly oppressed, they look down on their former ordinary companions once they gain a little power."

"That is the harsh reality."

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