Chapter 117 - Arc 8 - Forest of Quest - Sakura Country

The night sky makes the land of fire’s forests practically unworkable. ‘Don’t even try, just camp at night’ is a rule even Konoha ninja largely follow when forced to travel through the forests. She’s pretty sure civilians have a similar rule, and only around Jonin does it become easy and risk free to move at night for any real distance. It’s too hard to get around and too easy to get lost or lose your way. As a Genin or Chunin, you don’t even have to worry about the enemy predicting that you will be camping because either they will also be camping, or they are likely Jonin and you were going to die even if it was daylight. The reason is really simple, green looks the same as other green and no one can see anything. Trying to do anything at night in the forest is like intentionally walking into a maze with no exit.

This is a problem for Sakura as she can only sleep five hours a night. Most of the night time hours have nothing to them, and Sasuke and Naruto do still need their full sleep. Normally she’d spend the night time stuck awake playing a game or keeping watch but she can’t let herself get distracted by having fun right now and her summons are playing the role of guards as well if not better than Naruto’s clones.

Her haul for the day was pretty nice. The dog can go without mana for a few days, it’ll be fine as long as she doesn’t make it fight anything, so she managed twenty two summons before she ran out of mana. She learned a lot of lessons in that time, and she’s pretty sure she’ll manage thirty more tomorrow, which is good because she got a quest.

[Quest Alert - Flood the Forest

Description: The trials ahead only get darker. Become a lord of the undead and ensure nowhere is outside of your reach.

Objective: 23/100 summons above level 15 in the forest.

Reward: Title System, Title - Umbrella Intern]

She learned that when trying to resurrect a body with its own soul it counts for about two, and if the souls are compatible - as in from the same type of creature - that they also count for about two. She’s also found that the average monster here takes about four unique souls, so if she matches both variables she can get it done for half the price. She could probably brute force huge swaths of the quest by using her goblin souls, but they’d run out quickly and she’d rather not invoke a pissed off carnivorous monster lady by sticking semi-smart souls in a giant bear. Bottom line, she now hunts groups of two of each monster to ensure the optimal setup and that should add quite a bit of efficiency to her efforts.

She’s also learned that the dog is above level 15, which is sad for some of her past classmates but a great sign for the plans of the Inuzuka. She also learned she can’t currently make human beings into summons or even extract their souls after she came across a body in the woods. It’s a shame to find corpses but it seems like all that bluster at the front gate wasn’t just hot air, some of the Genin here are getting mauled to death by the basic wildlife she’s slaughtering with Sasuke’s help. She didn’t think she was actually one of the stronger people here, but she’s quickly reassessing matters. The waivers they were asked to sign outside are really going to come in handy here, assuming Anko actually needs them and that wasn’t just a scare tactic. It’s hard to tell with Anko.

Though, no matter how she looks at it, all that learning and thinking doesn’t stop her from being irredeemably bored after sitting here silently for an hour..

A quick check on Wave reveals that it’s actually encountering a problem for once. City builders really were the worst possible way she could have studied to work with Wave. In City builders things happen, destruction waits around the corner. The game is balanced to urge you to progress just a little faster, a little more efficient, a little better. Real life doesn’t always reflect games, not even hers, and Wave has been a slow improvement one day at a time. It helps that the country had everything it needed to recover naturally and quickly - by settlement standards - it was just being strangled by a dictator that didn’t understand there was more money to be made in a thriving landmass than a dying one.

The menu has a little button for urgent matters, which up until now has been grayed out. She focuses in on it and taps it with excitement at her fingertips, joy at her lips, and a happy wiggle at her hips.

[Wave has become aware of a benevolent Lord that has chosen to remain nameless. Speculations have risen and three different factions have arisen. Some believe Gato changed his ways and faked his death and is still in charge. Some believe that Tazuna somehow secretly gained Gato’s fortune and has been privately running the land for his own gains. Some believe they’ve become a shadow state to Konoha, and are unsure about their new role as subjects.

Should you choose to remain silent about your position, Wave may become unstable.]

“Huh…” She hasn’t been trying to hide. Is there something else to this? A quick search through the menus later, her eyes latch onto something unique looking about the UI. “That font is weird.” Upon tapping the word ‘lord’ at the top of her screen, a virtual keyboard pops up in front of her that gleams white with large keys.

[Input your name?]

“Did I seriously miss this?” She can’t help but shake her head in clear annoyance with her past self.

[Lord Sakura Haruno is chosen, are you sure you want that name?]

“Oh, no, not if it’s gonna actually use my last name and lord every time it talks to me, that’d be super awkward.” A few taps later she presses confirm.

[You have Chosen Lord Sakura]

She stretches her arms out a bit to the side before springing herself up a stand. “Bored.” She is very bored. She was hoping that was something she’d have to spend actual time on, but now she still has several hours left and they don’t even need her to keep watch. “I’m gonna go… hunt something for Karin to eat.” She decides with a nod, leaving two water clones to watch over the boys anyway and taking her leave. Maybe if she navigates through the woods in the dark enough she’ll get a skill. If nothing else, getting horrifically lost will be fun and the issue will rectify itself come morning if she can’t find her way back.

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Trudging through the darkness is a lot harder than she expected it to be. Sure her dexterity trait stops her from doing anything like face planting in the darkness, and the extra points she’s already gotten from that ten times multiplier can be felt, but she’s not going to pretend this is easy. An odd feeling takes over her, and her hand lands on Hunger just in time to slash out and deflect a kunai from her side. “If you have some kind of night vision I’ll spare your life for handing it over.” She offers, hearing snickers from the leaves above. She realizes a moment later that asking for that does tell them that she can’t see and the effect of deflecting the kunai is lost. Damn, she has to resist reaching up to rub her forehead. A threat doesn’t do anything if you remove the heat behind it before you even make it.

“As opposed to what, bleeding into the dirt?” She hears a girl in the trees snicker at her, and her hand splits open a little, blood trailing up her sword. “We don’t have night vision, your eyes are glowing.”

“Oh, right.” Sakura mumbles to herself, damn eyes.

There’s a rustle to the side and her sword flashes out, fire chakra building only a moment before she lets loose what is rapidly becoming one of her signature techniques, “Fatal Slash!” She overcharges it just a little, feeling heat flow through her hand before a wave of bloody flame lashes out and bathes them in light. The slash hits the tree she aimed it at and sure enough a second later the leaves ignite. It hurts a little to overcharge it, but she’s going to sleep when she gets back to base so what’s a little HP damage matter? What’s far more important is that she’s now surrounded, and as Kakashi says, ‘hubris is the undoing of the great.’ Kakashi has some pretty okay lines sometimes, she kind of likes that one.

Though, sometimes what he has to say is like, ‘icecream is better cold’ so she’ll hold back the compliments for now. Looking around in her newly created light she finds it’s only three of them, but she puts effort into expanding her senses anyway to make sure it’s not a trap from multiple teams- “Konoha, really?” She remarks the moment her eyes latch onto the leaf symbols on their heads, “are you serious right now?”

“Little red?” She hears from the person up in a tree behind her. She spares a glance at him, and finds a boy she’s seen several dozen times over the last few months, mostly in classes. Dark hair, big glasses, he’s not in his academic outfit anymore, instead he’s in a very revealing outfit that doesn’t hide his legs at all. He’s a lot fitter than he looked in class, with huge calves and strong arms shown off by a skintight black shirt. It’s a shame she’s probably going to have to drench it in blood, it looks pretty good on him. Maybe if she doesn’t kill him she should ask for a little wardrobe advice, Ino’s advice is always either out of her price range or a little too girly.

“I wasn’t aware there were other ninja in my classes,” She says with a little prickle to her voice, “you’re an academic so you know that if we pass by taking out a Konoha team, we’ll be very unlikely to be promoted. You should just leave.”

“We’re not doing this to pass,” He admits with a bit of an awkward grin that somehow manages to match her own, they’re both insanely shy people so it makes sense. “Someone paid us a lot of money to hunt down other teams in this area.” Well that seems very targeted, given she’s the only one the clones have reported in this area all day, and the gates they entered were pretty easy to observe.

“I’m changing my offer.” She says, spinning her sword in a circle before sheathing it with a glowing red flicker of movement. Her gaze twitches around her, taking in a full three hundred sixty degrees of forest, and what lies within. A malicious smirk twists her features, and she stands up straight, tilting her head to ensure they can all see her expression well. “You won’t be eaten alive if you spill your guts about who paid you and what they said.”

“What makes you think you’re in a position to bargain? You just put away your sword, it looks like a surrender to me.” A woman adjacent to the burning tree says, still up in the branches and peering at the flames anxiously. She’s very lit up, as that’s the only light in the small area, and Sakura can’t help but pity her a little. She looks fairly competent, with short black hair almost completely shaved for efficiency and a sharpness to her eyes that Sakura is a little impressed with. If they hadn’t met her, they’d probably pass this test. Not that it’d matter, no Jonin is going to recommend a Genin for Chunin after they demonstrate they’re easily bribed. They might actually get tried for something if this is being recorded right now. That they even admitted it to her at all implies they intend to kill her, it’s a shame.

“I surrender,” Sakura holds her hands up, “I don’t think I can take the three of you alone without killing you and I don’t care that much about my balls, there’s plenty more in this forest. I won’t hurt Konoha like that.”

“Then why are you still smirking like some kind of crazy bitch?” The dark haired woman asks as the team jumps off the trees, entering the reach of her extended slash in a triangle formation around her. Despite entering her range, she keeps her word and doesn’t reach for her sword. The boy she went to classes with seems to be the only one that understands that something is wrong.

“Well, see, you’re threatening their master, and I don’t think they agree with me that your lives matter.” Sakura explains, tilting her head slightly to the side.

The boy looks around with wide eyes. “Hey Suzuki, we should share the information and surrender.”

“What are you going on about now?” Their third teammate asks, a brunette who’s a little shorter than her two teammates. Shorter than Sakura actually, just a whole shrimp.

“Well, we’re going to get eaten alive.” He trembles out with quivering lips and weak knees..

“Why would-holy crap.” It’s as sudden as a flashlight turning on, - something she should have freaking packed. What is wrong with her? - one moment the trees are covered in an aura of darkness. The fire she had originally set off casts just enough light that it’s actually harder to see into the treeline as their eyes adjust to having a pittance of light. The moment their eyes do adjust, they’re treated to the sight of fifty glowing eyes surrounding them. The glowing gazes are accentuated formidably by the sharp clacking of dozens of mandibles smacking together so close by it feels like it’s against the back of their necks. Bright and ominous in all directions, Sakura can’t help but take a moment to appreciate that giant spiders look badass in the dark.

“So which is it, nourishing my protective and very pissed off summons, or are you going to stop yapping and start talking?” Sakura asks, managing to shift her expression to an innocent childish grin with a show of great effort.

The thump of knees hitting the dirt brings a real smile to her lips. “Good choice, now tell me about this bribe. If your info is good enough, I might not even turn you in after the exams.” She lies through her teeth.

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[Due to declaring yourself by name, and due to having Hero status in Wave, the country of Wave has voted and will now be known as Sakura Country.]

“...” She has to rub her eyes upon waking up, partially to clear out the grog, partially because of the system message in her face. “Hey so uh, I accidentally changed the political landscape of the elemental nations and probably became dangerously famous overnight. What’d you guys do last night?”

“Slept.” Sasuke answers with a slow nod. He just accepts what she said like it’s as natural as any other breath she could have exhaled. She appreciates his unconditional kindness and acceptance of her eccentricities, but she can’t help but find it a little irritating that he’s just so okay with this that it wraps right back around to being a little insulting.

“Me too, yeah, was pretty nice.” Naruto yawns, stretching out his arms above his head and letting his mouth fall wide open for a long moment. “The forest is surprisingly comfy when Kakashi isn’t here to rip your arm off and beat you unconscious with it.”

“That never happened.” Sakura deadtones at him.

“It didn’t, but the amount he’s exaggerating is unacceptably low for such an absurd statement..” It’s another voice that catches her ear, and she looks up to see team ten walking into their clearing with a sense of confidence. Ino’s at the front, Shikamaru right behind her with a look at anywhere but them, and Chouji’s got himself a bag of chocolate cookies with white chocolate chips. She finds her heart racing the moment it clicks with her that they got snuck up on, but it’s not like she’s been up long enough to check the trackers she has and the Naruto clones probably made sure the summons left team ten alone. It also wouldn’t surprise her if they can be bribed with pets or something, which Ino would pick up on immediately. That’s probably a security risk, she should maybe make them make a sound when a friend approaches.

“Hey Ino.” Sakura reaches into her pack and pulls out a little water, taking a sip while giving her childhood friend a little wave. She also waves at Chouji, allowing her palm to lay flat a moment later. He gets the idea, and soon she has a cookie to chew on. Morning cookies, it brings her back.

After another sip, and a few more seconds to clear her eyes, she takes a real look at Ino and finds herself staring. Few things put this test into perspective like Ino dressing in combat gear. She’s never seen her outside of her few classic outfits and fashionista rampages. She’s never ever seen her wear something purely because it’s practical, and yet Ino stands in front of her dressed in chain mail mesh and with a rugged look to her. Her hands are covered in gloves with metal plates almost like Kakashi’s, and her purple shirt actually has sleeves. There’s no skirt or shorts for Ino today, she’s dressed like she’s ready for war, and the three extra kunai holsters on her legs don’t look like they’re there just for show. “I’m not here to play.” Ino’s overly serious tone of voice catches Sakura off guard, but her options are to make a joke or pay attention and she’d never belittle Ino.

So her eyes lock right onto the prettiest girl in the forest of death. She looks good combat ready, and at that thought Sakura can’t help but wonder why her face feels hotter than normal. “I’ve had a quest for around a month now, I thought it was joking around so… no, I was afraid, so I didn’t mention it.” Ino takes a deep shaky breath. The downward trend of Ino’s lips fills Sakura with rage. Something needs to suffer for ruining her smile.

“It updated about an hour ago to inform me that I’m running out of time. I need to gain a level across my team in the next forty eight hours or I’ll miss my chance to save you.” Ino explains, crossing her arms and hardening her features at Sakura’s looks.

“Oh, huh, do you think you can do it?” Sakura asks her, while Naruto and Sasuke look up at the mention of the word ‘quest.’ Oddly enough it’s Shikamaru and Chouji that seem the most surprised. Ino really kept her promise and didn’t even mention gaining a part of her system to her own team. As heartwarming as that is, she’s a little confused. Why wouldn’t she tell Shikamaru? The Nara clan doesn’t gossip, and Shikamaru is smarter than she is. He could probably figure out tons about the system and help her. That’s just dumb, tell the genius, Ino.

She’ll talk to her about that later, though maybe that ship has sailed because Shikamaru seems to be putting a lot of things together at once. As the Nara clan heir it’s very possible he already knew about her secret, so connecting Ino to it shouldn’t be too hard for him… Regardless, the quiver of Ino’s lip tells her a lot of things she doesn’t want to know. “I’m going to try. But I don’t know. That timer isn’t for no reason, something happens two days from now and if I’m not there, you need to be prepared for anything.”

“Hopefully, what happens is we pass.” Sakura teases her friend a little, “could it mean I escape danger without you getting the chance to play hero?”

“I hope so.” It’s clear Ino doesn’t think so, and if anything she finds herself a little scared at Ino not even pretending to play along with her joke.

[Ino is terrified at the thought of losing you, and of being worthless while you die.]

Yeah, no shit system, you terrified her. “I need to figure out what I’m doing to try and force one more level. Stay safe Sakura, and stop following us with your summons. We won’t get stronger if we don’t get to fight our own battles.”

Team ten’s footsteps disappear into the trees almost as quickly as they came, and only the questioning gaze from Naruto keeps her from jumping right up into action for day two, the repeatening of day one. “She stumbled across the system during the interrogation sessions. It seems I’m capable of sharing a watered down version of it to those that can get to the deepest parts of my brain. She’s never gotten a quest with actual consequences before though. It seemed more like an interface than something actually useful.”

“Oh.” Naruto nods at that, “that makes sense.”

“Does it?” She asks.

“No. But nothing does anymore.” Naruto shakes his head at her, “what do you think happens in forty eight hours?”

“Hopefully, Ino gets a prompt telling her she’s been pranked.” Sakura winces, “but if I was to take a guess, Ino’s gonna save me.”

“She said she’s below the requirement and running out of time,” Sasuke points out with a little bit of stress to his tone, “are you sure she can? She didn’t seem too confident.”

“Ino’ll save me.” Sakura says resolutely. “I’m far more concerned with the system apparently being able to tell the future a month and a half in advance.” She jumps to a stand, finishing her cookie and wiping the crumbs off her armor. “Let’s get started for the day, maybe if we’re lucky we can get some hints while exploring. Instruct your clones to pop themselves if they find anything that points towards whatever that was.”

“Aye Aye Sakura!” Naruto chuckles, disappearing into his tree while Sasuke does a few morning stretches, and gets up ready to hunt.

“I don’t like leaving it to chance, Sakura.” Sasuke grumbles at her.

Luckily she has an answer to that too. “We’re not, our current course of action is the best one for dealing with bullshit. I’m going to collect summons, Naruto’s going to make clones, and you’re going to do what you do best.”

She wanted to bring communication devices after the paper test mishap, but she was sorta worried Sound would have some jutsu to receive their transmissions. Now she wishes she had just done it, who cares about sound? Next time she’s doing it. She can afford good devices too, things are going well.

“Oh right, also someone probably wants me dead and has paid other teams to do it, maybe be careful!” She shouts after Naruto as she leaves with Sasuke.