Kuro was sitting on a bed in a room with pure white walls, with ninjas from Senmon lineage taking care of his injuries.
Ninjas from the Senmon lineage are trained as doctors. In fact, all specialist ninjas are from the Senmon lineage: doctors, engineers, blacksmith masters, poison makers, weapon designers, etc.
"How is my situation?" he asked a ninja in a silk white coat; he was the most talented doctor in the whole village. He was The Senmon ninja, the chief of the lineage; a very influential member of the ninja council.
"You'll be fine! Your most serious injury was your shoulder, which fortunately didn’t reach the bone; only some muscle damage. No long-term side effects; you were very lucky; it's as if the archer exactly aimed not seriously to injure you!" Senmon said.
"That Archer was unimaginable! I have never seen anyone that good!" Kuro was still in shock when he thought of the archer who shot him. It was as if he could predict his movements; the moment he showed the slightest opening, the archer shot and didn’t miss it; it was strange that such an archer would consistently miss his vitals and only injure him.
"Maybe he didn’t want to kill me?" Kuro thought.
Trying to stand up, he struggled; even though the injuries were less serious than they could have been, he still lost a lot of blood, so moving and walking is not possible for now. Even this much mobility is only possible because it's Kuro, a peak human; otherwise, if it were an ordinary person, they wouldn't have been able to move at all.
"Rest for a while," Senmon said and left.
...
Lucy looked at the ninja village. It was extremely well guarded, with green-clothed patrols everywhere; Lucy would not have been able even to get here if she wasn’t good at hiding.
But even she could not just go into the village with so many ninjas around; going there in stealth is impossible.
"I should do the task Jack-sama gave me successfully," she looked determined.
There are other ways to go in; one such way is stealing the identity of one of the patrolling ninjas.
She is a master in these kinds of tasks.
After finding a group of four green-clothed ninjas, she followed them and threw a Paralysis smoke bomb.
A paralysis smoke bomb is one of her inventions, which is made of snake poison; as long as one breathes in even a tiny bit of it, they would fall to the ground, not even able to scream. She herself has the antidote so that she won't be affected.
As expected, the four just fell, and she easily went forward and stripped them naked; after all, she didn't want the clothes to be bloody when she killed them.
Two were men, while the other two were women; one of the female ninja's sets of clothes was her size; she wore it, then looked at them.
They were on the ground with wide eyes, unable to move, but conscious.
She plans on interrogating them. She can't go in like this; there may be a code or something.
"Well, let's start!" she smiled and took out her torture devices.
...
Ninjas were trained well, but at the core, they were still humans; in front of master assassin Lucy's techniques, they started talking.
She learned all she wanted.
"This is bad; there is no loophole in their security," she was a bit upset; it would be very difficult to infiltrate.
The patrolling teams were all four-person teams; that was why Lucy attacked four people; otherwise, it would have been easy to kill one and replace that one person. Now, however, she cannot replace four, which means ninjas will be alerted when they realize there are missing people.
"Okay, I should find another way," she thought.
Teams are all comprised of four people, which means she cannot replace just one person; the teammates know each other, so she cannot fake it.
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There is also no miraculous disguise method that can mask voice, looks, etc.; people who are each other's teammates cannot be deceived.
This way, Lucy ruled out replacing one of the patrolling ninjas as a way of infiltration.
...
The village was very protected, but it was only protected against humans. They never imagined someone would fly in.
This was exactly what Lucy was going to do.
Now, she knew the detailed map of the village, along with a lot of info about how it works. Using that knowledge, she was sure to find blind spots within the village at night.
As for how to fly… She had other inventions regarding that.
It was called a gas balloon; a lot of small balloons filled with flammable gas to get her up in the air. It was a genius invention, but because it was so hard to control, it was not practical for anyone but Lucy, who was one of the very few who had the skill to guide it.
...
She waited for another week because the ninja village had recently lost a few ninjas, and they were definitely alerted. Then, she flew up on a cloudy night.
The ninja village was quite big; its surroundings were very well protected, but within, there were many blind spots.
A few days ago, ninjas discovered a few missing ninjas; from then on, they increased security, but after a few days and finding nothing, the security returned to normal. After all, even ninjas need sleep and rest; they cannot patrol 15 hours a day for weeks.
Lucy knew the village's map and, using it, she picked a spot and carefully landed on it.
Her 'landing' basically involved popping balloons, which meant her travel was one way. Once inside, she couldn't run away.
She wore ninja clothes and had identity tokens.
As for where she landed, it was the ninja dorms for trainee ninjas. Trainee ninjas are just becoming ninjas, so they have no divisions and no missions; they were her best option.
After landing, Lucy quickly went and looked for a few dorms; she found a girl who looked quite like herself.
Finding the target, she took out her makeup equipment. She could disguise herself to look like the ninja girl if their outline was similar.
After a few minutes, she looked like that girl.
Then, she threw a sleep bomb in the dormitory, putting everyone to sleep.
After going in, she stripped the girl, wore what she was, and killed her. Just to be sure, she ruined her face, so they couldn’t recognize her even if they found her.
Then, she took the corpse and buried it somewhere in the soil outside.
After doing all this, it only took half an hour; she was fast.
Then, she removed all traces as much as possible and returned, sleeping in the bed.
Lucy had an amazing sight in the dark; it was as if she was a natural-born assassin, basically born to do these things. Of course, there were guards even in the ninja trainee dormitory, but she managed to avoid them all and do everything perfectly.
...
The next morning, everyone woke up without discovering anything weird.
Lucy especially chose this area of the dormitory because this area is called the preparation dorm. Ninjas from all lineages will be brought here to get ready for the final test; people here don’t know each other and don’t speak.
The last test's content is secret; nobody knew it.
At this stage, the ninja village spent a lot of resources on the trainees so the test would not be fatal; after all, they had already been in a mortal test when they were children.
All who remained were ruthless and mostly smart.
After waking up, they were fed special foods; this is the village's tradition; one month before the final test, everyone must eat the same food and live in the same space. According to the ninjas she captured before, this is the 21st day, so the test is not far away.
After she passes the test, she becomes a real ninja and can move around freely.
Then, she can send secret messages to Kuro and report anything the ninjas do. Nobody else but Lucy can become a spy in the ninja village.
...
The day of the test arrived.
Everyone was brought to an area that looked creepy.
A ninja in pure red clothes came and spoke, "This is the first phase of the test, listen carefully."
He continued, "The first test is a kill test." The red-clothed ninja waved his hand, and in response to him, other green-clothed ninjas brought in people in ragged clothes; they looked like prisoners.
"These are innocent people we captured; no matter what lineage, a ninja must be able to kill anyone; now, each gets a knife and kills one innocent," the red ninja said calmly.
"Easy!" Lucy thought; it was very easy.
Ninja trainees went forward one by one, and each killed one innocent. Of 136, 4 refused and were rejected outright; they would be tested again next year. Each ninja trainee can fail up to 9 times. The tenth rejection is a death sentence.
The 132 who reached the next round looked at the red-clothed ninja with expectation; the first test caused most to be hopeful.
"This test is about your tolerance! Give me a piece of your body! No matter where it can be your pinky or little toe; just cut a piece of your body and give it to me!" the red ninja said coldly.
Ninja trainees looked panicked, but after a moment, most steeled themselves and picked up the knives; these ninjas were all survivors; they had seen far worse.
Most cut their little toe, while some cut other parts; fortunately, medical ninjas were there waiting to treat them.
Lucy gritted her teeth and also cut her little toe; Jack-sama ordered her to do the mission so she could not fail, no matter what.
Out of 132, every single one passed this level.
The red ninja nodded and said, "You are all accepted!"
These ninjas trainees were all trained, and all had already passed many other cruel tests; this last part was just to weed out what they considered cowardly.
Already, there is no doubt anyone who reaches the final test is very skilled; furthermore, ninjas from all lineages come here to test, so it cannot be specialized. For example, Shiro ninjas are specialized in different areas than Kuro ninjas.
Therefore, this test is a test of character and not skill.
Ninjas care about two things the most. A ninja must be ruthless, so they don’t care about killing innocents. Second, a ninja must be courageous enough to cut pieces of their own body to reach their goals.
These tests accomplished those two objectives.
Seeing she accepted, Lucy gritted her teeth in pain as she walked out, following the ninjas who were leading them to their new station.