Five people were in a cave.
One was Jack, the leader of the group; the most outstanding feature about him was his green hair.
Another was Michael, who was nearly shining with a white halo.
The other was Lucy, who looked like she could stab you in the back the next time you looked away from her.
The next was Gabriel, who had black skin, hair, and pupils; however, he had an ordinary posture and was not as muscular and tall as one might have expected, as one of Jack's followers. Gabriel was not a peak human; he still had good fighting skills, but nowhere near as good as Michael; he was, though, an amazing manager, capable of setting up organizations with ease, finding more efficient ways to improve operations, and finding flaws in a system, etc.
The next was Raphael, with white skin, hair, and light blue pupils.
In general, people in this country and surrounding countries have white or black skin; there are no colors such as blue, green, etc.
Eye color ranges from black to brown and blue, with some gray; there are no green, red, purple, pink, yellow, golden, silver, etc. eye colors.
Hair colors range from black to white, brown, red, and green; hair colors like blue and purple are non-existent.
It is, however, rumored that eastern barbarians have red-colored eyes, blue hair, and pointy ears.
Gabriel was very talented in money management and could nearly sniff out money.
Each of them was best in their fields; Lucy was the best assassin in the world, Mike was the best archer in the world, Gabriel was the best manager and organizer in the world, and Gabriel was the best money manager in the world.
In general, only extremes can reach the peak; that’s why Jack only focused each of his subordinates on a specific field and didn’t give them well-rounded skills. Specialized people are more successful.
For example, someone skilled in engineering, medical science, law, and literature looks for a job. In each of those skills, he loses to others who don’t have as many fields of expertise but are specialized and, therefore, better than him in that one field. Mediocrity is extremely unwise; one must focus on one field and become the best in that field. This was Jack's line of thought when he designed his subordinates.
Lucy is only good at the job of assassins and has no skill in commanding units; Mike can only command troops on the battlefield and shoot arrows and fight, and he is completely useless in everything else; he can barely even talk without looking awkward.
Gabriel is good at general management but has weak martial arts skills and no skills related to spying, commanding troops, etc.
As for Raphael, he has good senses with money but is bad at everything else; he can barely hold a sword.
It's not that Jack couldn’t have made them all-around, perfect at everything, but that way, he should have buffed Kampaku more; it wasn’t worth it.
…
Jack stood up and exited the cave.
Lucy, Mike, Gabriel, and Raphael followed behind.
…
"Hero-sama! Village chief-sama is looking for you!" the girl with red hair ran, looking worried.
Jack, who was in a room, nodded and started walking toward the village building.
The girl with red hair looked at Michael; he looked much like the village chief, though a much younger version.
…
"Hero-sama! Kampaku's minions are attacking! Please run away before they reach us!" the village chief begged.
Jack nodded and said, "I agree; we have no chance, so we should run; however, you should also come with me; if you stay, I won't go!" Jack had already thought about it; it was best to dodge Kuro's attack and develop slowly in Red Flower City.
The last time, Kuro convinced Akai Hana to hand Jack over; however, this time, Jack would go straight to the samurai court of Red Flower City. Even Kampaku won't try arresting him rashly in the samurai court building.
Even though Kampaku is a friend of the samurai chief, lower-level samurais still dislike Kampaku; even the chief of samurais can't try to hand Jack over to Kampaku out in the open.
"I should have done it sooner!" Jack thought; he didn’t want to receive samurai help because that would restrict his future actions, but it is indeed the safest way to survive.
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The village chief looked shocked and said, "But what about the other villagers? I should stay to protect them!"
"This is a choice; do you care about them, or me? Just know that even if these villagers survive, they would change nothing; Kampaku keeps suppressing and killing all he considers enemies; but, if I survive, you can bet that I'll kill Kampaku; this is for the greater good!" said Jack.
The greater good debate is an ancient one. Would you kill one person if it can save one hundred? Does future good justify current evil?
Honestly, the answer is yes; the issue, however, is the slippery slope. In reality, nobody can predict the future, therefore, determining what is the greater good can easily be manipulated.
For example, all kinds of murderers could try justifying themselves with the same greater good lines. Therefore, the greater good cannot be used as a justification for an evil act.
Still, Jack doesn’t give a damn about good and evil; in fact, the greater good talking point here was only to convince the village chief, who, though very loyal to the hero, still cared about the villagers. But he cared far more about Jack than the villagers.
As expected, he nodded and said, "Wait here, Hero-sama; I'm going to get my money bag!"
...
After only a few minutes, everyone ran to the south gate.
The south gate led to an abandoned road in the opposite direction of Red Flower City. Kuro surely never expected them to run from the south gate; therefore, his spies should be less concentrated there.
Lucy should be able to take care of them.
…
After three hours, Kuro, in the middle of the village, surrounded by hundreds of corpses, shouted, "You didn’t find him?"
He was very angry; the task Kampaku gave them failed.
"They aren’t in the village!" the green ninja said.
"How is it possible? Mienai Ninjas clearly said he was here! He should have run away! Check what happened to our spies who were surrounding the village!" Kuro ordered.
The green ninja nodded and went away.
…
"Kuro-sama, the ninjas we put to look at the south gate disappeared!" said the green ninja after half an hour.
"Everyone, let's go! We should track them and kill them!" Kuro ordered.
He was very surprised, as there is nothing of note in the south. For that reason, he didn’t put many ninjas to look at the south gate.
…
In Jack's group, Michael, Lucy, and Jack were physically very strong, so their speed was extremely fast.
Gabriel, though not as strong as them, was quite good.
However, Raphael and the village chief were physically weak, so they were bringing the speed down. Jack couldn’t allow everyone to slow them down, so he directly hugged the village chief, with Michael hugging Raphael. Jack and Michael were still fast even with another person in hand.
The village chief pointed the direction, and they ran whichever way he pointed.
Ninjas were good at intelligence gathering, but it's doubtful they knew this detour; after all, the village chief was a wise man living here for decades, so he still knew some secrets. Along with their head start over the ninjas, Jack's group reached Red Flower City in less than 8 hours.
Even though they were ninjas, Kuro's group were not peak humans; their speed was, at best, equal to Jack's group; worse, they didn’t know the direction, so they had to track them.
After 5 hours of tracking, it became clear that Jack's group was moving in the general direction of Red Flower City.
When Kuro noticed, he sent his ninjas to block the roads and notify Akai Hana, but unfortunately for him, by the time the ninjas reached the city, Jack and his group were already in.
…
"Look, that is the samurai court's building!" said Lucy, who inquired about the location once they entered the city.
Jack saw it, smiled, and shouted, "What are you doing?"
Everyone looked surprised; they didn’t understand what Jack was talking about.
Jack looked at a vendor at the side of the street and pointed at it.
"Excuse me?" the vendor was confused.
"You! How can you scam people? Don’t you see they are struggling as it is? Why are you tricking them?" Jack said, shouting in a righteous tone, attracting crowds.
"Mister, what are you talking about? What scam?" the vendor asked innocently; he was selling fruits and vegetables, so there was not much space to scam; prices were fair and square.
Jack walked up there, looked at the fruits and vegetables, and struggled to find an issue; he only wanted to attract crowds to attract samurais and didn't think of these small details.
Picking up a few fruits, he shouted, "These fruits were irrigated with poisonous water! You are killing people!" he shouted so loudly that the local chief of samurais heard and came out.
Looking at Jack, his eyes went wide; he saw portraits of the hero and, with one glance, recognized him. It's said that Jack was an amazing swordsman who protected the weak; he lived by the sword and died by the sword, never retreating, even in the face of the grand Kampaku.
Very few samurais didn’t worship him. Of course, that was the background Jack wrote, so it shouldn’t be surprising.
The vendor looked at Jack, with the fruit in his hand, dumbfounded; in fact, he bought the fruits from a farmer, so he had no idea about irrigation.
"Please, don’t cause trouble; I already paid my protection money to the Black Tiger Gang!" said the vendor.
"Hero-sama!" the local samurai chief, Hansha, ran forward and bowed. Everyone also looked at Jack, recalling Hero-sama.
It's said that the hero cared about ordinary people and protected them. If the Hero took issue with the vendor, that means there is indeed a problem.
With the chief of samurais vouching for Jack's identity, nobody doubted him.
"Wait, you are Hero-sama?" the shopkeeper, a 50+ year old man, looked in disbelief; from his perspective, Jack didn’t look to be a good person.
"You deserve punishment for harming the ordinary people! Unfortunately, the leader of this city is an incompetent man who is a dog of Kampaku, so we cannot rely on him."
"Please, Hero-sama, I didn’t know about the irrigation problem!" the shopkeeper dropped to his knees and begged.
"Shut up, you monster!" someone from the crowd cursed.
"These days, I feel sick! So it was because of your fruits!" someone else, who recently bought fruits, said.
"I have had diarrhea for a few days! That must be because of this scammer's fruits!" someone else shouted.
Jack said in a calm voice, "This man wronged you; go and take your revenge; he is as bad as Kampaku!" He pointed at the shopkeeper.
After seeing Hero-sama allowing them, everyone looked at the vendor with murderous intention; the Hero allowed them to do it, so who dared to complain?
…
The crowd beat the poor shopkeeper and broke his two legs and right hand; his survival and death are uncertain. His shop was destroyed, and his products were all over the ground.
Seeing this, Jack nodded and looked at the samurai chief.
"It's an honor to meet you!" the samurai said.
"As Hero, I admire samurais to no end! It's my honor to meet your excellency," Jack said.
He continued, "Let's go inside; I need to drink. I don’t understand why some people, like this scammer, treat humans like trash!"