Three hours after the questionnaires were collected for evaluation, the candidates gathered in the hall on the ground floor. Takuma stood in the crowd wearing the provided 'Scars' mask; he was surprised when he was instructed to do so as he thought it was meant to mess with him—but everyone was now wearing a similar mask over the front of their balaclavas.

"You must be tired after sitting still for so long, so let's have you all stretch your legs," the gold-wearing ANBU addressed the crowd of candidates in a flat and almost uninterested voice. He wore a dark, full-body zip-up robe. Its hood cast a deep shadow over half of his face, making the jewellery adorning his hands the only noticeable feature. "For the next task, we want you to travel across the country in a certain amount of time..."

As he spoke, the staff distributed identical backpacks to the candidates.

"Unlike the written questionnaire, this is an elimination task. The passing criteria is to reach the final location by the decided-upon time. You can refer to the map and note inside the backpack for further details. That's all from my side. Your time has begun; you're free to leave."

The moment those words were uttered, the hall burst with activity. The candidates rifled through their backpacks for the aforementioned map, the note, and other resources they had been granted.

Takuma went to the corner of the room and sat down against the wall before going through the bag's contents at his own pace . As a collector of high-quality maps, Takuma owned a collection that covered a significant portion of the Land of Fire. He was lucky to live in a major national hotspot like Hidden Leaf Village, as he could even get maps of remote regions. He had by no means memorised them as there was too much but he recognised the area in the included map, which was barely serviceable but, to its credit, had enough information for anyone knowledgeable enough to chart a journey.

Multiple points were marked on the map, and according to the accompanying note, the candidates had to show their faces to the staff at the locations. That changed Takuma's understanding of the task. It was no longer about plotting the fastest course from point 'A' to point 'B', but plotting the fastest journey while hitting additional locations as well. He recognised that the ANBU-nin had barely given them any information about the task, and even the note was fairly minimal.

Was it because they were granting them freedom on how they wanted to complete the task, or was it because they wanted them to derive something from the limited information provided?

Takuma glanced up to see that some candidates were already leaving the building.

The note said they had five days to reach the final location, but as he glanced at the people leaving the building one after another, he could tell they were hurrying. Even though the passing criteria was reaching the location before the deadline with one more condition to be met, it was a fair assumption that the candidates would be ranked according to how quickly they reached the checkpoints and the final location.

And yet... he couldn't help but wonder what the motive behind this task was, especially after the last six hours.

So, Takuma decided not to compete in the race.

The passing criteria was reaching the final destination in five days while hitting all the checkpoints, and he would stick to that. The other candidates were his competition, but unless ANBU itself pitted him against them, he wouldn't participate or interfere.

Four days, he decided. He was giving himself a one-day safe cushion.

"Okay, let's start with leaving the village."

It was three in the afternoon, so a few hours of light remained. Like most of his travels, he would only move during the day and rest at night. He had sufficient bedding and a half-decent survival kit, so camping didn't seem like a problem. There was one field ration in the backpack, which meant the ANBU expected them to procure their meals after the first day. No money was included, which was fine because he could hunt—but he didn't want to hunt every day as it would take away from his four-day travel time.

However, all the checkpoints were in towns, meaning he could buy meals provided he had money.

All in all, Takuma didn't have anything he needed to do in the village, so after plotting the appropriate course using the map and his knowledge, he left the village and made the most of the daylight hours.

———

.

As the night arrived, over a hundred kilometres from the Hidden Leaf Village, a young man in his mid-twenties lay beside a small fire in a clearing. It hadn't even been an hour since the sky had turned completely dark, but he was getting ready to sleep so he could rise and set out at dawn.

Yaya Utamatsu had been a chunin for five years before ANBU invited him to participate in their recruitment process. His hometown was near the peaceful southern shores of the Land of Fire, but he had spent most of his career in the western part of the nation on the border of the Land of Rivers, a nation sandwiched between the Land of Fire and the Land of Wind.

Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

He had suffered through the Third Shinobi World War and had fought on the frontlines against the Hidden Sand shinobi as a greenhorn genin. What had been a war deployment had turned into a decade-old posting by his own choice. He missed his hometown in the south, but he had built himself a new life in the west and even laid roots by marrying the girl of his dreams.

The ANBU invitation had been unexpected. He didn't think they had their eyes on him, but he was flattered that they considered him. Ultimately, he decided to go because he was promised a posting in the Hidden Leaf village if he passed. He and his family lived in the biggest city in the west, but there was no place better than the Hidden Leaf village for a shinobi and their family.

Not only was he interested in ANBU's work, but it would afford his future children better prospects, shinobi or not.

He had arrived at the Hidden Leaf Village two days in advance to see what it was like. He had been there once before for one of the three Chunin Exams—two of which were held in other nations—and he had only explored the city as a tourist during that visit. This time around, he had a friend as a guide who showed him what it was like to live in the city as a resident.

It was more crowded than he expected, but that could be solved if he and his family chose to live further away from the city centre. Despite knowing he was in the hub for Leaf shinobi, he was still surprised by the sheer number of shinobi everywhere. While two days were not enough to truly get to know a place, he had a positive impression, which made him feel comfortable about moving his family if he managed to pass.

As Utamatsu stretched his arms, he imperceptibly glanced around the silent, dark woods before closing his eyes. Thirty minutes later, a figure silently sneaked toward Utamatsu's campsite. They approached him from behind so the campfire wouldn't cast a shadow in the wrong direction. The figure moved slowly with a kunai in hand; their target was not Utamatsu but the backpack beside his head.

As the figure grabbed the bag and pulled back, the campfire hissed like a blowtorch and released a blinding flash that stung the figure's eyes as they immediately tried to back away—but Utamatsu was ready; he was up on his feet in under a second and threw a spritz bomb into the figure's face.

A spritz bomb was a small package containing a chemical mixture that irritated the eyes, nose, and mouth. Evidently, the figure was an ANBU candidate; he was wearing the gear given to them by the ANBU. As the spritz bomb overwhelmed the senses, Utamatsu kicked the backpack out of his assailant's hand before sweeping the legs. He pushed aggressively, wanting to end it quickly because the alternative was a full-blown fight—something he wished to avoid as there was a risk of injury, which would, at the very least, mean a severe disadvantage in later assessments.

He closed the distance and kicked the man in his head as hard as possible, hoping that would do the trick. It didn't knock the man, and he even managed to hit him with a stray kick as he blindly flayed around.

It was dark, and the candidate couldn't see properly because of the spritz bomb, so Utamatsu stopped moving; it erased his presence and instantly panicked the candidate, who had just haphazardly gotten up on his feet. But it was too late, as Utamatsu finished weaving hand seals for a D-rank Fire Release jutsu that created a handball-sized orb of fire. The fire orb flew and exploded behind the candidate's head, and while it didn't do significant damage, it massively disoriented him and knocked him to the ground.

Utamatsu finished the job with a kick to the head to knock his assailant out.

"That was close," Utamatsu sighed as he grabbed his knees—not from exhaustion, but from the tension of being ambushed.

He wasn't as surprised because he knew the possibility existed when he saw the instructional note inside the backpack. There was a rule in there stating:

—Killing or maiming of candidates to eliminate competition is strictly prohibited and will lead to instant disqualification and subsequent legal proceedings —

It was a reasonable rule as they were all Hidden Leaf shinobi, and killing or permanently disabling their own would be detrimental to their nation. The rule, however, didn't prohibit inflicting recoverable injuries as a means to eliminate competition, and he was sure some candidates would try to use that as a way to thin the herd.

However, the next rule provided a much more reliable method to eliminate competition.

—The provided stamp paper must be stamped by the staff member at each checkpoint. Inability to produce a fully stamped stamp paper at the final location would result in disqualification —

Utamatsu looked at the unconscious man who had gone for his backpack in an attempt to destroy his stamp paper. He dragged the man to the campsite and strip-searched him to find a stamp paper, but unfortunately, the man was smart enough not to bring his stamp paper to the ambush in case things went wrong, which they did in this case.

He looked around the dark woods. The man wasn't wearing a backpack; it could only be somewhere nearby. If he could find it and destroy the stamp paper, he would eliminate one person from the competition. However, he didn't know if he would be able to find it easily if it was hidden—and he didn't want to spend more time near another candidate.

But he needed to punish the man for attacking him...so he broke the man's forearm bone in a clean fracture before tying the broken arm to a rigid piece of wood, substituting it as a makeshift splint. It wasn't a serious enough injury to do permanent damage, but it was more than enough to eliminate the man from further assessments.

He packed up his stuff and left the campsite with a sigh. His plans had now changed—he would travel continuously until dusk the next day, when he would find a secure place to rest safely. As Utamatsu got on the road, he thought about the 'stamp paper' rule. There was more nuance to it than stated. Losing the stamp paper didn't mean instant disqualification. According to the wording, they needed to produce 'a stamp paper'—it didn't need to be the stamp paper they found in their backpack.

Even if a candidate lost their stamp paper, they could simply steal someone else's stamp paper and produce that at the final location. Each destroyed stamp paper reduced the number of people who could pass. The candidates who passed completely depended on whether they had a completed stamp paper at the end. It was fair to assume that they would be ranked based on who arrived first—but even if they did not, completing the journey early was overall more beneficial. Things would only become more chaotic as the exam dragged on, with candidates who had lost their stamp papers hunting others who still had theirs.

Utamatsu wasn't aiming to be the first, but he was undoubtedly aiming to reach the final destination before people started feeling desperate.