System in Assassin's Creed

Chapter 338: Chapter 337: The Patience of the Spider and the March of the Thirty

The Third Village - Outskirts of the Fire Capital

A few hours had bled into the late afternoon, carrying with them the transformative weight of consecutive miracles.

Alaric Jonathan Kenway sat near the peak of a thatched roof, one knee drawn up to his chest, the other dangling casually over the edge. Below him, the central square of the third famine-struck settlement was undergoing the exact same, impossible resurrection that had graced Midori no Mura hours prior.

Taking a slow, deliberate drag from his cigar, Alaric watched the scene unfold with a detached, clinical satisfaction.

Down in the dirt, his shadow clone moved with practiced, unhurried grace. The duplicate wielded a simple wooden ladle, scooping precise fractions of the blood-laced water from a large barrel and offering it to the staggering, emaciated line of villagers. The effects were just as instantaneous and dramatic as they had been the first time. Hollowed cheeks flushed with warm color, trembling legs found their forgotten strength, and the suffocating veil of death was abruptly violently lifted. Weeping mothers clutched their revitalized children, while old men fell to their knees, praising gods that had absolutely nothing to do with the blonde shinobi administering the cure.

Alaric had replicated his entire methodology. He had restored the sick, and through a massive, subterranean pulse of Wood Release, he had forced the dead, cracked farmlands surrounding the village to erupt into a bountiful, permanent harvest.

And yet, despite flawlessly executing his end of the bargain with the Daimyo, a distinct knot of annoyance lingered in his chest.

’Three villages. Three perfect revivals,’ Alaric mused, blowing a thick ring of smoke into the descending twilight. ’But still... absolutely no sign of the actual vermin.’

He narrowed his blue eyes, scanning the distant tree lines and the winding dirt roads that connected the rural settlements. Nothing. He had cast his sensory net wide, hoping that his overt, miraculous interventions would draw the attention of the mercenary bands that had been terrorizing the region. But the wilderness remained frustratingly empty.

From the tearful testimonies of the three village heads he had interviewed, the narrative was identical. The royal caravans had arrived, unceremoniously dumped the relief goods into the provincial warehouses, and fled with suspicious haste. Less than an hour later, heavily armed bandits had swept through the settlements, claiming the life-saving supplies without facing any resistance.

’It would have been incredibly nice if things were as easy as I initially planned,’ Alaric thought, an exasperated sigh escaping his lips. ’I arrive, I heal the sick, the bandits show up to steal the new crops, I capture them, extract the merchants’ names from their skulls, and hand the evidence to Kyū. A clean, efficient loop.’

He tapped the ash from his cigar, watching it scatter into the wind.

’But of course, reality refuses to adhere to a convenient script. Nothing ever goes exactly as planned.’

He was a master of overwhelming force, but this required the delicate, tedious maneuvering of an investigator. From the memories accumulated by his initial infiltration clones back in the Fire Capital, Alaric already possessed the names of the merchants written in the treasury ledgers. He knew the specific guilds and the aristocrats who had signed the royal contracts.

However, the bureaucratic trail was cold. Those transactions had occurred months ago. The merchants who had engineered this massive embezzlement weren’t hiding in caves or marching with the bandits; they were wealthy men of influence. They were likely sipping imported wine in fortified mansions half a world away, enjoying the safety of the capital or managing their affairs in foreign ports.

’I could deploy a hundred shadow clones across the continent to hunt them down individually,’ Alaric calculated, weighing the logistical effort. ’But do I really need to expend that much energy playing the executioner? No. All I require is the undeniable, physical proof connecting the missing grain to the bandits, and the bandits to the guilds. Once I hand that specific link to the Daimyo, Kyū will unleash his own samurai and would maybe even comission Konoha for the ANBU to do the messy, global sweeping.’

He just needed to catch one thread of the web to pull the entire sweater apart.

Deciding that waiting around on a roof wouldn’t miraculously summon his targets, Alaric took a final drag from his cigar, crushing the ember against his thumb before tossing the stub away.

”Keep up the good work down there,” Alaric murmured to his clone, though the distance was too great for normal hearing.

Without weaving a seal or shifting his posture, he tapped into the spatial anchor he had left behind hours ago.

FLASH.

The air rippled with a sharp, golden light, and the original Alaric vanished, leaving the shadow clone to gracefully finish the arduous task of saving the third village.

---Midori no Mura (Green Village)---

The displacement of space deposited Alaric perfectly atop the sturdy slate roof of Taro Nakamura’s residence.

He materialized smoothly, his boots making contact with the tiles without a single sound. The sun was beginning its descent, casting long, dramatic shadows across the valley, but the atmosphere in Green Village had fundamentally transformed since his first visit.

The oppressive, silent dread of famine was gone. In its place was a frantic, ecstatic hum of life.

Through the sensory feedback of the shadow clone he had left to guard the perimeter, Alaric instantly absorbed the afternoon’s events. The villagers, having recovered their strength from the Phoenix remedy, had ventured out toward the agricultural basin. What they had found... a sprawling, impossible sea of golden wheat and ripe, vibrant vegetables standing where cracked clay had been that very morning... had sent the settlement into a state of joyous frenzy.

Men and women were currently walking through the streets, carrying woven baskets and wooden crates overflowing with fresh produce, their laughter and tears of gratitude echoing through the crisp evening air. The village was rapidly getting back on its feet, fueled by the miracle of the Wood Release.

Alaric observed the busy streets below, a faint, genuine smile touching his lips. He walked toward the edge of the roof, fully intending to drop down into the square, dismiss his guard clone, and inform Taro that the region’s crisis had been officially resolved.

He leaned his weight forward, ready to let gravity take him.

Then, he stopped.

His muscles locked instantly, his descent aborted before it even began. The casual, relaxed aura surrounding him vanished, replaced immediately by the cold, calculating stillness of an apex predator sensing a shift in the wind.

He didn’t turn his body, but his head snapped to the west, his piercing blue eyes locking onto the dense, forested ridge that overlooked the primary road leading into the village.

”One... two... three...” Alaric murmured, his voice a low, melodic whisper that carried only to himself.

His Mind’s Eye of the Kagura expanded, rushing outward like an invisible tidal wave, sweeping through the trees and the underbrush with microscopic precision.

”...Twenty-nine... thirty.”

He counted the signatures with absolute certainty. Multiple individuals were approaching the village, utilizing the dense canopy and the fading light to mask their advance.

Normally, a group of thirty travelers navigating a main road wouldn’t warrant a second thought. Merchants traveled in large caravans, and refugees migrated in packs. But Alaric’s senses perceived the world differently. He didn’t just feel their physical presence; he felt the distinct, intricate thrum of their internal energy.

These were not starving refugees, nor were they ordinary merchants.

Every single one of the thirty individuals possessed active, developed chakra networks. It wasn’t the vast, oceanic reserves of elite Jonin or the monstrous density of Akatsuki members, but it was significantly higher than that of a normal human.

And they were moving in a tactical, pincer formation, spreading out to encircle the village rather than approaching the main gate directly.

Alaric’s brows rose toward his hairline, an expression of profound, dark amusement crossing his features. The very rats he had been complaining about missing mere minutes ago were willingly marching right into his lap.

”Well, well,” Alaric whispered, a predatory smirk curving his lips. ”It seems the harvest has attracted some uninvited pests.”

He didn’t drop down to the ground to alert the village. Panic would only create chaos, and he didn’t need Taro’s people getting in the way of his interrogation.

Instead, Alaric simply willed his chakra to subvert the laws of physics.

He stepped off the edge of the slate roof, but he did not fall. He levitated. Smoothly and silently, he ascended into the evening sky, rising tens, then hundreds of meters into the air, until he was nothing more than a dark, unidentifiable speck floating high above the valley.

From his elevated vantage point, the entire tactical board was laid bare beneath him. He could see the villagers celebrating in the center, completely oblivious to the threat closing in, and he could see the thirty armed shadows slipping through the trees, drawing their blades as they prepared to raid the miraculous bounty.

Alaric crossed his arms over his chest, the tails of his crimson coat fluttering in the high-altitude currents.

”Let’s see exactly who these people are...” Alaric murmured, his blue eyes gleaming with the promise of absolute violence. ”...and exactly whose names they’re going to scream when I start breaking their bones.”

.

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