Mission name: The Man-Eater
Mission rank: C[Repeatable]
Objective: Destroy the African Rock Python
Location: Iwagakure
Reward: 160
Mission description: A rock python roughly 4 ½ meters or 12 ½ft in length has been reportedly spotted on the outskirts of Iwagakure, having attacked and successfully killed livestock along with taking the life of a five year child, who was playing unsupervised. The residents of the given area are afraid that this monstrosity will continue to terrorize them, unless someone stops it.
Mission details: A straight forward mission. The snake in question will be founded in The Wild West, near some shrubbery. Unlike most snakes this python will attack you and continue to do so, when you come across it. This snake must be permanently removed . . . period!

Snakes were generally accepted by the populace as one of the more dangerous species of animals living on the planet. Of course, with people who were able to scale walls and breathe fire, they weren’t as scared of such reptilian creatures as they otherwise would be, especially since said people could also handle such human fears with little trouble, charging only small amounts of ryo for their payments. In the past, before the time of villages, people had been known to take up practices of chakra to protect their small farms of local villages against such threats, but with the advent of the hidden villages and a congregation of ninja, such requests were then outsourced to these villages, who began charging higher prices for such meager jobs.

Of course, while many people were first in an uproar regarding the much higher charges of such tasks compared to how easily one would be able to handle the issue alone if they themselves learned how to mold, control, and direct chakra, it quickly became apparent that missions with payouts below a certain threshold weren’t going to cut it. Accepting such missions on part of the village to distribute to their ninja was just more paperwork for little cash, since ninja weren’t likely to accept missions that seemed too cheap in its rewards. In extension, this meant that none of the money was forwarded to the village via taxation, so the village really had no reason to accept missions beyond the border that were too cheap.

Jade was currently on one such mission. A small village outside of Iwagakure had recently come under intense attacks by a rock python. Under normal circumstances, the village would just wait for it to pass, since predators didn’t normally stay in one spot, and if they weren’t already there in the first place then the likelihood of them passing by the village in a few weeks was very high. However, what made this one different was that the rock python had already been feasting on the village’s livestock, swallowing them whole one by one everyday, and even taking the life of a child. That had been the tipping point for the village to hire a ninja. They were fearful for what the rock python would be capable of if they left it to its devices, especially with the safety of the other children now clearly at stake. Initial plans had been to contract Iwa Genin several weeks after the python refused to leave, even after it had begun devouring some of their livestock, but a child’s life was the final straw that had impelled the village to act.

The village itself was in fear and in depression, still reeling from the death of one of the children from a few days ago. That was the air that Jade had been exposed to when she had visited the village asking for details on where the rock python could be found. No one had been willing to say a thing, as if even mentioning it would make it come slithering back for another one of their children. The only man who had been truly cooperative, and in hindsight the only man Jade expected to be truly cooperative, was the mayor himself, who pointed Jade to the Wild Wests, which hadn’t been inhabited by people for quite a few generations, to her knowledge.

Jade had been searching in the Wild West for the rock python, brown in colour and four and a half feet in length for quite awhile. There hadn’t been confirmed sightings that it was in the area, but according to the mayor, that was where it was most likely to be found, and being the only lead that Jade had, she was intent on following it religiously until she caught the reptile. It was like finding a needle in a haystack though, trying to find one snake in this large area, and the fact that its brown skin meshed well with the surroundings made it hard to find from a distance, camouflaged as it was.

Fate seemed to smile upon Jade today, however, as she caught a small movement, as if something was being dragged along the rocks. It wasn’t something she was used to, with lady luck often spitting upon her rather than smiling down on her, considering the pain that she had already had to go through in the short few years she had lived. She had to lose her parents and experience a world far too cruel for her liking at the tender age of twelve, and she would never forget the experiences that had stole from her her childhood.

Just as she saw the snake, however, the rock python also seemed to catch her with its eyes, slitted and yellow. It lunged at her, and Jade dove out of the way in the nick of time, causing the snake to sail past her behind her. It quickly recomposed itself, though, and Jade withdrew her kunai and jumped back, preparing herself for the python’s next lunge. It eyed her for a moment again, just as it did the first time, before rearing back and shooting forward, straight for her torso. Once again, she dove out of the way, though this time, she reached for the python’s tail and curled her hand tightly around it, before shoving her kunai straight into it, pinning the python down. She swore she heard it hiss, but her attention was divided between listening to what sound it actually made and dragging the kunai up its slender body, cutting it right open, since her kunai didn’t really penetrate all the way. It struggled for a few moments, before it made one last attempt for her head, only for its fangs to stop short of her cheek, held back by the kunai lodged in its body, before dropping dead.

Jade slumped back onto the ground, the dead snake lying on the floor beside her. The village would like to know it was happy. She was just decidedly less satisfied she hadn’t dealt with it like a proper shinobi.

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