When Daisuke came to visit Minato yesterday, he gave him enough food to live for a week and explained to him that the villagers reached a consensus. He can live here from now on, without having to pay anything for the time being. He will just have to help them in odd jobs from time to time. He was surprised that a bunch of bounties will be such softies, but not all of them were 'bad guys', so he was not shocked by such a decision.

After eating breakfast, Minato began to review his plan for this mission.

In the beginning, he was hesitating whether to attack this place or not. True, it could give him some real battle instincts against multiple vicious opponents, but at the same time, if for some reason Jiraya came back ahead of time, it could become tricky to explain.

But the moment that he knew that Hohozuki, or rather '1 million ryo Ameyuki' from what he gleaned of the multiple villages bingo book that he bought, had the Mud release, he lost all his hesitation. Even if it isn't a hundred percent sure foolproof plan, it's worth the risk. He has to snatch this bloodline.

He can't possibly act only when he knows there is no risk. The job of the 'plot knowledge' is to lower said risks to a maximum, not making him act just when there is none of them. Such a mindset will only hinder him. He must not mix cautiousness and cowardliness, bravery and brashness. Since coming to this world, he couldn't act as he wishes anymore and had to hide everything he does, and his cautiousness reached scary degrees, nearly becoming cowardliness.

'Thankfully, it's not too late to prevent that. I'm Byron, the intergalactic emperor that wishes to secure a paradise for myself and my loved ones. Fearing death is ok, but becoming a coward that is afraid of acting is unbefitting of my name!'

'And I mustn't lose myself to the mask I wore in Konoha.'

It's at this time that he made the decision to lose the 'I'm Minato' mask and slowly act like he did when he was eighteen, the time before he froze his heart. He feared that if he keeps the act for too long, he will truly think of himself as Minato. Even if his goals will never change, if his personality does, it will be a huge loss for him. If we force ourselves to express a certain thing, sometimes it will lead to truly feel it. And it isn't like he had a bad personality by then, he was a bit like Minato, just more playful and easygoing, so the Konoha higher-ups will think it's the war that made him change a bit, and that he acts like that to cope with the horrors he had seen. The only reason that he acted exactly like Minato till now was because of paranoia.

Back to Minato's plan, it consists of two parts: sealing this place and killing this place. He already placed a barrier seal at the entrance of the cave yesterday, so he just had to place three more to completely surround the village and erecting a barrier, forbidding anyone from fleeing when the battle begins.

After that, he would have to rely on himself to battle against the entire village. It will be a challenge, but it should not be mortal for him if he doesn't become c.o.c.ky. Worst come to worst, he could open the first gate and destroy everyone here, but it will lead to severe weakness when the gate close again. And with the Genjutsu wore off because of the death of the Genjutsu guard team, the longer he has to rest, the more chances he has to be caught in a tricky situation. He was still in the Land of River, in the middle of a war zone.

The drawback of this plan is that if somebody passed by, they will see the barrier. And if it's Jiraya that came back early for x reason, a lot of headaches will ensue. Thankfully, this village is pretty well hidden, so from afar nothing should be seen, and he doubted that Jiraya will have so much free time to come back here to check on him.

"Let's do this, I must place these seals without appearing suspicious. I will just have to pretend to tour the village, nobody should prevent me to do that. After all, there is no restricted place here, everybody is 'equal' and there is no village chief"

Having made up his mind, he began the execution of his plan without delay.

The first seal was at the entrance of the cave, so the second should be at the opposite of it. And in this mountain cave, it's at the end of the residential area, which means near his house. Minato walked to the mountain wall some meters from his house and placed a second seal on the ground discreetly with his foot. He already placed the formula on his shoes before entering Shangri-La, so he just had to applicate some chakra into it, that will be undetected thanks to the seals hiding his chakra.

Not a lot of residents were around, with the majority of the people still sleeping. Necessary things to do like hunting can be done in a jiffy by people that have chakra, so they have a lot of free time, which mean a lot of sleeping time for most of them, who are a bit depressed at life, forced to hide in a hole like that to survive. In Shangri-La, the most popular entertainment in the form of brothel doesn't exist, which p.r.o.s.t.i.t.u.t.e in her right mind would come in this hellhole where she would never escape from? And even if there was, it's not like they can advertise their villages publicly. So, apart from sleeping, Shangri-Laiens don't really have anything to do.

Therefore, the next part of his plan was executed smoothly, without any hindrance in the form of talks with villagers. During the next hour, Minato contoured the village by sticking to the mountain walls and placed the last two seals. People that saw him didn't find anything suspicious, thinking that Minato was just looking at the size of the village.

Having finished his preparations, and having combed through the whole village to assure that there were no enemies strong enough to kill him, Minato arrived in front of the door leading to the entrance of the cave.

Opening it, he spotted Daisuke and some of the guards from yesterday.

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