Art Thief Mission

Spoiler:

As Corvin accepted this mission from the mission boards, he could not help but think that he was ready for harder and bigger missions. The only thing he needed was a team, but until that time these kinds of missions still needed to get done. For this mission, the hardest part was going to be finding the identity and location of the thief. Once he knew who it was then it would be easy enough to tail them, but short of catching them in the act there was no way to do that. Sitting down with the map of the village, he took small pebbles and placed them on the spots that each painting had been stolen from. There was a clear circular pattern to where the thefts had happened. This very likely meant that the thief was working from somewhere in this circular area. 

Heading out, Corvin went to as many houses and shops as he could asking if they had any art that they believed would be worth enough to merit someone stealing them. After a few hours of this, he came up with just three within the circle. The thief was either going to have to steal from one of these three houses or else widen his circle. The problem was that none of the houses were in a place where he could reliably see all three of them. He would simply have to keep surveillance on one house at a time and the thief would either steal from that house and be caught or else steal from another house and either still get potentially caught and narrow down where he was heading next.

Corvin picked the house with the most expensive painting in it to keep watch on that night. Many hours went by, but sure enough in the dead of night Corvin saw someone sneaking into the house through a window. He waited patiently for the thief to exit, and his patience paid off when the thief exited a few minutes later holding the painting. He moved quickly down the street, but Corvin was easily able to keep up following on the rooftops. The thief lead him, just as he had suspected, to a point fairly close to the center of the circle of previous thefts. It was a ramen shop that had been closed for a while. Corvin made his way over to the building and snuck in. Walking quietly, he came to a dimly lit back room where the thief was facing the opposite direction putting the painting in a box with several other. 

Pulling out his kunai, Corvin snuck up right behind the thief and placed it right against the thief's back. He instantly spun around, and upon seeing the Sand Village forehead protector on Corvin he sighed heavily. He knew he was no match for a shinobi. He tried explaining that he was only trying to sell the painting to make enough money to open his shop again. He did not think he was harming anyone. Unfortunately for him, Corvin is generally a stickler for the law. He brought the guy into custody. The next day, he spent his time returning each painting to its rightful owner.

(Word count: 536, Rewards: 550 ryo and 3jp)

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