More than ten days passed.
"Damn it!"
"These damn ninja clans are all trying to disgust me!"
Haru slammed the desk angrily in his office. The matter of the Daimyo giving him Faye and Lynn had suddenly spread all across Konoha.
There was no need to think about it. It was obviously the work of those ninja clans in the village. All because he had delayed the release of over 10 billion ryo to them. It was not like he was refusing to pay it forever.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
Haru felt like all his dignity was gone. Even though this was something that was bound to happen sooner or later, now that the day had actually come, he still felt like he had some shame left.
And the worst part was that he could not even deny it.
Twins really were nice.
The war meetings these past few days had not gone smoothly either. The Senju clan kept picking at him one way or another, but Haru had not bothered dealing with them.
Just then, Tomita pushed open the door and delivered an urgent report. Haru read it word by word, and his irritated mood improved somewhat.
Kirigakure and Iwagakure would declare war on Konoha in one month.
Mu and Gengetsu really did think alike. Even the dates they had chosen to attack were only a few days apart.
If Haru had not known that Mu and Gengetsu were bitter enemies who could not exist under the same sky, he might have thought the two of them had planned this joint attack together.
Mu's body was wrapped up like a mummy because he had been badly burned by Gengetsu's Steam Imp. He would have to live the rest of his life covered in bandages soaked in special medicine.
The two of them would start fighting on sight. There was hatred everywhere between them.
That being the case, the futures side could no longer continue slowly absorbing positions. It was time to begin raising the market little by little.
Haru picked up the data report. During this period of slow pig iron purchases, more than 4 billion ryo had already been accumulated. The Daimyo was even greedier than Haru, having already bought over 4 billion ryo worth as well.
The previously falling pig iron price had already been moving sideways for a while.
Next came the gradual pull upward, slowly luring those leeks onto the hook.
A smile appeared on Haru's face. After planning and arranging all this for so long, it was finally time for the harvest.
A few days later...
Bounty Office
Kakuzu had spent more than twenty days completing another bounty mission. As usual, he carried the target's head to collect the reward. This mission had not been difficult, and the bounty was only a little over 200,000 ryo, but Kakuzu did not mind.
High-paying, low-difficulty jobs were not easy to come by. He was hardly the only bounty hunter in the ninja world.
As for high-difficulty, high-reward jobs, those were very troublesome to execute. Even someone like him could mess up if he was careless, lose one of his hearts, and be forced to flee in embarrassment. Jobs with a decent payout and moderate difficulty were still Kakuzu's favorite kind.
After leaving the bounty office, he went as usual to a weapon shop to sell off another batch of secondhand weapons. When he heard the shop owner still talking about pig iron futures, Kakuzu suddenly remembered the little white-haired brat, White Fang.
That guy had probably already lost a lot of money by now.
Kakuzu took the money and counted it bill by bill, enjoying the feel of cash in his hands.
In life, it was better to be practical.
Speculative games were not something one should touch.
Should I take a look?
Kakuzu did not really want to waste time on something like this, but when he thought back to how professional White Fang had sounded that day, his heart began to itch again. Instinctively, he felt it would be better to take a glance.
Just one look. It won't take long.
That was how he convinced himself, and then he headed toward the trading hall.
The moment he reached the entrance, Kakuzu was surprised to find that there were clearly more people here than before.
"Investment has规律. Everything in the market is controlled by an invisible hand behind the market economy."
"The same is true for futures."
"..."
White Fang sat on a table in the first-floor hall, speaking confidently. These were lines Haru had taught him. In his previous life, he had heard this kind of stuff until his ears were tired of it.
A whole ring of people had gathered around White Fang, listening to the gospel.
Under the pressure of money from Haru and the Daimyo, who both had nation-level capital behind them, pig iron prices had begun to rise slowly over the past few days. They had not only climbed back to the previous 630,000 ryo per ton, they had already reached 810,000 ryo per ton, a full thirty percent increase.
The people who had been brave enough to buy the dip before had already turned their accounts green.
An expression that could almost be called devotion had appeared on everyone's faces.
What White Fang said sounded incredibly reasonable.
Even if they could not understand him, that did not stop them from feeling that his words were convincing.
Because reality had already proven his theory correct.
Pig iron really had gone back up.
"What's going on? Why are there so many people gathered here?"
Kakuzu still had not figured out the situation. All he saw was that group crowding around the white-haired brat, listening to him spit out mysterious and obscure phrases that sounded very profound. A man with Kakuzu's educational level could not understand any of it.
But the surrounding audience was listening with complete fascination, nodding from time to time as if they really did understand.
"Look at that. That's what an expert looks like. His analysis is really thorough."
"You understood it?"
"More or less."
"Then why aren't you going to buy futures too?"
"I'm still going to wait and see..."
The people in the audience were not children. They all understood pig iron prices very well. Those prices fluctuated heavily. Once a ninja war arrived, pig iron would shoot up several times over. A mere thirty percent rise was still not enough to make them risk it all.
For all they knew, it could fall right back down overnight.
But that did not stop them from agreeing with White Fang's theory.
Because he really had made money.
"Kid!"
Kakuzu pushed through the crowd and arrived in front of White Fang, greeting him in a bad tone.
"So it's you. What brings you here? Regretting that you didn't listen to me before?"
White Fang looked extremely excited, and this time the expression was real.
He was not acting.
When he first bought in with 10 million ryo, the slow downward drift had made him so uneasy he could barely sit still.
Even though Hokage-sama had told him it was guaranteed profit, that was still a huge amount of money. Every one-point drop meant a loss of 100,000 ryo, enough to make his heart hurt so badly he could barely breathe.
But things were different now.
His account had gone from loss to profit. It had risen a full thirty percent, and he had made 3 million ryo.
That was the equivalent of a high-end S-rank mission. An S-rank mission could take one month at best, or three to five months at worst, and it carried life-threatening risk. Meanwhile, for the past several days he had just been sitting in the big account room drinking tea, and the money had arrived easily on its own.
The speed at which it made money was almost unbelievable.
"Regret what?"
"How much did you make?"
Kakuzu understood now. The kid had made money and was here showing off. But Kakuzu did not care too much. After roaming the ninja world for so many years, he was hardly someone who had never seen money.
How much could this futures thing really earn?
If he moved his body a little and killed a few nobodies, 200,000 ryo would fall right into his hands.
"Not much. Just 3 million ryo in a bit over twenty days."
"How much?"
"What did you say?"
Kakuzu could not believe his ears. He thought he must have heard the number wrong.
"3 million ryo. Is that a lot?"
"Haven't seen much of the world, have you?"
White Fang's expression was full of pride. Easy money had come too quickly, and his sense of financial values had already started to twist a little. Even his usually humble personality had shifted slightly.
Kakuzu's eyes widened, and his dark green pupils shrank violently.
Damn it, did I miss a chance to get rich?
This brat really had made money.
(End of Chapter)
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