"Toraki, say goodbye to Lord Genya!" The old man called his young grandson over and waved goodbye behind Genya. His tone was sincere.
They truly appreciated Genya.
"Goodbye, Brother Genya!" The child's soft, childish voice followed, innocent and somewhat confused.
Then, the boy asked, "Grandpa... what did Brother Genya do?"
"He is our benefactor. Because of him, we can live safely and peacefully!" the old man said seriously.
"Oh~! When I grow up, I will repay Brother Genya properly!" Toraki's voice was earnest yet naive.
Listening to their conversation, Genya smiled faintly.
"Genya... have you arranged everything?" After leaving the old man's house, Kurenai looked at Genya seriously, her eyes filled with concern.
With so many involved, those two would definitely come to investigate.
"Don't worry. Everything has been arranged. There will be no mistakes!" Genya nodded confidently.
Did Kurenai think he had been idly wandering outside for three days?
He had already instructed the old man carefully.
Even if someone came, they would find no flaws.
"Your numbers are too large. They might ask other nearby farmers. It's impossible to leave no cracks. The old man could be retaliated against!" Kurenai explained seriously.
Kurenai had learned the personalities of Sarutobi Hiruzen and Asuma over these days.
Asuma would definitely know about this matter.
If they wanted to target someone, especially a lonely old man, it would be too easy!
Maybe, the old man got the money but couldn't spend it.
Or the next day, the grandfather and grandson were attacked by strange beasts, and their bodies were left exposed in the wilderness.
"Don't worry, Sensei. All the nearby farmers are closely connected with the Uchiha clan. I've already notified them. Even if they suspect something, they won't be able to find out any real information!" Genya understood Akai's concerns and took a deep breath before continuing.
"As for the safety of the old man and his grandson, you can be even more assured. I've contacted the farm's security team, and they will patrol the area thoroughly!"
There was one more thing he didn't say—the Third Hokage's telescope technique.
Genya had improved it and used it to inspect the farm.
By putting chakra into a crystal ball, he could observe a radius of one kilometer from above.
If anything happened, he could zoom in to investigate.
At that time, he planned to station several Uchiha guards there, having them memorize each other's chakra signature and use the telescope technique to watch each other's territories.
Any unusual movement would be immediately detected!
With this, Genya was confident that nothing would go wrong.
"Genya." Hinata felt more useless by the moment.
Genya had thought of everything so carefully, making her feel like a failure.
No, she needed to keep up with Genya and not fall too far behind.
With that thought, the group entered Konoha Village and headed toward the central mission hall.
Upon entering the mission hall, Genya saw two members of the Sarutobi clan sitting at their posts and finally spoke.
"I'm here to submit the mission."
"Did you find the missing pigs?" The two men's faces darkened when they saw Genya, but when they heard he came to submit the mission, smiles returned to their faces.
The Uchiha clan still didn't dare to truly target the Sarutobi clan.
Even if pigs went missing, they figured it was the Uchiha clan's troublemakers making up for it.
If so, next time they would assign Genya's group two easier missions.
"We found them!" Genya nodded and placed the wrapped bones he took from Shino Aburame's shoulder on the table.
"We found their skeletons. We arrived too late. The employer's pigs were eaten by beasts, and these bones are the evidence."
"Eaten by beasts?" The Sarutobi men twitched their mouths.
One of them spoke up, "The bones are so clean, and there are obvious burn marks. There's no way beasts ate them!"
"Oh, I was wrong then. Someone hunted these pigs and ate them. We really did arrive too late," Genya said, then pulled out two collars.
"These collars were found next to the bones. They are the ones the employer used on the pigs."
The two men were speechless, convinced that Genya was tricking them, but they had no proof.
"All right, all right. Report the employer's losses. I'll reimburse you for half!" In the end, the two didn't want to argue with Genya anymore and reluctantly asked, "How many pigs did the employer lose in total?"
In his mind, a farmer who could only afford 500 ryō wouldn't lose too many pigs anyway, so he might as well accept it.
Besides, the Sarutobi clan could cover the costs. He didn't want to keep arguing with Genya over this, but... this grudge was definitely not settled between them!
One day, they would make up for it.
"I've already tallied everything. Take a look," Genya said as he placed the loss report on the table, gesturing for them to see for themselves.
Without hesitation, the two picked up the paper recording the losses.
"Seventy pigs lost the first time, and... 110 the second time?" One of them was stunned. Before he could react, he looked at Genya and asked, "Why did it happen twice?"
The first time, the employer came to assign the mission to you, but while waiting for the ninjas to arrive, the wild beasts came again and chased away the remaining pigs and cattle.
"Wait... cattle too?" the man asked again.
Genya nodded. "It's normal for farmers to raise a few cows."
"That's not the part you should be worried about!" His companion scowled as he took the report. Seeing the numbers, he said, "Seventy pigs lost the first time, one hundred and ten the second, a total of one hundred and eighty pigs—that seems like a lot. And eighteen cattle too?"
More than a hundred heads—that was such a huge number. And cows were much more expensive than pigs!
"No choice. They raised so many, so the losses were huge too!" Genya helplessly shrugged. "Who can blame them? It's because you didn't release the task on time that caused their second loss."
"Wait... you're saying he lost so many pigs but only gave 500 ryō as commission?" The man couldn't believe it. He started calculating aloud for Genya:
"One pig is about 2,000 ryō. One hundred eighty pigs would be 360,000 ryō. One cow is 20,000 ryō, eighteen cows would be another 360,000 ryō. And he only gave 500 ryō commission?"
They thought Genya was trying to cheat them, but for now, they had no proof!
"Ahem. The employer didn't have money at the time. That 500 ryō was all he had saved!" Genya said with a pained expression.
"If we had gone earlier to help the old man find the treasure pigs, the losses would not have been just as big. But you neglected it for a whole week. The employer's life is already hard."
While speaking, Genya made sure to emphasize it was their negligence that caused the problem.
Shino and Kurenai held back their laughs behind him, thinking to themselves how Genya even dared to say that.
The two men were really speechless.
In the end, they just waved their hands and said, "Your calculations don't count. We'll do the counting ourselves."
****
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