"Ren—Renya…"
Sarutobi Hiruzen's voice trembled.
If he hadn't heard wrong just now, didn't Renya just insult the daimyo?!
This is bad. Really bad!
In his ingrained shinobi mindset, you must never provoke a daimyo.
Yet Renya had openly insulted and threatened the daimyo — an utterly outrageous act.
It was effectively pushing Konoha into the fire!
"Bast—bastard!"
The daimyo, after a brief stunned moment, snapped back to attention.
How dare this savage shinobi insult him!
Fuming, he pointed at Danzo with shaking finger and shouted angrily.
"Hokage, are the ninjas in your village all like this?"
"I think we'll have to seriously cut back financial support to Konoha from now on!"
Ungrateful traitors.
Over the years they had sent so much money to Konoha — only for the village's own shinobi to dare insult him now.
"Do as you please." Danzo spread his hands.
It was unclear whether those words were meant for the daimyo or for Renya…
"Alright, alright!" The daimyo retorted through clenched teeth, "Let Konoha be ready to bear the wrath of the daimyo's office!"
Without the daimyo's patronage, Konoha would never have developed.
He resolved to stop allocating funds to Konoha.
A village that could not be controlled had no reason to exist.
"Noisy." Renya said softly.
A flash of steel.
Before anyone could react, the daimyo's pointing hand toward Danzo was sliced clean off at the root.
"Ahhhh—"
"My hand, my hand!"
The daimyo clutched the wound, rolling on the floor in agony and shrieking in gut-wrenching pain.
He had never imagined Renya would actually strike!
"Your Highness—!"
The main hall instantly erupted into chaos as countless guards closed in around Renya and his two companions.
"Ren—Renya…"
Hiruzen's face went pale; he trembled and couldn't form a complete sentence.
Oh no!
Renya had actually attacked the daimyo!
The shinobi values he'd been raised with began to collapse in an instant.
For a moment he found himself questioning everything.
Hiruzen's ingrained shinobi worldview shattered; he stood frozen and helpless.
Harming a daimyo — Konoha was finished.
From that moment on, the daimyo would no longer fund Konoha.
"Hiruzen, calm down — it's not that big a deal." Danzo looked at the despairing Hiruzen and tried to soothe him in a quiet voice.
Hiruzen: "???"
Not that big a deal?!
He'd just had the daimyo's finger chopped off — isn't that a big deal?!
If this got out, other employers would never assign missions through Konoha.
Then the village's shinobi would lose their only source of work.
It wouldn't be long before those ninjas left the village!
"Enough nonsense — you're going too far!" Hiruzen roared in a breakdown.
He hadn't expected things to spin so far out of control.
If only he'd used harsher measures to stop the two earlier.
"Enough, Hiruzen." Renya turned to look at the enraged, flushed Hiruzen and said mildly, "It's only one daimyo."
"Kill him, replace him — isn't that fine?"
"You… you want to kill the daimyo?!" Hiruzen was incredulous.
Those words shattered his already fractured worldview even further…
Killing a daimyo was an act with extremely grave consequences.
Yet from Renya's mouth it sounded like something trivial.
"Protect the daimyo!"
The surrounding guards drew their weapons and watched Renya warily, but none dared step forward.
They were ordinary guards, after all.
They could suppress unruly commoners — but confronting powerful shinobi was another matter.
"You bastard, I'll kill you, I'll kill you!"
The daimyo's face drained of color from the pain; his eyes burned with venom toward Renya.
This savage shinobi actually dared attack him.
Treason of the utmost order!
"Kill him! Kill him for me!"
Anger had clouded the daimyo's reason; he even forgot the difference in strength between the two.
None of the guards dared to advance; the hands holding their blades trembled.
Being sent to kill a shinobi meant certain death.
A monthly salary of just a few thousand ryō — what were they risking their lives for?
The money belonged to the daimyo's office; their lives belonged to themselves.
If they died, they would have nothing left.
"The daimyo, you don't seem to understand the situation!"
Renya looked at the daimyo who continued to shout even at this point and couldn't help but smile.
"Do you really think I don't dare kill you?"
Perhaps the daimyo had grown arrogant from habit, reinforced by the unwritten rule that shinobi didn't strike daimyo.
That made him certain Renya wouldn't kill him…
Unfortunately for him, Renya wasn't a shinobi constrained by conventional thinking.
He was fundamentally different from old-timers like Hiruzen.
"Heh, if I die, Konoha will go bankrupt!" the daimyo snarled, clutching his severed hand, face twisted.
"If Konoha dies, I'll drag you down with me!"
Because of that certainty, he'd assumed Renya dared not murder him — only trying to intimidate and extort.
Renya stepped on his thigh; the sickening crunch of bone splitting echoed.
"Ahhhh—"
The daimyo screamed again and tried to writhe on the floor, but Renya's foot pinned his thigh so he couldn't roll.
"Do you have a son?" Renya suddenly asked.
The daimyo was in too much pain to answer and could only wail.
"If you die, it's fine — let your son succeed you." Renya spoke to himself. "If he obeys, I'll let him be the daimyo in peace."
"If he doesn't…" Renya's voice grew colder, "he'll end up like you."
"You… you…"
Fear finally showed on the daimyo's face.
He realized the savage shinobi before him was not joking.
This man truly intended to kill him!
He was terrified — genuinely terrified.
"Please, don't kill me… I don't want to die…"
The daimyo's arrogance had vanished, replaced by desperate pleading.
If Renya hadn't pinned his thigh, he might have already crawled over and prostrated himself.
He wasn't thinking about his earlier insults to Renya anymore.
He only wanted to live.
"I liked that defiant look you had before."
"Shinobi-sama, I was wrong, I was truly wrong…"
"You weren't wrong — you just realized you were going to die."
Renya lifted the foot that had been on the daimyo, then kicked him hard in the stomach.
The daimyo crumpled and was flung backward like a shrimp, landing on the floor and wailing in pain.
"Don't worry, I don't have any affection for daimyo like you."
"I'm not going to let you die easily."
Renya's gaze slowly swept over the surrounding guards.
"But before that, I'll clear out the weaklings."
A look of despair crossed the faces of the guards; just as they prepared to fight to the death, Renya was suddenly in front of them.
"Ffft—"
The sound of blades biting flesh rang out; one by one bodies fell.
The guards didn't even have time to cry out.
The great hall soon filled with the metallic stench of blood.