For the next five days, I went back to the training I'd abandoned after injuring my arm. I didn't notice any complications - my arm worked just as well as before, which was honestly a relief. I remember in my previous life, I once managed to mess up the tendons in my foot during boxing.
It took me months to recover, and only after two years could I run and walk without any discomfort. I have no idea how fast my body here would heal from something like that, and honestly, I hope I never find out.
Man, coming home after a tough workout and a relaxing soak in the hot springs - I'd really missed that feeling. Life felt vibrant again: my body was healthy, working on fuinjutsu was harder but more interesting, my second book was halfway done, and I wasn't exactly strapped for cash.
I'd tallied up the restaurant's monthly expenses and income, and now my bank account was sitting pretty at 690,000 ryo. In less than half a year, my investment in McDonald's would pay for itself - and that was a great feeling. Unfortunately, Masumi the cobbler still hadn't worked up the nerve to come see me, and there was nothing I could do about it. People are always happy to accept handouts, but if they have to work for it and take a risk, most will pass.
An entrepreneur is someone who risks their time and capital to achieve their goals - usually, big profits.
A successful entrepreneur is just someone luckier than most. Of course, success isn't just about luck; there are a lot of factors at play in any business. But without a little bit of luck, you could run your business for decades without seeing any real profit - or, as is more often the case, go bankrupt.
Shoe production seemed like a solid long-term investment, but I didn't really want to get into it seriously, let alone run it myself. And since Masumi turned me down, I figured it just wasn't meant to be. I had zero desire to go looking for someone else.
The book, though - that was going almost too well. The Hokuishi family actually had to strike a deal with competitors from another print shop just to buy a printing press from them. That cost them nearly half the revenue from my book, but they didn't seem upset.
On the contrary, they were even considering ordering another machine, on top of the three they already had. And I understood where their confidence came from. Not only had their print shop - basically a publishing house now - started supplying books to every bookstore and bookstall in town, but one of the merchants from Tanzaku had reached out directly, wanting to sell "The Search for Truth" at his place.
That opened up huge opportunities for their business. Supply couldn't keep up with demand; even at the bookstalls, if my book was in stock, the price could go up to 1,300 ryo. I'm afraid that in Tanzaku, once it takes off, the price will double or even triple. And you can't just raise the price of the book - the contract's already signed. As always, the poor workers (me and the Hokuishis) would be getting peanuts compared to the stores.
Okay, I'm exaggerating - our joint profit is actually pretty high, but that's the fruit of our labor. The stores, on the other hand, are basically just resellers, making the same profit as us for doing nothing.
But… whatever. Laugh it up and enjoy your easy money while you can. Soon, I'll show you what real price dumping looks like. Then we'll see if people are still so eager to buy from you. No, I wasn't just going to open my own bookstore and sell books with a tiny markup. My revenge would be much more dramatic - but first, I'd need to buy a plot of land two or three times bigger than the one for McDonald's.
Ugh, I'd have to save up for a few months if I wanted to pull that off. Or so I said, but right after lunch, I went and blew 250,000 ryo.
Damn, it was just too tempting. I mean, how could I walk into a weapon shop and only buy paper? My subconscious had been screaming "I want it!" for days, and as someone who grew up in a consumer society, I just couldn't resist. So now, here I was, sitting at home, sipping tea and admiring the blade of my new wakizashi, wondering - was it really worth it? [ image ]

I'd never done any kind of sword fighting, not even as a hobby. The best I could do with a blade was chop vegetables quickly, and I seriously doubted a wakizashi was meant for that. And of course, I had to pick the longest one! With a blade of two shaku (one shaku is 30.3 cm) and the handle, the total length was eighty centimeters.
The ANBU, for example, usually took wakizashi that were 60-65 centimeters, or even just a tanto at 40-50 centimeters. Why did I need a wakizashi? Well, before I bought it, I had no reason at all. I was like a kid who saw a cool toy and just had to have it. Now, to justify it to myself, I started thinking up reasons why I really needed it.
First off… it adds a certain aesthetic flair, especially with a kimono - though, honestly, kimonos aren't the most comfortable thing to wear. Second, having a weapon on me would make any potential troublemakers among the regular townsfolk think twice, maybe even three times, before messing with me. Third, carrying it gave me a bit more confidence - even if it was just an illusion, considering how dangerous shinobi are. Still, it was something. Fourth… walking around with a sword and swinging it around is just cool. Though, I'd have to wait on the swinging part - I had zero skills.
Still, it was really expensive. And if the shopkeeper was telling the truth, blades made entirely of chakra metal cost several times more. Mine was only 22% chakra metal. The most expensive item in that weapon shop was a katana made of 45% chakra metal, and it cost, get this, 580,000 ryo. But even if I could afford it, I wouldn't have bought it for one simple reason - I'm not a samurai.
Only samurai, or shinobi who'd apprenticed under a samurai (which was rare, since the former didn't like the latter), were allowed to carry katanas. Samurai despised shinobi fighting methods, considered them dishonorable, and would never attack from behind - that was a disgrace. Shinobi, on the other hand, didn't care how they killed their target.
Honor? Hard to have honor when you're killing kids and innocent people. No matter how hard Kishimoto tried to show the good side of shinobi in the anime, it didn't change the fact that many chunin and even genin had done some pretty dirty work at least once. Only Naruto ever got missions where he had to save or beat up bad guys.
I wonder what would happen if one person hired Konoha shinobi to kill someone, and that someone hired other Konoha shinobi to protect themselves. Would Konoha just do the job for whoever paid more? Probably.
Anyway, since I'm not a samurai and had no plans to just store or gift a katana, I decided to buy a wakizashi. Merchants and craftsmen were allowed to carry them, and since I was basically a merchant here, no one should have any questions. Ordinary villagers could carry any blade up to half a shaku in length, but aside from young guys, hardly anyone walked around with a weapon.
After all, Konoha's crime rate was one of the lowest in the Land of Fire. I didn't really know what things were like in other big or medium-sized cities. I could only judge by Tanzaku, but since it was the economic center of the Land of Fire, crime there was pretty active - and in my opinion, Konoha wasn't really trying to do anything about it. After all, problems in Tanzaku meant more missions for Konoha.
So… what was I saying? Oh, right. All in all, I made the right call buying the wakizashi. I was totally happy with my purchase. With a big grin, I spent a few minutes in the living room swinging the blade around, pretending to fight an invisible enemy. Once I'd calmed down a bit, I gave the sword a dramatic flourish and slowly slid it back into the sheath at my waist.
But… even with the book profits, I only had a little over four hundred thousand ryo left. Sure, I could save up for half a year and enjoy life, but my long-term plans required me to be raking in cash right now. Besides, if I just sat around, some clever guy would open a restaurant just like mine in Tanzaku, and that place would make way more money than mine here in Konoha. That wouldn't do. My ideas should benefit me and the people, not some merchant who spends his days drinking sake with women of questionable virtue.
So, I needed to start opening branches as soon as possible - and first of all, in Tanzaku. But the prices there… yikes. A plot of land like the one I bought here would cost me three or four million ryo over there, and if it's in the center, the price could hit six million. I did have a way to get that kind of money fast - and no, I wasn't planning to go bother Tsunade again.
How much of a loan can an ordinary villager get? Answer: 100,000 to 150,000 ryo, for six years at 15 percent interest. How much could someone who can casually blow 250,000 ryo expect? Well, that depends on their business and income. The bank knew exactly how much I was making, since I kept most of my money with them. And it wasn't hard for them to figure out - just look at the average purchase in my restaurant and the average number of customers.
As an entrepreneur (merchant), I could expect a loan of six to seven million ryo under normal circumstances, at 8 percent interest for ten years. BUT, as it happened, I was on pretty good terms with Homuri, and his friend Daiki worked at the bank in management. He'd even helped me find staff for the restaurant. We'd never met in person, but Homuri had told me before that if I ever had serious business at the bank, I should go straight to Daiki.
Since just depositing money wasn't serious business, I'd never crossed paths with him. But today, when I decided it was time to play big, I figured it wouldn't hurt to reach out.
By local standards, I was a mid-level merchant - B-class, to be exact. Yeah, there was a whole unofficial ranking system for merchants based on income. Beginners making fifty thousand ryo a month were D-rank, 150k was C, and 500k was B-rank. The gap between B and A was huge - it's tough to go from 500k to two million a month. Merchants making that much were considered big players, and there were no more than three hundred of them in the Land of Fire. As for S-rank merchants, the ones who were basically swimming in gold, there were maybe thirty, and all officials and even the Daimyo's relatives treated them with respect.
They were even called something else - magnates. There wasn't a clear line between A-rank merchants and magnates, but it was said that any magnate could easily afford at least twenty servants and fifty samurai. Spending millions on people to make your life comfortable and safe shouldn't even make a dent in your wallet. Of course, "keeping samurai" was more of a symbolic thing.
In reality, hardly any regular folks, or even merchants, would ever have a samurai in their service. After all, samurai were minor nobility, and to get someone from a higher class to serve you, you'd have to do something huge for them - like save their life. Most big merchants just hired various tough guys as bodyguards - ex-bandits, missing-nin, or ronin (samurai who'd lost or betrayed their lord).
Gato from the anime, for example, could be considered a magnate, even if most of his men were just thugs. But the point stands.
Daiki and I chatted in his office for about an hour. Thanks to my connection with Homuri, he was willing to vouch for me. But to get a bigger loan, he had to get approval from the chief manager.
I wasn't planning to hide why I needed the loan, and judging by the smile on Daiki's face when he came back twenty minutes later, my request for a 22 million ryo loan had been approved.
Which meant that tomorrow, I'd be heading back to Tanzaku…
[ Samurai of the Land of Fire ]

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