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After Uzumaki Rubiro finally left, the Mizukage, with his cheek red and swollen, was able to breathe a sigh of relief.
"Wake up."
He kicked the ANBU who had been knocked unconscious earlier to rouse him. The man jolted awake from the force of it, as though the Mizukage were taking out all the grievances he felt from Rob's slap on this unfortunate ANBU shinobi.
"Mizukage-sama… what happened!?"
The first thing the masked shinobi did upon remembering what had occurred before he lost consciousness was drop into a battle stance and start scanning for Rob, who had already long since departed.
"You may leave."
Hōzuki Mizuru stood with his back to the masked shinobi, gazing out the window, and spoke quietly.
"Understood." The ANBU didn't hesitate, vanishing in an instant and leaving the Mizukage alone in a moment of temporary peace.
Though peace was something the Mizukage could hardly feel, not with the burning sting in his right cheek.
He touched his cheek, grinding his teeth in anger.
"This humiliation, I will return it to you one day, Uzumaki Rubiro… believe that."
...
Having finished disciplining the Third Mizukage, Rob returned to Konoha. But before that, he had assigned his clone in Kiri to handle the matter of Gatou and arrange his release.
Whether Gatou chose to follow the path of his counterpart or not was practically irrelevant, so long as it remained mere thoughts and he never acted on them.
But that was the role of the manga: to change reality by showing villains the consequences of their actions. After all, good always triumphs in the end, one way or another.
That was what Rob was trying to convey to readers through the Naruto manga.
Rob smiled as he worked his brush, painting and coloring the scenes of Volume Six with practiced efficiency.
While most people slept at this hour, the Art Store still glowed warmly from within, as did the Hokage's office.
...
One month later.
The morning before Volume Six's release, Rob quietly glanced at the total Art Coins he had accumulated thus far.
[Art Coins: 50,000,000]
"After more than half a year… I've already built up a respectable fortune."
He grinned like a twenty-first-century young man staring at his bank account, fat with zeros trailing behind the number 5, after winning the lottery.
Except Rob hadn't won any lottery. He had built his fortune by establishing a network of Art Stores across the Five Great Hidden Villages and several smaller ones, thereby spreading the Naruto manga more densely throughout the world, drawing in more readers, and in turn earning more coins and experience.
"Although it's tough to accumulate enough experience to raise the system to the next level. I've needed far more than a single month to level it up even once."
The system was still at Level 5 even after six months of relentless grinding, "but by the end of today, I'll definitely be able to push it to Level 6."
That much, Rob was already certain of.
"Alright then, time to update the manga. You all, make sure the volumes are shelved perfectly. Professional customer service is our brand~"
Every one of Rob's clones, scattered across the world, heard the "boss's" order and sprang to work with enthusiasm. Among them were two new faces, though of course their faces weren't any different from Rob's own. What differed were the colors of their uniforms.
In other words, during the past month, Rob had visited two additional villages and opened Art Stores in both.
...
Kusagakure:
The Village Hidden in the Grass is a relatively small shinobi village situated in the Grass Country, distinguished by its lush nature: dense forests, towering mushrooms, and deep ravines.
Before Rob came to open an Art Store here, the place had been utterly quiet, with no major incidents since the end of the Second Great Ninja War.
With the Art Store's arrival, all of that changed completely. The shinobi of Kusagakure went on full alert, as though the end of the world had come.
But contrary to what they had imagined, Rob hadn't committed a single act of aggression. He established the Art Store with ease and left as though he'd never been there in the first place.
This left Kusagakure's current leader, Mouso, completely speechless.
At that moment, Mouso noticed a strange glow above the Art Store's rooftop.
Mouso was a man in his late fifties with long dark green hair that bordered on black, sharp hawk-like eyes, and the official Grass Village robe, though with iron shoulder guards added, bearing the insignia of the fortified Hōzuki Castle.
(Author's note: OC character, as there are no canonical leaders from this location at this time of the plot.)
"What is this?" he muttered.
The strange, futuristic building, which had been silent all week ever since that terrifying man had placed it there and remained inside, began to react today.
Throughout the past week, of course, shinobi and civilians of Kusa had interacted with it freely, entering and reading the manga without encountering any harm or anomaly. But today, the posters plastered across the store's exterior walls had changed.
New characters had appeared.
"Has Volume Six arrived?"
...
Takigakure:
The Village Hidden in the Waterfall is a hidden ninja village located in the Land of Waterfalls, renowned for being small yet formidable militarily.
During the past month, Rob had come here as well and opened an Art Store, meeting some minor resistance from Takigakure's shinobi and their leader, Senji, who had even considered drinking from the Hero's Water just to repel him.
But a single wave of overwhelming, oppressive Conqueror Haki shattered their will to resist entirely.
Senji was a powerfully impressive man, yet he could do nothing against Rob, who simply placed a hand on his shoulder and said, "I have no intention of harming your village. Your only role in my story is to be spectators, nothing more, nothing less."
Those words struck deep in the heart of the Takigakure leader, leaving him dazed and distracted for a long while after.
...
..
"What do you think, Hisen, are we truly nothing but spectators to that man?"
Senji stood holding the latest available volume of the Naruto manga. Beside him stood a young man in his twenties, a jōnin of the village and, by all appearances, Senji's intended successor as leader.
Hisen gazed deeply at the Art Store, its doors already open. He could see a red-haired man in blue clothing, colors that matched their own village, though he had no way of knowing this was merely a clone Rob had left behind to manage the store.
"If we've been labeled spectators, then we can't accept spending our whole lives that way, can we?" Hisen replied.
"Then what should we do?"
At that moment, the Art Store blazed with brilliant light. It seemed Volume Six had finally arrived.
...
Konohagakure:
[Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura passed the written portion of the Chunin Exam. But that was only the beginning! Now in the thick of the exam's second phase, held in the aptly named Forest of Death, instructor Mitarashi Anko has promised to cut the number of advancing teams in half. And a mysterious predator lurking among them has set its sights on Sasuke!]
Inside the Konoha Art Store, the first thing to catch Uchiha Fugaku's attention after paying for Volume Six was the cover, before he even opened it.
He set aside the cover illustration showing Sakura and Ino in the foreground and fixed his gaze on the summary.
"Someone is after Sasuke, for some reason… just as I suspected…" Fugaku whispered, then felt a creeping gaze settle on his back.
He spun around swiftly, but the sensation had already vanished.
'Who was that, I wonder?'
...
'It seems an Uchiha's senses are as sharp as ever…'
Orochimaru thought to himself as he licked his lips, having stared at Fugaku's back only moments before.
'Well then, this volume will no doubt reveal quite a lot. Let's see what you have in store for me this time, Rubiro-kun.'
Orochimaru smiled as he opened Volume Six, ready to continue the story from where he had last left off.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 134: The Predator Reads About Himself!
Chapter 135: I Must Survive in Order to Kill My Brother.
Chapter 136: The Terrified Orochimaru!
Chapter 137: The Beautiful Green Beast of Konohagakure!
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