Chapter 11

Cracking her back, Rosa yawned, watching the fire dancing in the fireplace languidly.

It had been a few days since she moved into her new home, and she had not remained idle. The contract with the blacksmith had been signed, finally revealing their name to be Mori, and with it, she was able to sell kunai off to her frequently. The contract didn't stipulate that there was a maximum quantity of kunai that could be sold each day, week or month. However, Mori withheld the right to refuse to buy them for any reason, and if Mori were to use that right, Rosa would then gain the right to ignore the exclusivity clause of the contract, allowing her to sell to other shops.

So far, Mori hadn't failed to buy all her kunai, so she obviously had a reliable way to sell those kunai on. Whether she was just making a profit by flipping the kunai to a different distributor, Rosa didn't know, nor did she even care to know. What mattered to her was that her money was increasing. She could have put her money into a bank, they did exist after all, but what bank was safer than her inventory, where her items were stored in a place that couldn't be accessed by anyone else?

Using the money she had already earned, she bought iron ore and pigskin then turned those into kunai and sold them on. Curiously enough, when she refined her iron ore into iron ingots, it refined in the same ratio as the copper, ten kilograms of metal for one-hundred kilograms of ore, which in turn then became 40 iron kunai. For her first batch, she bought 300 kilograms of iron ore for 60,000 Ryo, then 3,525 more Ryo for the pigskin sheets necessary, so a total of 63,525 Ryo was spent making 120 iron kunai. And in return?

900,000 Ryo. That was pure profit 13 times over. Of course, that income had to be declared and the Daimyo had his cut of it, since out of all things, only two were certain, death and taxes, but even after a ten-percent tax was paid, that was still 810,000 Ryo. Then of course she had to also backpay tax on the 300,000 Ryo as well, but that still meant she had earned 780,000 Ryo in one go.

Using that money, she had increased production again, this time buying a full 1,000 kilograms of iron ore and the required pigskin for 211,750 Ryo and turning that into 400 iron kunai. She then sold that off the next day, which earned her 3,000,000 Ryo. Three. Fucking. Million. The ten-percent tax meant that was actually 2.7 million Ryo, which when added to the 585,375 she still had meant Rosa held almost 3.3 million Ryo.

That was why she was now comfortably nestled on her chair watching the fire. After earning that kind of money, she had two reasons for doing so. The first was because she'd earned it. Ever since she came to the 'Elemental Nations', which was the name of the...well, she supposed it was the continent itself, she'd been running around like a headless chicken trying to get things done without thinking further ahead. Now that she had safety and wealth, she could afford to slow down a little and more careful think about what she intended to do.

Secondly, her sudden income stream was probably going to attract attention. Her response? Take the advice that Kentaro had given her, and hire a shinobi to be her bodyguard. It would fulfill two of her needs, protecting her, and also acquiring her first semi-permanent acolyte. Well, whether or not those she hired would become acolytes was still up in the air, she wasn't paying Kentaro after all, so perhaps if she tried to acquire acolytes with money, the system wouldn't accept them? In any case, it would still test that feature at least, so it was worth it.

As for the price, well, she wasn't too concerned. Kentaro was a shinobi himself, and the ongoing price for a bodyguard mission, especially one in a city as safe as Keishi, the literal capital of Hi no Kuni, was fairly low. The best part though was a little insider knowledge he had shared with her. If she posted a C-rank bodyguarding mission with the location set as Keishi, she was practically guaranteed to get a 'genin team' assigned to her mission. The genin were, supposedly, the bottom rung of the ladder of ranking, mostly made up of children barely out of school or those with absolutely no skill or talent.

Of course, he wouldn't have recommended it without a good reason, which was that every genin team had a teacher, and that teacher would be a Jonin, pretty much the top of typical career progression for a shinobi. The only people who would fuck with a Jonin were the mentally insane, or the truly powerful, and neither were likely to even put her on their radar, so by hiring a genin team, she would save money by hiring a fairly cheap team, whilst also gaining powerful protection.

It was a win-win, which was why she was brooding over it. It felt too...easy, like there had to be something she was missing, but for the life of her, she couldn't figure it out. Still, that wasn't as important as the day, which marked the end of Kentaro's assisting her. He had already stopped by to say goodbye, and when she asked if he'd like to go out for a drink or something to say goodbye, he'd told her he had to go back to 'Konoha', then departed with a painfully-curt 'goodbye'.

She knew he was leaving, he had his own life that didn't involve her even slightly, but it still hurt a little that he had just gone like that. She wasn't in love with him or anything stupid like that, but he was a good friend and someone she trusted, as silly as it was to trust someone after only a week of knowing them. And to have him leave so abruptly and not even tender her suggestion of parting with a friendly drink for a moment...

...that stung.

"Are you our appointee?"

Blinking down at the three children who had appeared on her doorstep, Rosa realized that no, Kentaro hadn't been elaborating when he said they were children barely out of school. However, what brought her up short was that he wasn't referring to secondary school, where they'd be 16 or 18, but instead, they were the age of children just out of primary school, barely 12-year-olds. "I'd...assume so. And you are?"

She asked with a bemused tone, regretting her question slightly as the one in the middle puffed up slightly. "The name's Oboi Mina, so don't you forget it." She immediately labeled him as a brat who was probably going to cause a horrific mess in her house, and resolved to keep her eyes firmly on him, even as she looked at his two teammates, both of whom were girls, both of whom looked similar to each other, and both of whom glanced at each other in sync, so probably twins.

"I'm Uzai Kira, that's my sister Aruna." The girl on the left of Mina spoke for the pair, whilst the girl on the right remained silent. Nodding, she gave them both a close look, assessing them. Kira was obviously more outgoing, Aruna meanwhile, whilst a little 'turned-inward', still offered her a smile, so not a complete introvert. Finally, she lifted her gaze to the woman stood behind them both, who met her eyes placidly.

"Temara Katsuki, Jonin-Sensei for Team 12." She reported, and just from her tone, Rosa could see why Mina was on her team. Katsuki was doubtlessly intended to straighten him out and tamp down on his boisterous nature. As for why Kira and Aruna were on her team, well, that was a more curious question, they didn't really match her as far as she could tell, but maybe they were balancing out Mina whilst on mission since their presence would help offset his actions.

It was then that Rosa realized she hadn't actually introduced herself yet. "Oh, right, I'm Rosa, nice to meet you all. Do come in, I can get you settled and explain anything you need to know." She stepped to the side and let them all inside, noting that Mina took point and didn't even bother to wipe his shoes before removing them and putting them on the rack. The other three did so, as it was common courtesy, but it seemed her guess about Mina was spot-on.

She led them all into the living room and sat down, gesturing at the other two chairs. The twins took one, Oboi went to lounge on the other, and their Jonin-sensei remained standing. Though she did hide it decently, Rosa could see the keen mind working behind Katsuki's eyes as she assessed the entire building, already on the job of making plans, as befit an elite such as herself. "Right, well, you should all already know what I want from my request, but is there anything specific any of you need to know?"

Kira and Aruna looked at each other, whilst Mina simply looked at Katsuki, amusing her a little at how blatantly he showed his lack of knowledge. "Do you have a schedule you follow regarding what you do every day? We need to know if we can make our own schedule revolving around your protection." Kira said after a moment, drawing her attention. In response, Rosa tapped her chin, thinking for a brief moment.

"I don't currently, but I can set one up if it'd help you four out. Let's see...well, really, the only things I'd need to set a schedule for would be heading to the market and the commodities exchange. Other than that, I spend my time here at home. Any other time I head out would be spontaneous visits to shops or to go buy food, which naturally don't fit on a schedule." She spoke plainly, not making any attempt to hide the fact she didn't exactly live a structured life.

Still, it seemed to satisfy their needs as Kira nodded, the twins looking towards Katsuki silently. "In that case, aside from unplanned trips out, we can set up a schedule to escort you to the market and to the commodities exchange. If you ever wish to leave the house for any reason, you can inform one of us and be escorted to where you need to go. If you don't mind, may we use your back-garden in order to conduct training?"

Rosa nodded with a smile, though she hesitated after a moment. "Ah, you won't cause any damage though, right?" The woman, now with a faintly amused expression on her face, shook her head, bringing her smile back to her lips. "Then yeah, that's totally fine. Hopefully you could keep training to be during the day, I do quite like sleeping after all, so if you are back there yelling that'd be a bit of a problem." Her tone was light, making it clear it was a joke, and fortunately Katsuki saw it as such. Unfortunately it seemed that Oboi Mina most definitely had a brain to go with his exuberance, if his sudden yammering was any indication.

She didn't put much thought into exactly what he was saying, she'd already mentally decided to trust him the least and to pay the least attention to him, at least when it came to what he was saying. She fully expected at least a few things to end up broken at his hand though, so she would definitely be keeping a keen eye on him. "We will also need to know about where we may reside." Katsuki added after looking at the twins and at Mina for a moment, her eyes making it clear that her words were reprimanding them.

"I have a spare bedroom which you could use. I assume you'll be protecting me in shifts?" Katsuki looked a bit amused at her question, possibly surprised that she, a seemingly normal civilian, understood taking shifts, but still nodded in agreement. "Then if you'd like I can get some futons for you to use, right now there's only one bed in there and I'd hate to be a discourteous host to the ones trusted with keeping me safe."

Katsuki shook her head. "A single bed will be fine, everybody brought their own bedding they can use, and so the bed can be used as an incentive for doing your jobs well." She addressed the last part of her sentence at the genin, making it clear she would happily disallow them from using the bed at all if they were brats. Maybe it'd help keep Mina from causing any trouble, but she doubted it heavily. "I believe that is all then. If you would show us to your spare bedroom, these three can get settled and we can properly establish our protection plan."

Getting up, Rosa led the team upstairs and to the bedroom, pointing out the bathroom and then heading back downstairs just as quickly. "I shall be resting during the early evening, and one of my genin will be performing watch. At all other times I will be escorting you, whilst also training the three of them in how to perform my job. You understand that a genin team is assigned an individual such as myself to undertake missions as a learning experience?" Rosa nodded, having had that pretty much laid out flat for her by Kentaro. "Good. All that's left then is to establish a watch schedule, though during waking hours all four of us will be with you in some capacity. Once the month-long mission is up we'll be returning to Konoha, and you will be responsible for contracting another team from Konoha to arrive before we depart."

Rosa nodded again, fully understanding what she meant. The team was going to leave, and if she only requested another team after they left, there would be a window of opportunity where she had no protection. "That's fine. I think I'm going to set my schedule to be in the morning, then the rest of the day can be spent here. How do you intend to handle training the genin, if I may be so bold? I do quite like my garden, and I'd prefer to not have it get damaged too badly by them training."

"Right now they are simply doing physical exercises, nothing chakra-based, so you don't need to worry about them blasting away all your soil or knocking over the fences. If any of them require training of that degree in the coming month, I will be doing it personally with them and making sure that they do not cause any 'splash damage' so to speak, so rest assured that your property won't be damaged." Quite literally the instant she said that, there was a very audible slam, followed by a smashing sound. "...I...am terribly sorry in advance."

Rosa smiled, even as she rose a hand to her face. "I labeled him as the one most likely to break something when he was out of my sight, and I still let him out of my sight, so who is more foolish, the fool, or the fool who follows him?" She quipped even as she got up to see what had been broken. Once upstairs, she saw what had been broken, and fortunately, it wasn't too expensive, it was just a snowglobe she'd put on a cabinet in the hallway for ornamentation. She didn't say anything, and instead simply stayed silent.

Katsuki on the other hand...well, let's just say that Omoi Mina was more likely to wrap himself in bubble wrap than be incautious in Rosa's home again.

Leaning on the counter, Rosa watched out the window as the three genin trained.

She was trying to wrap her head around the fact that all three of them were trained killers. Granted, none actually had a kill to their names yet, but, having spoken with Katsuki and asked questions due to curiosity, she learned that the academy had them kill animals to get used to the feeling of taking a life, preparing them a little for the life of killing that they were getting into.

And when she looked at those three children, and tried to put them into the shoes of killers, it just didn't fit in her mental image at all. They were in fact all twelve-year-olds...and yet they were now doing missions with military training and expected to kill, just like that. That just blew her mind. At that age...it actually made some kind of sickening sense, they would grow up being numbed to a life of killing, weapons for their 'hidden village' to use.

Still, as Katsuki gathered up the genin, she put that out of her thoughts. The genin team unfortunately didn't count as acolytes, presumably because she was paying them, and that also meant she couldn't just hire people into an organization and get acolytes that way. Kentaro knew about her sacrificial side, which was presumably why he was classed as a temporary acolyte. Still, it just meant she had to find someone who she could indebt to her in some way, and that meant she was going to head to the slums to recruit somebody and test to see what the range was regarding somebody being an acolyte.

She couldn't do that with a shinobi escort breathing down her neck though, they'd probably get suspicious, and so that plan had to be postponed for a month. In a month, she would have already been able to improve her own personal strength through purchasing valuable items to sacrifice, and wouldn't be as afraid of being assassinated or kidnapped. Sure, she had been warned against abusing the system, but surely purchasing items using legitimately-earned money to sacrifice was still fine, it wasn't abusing the system, simply using the assets she had gotten to expedite her growth.

Raising her arms and cracking her back, she wandered over to the front door and put her shoes on, waiting there as the genin came around the house. It was time to head to the commodities exchange, though Katsuki had recommended, after discussion, simply organizing regular deliveries of her goods instead of heading there to request whatever it was she was buying every time. As for delivering the finished products to the blacksmith, that could have maybe been left to one of the genin, but Katsuki didn't want them to split up. The twins worked best together, naturally, and she didn't dare to let Mina out of her sight.

That was why she still had the intention to hire a porter to take the finished kunai to the blacksmith for a fee. 10,000 Ryo would be enough to hire an ex-shinobi to collect the full 400 kunai, take them to the blacksmith, collect the payment, then bring it back to her. Of course, there was the fear that she would be betrayed and they would make off with the money, but for one, even if that money was stolen, it wasn't the end of the world, she could make more. For two, they were an ex-shinobi, and that meant they were documented. If they ran off with the money, they'd be hunted down by a chunin-team, Katsuki had informed her about that.

Of course, to do that she'd need to actually go and hire one, which was another unscheduled outing, but in return, her schedule would basically permanently keep her at home, easy to protect, which was exactly what Katsuki wanted. The genin needed training in how to endure long periods of time with nothing happening, because that was how being a bodyguard typically went.

A long period of boredom, then random shocking violence meted out arbitrarily.

If you are one of those who knows where that "random shocking violence meted out arbitrarily" line comes from, I like you ^.^