Ch64. Violence and money

"All I am telling you, Ino, is that ninjas can definitely earn money without needing to resort to violence." Ren told the exasperated blonde, who was trying to be the nay-sayer in their current conversation, as he sat in an armchair in his living room while the girls took over the couch opposite him with only a small table between them. "Just look at the Hiding Like a Mole technique! You could use it to find undiscovered ore veins for rich nobles."

"But that would take a lot of work and time! It's much easier to use that time to do regular missions! How much money could finding an ore vein get us? I doubt it would be cost effective." Ino huffed with a gentle head shake and crossed her arms under her chest.

But seeing how serious she was, Ren just snorted at her naivety. His blonde student was not a businesswoman. She was learning the trade of killing instead of copper counting. And while she most likely did get some lessons on how to run the clan and the politics involved from her father as the heiress, she obviously did not have much insight into how to manage a land and the costs associated with it. Why would she? The Yamanaka clan did not own any land, after all.

Ren wasn't genuinely disappointed. He expected it. Not many ninjas understood these matters. They did not need to.

That said, her arguments about the time it would take to find an ore vein with the technique was correct. It would take maybe a month or two to find something for a properly dedicated ninja in a mountainous area.

That's what? Two, maybe three back-to-back S-rank missions? Three to six million Ryo of profit for that time spent and with a lot of danger involved? Around the same amount for the village's coffers as their cut?

Yeah, no. That was a hard pass for Ren.

He leaned forward and rolled his eyes at Ino, speaking in a somewhat patronizing tone. "You don't have any idea what kind of money people would be willing to pay for a discovery of a new mine. Even if you ask for a hundred million Ryo for this service, it would be a bargain for finding gold, silver, hell, even iron ore deposits as far as the nobles are concerned."

"Hundr-" Karin, sitting on Ino's left side on the couch, quietly choked as Ren was talking, but when he was done, she loudly exclaimed, "No way! You are totally screwing with us! That's an insane amount of money."

She refused to believe it. A hundred million was pretty much the equivalent of fiftyish to seventyish S-rank missions. The best of the best ninjas would find it hard to have that many S-rank missions on their record in their whole career. 

And yes, they earn their money with A or B-rank missions too, but that was not the point. Ren just wanted to portray the situation properly to his students.

Karin just happened to be there too, he guessed. But her presence was not important.

What was important was the fact that his words had the desired effect. Ino faltered and started to look less certain about her arguments after hearing how much money Ren believed would be in this kind of business by using a simple C-rank earth technique for something other than burying your enemy alive.

A technique every ninja can learn in a month or two even if they are untalented and without earth affinity.

Hinata, who sat on Ino's right side, gave Ren one overly serious nod before she buried her head into her notes and started dutifully writing... something down.

On one hand, Ren was glad she took his words seriously. On the other hand, did she really have to take notes? He felt a bit awkward every time he glanced at her. She reminded him of Rock Lee.

Clearing his throat, Ren decided to continue before Ino came up with some nonsensical counter argument and the conversation trailed off in a different direction, "You'd be stupid to ask for money. Over time, the new mines would churn out a lot more value than that. Once your reputation and ability to find ore veins is confirmed, it would be better to ask for a small permanent cut of profits from the new mines. Three to five percent, maybe? That could rake up to billions of Ryo over time." He casually shrugged, but his gaze betrayed how serious he was.

He wanted, no, needed his girls to understand this. Ninjas were not very good at properly gauging the monetary worth of their techniques when it came to something non-violent. He wouldn't have it. Ino and Hinata were going to be properly educated in these matters.

"Sure," Ren gave the girls a meaningful look and took a small break to sip from the cup of hot chocolate he was holding before he spoke again, "the nobles would grumble. They wouldn't be very happy about needing to pay a permanent percentage of their profits for the service. They would complain and try to weasel out of it. But at the end of the day? They would pay it if they had no other choice. For them, paying five percent of profits and having a new mine is infinitely better than not paying it and not having a new mine."

Silence spread through the room, and only the noise of Ren slurping on his hot chocolate interrupted it. He was inwardly wondering why it had never occurred to him to make a seal that could hold hot chocolate and auto-refill his mug.

He will need to rectify that oversight in the upcoming week or two.

And yeah, he guessed such a seal would be amazing to store a lot of drinkable water, which would make it a great addition to essential gear for long-term missions or the village's war supplies.

Whatever.

The hot chocolate angle made Ren far more excited to sit down and spend several hours of his life pondering over how to put together such a seal.

"But..." Ino spoke with a sullen and conflicted tone, interrupting Ren's thoughts, "Why doesn't the village offer these services then?" She grumpily asked, giving Ren a challenging look, "Surely, they can think of this method of making money, no?"

Ren just gave her a lazy so-so gesture with his hand before he turned toward Karin. "What's the first thing that comes to your mind when I say Earth Release?"

The girl looked like a deer in the headlights and floundered with her words for a few seconds before Ren clicked his tongue.

"Don't think. Speak what comes to your mind first, girl!" He put a bit more force into his tone to get the message across, and fortunately, it startled Karin out of her momentary shock.

"Er- traps? Pitfalls? Barriers? Rock spikes? Area denial?" Karin rapidly spoke, looking at Ren as if trying to divine if she had hit the nail on the head and said what he wanted to hear.

It was cute. Because he didn't have anything in particular he wanted her to say. Her words already proved his point.

The Uzumaki girl then frowned, giving Ren a shy, questioning look. "Did I get it right? Or maybe flight? But then, only the current Tsuchikage can do that. Well, there is what you told us about the Hiding Like a Mole technique too, but..."

Ren raised his hand and stopped the incoming rant from the redhead, a wry smile appearing on his face as he turned back toward Ino and shrugged.

"It's in the mindset, honestly. Ninjas are raised to kill. They always think about combat applications for their techniques first. And they never put in the effort to think how to use them outside said combat. It's just that simple."

Well, on the individual level, yes, that was it. But on a mass scale?

No. It really wasn't. But he was not going to give Ino and Hinata an overly complex explanation about all the politics and problems involved. The village would have to invest a lot of time and effort to create a completely new way of earning money. To build a reputation. Train ninjas in the necessary techniques. Create a whole new department for it. And so much more.

Maybe Hiruzen or somebody else did think of using ninja techniques for non-violent money-making. Tsunade was selling her healing during her travels, for example. And it worked well for her. It was the only thing fueling her gambling addiction nowadays since she had gambled the Senju fortune away years ago. Yet, she was still considerably rich because of dealing with nobles' health issues.

But with the constant hostilities and the threat of war looming over the village practically all the time, the higher-ups wanted their ninjas to be effective for war. Every second they trained to get money in a nonviolent way was a second they did not train in how to dish out as much violence as possible.

On a mass scale, that could make the village weaker. And that's where any sort of contemplation of doing this sort of thing died a pitifully quick death. Ren doubted the village's higher-ups even got to the point where they could realize how much more money the village would have if they invested in this way of thinking.

He didn't lie to the girls. The biggest hurdle for ninjas was, indeed, their mindset. You can not raise somebody to steal, cheat, and kill while expecting them to become a great builder or craftsman.

Killers dealt with their problems by killing. That's all there was to it. Hiruzen always dreamed of peace, but he didn't exactly do a whole lot to accomplish it.

Who cares that if the village had that kind of money, they could pretty much quintuple the ninja recruitment? Or start an economic war to slow down their opponent's war preparations? Or pay off another village to team up with them and steamroll their enemy?

No, for the higher-ups, a shift in the services the village provided would initially weaken the village for a few years, so it was not worth doing.

"That's why we are having this discussion." Ren smiled at the trio of frowning girls who now sported three very different yet similar pensive looks. His chipping away at their ingrained mindset was slowly working. He would make them more open-minded one of these days.

The academy did its damnedest to ingrain a certain mindset in its students. It prepared the kids for the ninja life. It did not prepare them for anything else.

"Ino." Ren said, gaining the blonde girl's attention as she turned her gaze toward him. "Earth Clones. How could you use them to get money? No violence. No stealing."

Ino pursed her lips, thinking about it for a bit, but Hinata couldn't help her excitement and spoke first, even though she was not asked.

"Menial labor! Earth Clones are tough and durable. Make them work in mines. Or in construction. They cost way less chakra than shadow clones and last longer because they are more stable and made out of earth or rocks. We could also make more of them, and they don't transfer memories, so they are safe." Hinata slowly pointed out, looking into the distance with cutely scrunched eyebrows, and Ren chuckled as he gave her a proud acknowledging nod.

He knew for a fact that Hinata did not know the Earth Clone technique. None of them did. He was a bit proud that she came to this answer so quickly.

Pouting, Ino's elbow found its way to Hinata's stomach as she gave the girl an unamused look, but Hinata just poked out her tongue at the blonde.

Before they could start bickering, Ren intervened, "What about medical ninjutsu? How could it be used to earn money?" He asked, diverting the girls' attention.

"Healing, duh." Ino flatly said, and Ren raised his eyebrow at her.

"Is that it? You especially should figure the answer out with how focused on your beauty you are. You already asked Hinata to do something for you, didn't you?" He tried to give the girl a hint and was pleased when her eyes widened.

"Wait, really? They would pay for..." Ino exclaimed, but then she went beet red as she remembered the moment Ren was talking about.

She had previously asked Hinata to increase the size of her chest and posterior, only for the Hyuga girl to tell her she was not skilled enough to do it just yet. Then, the little Hyuga bitch went behind her back and told on her to their teacher.

Ino suddenly wanted to curl into a ball and hide in the corner of the room from the sheer embarrassment. Still, a small, happy smile involuntarily appeared on her lips when she remembered the admonishment Ren had dished out at her.

She did not remember the exact words Ren said. He said a lot of them, and Ino was sulking at the time. She wasn't exactly listening properly.

But she still cherished the memory a lot because it was the first time a boy told her how amazing her body was. She was aware that her teacher did not exactly try to flatter her. He wanted her to understand that she didn't need to change herself with medical ninjutsu to be pretty. That she was already gorgeous.

But after Sasuke had rejected her for years on end? Ino was starting to wonder if there was something wrong with her. She always had a small chest area compared to some girls in their class. And her posterior was not as fat as Sakura's.

So, she couldn't help but be elated that somebody she was interested in found her body desirable.

Pushing her embarrassment down, Ino tried to regain her composure. She still had a small pink dusting when Ren gave her a knowing smile before speaking.

"Yes. I believe the noble women would definitely pay tens of millions for facial reconstruction that would make them prettier. Or scar removal. Or permanent change of hair and eye color. Or enlargement of breasts and ass. Or removing fat and slimming them down. Even men would surely be interested in these services. If not for themselves, then for their mistresses."

The beautifying industry was kind of lackluster in this world. It did exist, and many creams, soaps, perfumes, and other things were pretty much mainstream. But plastic surgeries were not a thing. This was a medieval-ish world. The mundane medicine was not on that level.

But ninja medicine? Yeah, they could do it. It wasn't exactly easy. But it was an exclusive service the rich would go bonkers for.

Unfortunately, the medical ninjas had not figured that part out just yet. They focused on healing ninjas in the village hospital for pennies instead of earning millions by prettying up narcissistic nobles for money that would make even a Hokage's head spin.

"It would also build connections with the movers and shakers of the nation." Hinata chimed in, showing her training as Hyuga heiress.

"It just sounds so outlandish." Ino deflated. "But... yeah, I can see it. Beauty and fashion cost a lot. They would be positively ravenous for it."

"The noble women pay millions for fine clothes." Hinata hummed. "I wonder how much they would be truly willing to pay for making their bodies and faces pretty." An excited glint appeared in her eyes as her lips involuntarily spread into an innocently greedy smile.

Seeing it, Ino had a hard time not scowling at Hinata. Ren could see that the blonde was a tad bit jealous of Hinata's chosen specialization right now. 

"A disgusting amount, I bet." Karin snorted before reaching for one of the last potato chips from a bowl on the table.

"Oh, definitely." Ren nodded, deciding to move on with the topic. "I'd like you to think about it more. How can you use your current abilities to earn a living without having to risk your lives? Give it some proper consideration. I might ask for your answers one of these days." He smiled at them.

With that said, Ren stood up and stretched as he looked at the clock. "We should go to bed. It's getting late."

Ino and Hinata looked at each other before quickly and loudly shouting, "Dips!"

Karin gave them a weird look before a realization hit her, and she ducked her head, glancing at Ren. "I... appreciate the hospitality, but I am not sleeping in the same bed as you." She shyly protested, yet her tone held a pang of determination.

Ren just deadpanned at her misunderstanding things. "I wanted to take the couch. You three can be on the be-" He tried to control the situation, but Hinata interrupted him.

The Hyuga girl turned toward Karin with a very serious expression, and in a no-nonsense tone, she commanded the redhead, "You take the couch."

She was not asking. She was telling Karin what was going to happen. Even Ren was caught off-guard by her sudden attitude, and his jaw almost dropped to the floor.

But Karin just shrugged. "I am okay with that."

"There. Problem solved." Ino clapped her hands, giving the exasperated Ren a cheerful grin as she stood up.

"And my input?" He asked her, nonplussed.

"Wholly unnecessary." Ino happily informed him.

And Hinata nodded, "Agreed."

"Whipped." Karin whispered with a giggle, making Ren inwardly sigh.

Outwardly, he just shook his head at their antics. "Teenagers." He mumbled with an eye roll as both Ino and Hinata took hold of one of his arms and started dragging him away from the living room while Karin watched them with deep amusement from the couch.