Uchiha Obito chose the fixed wage without hesitation.
Although this herbal tea should supposedly be quite effective, he didn’t believe they would actually be able to sell it.
Hadn’t he seen how passersby stayed far away just from smelling it?
Trying to sell something like this to them was simply a case of drawing water with a bamboo basket.
Besides, over the next two days, he could earn two thousand ryō.
If he chose the profit-sharing option, they would need to make at least ten thousand ryō in sales.
At one hundred ryō per bowl, they would have to sell at least one hundred bowls.
Where would Konoha find that many fools for Hatake Shibu to scam?
Therefore, Obito felt that the two thousand ryō was guaranteed income.
There was no way he could lose.
Although he was late to class, skipped lessons, and had poor grades, he still considered himself a good student.
His mathematical knowledge was rock solid!
If Shibu knew what Obito was thinking, he would definitely give him a thumbs-up.
You really are a genius.
Shibu was also very satisfied.
After all, Obito had chosen this himself.
He believed that with his ninjutsu, he could make a fortune from the herbal tea.
I’m going to become the richest man in the world!
Shibu handed Obito the bag filled with dried tangerine peel.
“This is dried tangerine peel. It’s the orange peel you just ate. Give one piece to every customer who buys a bowl. Got it?”
Obito looked inside the bag.
He took out a piece and ate it.
“Got it!”
Shibu’s face immediately darkened.
At this rate, Obito would eat everything before a single customer even arrived.
“If you eat another piece, I’ll deduct one hundred ryō from your wages!”
Hearing this, Obito reluctantly put the dried tangerine peel back into the bag.
“I knew it. You’re just looking for an excuse to deduct my wages!”
To his surprise, Shibu actually nodded.
“Exactly. I am. So don’t give me the opportunity.”
Obito stared at Shibu speechlessly.
He really hadn’t expected the top student of the Ninja Academy to be such a shameless person.
Where’s your dignity as the academy’s top student?
It’s just two pieces of orange peel!
Is that really necessary?
Hmph!
If he didn’t want him to eat it, then he wouldn’t.
Seeing Obito’s unhappy expression, Shibu added,
“And don’t waste anything. Drink the rest of the herbal tea too.”
“Is that really necessary? I’m already fine. I don’t need to drink any more herbal tea!”
Obito’s face instantly turned dark red.
What kind of nonsense was this?
He had already suffered once.
There was no way he wanted to drink that stuff again.
“If you don’t drink it, that’s wasteful. And I’ll calculate waste as one hundred ryō.”
“I’ll drink it! I’ll drink it, all right?”
Obito thought about his two thousand ryō.
Then he imagined himself eating with Rin in the future and confidently pulling out his money to pay the bill.
Suddenly, the herbal tea didn’t seem so terrible.
He picked up the bowl and, with the determination of someone going to his death, drank the entire thing in one gulp.
His face immediately twisted.
No matter how many times he drank it, Obito still felt that this stuff was beyond human endurance.
Shibu nodded.
“That’s more like it.”
He then turned around and pulled a sign out from underneath the table, setting it up beside the stall.
Written on it were the words:
“No disease is beyond healing, Herbal remedies bring extraordinary results!”
“Daiwu Herbal Tea!”
Below that was a list of the herbal tea’s supposed medicinal effects.
Obito stared at it in complete bewilderment.
What is all this?
Why do you look like you prepared everything in advance?
Shibu looked at the two signs with satisfaction.
It seemed the calligraphy skills from his previous life hadn’t deteriorated.
Not bad.
Not bad at all.
He then turned around and prepared to leave.
“Where are you going? Aren’t you going to sell this with me?!”
Obito had never run a stall before, so he immediately panicked when he saw Shibu getting ready to leave.
“Obviously I’m going out to attract customers! Otherwise, who’s going to come here and buy anything?”
Shibu rolled his eyes at him.
Then he used the Body Flicker Technique and disappeared, leaving Obito standing there alone, staring blankly at the herbal tea.
If there was one place in Konoha that was busier than anywhere else, it wasn’t the shopping district or the restaurants.
It was the training grounds.
As a semi-military village, most shinobi who weren’t currently occupied with missions would spend their free time training there.
After all, this was where they honed the skills that could save their lives.
Naturally, the training grounds were bustling every day.
Of course, members of the major clans wouldn’t normally train here.
They had their own exclusive training grounds.
The wealthy really did have their privileges.
When Shibu arrived, nobody paid him any attention.
He was merely a kid from the Ninja Academy.
There were plenty of children like him coming here every day, so nobody found his presence unusual.
Shibu moved to a corner and observed the people in front of him.
His main targets were shinobi who weren’t currently on missions—or those who looked like they had money.
Otherwise, at one hundred ryō per bowl, they might genuinely be unable to afford it.
Or simply be unwilling to spend that much.
After all, shinobi were poor too.
Even jōnin didn’t necessarily live particularly comfortable lives.
They were all people who lived with their lives on the line.
When they went on missions, they had to purchase their own equipment.
Kunai, shuriken, explosive tags, and everything else cost money.
You might see a shinobi casually throw several kunai.
But in reality, they were throwing who knew how many ryō into the air.
During wartime, things were somewhat better because supplies were distributed by the village.
But those supplies were limited.
If a shinobi needed additional weapons or equipment, they had to pay for them personally.
And after living with their lives on the line for long enough, saving money became difficult.
You never knew whether you’d still be alive tomorrow.
So why save?
Better to enjoy today’s wine today and worry about tomorrow when it came.
That’s why choosing the right potential customers was important.
For example, the Hyuga clan member standing in front of Shibu.
Although the Hyuga had their own training grounds, for reasons everyone knew about, they weren’t particularly fond of spending time with members of the main family.
As a result, they frequently became visitors to this public training ground.
Shibu stroked his chin.
He had already selected quite a few potential customers.
Most of them looked like they had some money to spare.
He could also tell that many had just returned from missions and probably wouldn’t be sent out again anytime soon.
How could he tell that they’d just returned from missions?
Obviously, by their aura.
They all had the look of people who seemed as though someone owed them hundreds of thousands of ryō.
They looked like they wanted to cut down anyone who crossed their path.
Anyone could tell they had just finished a mission involving killing.
As for genin, they weren’t his customers.
If they earned one thousand ryō, seven hundred would go to their supervising jōnin, leaving the remaining three members to split the rest.
They were all broke.
Shibu rapidly formed a series of hand seals.
If he were targeting a single person, he could simply bring his hands together and activate the technique.
But now that he was dealing with a large number of targets at once, he needed to form several more seals and release the technique across all of them simultaneously.