Screw Konoha! No, seriously, I could ignore the coldness in how they treated orphans, throwing kids into an apartment to live alone without thinking twice but those 8,000 ryō were a joke and a freaking bad joke.
The first thing that I did after leaving the apartment was to go to a store to buy cookware since there weren't even pots and pans in that apartment. When I saw the price of a cookware set, my heart nearly stopped. A set of five different pans was 700 ryō—and that was on sale.
I bought a few plates, glasses, and chopsticks and just with that, I spent almost 1,000 ryō. That was the money for the entire month, and I hadn't even started buying food yet.
"I hope being a ninja is lucrative because, honestly, the cost of living in Konoha is beyond absurd."
I thought while I got inside the market. I went straight to the rice section because, yeah, I hated rice but if we ate so much at the orphanage it shouldn't be too expensive.
"100 ryō for 1kg? Okay, I can make this work."
After buying fruits, vegetables, and nearly crying because the price of 1kg of meat was 500 ryō, I ended up spending 5,800 ryō at the market. Now I understood why Naruto ate so much instant ramen—the prices were practically daylight robbery.
I had to carry everything home and realized it was almost lunchtime. My plan was to eat out somewhere but after what I spent at the market and knowing I still needed to buy clothes, I gave up on the idea.
"Luckily, I bought this at the market. It was expensive, but honestly, I deserve to treat myself a little." I said grabbing a 500g piece of cheese.
Apparently, cooking as a child was quite difficult, and the higher-ups in Konoha either didn't know or didn't care about that. Fortunately, I managed to cook despite the challenges and after months of eating only Japanese food, I finally had a shrimp risotto loaded with cheese.
After a satisfying lunch, I went to buy some clothes at a store and once again cursed the prices in Konoha. A shirt—a simple shirt—cost 300 ryō! Even underwear was expensive. Damn capitalism.
By the end of the afternoon, I had only 200 ryō left in my new wallet until next month, and I had only bought two sets of clothes. I need to be careful not to run out of food and would need to wash my clothes frequently.
After bringing the clothes home, I finally organized myself to train. The academy started on Monday and today was Saturday, so I had the rest of the day and tomorrow to get some training in before it began.
"Let's see… Where's a place I can train?"
On the map, only three training fields were marked. I knew there were more, so I wasn't sure if these were the ones I could access without being a shinobi. I decided to head to Training Field 2.
It was on the northwest edge of the village, one of the fields that didn't go beyond the village walls but was isolated enough. Too bad it was so far from my apartment. I took the opportunity to run to the field, which took me about 40 minutes.
"6km in 40 minutes isn't too bad."
I thought while I tried to catch my breath upon arriving. Training Field 2 was a large area with lots of trees. It seemed like the perfect place to practice.
I started my physical routine with push-ups and squats. On my way back to the apartment, I planned to run and complete the 10km daily goal I had set for myself.
After finishing my routine, I sat on the ground and drank some water while thinking about what else I could do to train.
"I definitely need to start training chakra control. It's one of the few mechanics I remember, but I don't think mastering chakra control alone will let me graduate early from the academy. After all, if it were just that, Sakura would have graduated before Kakashi himself."
I sighed, a bit frustrated at not knowing any techniques. Life wasn't easy for me—not poor and broke.
"I'll have to be really good physically. That's something I can work on. Maybe if I prove strong enough, at least physically, I can graduate early from the academy… That means I need to be better than Rock Lee when he graduates. But how do I do that? I'm not a Taijutsu master."
Finally, an idea got into my brain—something I had practiced a little in my past life that might give me an advantage in the academy: martial arts.
I wasn't a black belt or anything, but I had practiced karate as a child, some boxing as a teenager, and taekwondo as I grew up. To be honest, I had abandoned all these martial arts after a few years. The one I practiced the most was taekwondo, where I reached a red belt.
But I remembered loving martial arts. I was obsessed with Karate Kid, MMA, and various martial arts anime and movies. In a world like this, where chakra existed, I could do things I had only dreamed of in my previous life.
"Damn… But getting back to stretching is going to be a pain…" I muttered aloud, thinking about the stretches I'd need to do.
Of course, I stretched before my exercises to avoid injuries, but if I wanted to pull off a naeryeo chagi again, I'd have to improve my flexibility.
"There's no choice… If I want to get strong enough, I'll have to train even if it's painful. An axe kick could become the difference between life and death," I said, standing up from the ground.
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I'm so happy—you have no idea! I love your comment and I get to read what you're thinking. Once again, I apologize for any writing mistakes, but I'm genuinely thrilled. Starting with the next chapter, we'll have our first introduction to the ninja academy. I apologize if the pace feels a bit slow, but I'm planning to establish the foundation of Kenshin's personality and some important elements. I'll try to include a bit of action soon and I won't make the academy arc too long. I hope you keep reading! One chapter for day until day 11! This one was just because I was TOO happy! See you tomorrow guys!