Chapter 23 : The Haggle for Hide

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. The only thing I own is a bunch of ideas and a bit of inspiration.

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"It's worth only 5000 Ryo per square foot," the merchant argued, holding up five fingers in front of Ren's face.

"It's very pure, at least worth 7500 Ryo," Ren countered, showing a piece of silver fur in his hand.

"Boy, The market price is only 8250 Ryo, I still need to refine this leather." said the man as he shook his head.

"Okay then, I'll go and sell it in Konoha. The Daimyo's wife visits often,and I'm sure it'll catch her eye," Ren said, feigning resignation as he started to move away.

"I had a large quantity of it too.." Ren mumbled as he lifted the shop covers.

"Wait! How much do you have?" The merchant asked Ren as he got out of his chair.

"About several meters of it," Ren said in an irritated tone, waiting for the merchant to stop asking questions so that he could leave.

"NO! Come back I accept, I'll take it." said the man in a hurry, cause if it was a wholesale it changes everything.

"Oh sure but most of it still isn't skinned from the Iron Hog though." Said Ren calmly as he thought about it.

"I'll skin it myself and give you 7000 Ryo" said the man making a very reasonable offer.

"7450 Ryo" Ren countered.

"7300 Ryo"

"7435 Ryo"

"7425 Ryo and I can't go further," the merchant said, folding his hands to signal his final offer.

"Deal" Ren smirked and shook the merchant's hand, sealing the deal.

'I forgot... he was from a village,' Itachi thought, sweat dropping a little as he watched Ren haggle with practised ease.

Ren had asked Itachi if they could delay their return by half a day. Itachi had agreed, thinking Ren needed to rest.

Only to see Ren remove all the Iron tusks of the Hogs and store them away. He then skinned out a small piece of hide from the Hog he had exploded using the explosive tag.

He stored all the Hog corpses in a scroll and started to visit the nearby merchant's shops in disguise on their way to Konoha and had finally sold most of it.

Ren came out of the shop a little later and gave a thumbs-up to Itachi.

"I sold the amount I needed to sell. We can now go to Konoha without stopping," Ren said with a grin. Itachi was pretty sure he saw Ryo signs in Ren's eyes.

This was allowed as the rights of the animal corpse fell on the person who killed the beast in most cases.

Most of the time shinobi had to face normal beasts tainted with bad chakra or just normal animals whose population has gotten too high.

It wasn't worth much to see the animal corpse as they normally would be damaged heavily by jutsu.

Ren had given some of the horns to Itachi, who refused, saying he didn't do any work.

So Ren now had 43 Iron horns in his storage seal sealed separately. In short, Ren had now gotten out of his pseudo-poverty.

'I am sure just the hide would amount to 2 A-Rank missions.' Thought Itachi, as he calculated the amount of Ryo in his mind.

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"Ren, you can go. I will submit the report," Itachi said, sending Ren away early as he went to the Hokage to submit the mission report.

So that was what Ren was doing, he was leisurely roaming the streets of Konoha.

The streets were bustling as always, so Ren walked away from the crowded places.

'Today is quite humid.' Thought Ren as he felt a bit sweaty even though the temperature was not that high.

'I should add a Temperature control seal' Ren regretted not doing that now. Ren had thought of adding a few seals for the clothes he wore.

One of the reasons was that chakra ink was a bit expensive to make if they were to last long.

Because the normal chakra ink used was mass-produced and was only suitable for less complex things like explosive tags or low-level storage seals.

The chakra seal he had on his body was also made out of a special chakra ink he made out of many different herbs, which cost a pretty penny.

So he had been off-putting these seals, but now that he had money, he could advance his fuinjutsu training.

'I can also eat tasty food now!' thought Ren overjoyed at having money to buy those expensive food ingredients.

Since he hadn't added those temperature seals yet, he for now carved for ice cream.

Ren started to walk towards one of the ice cream parlours he knew, though he was relaxing a bit today,

He was still training as he still had the resistance seal on himself which made his movements harder.

He didn't consider observing his chakra and breath as training anymore as it had become second nature to him.

Soon he arrived at the ice cream parlour, bought an ice cream and delighted himself as he ate the mango-flavoured ice cream.

'Moments of peace like this are good.' Thought Ren as he was eating the ice cream.

"Give me a watermelon ice cream, old man." came a bratty voice as a short spiky brown-haired kid with blue eyes ordered an ice cream.

The kid took the ice cream and searched for a seat, though unfortunately for him. All of them were occupied by people.

So he looked at Ren who was the youngest person occupying a seat. He confidently came towards Ren and then asked pointed his finger at him.

"Get up from the seat. It's mine," he demanded, pointing a finger at Ren.

Seeing the confident declaration, Ren looked down at his seat and then back at the kid.

"I don't see any cloth on it," said Ren blankly and continued to eat the ice cream.

"Wha.! I am Konohamaru Sarutobi, the grandson of the third Hokage," said Konohamaru as he thought that Ren didn't know who he was.

"Ok" Ren said, continuing to eat his ice cream.

"My Big Brother is the Hokage's son" Konohamaru said as he expected Ren to get up by now.

"So you are the Hokage's son?" asked Ren as he thought of the way Konohamaru worded the sentence.

"..NO... He isn't my actual big brother, he is my friend" Konohamaru quickly corrected himself.

"....You have a friend?" Ren asked as he was halfway done with the ice cream.

But the way Ren had drawled out 'friend' didn't sit well with Konohamaru.

"Hey, It's the truth. I have friends." Konohamaru was now indignant and had held his hand in a fist as he talked with Ren.

'Hmm, it should take two more minutes to eat my ice cream.' thought Ren as he looked at his leftover ice cream.

"If you are the previous Hokage's grandson and a friend of the Hokage's son, can you prove it?"

"Yes. I can. Ask me anything." Said Konohamaru confidently.

"If you are the Hokage's grandson, you must be strong, right? If you run to that tree over there and come back within five minutes, I'll believe you," Ren pointed at a very far tree that was at least a kilometre away.

"That's it? Watch me, I'll show you " With that Konohamaru ran off to prove his words.

"..."

By the time Konohamaru came back, Ren was nowhere to be seen.

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Author's note:

This is called the calm before the storm I think? Do motivate me by leaving a comment or Review if you liked the chapter.

DROP YOUR POWER STONES, SIR/ MAM. 100 power stones for a bonus chapter on the same day.