April 3rd, sunny day.
At one in the afternoon, a group of five walked into a bustling town in the Land of Hot Water.
The Land of Hot Water is famous in the Ninja Realm for its hot springs and has an extremely beautiful natural environment, making it a suitable country for tourism.
Walking along the town's streets, one can easily spot many hot spring inns, one could say hot springs are everywhere in the Land of Hot Water.
In the center of this town, there's a large three-story pharmacy.
On the pharmacy's signboard, there's a noticeable Shion Flower symbol.
It's clear that this is a branch pharmacy under the Land of Demons' Shion Flower Pharmaceutical Technology Company.
Nowadays, this company's industry has spread across various countries in the Ninja Realm in just one year.
Even in small countries, the nameplate of the Shion Flower can often be seen, and the citizens of various countries are quite familiar with this company, knowing more than nothing about it.
At the entrance of the pharmacy stand a male and female guard.
Wearing black hooded coats, with the Shion Flower emblem engraved on the back, they are highly recognizable.
After the five entered the pharmacy, they directly went through a hidden door, heading towards the third floor.
The first floor of the pharmacy is the selling point, the second floor is the employee rest area, and the third floor is the management's work area.
The leader among the five is Insect Man.
Arriving in front of a room on the third floor, he signaled the other four to guard the outside while he opened the door and went inside.
After closing the door, Insect Man smiled at the financial expert sitting on the sofa and said, "Mr. Kakuzu, long time no see."
The financial expert Kakuzu, sitting on the sofa, glanced at him indifferently and habitually spoke in a low voice, "I've completed last month's financial work, settle the payment."
"Of course."
Insect Man looked at the sealed document on the desk, which was the information documents Kakuzu completed independently.
After collaborating for over half a year, he had already recognized Kakuzu's financial abilities and character, placing the black briefcase in his hand on the coffee table in front of Kakuzu.
Instead of transferring the money to his account, his requirement was a cash payment; seeing real money, he could be at ease.
In this regard, Kakuzu undoubtedly is someone who pursues the tangible.
Thus, ignoring Insect Man, Kakuzu opened the case and began counting the bills one by one.
After counting back and forth three times, he satisfactorily closed the case again.
"The numbers match."
"We've been friends for so long; isn't it unnecessary to count the money in front of me every time?"
Insect Man sighed.
"No, in this world, only money can be trusted."
Kakuzu, standing up from the sofa, holding the case, turned his head towards Insect Man and said this.
The implication was that the basis of their cooperation was money.
And money would not betray him.
Likewise, he would not betray money.
Money was his true friend, everything else was not.
"Then I wish you prosperity."
"That's certain. Also, your bounty has been rising rapidly lately; hopefully, your name can soon appear in this register."
Kakuzu took out a bounty register.
Recorded inside were high-priced bounty targets.
Insect Man's name wasn't on it; he knew Insect Man's abilities had qualified him for this register, but his reputation wasn't enough.
Therefore, Insect Man's name could only appear in another register that records lower-level bounty targets.
"Being marked by Mr. Kakuzu is indeed terrifying. Perhaps I should pause my bounty hunter career for a while."
Insect Man said this with a smile.
Kakuzu glanced at Insect Man without saying another word and left the room with the case.
Soon after Kakuzu left, the four companions who were guarding outside entered, seeing Insect Man sitting at the desk looking at the financial documents left by Kakuzu.
"There's news."
One of them said.
Insect Man put down the document, looked up, and asked, "What's the news?"
"It's Konoha's Root."
"Konoha's Root? What are they doing in the Land of Hot Water? They're not planning a hot spring vacation here, right? It's not holiday season now."
Insect Man joked.
It's known that their organization takes the institution Root, which lurks deeply within Konoha, very seriously.
They have been secretly gathering intelligence on Root because whenever Root's people are on the move, it means Konoha is up to some sketchy business.
"Unknown, according to information accidentally obtained from underlings, yesterday they seemed to have attacked a small village with less than a hundred people, and afterwards seemed to have moved to the southern part of the Land of Hot Water."
"Attacking villages in the Land of Hot Water?"
If they came to the Land of Hot Water to steal important items from Hidden Hot Water Village, it wouldn't make Insect Man suspicious.
But attacking a small village, what could be gained from that?
This does not align with the philosophy of that Dark Ninja.
"Specific circumstances are unknown."
"Then let's meet with Root's people; we cannot be complacent with these people."
◎
In the dim forest at dusk.
Four figures swiftly passed through the dense woods, wearing windbreakers and masks richly painted with oil.
Each of the four carried two children, a total of eight children were carried by them, and they sped in a certain direction.
The four remained silent all the way, merely exerting all their strength to dash forward.
At this moment, they felt an extremely eerie and cold aura spreading through the forest, coming from all directions, making it impossible to observe where the source was.