[Devil Pepper Smoke Bomb] and [Kunai—Desert Eagle]

[Devil Pepper Smoke Bomb] and [Kunai—Desert Eagle]

Shimiya Aoba had no idea that people had already concocted a reasonable explanation for his actions. Right now, he was completely immersed in the thrill of beating people up.

Yamashita and the others, who had planned to slowly get even with him when they found the chance, never expected that he would not even wait a single night before launching an exceptionally violent nighttime raid!

ATA!

After taking down three more people this way and successfully "persuading" them through "virtue" to join his next operation, he could no longer use this tactic.

That was because, according to the newly recruited underlings, the remaining six all lived in the same room. It was simply unrealistic to ambush them this way again.

In other words, what came next would be a five-versus-six group battle.

However, Aoba seriously doubted whether these new underlings of his would turn on him on the spot. After all, he had hit them pretty hard earlier in order to make them cry and complete the mission. Even begging for mercy had not helped.

One of them had even been beaten unconscious, then shaken awake by him and beaten some more until he cried...

Such brutal behavior terrified everyone who saw it.

The good news, though, was that the commotion had not been very loud. Or perhaps it had simply been ignored?

"The rest are all in there."

"Mm."

Lowering his voice, Aoba led four battered, bruised "monsters" into a quiet ambush outside.

Logically speaking, it was five against six. With a "strong man" like him, who was not strong at all, and with three of the other side already injured, their odds of winning were pretty good.

But he did not trust the idiots beside him one bit. If they somehow lost this sure thing, it would be utterly humiliating.

After thinking it over, he turned and quietly asked, "Is there anyone else in the room?"

"N-No... there isn't."

Aoba calculated for a moment and chose the safest plan.

He rummaged around on his person and somehow pulled out an "iron can." Then he grinned, opened the door, and tossed the thing inside with a whoosh.

He had gotten this "good stuff" from the Worn Wooden Treasure Chest after completing his last mission. Its full name was the "Devil Pepper Smoke Bomb"...

The "F4" had no idea what he had thrown inside. They were still wondering why he was not going in when incomparably miserable screams suddenly erupted from within.

Then, with a bang, the six people inside came scrambling and tumbling out. They looked utterly wretched—snot and tears covered their faces, and they were constantly dry-heaving, unable to say a word.

The "F4" shuddered, a chill running through them. All of a sudden, they felt that merely getting beaten up was rather fortunate.

But they were still too naive!

At that moment, Aoba's eyes lit up. Like a tiger charging down a mountain, he rushed straight into the crowd and began raining punches and kicks on the six utterly defenseless people!

It was not that he enjoyed beating people while they were down. It was just that although these guys had run out crying, the system had not notified him that the mission was complete.

Only after he mercilessly started beating the dogs while they were down did the system's mission-completion prompt finally sound.

[Brats Beaten to Tears: 10/10]

[Mission Complete]

[Reward: Worn Wooden Treasure Chest x1 (Issued)]

Even though these people were already in such a miserable state, the "devil" before them seemed to have no intention of letting them go. The "F4" grew several times more afraid of Aoba and could only huddle in the corner, trembling.

Once Aoba finally stopped, everyone looked at him with terror in their eyes.

Then the middle-aged matron arrived with some people...

"Good. Very good. It seems none of you took a word I said seriously."

Looking at the miserable crowd, then at Shimiya Aoba—the obvious culprit, who clearly did not care in the slightest—the middle-aged matron's face darkened like an old woman's foot-binding cloth.

"Take them all away and lock them in the confinement room!"

The moment they heard the words "confinement room," Yamashita and the others, already in a pitiful state, instantly went pale and began crying and begging for mercy.

But this time, the middle-aged matron, whose authority had clearly been challenged, had no intention of letting them off lightly.

So they were all taken away, including Aoba, who had yet to realize the severity of the situation.

BANG!

The door was shut tightly.

Shimiya Aoba surveyed the place and found it much like what he had seen in television dramas: a cramped, dark, damp little room with nothing else in it. If you wanted to use the toilet, then you had to...

EMMMMMMM... Better not think about it.

"No wonder those little brats were so afraid of that matron. So she had this up her sleeve."

Having been influenced by plenty of film and television dramas, he knew that this kind of punishment was manageable if it was brief. But if it dragged on, even a man of iron could not endure it. There had even been people driven mad by it.

Using such a method on a group of orphans was truly despicable.

It seemed the orphanage he was in had nothing whatsoever to do with Director Nonō, who had adopted Kabuto. Otherwise, something like this would never have happened.

With the mindset of accepting whatever came his way, he sat down on the floor without much concern. He believed they would not dare blow things out of proportion, so the confinement would not last long—at most, one or two days.

Besides that, he had another source of confidence: whoever had been watching him in secret had likely already reported everything that had just happened truthfully. If Konoha still wanted to recruit a "talent" like him, they probably wouldn't stand by and do nothing.

Once he figured that out, he immediately smiled.

Then he brought up the system and prepared to open the chest he had just obtained.

Although he had used the reward from the last chest, he didn't feel the slightest bit of regret.

[Opening Worn Wooden Treasure Chest... You have obtained Kunai - Desert Eagle x1]

Looking at the [Kunai - Desert Eagle] he had gotten from the treasure chest, Aoba felt like he was about to crack apart!

If it had been a kunai or a Desert Eagle, he could have accepted either one. After all, it was a Worn Wooden Treasure Chest. What good could such a trash chest possibly contain?

But this [Kunai - Desert Eagle] still managed to shatter the lower limits of his worldview. The [Devil Pepper Smoke Bomb] he had gotten last time had already been bizarre enough—he hadn't expected this one to be even more ridiculous.

Because this [Kunai - Desert Eagle] was literally a kunai stuck onto the front of a gun barrel...

WDNMD!

So this gun didn't fire bullets—it fired the kunai stuck in front of it?

What kind of bored idiot could design a weapon like this?!

Just imagining himself fighting enemies in the future, everyone else stylishly throwing kunai and shuriken left and right, while he suddenly pulled out a gun, stuck a kunai into the barrel, fired with a bang, then pulled out another kunai to "reload"...

He practically wanted to vomit blood!

Could this thing be any more of a scam?!

(PS: I saw some people asking about the update schedule, so let me say a few words. Readers who have followed Old Faceless's books know that Old Faceless has always been reliable—never missing an update during serialization, and often adding extra chapters. I originally planned to maintain two updates a day during the new book period, but the news that my editor wouldn't be back at work until the tenth completely disrupted my plans. So before the tenth, Old Faceless can only try to keep up two daily updates. There aren't many days left until the tenth anyway, so there's probably no need to turn into a one-update-a-day beast for just a few days—but we'll see. I don't dare make any absolute promises. As for extra updates and mass releases, we'll talk about those later. Also, this book had a pretty low-key launch. I saw a few old readers complaining in the review section, saying Old Faceless was terrified anyone would find out he had started a new book. That honestly made me laugh and cry. To be honest, uploading it wasn't in the plan at all. I was just bored out of my mind and couldn't stop myself. At the time, I hadn't even finished the outline, and I only had five trial chapters saved up... So if anyone's to blame, it's Old Faceless for being stupid enough to make himself cry. But even without any promotion for this new book, and despite keeping things so low-key, the bookmarks are already about to break a thousand. That proves I'm not an author living off past accomplishments—the readers' eyes are sharp. So what are you waiting for? Recommendation votes, bookmarks, investments—I want them all!)