"Impressive. He actually walked out of the exchange office with seventy million ryō without breaking a sweat."
"Didn't you notice? He deliberately flaunted his wealth. He was trying to 'fish.'"
"Quite a formidable expert, but I've never seen him before."
"Yeah, he's a new face..."
The discussions in the exchange office caught the attention of a tall man who had just arrived, but he didn't join in. Instead, he went straight through the outer section of the exchange office and into the more secluded underground chamber... This man was a regular customer—a very, very old regular customer.
The underground chamber was a morgue, and the person in charge of the exchange office was currently counting the corpses there.
The man came to the basement as if he knew the place by heart, then casually tossed the corpse he had been carrying over his shoulder at the manager's feet.
The manager only glanced at the corpse's face before saying, "Mr. Kakuzu, this is a small fry. Only eight million ryō."
He had identified the bounty criminal at a glance, proving himself a veteran. The visitor was none other than Kakuzu, the rogue ninja from Takigakure and renowned assassin of the Ninja World—the "Ultimate Veteran Ninja."
Kakuzu knew he had only caught a small fry this time. But what could he do? His luck was simply bad. In the years since the end of the Ninja World War, the bounty market had finally begun to flourish. It was a sunrise industry, but this operation of his had been more like a sunset.
Still, when luck fell short, effort had to make up the difference. Although Kakuzu believed in fatalism, he was always willing to put in extra effort when money was involved.
"I heard someone just walked out with seventy million ryō?"