Making Money—Nothing Shameful About It! (Please Favorite, Follow, and Vote Monthly.)

"What a story."

Kazuma had an incredibly high aptitude.

He was utterly captivated by Uchiha Makoto's little stories, and it was as if a huge amount of strange and wonderful knowledge had appeared in his mind out of nowhere.

A brand-new door had opened before him.

Kazuma had no doubt whatsoever about the power of this move. The Daimyo had initially spent a fortune seeking tulips, going through countless hands and enduring all kinds of twists and turns before finally purchasing these precious flowers. Once such a story spread throughout the Land of Fire, it would almost immediately set off the tulip market there.

"What do you mean, calculating the price by the individual plant?"

"If the nobles in the neighboring Land of Wind heard about this, they'd think that I, a noble of the Land of Fire, had fallen on hard times. One more room!"

"I want every room in my house filled!"

This was something even the Daimyo had long yearned for. Those old-money types who fancied themselves the trendsetters of the cultural world definitely wouldn't miss it.

The old-money nobles of the Land of Fire would probably line up to spend a fortune buying tulips.

Can't buy them?

Then they'd just have to pay more!

The market price of tulips was still in the low-price range. If they stocked up on a batch now, then waited for the price of tulips to rise, they could make a fortune for certain.

A four- or fivefold increase, or even tenfold, wouldn't be a problem!

"I understand, Lord Makoto. I'll immediately go stock up on a large batch of tulips!"

Kazuma spoke with flushed cheeks, feeling as if a bright future were waiting for him.

"Too small. Your vision is too small."

"Kazuma, your idea is still... Forget it. Let me enlighten you one more time!"

Uchiha Makoto shook his head.

Kazuma's vision was still too narrow. His leader needed to enlighten him once more!

Buying low and selling high was simply too basic. As long as one grasped the market's information gap, it was completely effortless. Anyone could do it. Even tying a dog to the job wasn't out of the question.

Of course, that wasn't important.

The most important thing was that the profit earned couldn't satisfy Uchiha Makoto.

The selling point of tulips was that they looked beautiful and were scarce. Because they took a long time to grow and required difficult planting conditions, there weren't many tulips on the market. Even if Uchiha Makoto used every means at his disposal to drive their price up severalfold, or even tenfold, the total quantity of tulips was still limited. That was an unavoidable problem.

To fleece the masses and make money, they could only continue speculating on the price of tulips.

But if the price of tulips became too high, the nobles of the Land of Fire weren't fools. They wouldn't be crazy enough to spend their meal money on a pile of flowers. Besides, those sanctimonious vermin might even step in once they saw that tulips were profitable... and that would reduce his profit margin even further.

Therefore.

Simply buying low and selling high with tulips was absolutely out of the question!

"Then what do you mean, Lord Makoto?"

"We should indeed stock up on a batch of tulips now and sell them when their price skyrockets later. But tulips are scarce, so even if we speculate on their price, the money we can earn is still quite limited."

"So what we really need to connect with is the primary market—in other words, the tulip growers!"

"That's the main goal of this operation, and the secret to making big money."

"But... Lord Makoto, tulips take too long to grow, and their planting conditions are difficult. Mass cultivation would probably require massive resources. That wouldn't be easy to accomplish."

Uchiha Makoto smiled. He had never intended to make money by growing tulips.

That method was far too slow, and the cycle was too long, often taking several years. By the time a new batch of tulips was grown, the fashionable item among the nobles of the Land of Fire would probably have changed several times over. By then, the opportunity would have long since passed—so late that even eating dirt wouldn't catch up.

Of course, he couldn't possibly use such a foolish method.

"We don't need to grow tulips. We only need to sign contracts with the flower farmers who grow them, agreeing in advance on the price of the next batch. No matter what the market price of tulips is when the time comes, we'll purchase them at the price stated in the contract. We can even pay them a deposit in advance as a guarantee."

"That way... we'll have a large number of tulip orders in our hands, and what we'll be selling will be tulips from the future!"

Uchiha Makoto was speaking when Kazuma suddenly understood his meaning. He jumped up excitedly and shouted:

"Oh~ I understand! I understand!"

"Lord Makoto, you mean that once the tulip market booms, many people in the Land of Fire will rush into it. But tulips will be scarce. At that point, we can simply produce the contracts we signed with the flower farmers, and someone will definitely be willing to pay extra to buy those contracts from us. Then we can transform the tulip trading market into a market for trading tulip contracts. We won't need to grow any tulips at all—we can just sell the contracts!"

"Hahahaha!"

Kazuma danced around excitedly, revealing an extremely sinister grin.

"That's right, that's right. That's exactly what I mean."

"Hahaha! When the time comes, we can even forge fake contracts together with the Daimyo. Those people will already be so blinded by profit that they won't care about any of this!"

Kazuma had even learned to apply the idea further, thinking of forging contracts as well.

Although it wasn't legal.

But making money... what was shameful about that?

That's right!

Whenever a commodity transaction shifted from the physical to the purely financial, it became incomparably frenzied. It was clearly just a piece of paper, yet simply passing it from hand to hand could earn one double, triple, or even several times the original profit. Anyone could lose themselves in such rapid trading.

These people, blinded by profit, had already lost the ability to think rationally. They wouldn't bother conducting an on-site investigation or confirming the authenticity of the contracts with the flower farmers. They would only buy, buy, buy, then sell, sell, sell, always assuming someone else would take over—until the bubble burst and they became the final bagholders.

Therefore, if the Daimyo helped behind the scenes, it wouldn't be impossible to mix forged contracts in with the genuine ones and sell them. After all, once the frenzy ended and the bubble burst, those contracts would be no different from blank paper.

Besides, surely no one would actually bring those contracts to his ninja village. If they did, then he would simply have to strike them down without mercy.

"Hahaha, Kazuma, I knew you had it in you. You can even think of such an evil method!"

Uchiha Makoto looked at the sinister Kazuma, an expression of immense satisfaction on his face. Kazuma seemed like a fine comrade who could shoulder great responsibilities!

He could already imagine the future of his ninja village. It would be brimming with talent!

Everywhere would be filled with vigorous life, with all creation striving to flourish.

Tenten had to work throughout summer vacation, along with all sorts of other things, so she only had time at night.

Sigh... As usual, please favorite, follow, and vote monthly.