Although Naruto had no idea what Miki Yūya wanted him to remember, he committed it to memory first anyway.
Only then did he obediently recount every detail of the mission to Miki Yūya, from beginning to end, without leaving out a word.
He covered accepting an ordinary C-Rank Mission to deliver a ferret, finding the village eerily deserted, getting ambushed by armored men, falling off a cliff, and being rescued by a caravan, where he met He Yan.
Then came Haido producing the Gelel Stone to lure him into joining. He explained the entire chain of events.
"Yūya, I figured Haido and Temujin definitely weren't good people. They wanted to use me, so I decided to use them instead."
Having finished, Naruto proudly sought praise for his efforts.
As long as he wasn't being so emotional, Naruto did have a brain.
Yet after hearing the whole story, Miki Yūya froze on the spot, his pupils trembling in shock.
Three seconds of silence passed.
"What the fuck are you even doing?"
"What do you mean, 'definitely weren't good people'? I fucking knew following you, you Fox Demon, would never lead to anything good.
"Was even one of the people you met a decent person?"
Miki Yūya blurted out a curse. This was fucking absurd opening the door for fucking absurdity-a whole house full of absurd.
"Are these people all fucking animals?!"
Whenever anyone thought Miki Yūya was already enough of a bastard, someone always stepped forward to show him that his standards were still far too high.
Just look at what Naruto's Team 7 had been through, and you could tell how unlucky they were.
First came the Land of Waves mission. That sly old fox Tazuna had played dirty, taking everyone's money and spending it on booze-and expensive booze at that.
Only after he ran out of money did he remember to post a mission request. Offering the cheapest C-Rank Mission payment, he tricked Team 7 into going to the Land of Waves and facing Zabuza, making a few Genin risk their lives to shield him from disaster.
It only worked because everyone in Team 7 was a complete idiot back then, and Kakashi was in a state of total apathy. Since Naruto and Sasuke wanted to continue the mission, Kakashi couldn't be bothered to stop them.
Under normal circumstances, what Ninja would put up with a bastard like Tazuna? Anyone with a bad temper would have killed him on the spot.
Concealing a mission's difficulty already violated the rules of the Ninja. Spending everyone's lifesaving money on booze made him a bastard too. Killing Tazuna would have been a public service.
With that precedent in mind, Sandayū learned a thing or two for the later Land of Snow mission.
On the surface, it was a simple mission to escort an actress to a film shoot. Behind the scenes, he was plotting a coup and rebellion.
If Miki Yūya hadn't been there to set them straight, telling Team 7 that their mission ended once they reached the village and that they didn't need to get involved in another country's political bullshit...
Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi might have gotten carried away again, getting dragged into a foreign civil war and throwing their lives away for nothing.
And this time, their client, He Yan, had taken the art of screwing people over to its absolute peak.
He had learned from the loopholes in the Land of Waves and Land of Snow missions, eliminating every possibility of exposure.
I asked you to take the ferret back to the village, didn't I?
The mission only ends once the ferret returns to the village.
Then I'll just destroy the village completely and clear everything out.
With the mission destination gone, the mission could never be properly completed. He had effectively exploited a bug.
An empty village, an empty commission-it had been a trap from the very beginning, designed to lure Konoha's Ninja over.
Miki Yūya's chest heaved with anger, while Naruto remained confused.
"Yūya... Elder He Yan from the caravan was actually pretty nice. If he hadn't saved me, I might have been swept away by the river."
"Nice? Nice my fucking ass! Are you an idiot?"
"Tell me, that Wandering Caravan had the elderly, women, and children with them, right? Old folks and kids, the whole lot?"
Naruto obediently nodded.
"Yeah. Elder He Yan was leading an entire Wandering Caravan, with men and women of all ages. They looked really pitiful, wandering around all year."
"Pitiful, my ass!"
Miki Yūya exploded on the spot, rolling his eyes so hard they nearly disappeared into his head.
"Do you even have a brain?!"
"What legitimate trading caravan brings that many people along?"
"Who the fuck drags their entire family out to do business, roaming around with a bunch of old people and kids?! Even if they really are a wandering caravan, where the hell does a wandering caravan get a village?"
"And another thing!"
"The mission description said to take the ferret back to the village.
"They clearly have a permanent settlement, yet instead of living in a perfectly good village, they're lurking around outside it!"
"They leave a stable village empty and wander around outside, and you call them legitimate merchants? Is there something wrong with you Ninja's brains? One minute these people tell you to take the ferret back to their village, and the next they say they're wandering merchants."
"Huh...?!"
By then, Naruto was utterly lost. What was going on? His head hurt so much.
"I don't get it. This is too hard. My head hurts... What's going on?"
"Maybe you've hit your limit. Forget it. You useless Ninja were never going to amount to anything anyway."
Miki Yūya pondered. Konoha's Ninja were idiots, but even they couldn't withstand people playing them like this.
It's one thing for me, a Konoha Villager, to bully Ninja. But you outsiders are treating the Konoha Ninja's innocence as stupidity and making fools of them too? Who the hell do you think you are?
These people grew more vicious with every mission.
First, they used the lowest-level C-Rank Missions to lower the Ninja's guard and make them misjudge the danger.
Once the Ninja had ventured deep into danger, far from their village, the real mission immediately kicked in, forcibly turning a simple assignment into a fight to the death.
They even had the nerve to get fighting power for free, gambling with Konoha Ninja's lives to further their grand ambitions.
"Why the fuck should they?!"
The more Miki Yūya thought about it, the more frustrated he became. Fuck, these people from Konoha wouldn't even fight to the death in their own village, yet they came all this way to do it for these assholes?
"These outsiders have no fucking standards! Do idiots deserve to be scammed?"
"If you're hiring Ninja, then offer a proper price and assign a proper rank!"
Miki Yūya's tone carried a jumble of emotions. He suddenly thought of Gato. Gato had been far too honest.
Take all those self-proclaimed kind, innocent civilians and wanderers in the Shinobi World together.
When it came to rules, basic standards, and being a decent human being, not one of them could measure up to Gato!
Gato, the villain who monopolized the Land of Waves' shipping and trafficked people.
Yes! That very guy!
Gato was evil, a criminal tyrant who committed every imaginable crime!
But at least he was openly evil!
When he hired Ninja, he paid them real money. He was honest about being bad and never deceived people.
He never pretended to be pitiful, never sold a sob story, and never used the lowest-ranked missions to trick children into risking their lives!
Gato's evil was out in the open, while the people Naruto had met were rotten to the bone!
He was utterly speechless.
"Honestly."
"Compared to these parasites of the Shinobi World, full of schemes and utterly devoid of standards..."
"I, Miki Yūya, mouth off at people every day, bully people and show off everywhere I go, and curse out anyone who pisses me off."
"I actually look like a compassionate saint. Ah, just as I thought. No matter how bad I get, I still have a kind heart deep down."
Naruto stood to one side, watching Miki Yūya sing his own praises, his brain completely crashing.
Thinking it over carefully, he actually couldn't refute any of it. As he recalled all the little moments of his life in the village, a smile appeared on Naruto's face.
It seemed... everyone in the village was really nice.
"...Yeah. Everyone in Konoha is really nice!"
"Nice my fucking ass!! Stop patting yourself on the back! I'm praising myself, so why are you trying to get in on it? You're just a Shadow Clone-not even a placenta-and you're trying to praise yourself too?"
Fuck!! Why does this guy have to give even a Shadow Clone such a hard time?
Naruto's Shadow Clone choked on his indignation. What had a Shadow Clone ever done to him? Was a clone somehow inferior to the original?
Before you continue