Naruto: I, the villain template, was hailed as a savior.

Chapter 111 Those who are starving to death are no different from livestock (Seeking monthly votes!!)

Several towering towers stand in the rain-shrouded Rain Village.

At the top of the tallest tower, a scarred rain ninja arrived.

Looking at the silent iron gate in front of him, Scarface Rain Ninja still had anger on his face. He reached out and knocked heavily on the iron gate.

dong dong!Boom!

"Yoshitaka?"

A moment later, he heard an old voice from inside the door, asking and answering itself, "Come in."

The scarred man called "Yilong" was taken aback, but with a gentle push, he actually opened the iron door.

Click.

Yilong pushed open the door and looked up, where he saw the figure at the window.

The turbulent rainwater streamed down the window, leaving winding, forked trails.

A soft, ticking sound could be heard incessantly. Withered leaves, blown by the strong wind, fell onto the windowpane, becoming damp and sticking to the glass like paper, their veins bulging slightly like human blood vessels.

"Ha~"

The old man standing by the window looked away, breathed a puff of white steam into his hands to warm them, and muttered to himself, "Indeed, this kind of weather is perfect for eating hot pot to warm up."

After saying that, he walked to the living room, which was devoid of any decorative furniture, and sat down next to the square kotatsu.

Then he waved to the scarred Rain Ninja standing in front of the door and said jokingly, "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and close the door, my old bones can't stand the cold."

Upon hearing this, Yilong suddenly came to his senses, felt the faint coolness, and couldn't help but tighten his clothes. He then closed the door and walked in.

Click.

Once the door is closed, the damp cold outside seems to be kept out.

Yilong walked to the kotatsu with a sour face, and immediately felt a warm and gentle warmth, which inexplicably calmed his anger.

"This kind of thing is not commonly seen in the Land of Rain."

The old man bent down, fiddling with the kotatsu, his eyes lowered, and smiled kindly, "His Highness the Great Ming brought two sets, and specially saved one for me."

A small grill sits on the kotatsu table, with a sukiyaki pot on top, the broth bubbling away.

Yoshitaka stood there without saying a word, just staring silently.

I watched as the old man tossed mushrooms with crosses drawn on them and neatly cut pieces of meat into the pot. Fresh, pink vegetables were also added to the soup, bobbing up and down, their colors vibrant and refreshing.

But Yilong found the green color incredibly dazzling, reigniting the fire in his heart.

"Lord Musashi!"

He clenched his fists instinctively and asked in a deep voice, "Did you know that the disaster relief grain we bought with our money was exchanged by those damned merchants and nobles for bran and coarse rice meant for livestock?"

Bran is the outer husk that is removed from rice grains, such as rice husks, wheat bran, and other useless discarded items.

Brown rice is rice grains that have had their outer husk removed but still retain the bran and germ. However, the rice they want to buy is a product where the outer husk of the rice has been completely removed!

"...So that's why." The old man, called "Musashi," put down his cup and said softly, "If that's the case, then I understand."

"You know? You know they're passing off inferior goods as superior ones?"

Upon hearing this, and looking at the leader of Amegakure, an old man he had once greatly admired, Yoshitaka's anger flared up instantly. He demanded, "Then why did you stand by and do nothing? Those bastards should have been hung up and beaten to death!"

"That Hanzo guy is still ruthlessly winning people's hearts, even using his own money to buy relief food for the refugees. Now people outside are praising his wisdom! You, don't you care at all...?"

Faced with his right-hand man's questioning, Musashi calmly sipped his tea and asked casually, "Then do you know how much bran and brown rice one pound of polished rice can be exchanged for?"

Faced with this inexplicable question, Yilong was taken aback for a moment, then frowned and said, "Of course I know that the price of one pound of refined rice can buy three pounds of bran and brown rice."

At this point, he raised his eyebrows again, his tone furious. "But even the bran and unpolished rice, they still pocketed a third of it! And that stuff is for animals, not for humans! You…"

"Hey, don't get so angry." Before Yoshitaka could finish speaking, Musashi suddenly slapped the table, interrupting him, and said with a smile, "Come on, come on, have something to eat and warm up."

Yilong, who was interrupted, choked for a moment, his brows almost furrowed together.

But looking into the old man's clear eyes, he suppressed his anger and sat down.

"Yoshitaka," Musashi said softly, picking a few pieces of meat from the hot pot and placing them in Yoshitaka's bowl, "have you ever seen someone die from eating dirt?"

Yoshitaka, who was holding a bowl and about to go to greet them, froze in mid-air upon hearing this, and blurted out, "What?"

Eat dirt and die from bloating?

"Look, you haven't seen it, you haven't even seen the bark of trees completely eaten off. You think the common people are already suffering enough?"

Musashi said to himself, "I've survived from the end of the Warring States period to the present day by sheer luck. When I was young, I fought against samurai from various countries and regions with just a sword. From the age of thirteen to sixty, I fought more than a hundred battles without ever being defeated."

"But it was because of this that I realized that the starving victims were no longer human beings."

Upon hearing this, Yilong suddenly stood up with wide eyes, looking at the old man with disbelief.

The fact that Amegakure has come this far is all thanks to the leadership of this old man!

That's why he chose to stay by Musashi's side when all his other companions favored Hanzo.

But he never expected that such words would come from Lord Musashi's mouth.

"Shocking, aren't you?"

Musashi simply smiled and shook his head, sighing, "Because you've never seen what it's like to be on the verge of starvation, nor have you witnessed the tragic reality after the outbreak of war. You're ultimately just a ninja who doesn't engage in productive labor."

"Dignity, decency, food for animals, food for humans—those are things you can only think about after you've had your fill!"

When people are hungry to a certain extent, they won't think about what to eat, whether it tastes good or not, or even whether they can eat it.

"As long as they can survive, they'll eat anything—branch, coarse rice, grass roots, tree bark, soil!"

Musashi slightly raised his head to look at Yoshitaka, his gaze deep, and said, "They might even exchange children, and then..."

He paused abruptly, looked at Yilong's pale face, shook his head and smiled bitterly, "One pound of refined rice can be exchanged for three pounds of bran and unpolished rice, which means that the money that could have saved one person can now save three."

"Although they have no nutritional value and are even difficult to digest, they can fill people's stomachs and allow more people to live a few more days."

"Tell me, did I miscalculate this deal?"

For a moment, Yoshitaka fell into a long silence, his mind a jumbled mess.

He could only open his mouth unconsciously, stammering weakly, "This... the disaster relief funds and supplies are insufficient, why don't we ask His Highness the Daimyo for more...?"

"Moreover, most of the already meager disaster relief funds ended up in the pockets of those merchants..."

Upon hearing this, as if remembering something, a trace of sorrow flashed in Musashi's eyes. He laughed mockingly and said, "Allocate more money and grain? Where will the money come from? The granaries are already empty! Where will the grain come from? Are we going to continue levying taxes?!"

"As for those profit-driven merchants, why would they sell us food if we don't feed them? At least they only took a third; the remaining two-thirds can still save one more person!"

"If it weren't for those scoundrels of merchants you speak of, and those coarse grains and bran you feed to animals, what you'd see outside the city wouldn't be emaciated refugees, but a pile of gnawed bones!"

Musashi's only and biggest regret at this moment is that he didn't come up with a way to grow food sooner, and didn't try to get rid of his dependence on the great powers sooner.

Hearing the old man's increasingly low voice, Yilong staggered back a few steps, his face pale. His mind went blank as he shook his head and murmured, "How... how could this be? It's actually like this..."

"Then, the reason you haven't rebelled against Sunagakure is also because..."

Musashi slowly lowered his head, picked up a piece of meat from the pot, and said softly, "Do you think I want to stand by and watch? Do you think I want to be a coward?"

"I am Musashi, the former Sword Saint Musashi. Those old guys from the Land of Iron, which one of them wasn't defeated by me? Even though I'm old, I can still wield my sword."

"But resistance? Revenge? These four seemingly insignificant words, these two seemingly insignificant phrases, could have such heavy consequences?"

"Hanzo is still young and can be arrogant and ambitious, but I can't. I am now the leader of Amegakure, and I have the lives of thousands upon thousands of people on my shoulders. I can't gamble, and I can't win."

"If the scale of the war continues to expand, it will no longer be just a matter of passing through. The Land of Rain will become a victim of the great powers and a target for their joint attack."

"Revenge is a luxury we can't afford right now!"

In the current Land of Rain, there is no way out but to eke out a living.

They could only try to survive until the war ended, and then slowly devise a plan.

But even if one wants to survive, the prerequisite is that major powers ignore them; otherwise, once they are targeted, even survival is out of the question...

Bang! !

Just as the two were lost in thought, the iron gate was suddenly pushed open.

"No, this is terrible, Lord Musashi!"

A Rain Village ninja rushed in, shouting in terror, "Sunagakure! Sunagakure has raided again..."

At this point, he hurriedly shook his head, exclaiming in terror, "No, this was a massacre! Two villages, hundreds of people, all slaughtered!!"

"Hanzo! Lord Hanzo received the message and immediately led his men to intercept the Sunagakure forces!"

Musashi listened to all the news calmly, watching the vegetables and meat bobbing in the boiling pot, and said in a low voice, "This day has finally come."

Fate will always catch up with our slowing pace until it achieves the future it has chosen for us.

(End of this chapter)