Chapter 148: Maid Outfit

"Kakuzu, hold the line here for a moment. I have to go shut down the Dragon Vein," Baki said. He had thought killing Anrokusan would be enough, but the madman had abandoned his physical body and actually fused his soul directly into the Dragon Vein.

"Can't hold it!" Kakuzu was apparently planning to quit on the spot.

"What's wrong with you, old man?" Baki asked, puzzled.

"No treasure in sight, fight after fight, borrowing heart after heart! We agreed on just thirty million, but now it's thirty million plus thirty million, and we're almost hitting one hundred million!" Kakuzu's temper flared as he said impatiently.

"Don't do this right now... I'll pay you back the money."

"I'm done. I'm going to work with the Kazekage instead; he has way more gold." Kakuzu literally turned around and started walking away.

Baki rubbed his hands together, his eyes lighting up. He had witnessed Kakuzu's combat prowess firsthand.

"Wait... you know who I am, right?" Baki suddenly called out.

"A swindler." Kakuzu kept walking.

"The Desert Emperor! I'm not even boasting, Anrokusan himself acknowledged it!" Baki puffed out his chest, full of heroic spirit.

"So what?" Kakuzu stopped in his tracks.

"How about this? Help me fight a few more battles, and when I become emperor, I'll appoint you as a General!" Baki nodded. He wouldn't dare mess around with the Ministry of Finance position; this guy was an absolute iron Pixiu—a mythical beast that only takes in wealth and never releases any. Extracting money from him required endless schemes and deceptions. Fortunately, the old man was getting up there in years and his mind wasn't quite as sharp, making him easy to trick with a bit of flattery.

"What kind of General?" Kakuzu was somewhat tempted. A series of money-making schemes echoed in his mind: living off idle military pay, selling armaments, aiding the enemy, and surrendering.

"The future of the ninja world ultimately belongs to the starry sea, so I'll appoint you as a Grand Admiral of the Navy!" Baki gave him a thumbs-up.

Kakuzu frowned, feeling like something wasn't quite right.

"Does the Land of Wind even have a navy?" Kakuzu scratched his head and looked at the others.

"Yes, it does, absolutely!" Everyone nodded in unison.

"It really does!" Karin also nodded heavily. The future Loulan really did assemble a fleet, though that fleet consisted of precisely one ship and seven decrepit crew members.

"Then I'll trust you one last time." Kakuzu took off his cloak, revealing a body completely sewn over with black tentacles. This time, he was going to use his full power.

"Let's go! We're going to find the Queen." Baki looked at Nonoeya and Karin, and the three of them crossed the scorched earth and debris together, charging toward the royal palace.

"We're going too!" Yura's Scorch Release was useless against puppets, and she really didn't want to stand around here like an idiot.

"Follow him. Make sure he doesn't obtain the power of the Desert Emperor under any circumstances," Baki muttered quietly. Even if he couldn't claim the throne himself, he certainly wouldn't let Baki have it; he had no desire to see the Land of Wind split apart.

"Are you leaving just me behind?" Kakuzu suddenly felt a bad premonition.

"Scrap metal has gone up in price; it's now 150 ryo per catty," Baki shouted back.

Kakuzu looked at the sky-full of puppet soldiers, and his morale instantly soared, making him feel capable once again.

...

The palace gates were guarded by two giant puppets. Standing ten meters tall, they clearly weren't forces to be trifled with. Upon seeing the group charge forward, their bodies split open down the middle, extending a super-firepower frontline twenty meters long. That row of dark, menacing gun barrels briefly made Baki feel as though he had arrived at France's Maginot Line.

"Should we force our way through? Their firepower looks intensely heavy," Baki frowned and said.

"Force our way through my foot! When do ninjas ever use the front door? Circumvent them and jump through the window!" Baki flicked the chain blade wrapped around his arm, hooked it onto a second-floor window, and scrambled up in a few quick bounds.

"Can't this guy just run up the wall?" Yura frowned, channeling chakra to her feet as she followed him inside.

Everyone else filed in behind them, leaving the two fully-armed puppets standing alone, bewildered in the wind.

Jumping through the window brought them straight into a luxurious palace dining room. A row of maid-attired puppet dolls stood rigidly on both sides. Without getting close for a careful inspection, it was genuinely difficult to tell the real from the fake.

"If this old geezer didn't spend all day dreaming about conquering the ninja world, he might actually be some kind of talent." Baki pinched one of their white silk stockings; the texture was really quite nice.

"I need to change my clothes..." Nonoeya blushed. Her dress had been torn to shreds by the tornado, so she grabbed a maid uniform from one of the puppets and scurried behind a door to change amidst rustling sounds.

"I need to change too." Karin's clothes had also been shredded by Anrokusan's steel fangs, leaving large patches of snow-white skin exposed.

A moment later, the two girls in maid outfits emerged from the doorway, looking shy and coy.

"Whoa!" Baki whistled with a vibrant expression.

"Greetings, Father. Is there anything I can assist you with?" Karin lifted her skirt and dipped into a slight curtsy.

Baki's gaze lingered on Nonoeya's long, slender legs encased in white stockings.

"Cough, cough..." Nonoeya blushed, turned her head away, and gave a couple of awkward coughs.

"Can you two possibly muster even a tiny shred of life-or-death urgency?!" Baki roared in anger.

"Fine, fine. Let's go up and find Sara, or else Grandpa Kakuzu is going to quit on us again." Reluctantly tearing his gaze away from them, Baki pushed open the two massive solid wood doors and stepped into an empty corridor.

The architect of this tower-like palace must have been a thoroughly unscrupulous real estate developer in their past life. Standing a hundred meters tall, the tower had at least a ninety percent common area ratio, leaving only a tiny handful of genuinely useful rooms.

Treading on soft red wool carpets and running for hundreds of meters through the rectangular passageway, they finally came across an... elevator?

Though slightly surprised, when he thought about it, it made sense—with a tower this high, nobody could possibly climb the stairs up and down every day.

So, would it still work? Baki pressed the button.

Ding!

The elevator doors actually opened. The interior was spacious enough to fit a donkey cart, and the blindingly bright lightbulbs could easily dazzle someone.

Yura and Matsuri felt a bit nervous, but they absolutely refused to show any sign of inexperience in front of Baki. They maintained a calm and collected demeanor, putting on the air of "we have these things in the Land of Wind too."

"Th-this is the technology of a future city?" Nonoeya, however, spoke up quite naturally. She had visited the Daimyo's estate in the Land of Fire and seen the most luxurious department store there, which also featured an elevator, though it only spanned three floors.

"Get in quickly. Let's hope Anrokusan isn't petty enough to control the elevator too." Baki stepped into the elevator first, and the rest followed.

The elevator buttons only went up to five floors. Although unlabeled, barring any accidents, Sara as the queen should be on the top floor.

Pressing the top-floor button, the elevator began a smooth ascent. It moved very slowly, but it was as steady as flat ground. Looking out through the glass, they could still see Kakuzu being swallowed up by an ocean of puppet soldiers.

"Seriously, this is too slow. If the queen had sudden diarrhea downstairs, by the time she reached the top floor she'd just need to change her pants." Baki was deeply dissatisfied with the speed.

"Such vulgar language." Yura cast a disgusted sideways glance at Baki.

"Huh?" Baki suddenly realized that, at some point, interacting with Yura no longer lowered her affection rating. How boring.

"Did the people pulling the elevator ropes upstairs not eat lunch?" Matsuri expressed his disgust as well, inadvertently exposing his own ignorance.

"It's this high up—what happens if the elevator suddenly plummets?" Nonoeya suddenly thought of a crucial question.

"Then we just jump right before we hit the ground!" Tobi offered a brilliant suggestion.

"Grandma is so smart." Karin gave a thumbs-up.

"Too slow. Let's rap a bit. Look at this tower, so thick and long, just like my..." Baki started tapping the floor with his scabbard, nodding to the beat.

"By the way... why on earth are hedgehogs the easiest animals to get pregnant?" Yura finally couldn't hold it in anymore. Everyone else was laughing, but she was the only one who didn't understand what was so funny, so she decided to use this moment to get a clear answer.

"Oh~ Yura-chan, you should cherish these innocent days. When the time comes that you instantly understand everything, you'll look back and miss this. Look at my Nana-chan here; with just a single smile from me, she already knows what I'm about to do." Baki pinched the nanny's cheek.

Nonoeya rolled her eyes in despair. Baki seemed to possess a peculiar kind of charismatic leadership...

One that could corrupt every innocent person around him with dirty thoughts...