Konoha is a Commercial Enterprise

"Danzo? Even someone as profit-driven as him is opposed to this?"

Orochimaru raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. "I suppose that fellow still belongs to the radical faction."

Unlike the old men who had accepted their aging and shifted toward clerical politics, Danzo still devoted a vast amount of time to enhancing his own strength. Leaving aside ninjutsu cultivation, he was even pinning his hopes on returning to his youth through the First Hokage's cells.

As for Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homara, they fell far short of those two. They wore the expressions of individuals whose eyes were blinded by power, forgetting entirely that the prestige they held had been forged through bloodshed on the battlefield long ago.

Orochimaru licked his lips. "Those two old fogies, putting on such a pathetic display for the sake of a few petty gains. Truly..."

[You cannot simply put it that way. Everyone has their own standpoint.]

Floating in mid-air beside him, the Genie exceptionally spoke up to defend the two advisory elders with a smile,

[While you were fighting on the battlegrounds, they were managing the affairs within the village. Your positions are different, so naturally, what you see is also different. In their eyes, Konoha is not merely a band of mercenaries; it is a commercial enterprise that trades labor, and it must maintain its credibility.]

Orochimaru frowned. [I know that...]

[Your understanding is not clear enough. You stand too high, and looking down distorts your perspective.]

[After all, you are one of the Sannin of Konoha, possessing extraordinary strength. From childhood to the present, the greatest troubles you have encountered are the war depriving you of friends and family, the inability to know everything, and the inability to attain immortality.]

The Genie smiled. [Yet world peace, omniscience, immortality... these goals are equally difficult for anyone.]

[Aside from those, every trouble you have ever faced could be resolved simply through effort. That is why you 'firmly believe that to forge iron, one must be strong oneself,' assuming that you can solve all troubles merely by improving your own capabilities.]

[Enhancing your own abilities is certainly not wrong, but you see, that is somewhat one-sided... Ordinary shinobi cannot achieve that, and those merchants also have their own choices.]

[For instance, suppose the merchants who used to post mission contracts in Konoha stop coming and choose other shinobi villages instead. What can you do?]

[Will you use genjutsu to control them, or coerce them with brute force, slaughtering their entire families if they refuse to come?]

Orochimaru fell silent.

Genjutsu control, violent coercion... It was not as if no one had ever resorted to such methods, but only those insignificant, low-tier shinobi villages or rogue ninja would employ them.

It was impossible for Konoha to do such a thing. Once a slip-up occurred and it was exposed, it would become an unprecedented scandal.

By that time, leaving aside the merchants of their own nation, merchants from other lands would never come again.

That would be terribly troublesome. One had to remember that mercenary missions accounted for a massive proportion of Konoha's revenue.

Military might possessed great deterrent power when left unexercised, but sheer, unyielding force often produced the exact opposite effect.

Of course, this could entirely be attributed to insufficient capability.

Controlling one person might lead to problems, but controlling all of them would settle the matter. Coercing a single merchant family might not work, but threatening them along with those capable of protecting them—and slaughtering every last one if they failed to show up—would also solve the problem.

This was indeed a direction worthy of effort.

Orochimaru licked his lips. The Genie's assessment of him was accurate; he was familiar with this method and rather fond of it.

At this thought, he suddenly gained a shred of understanding regarding the mindset Uchiha Madara must have had when formulating the Eye of the Moon Plan.

——The thoughts of others have nothing to do with me. If they do not obey me, it is simply because I am not strong enough, or my methods are not ruthless enough.

That powerhouse, whose name was spoken in the same breath as the First Hokage, was also someone characterized by absolute self-confidence, and he was far more extreme than Orochimaru himself.

Yet such behavior was, without a doubt, the conduct of a lunatic.

[It seems you have gained some understanding.]

The Genie raised an eyebrow. [Moreover, the notion that 'good wine needs no bush' is actually quite naive. When doing business, reputation is paramount. Take the world I came from, for example—Taobao, JD...]

[Back then, JD's business was flourishing, but their leader ran into some personal conduct issues, whereupon he was framed by someone, and then...]

[...The situation in the shinobi world today is much the same. Konoha is not the only hidden village; others like Kumogakure, Iwagakure... or even the numerous minor shinobi villages, are all viable alternatives.]

[Why on earth would anyone take the risk of choosing a shinobi village with a bad reputation?]

[Compared to capability and quality, reputation is sometimes even more crucial, especially when making comparisons.]

Orochimaru's expression shifted continuously as he lapsed into deep thought.

No one had ever spoken to him about such matters, or perhaps someone had, but the thought had slipped his mind the very next second because he had far more important things to attend to and never took them seriously.

Yet he would listen to the Genie's words, and he would ponder them.

Following this line of reasoning, the misgivings of Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homara did not seem entirely unreasonable.

For the sake of Konoha's reputation, sacrificing a single Hizashi appeared to be an acceptable cost—and it was not as though the Hokage faction was the one forcing the issue.

Even if the so-called 'paying with one's life' severely damaged the village's imposing prestige, they were likely considering that this prestige only needed to be sufficient for use.

Konoha would not cease to be the most powerful shinobi village in the world simply because it lost one elite jounin.

"This... is somewhat troublesome."

Orochimaru exhaled a puff of white breath, his expression turning stern as he finally grasped the crux of the issue.

Unlike him, Utatane Koharu and Mitokado Homara were considering the interests of the middle and lower-tier shinobi of the village. They constituted the largest proportion of Konoha's ninja population and fulfilled the vast majority of missions, yet they possessed no resounding monikers like the 'Blue Beast' or the 'Legendary Sannin.'

Should the village's reputation decline, they would be the ones most severely impacted.

And once the ecosystem wherein middle and lower-tier shinobi earned their livelihood was destroyed, the high-ranking shinobi, who took that ecosystem as their foundation, would likewise collapse in the long run.

Perhaps it would not be quite so catastrophic, but it would inevitably reveal the same signs of decay seen in Sunagakure.

In comparison, the benefits promised in the previous agreement suddenly seemed insignificant.

Jiraiya, waiting nearby, noticed Orochimaru speak and felt a stir in his heart. "Do you have a good solution?"

Orochimaru shook his head, his gaze shifting back to the Genie in the air. [I always feel something is amiss. Konoha possesses so many formidable ninja; how can it be constrained to such an extent?]

Indeed, constrained. The two advisory elders would rather sacrifice the village's prestige than let its reputation be compromised—that was the choice they made under the pressure of that invisible constraint.

[Well, perhaps this could be blamed on the First Hokage?]

The Genie rubbed his chin and slightly raised an eyebrow.

[He invented the model of the 'hidden village,' gathering ninety-nine percent of the ninja within the Land of Fire, which completely separated the shinobi from ordinary people.]

[Yet whether one is a ninja or an ordinary person, everyone must eat, and the former possess even greater appetites.]

[Shinobi do not engage in production and must rely on ordinary people to survive. While they appear superior, they cannot truly enslave the populace, so it is quite normal for them to be subject to certain underlying constraints beneath the surface.]

Orochimaru toyed with the wine cup in his hand, quietly digesting the Genie's words.

After a long moment, he asked telepathically, [Then how does one shake off these constraints?]

The ninja populace of Konoha was his foundation. Cultivating this patch of leeks so that they could grow better and faster aligned perfectly with his interests.

Although he had yet to find a suitable method of harvesting them, he had a premonition that he would soon find a use for these people.

[Speaking of which, it is actually quite simple.]

The Genie smiled. [It suffices simply for those ordinary people to no longer belong to the Land of Fire, but instead become commoners who belong exclusively to Konoha.]