Chap.50 The land of rice

In the afternoon, Tony's new team left the leaf village after gearing up for the mission. And their members were out of the ordinary in that instead of three members led by a higher rank, they had a special jounin, a jounin, a chunin, and a genin.

Every level of strength a ninja could reach was present, except for a Kage level.

The trip was… entertaining.

Anko and Tayuya exchanged honest opinions with each other, while Karin watched them speechless and Tony made sure that the powder keg wouldn't explode by taking out different types of snacks on time.

The only time it was quiet was when they ate and slept.

"So you think this mission is a trap aimed at you?" Anko asked as they rested for the night and ate braised pig trotters accompanied by stir-fried vegetables.

"At first I thought I was really thinking too much, but I couldn't stop thinking about it," Tony explained to them. "No matter how you look at it, I have several specialty stores and employees capable of fulfilling this mission. As urgent as it is, it's just a banquet, I can send Komatsu or Joichiro Yukihira and everything will be fine. But even so, they expressly ask that I be the one to go there.

"And what will you do if it's a trap?" Tayuya asked after swallowing a piece of meat.

—What we WILL do will depend on his motives —Anko replied correcting Tayuya to her delight — There is still the possibility that he is simply a fan or an idiot nobleman, not that there is a shortage of the latter.

-And if it's not that way? Karina asked.

"Then we'll take down the other party as a priority, capturing them alive will be secondary," Anko stated.

—The positive part is that the mission only specifies preparing various dishes of food as the objective, we won't have to act as bodyguards or buffoons for anyone —Tony pointed out —I would have worried that someone would poison the food, but according to Tsunade, these nobles have tasters of poison always by their side, otherwise they would not have managed to live long.

"And you're not worried that they'll accuse you of planting the poison?" Tayuya asked.

"They can point all they want," Tony shrugged nonchalantly. "Those who know me know what I'm capable of and if they find any kind of proof, then it's easy to know I'm being framed."

"Don't you care about your reputation?"

"My reputation was what got them calling me."

A smile broke out on everyone's face upon hearing that.

"Hurry up and eat, this won't be worth anything if it stays cold."

The team rested for the night and resumed their journey in the morning. After traveling the entire distance between the village and the Land of Rice, they asked for some directions along the way to locate the nobleman's territory.

"Here it is, remember what we talked about" Anko said as she approached the door guarded by two guards.

After declaring his identity and waiting for one of the guards to enter to report, the team smoothly entered the nobleman's mansion and were served some tea while awaiting the client's arrival.

-Gross! —Tayuya complained after taking a sip— What kind of crap is this?!

Anko and Karin's expression were no better.

"Not really nice." Tony frowned at the taste. "Not only were the leaves not harvested and prepared correctly, but the proportions and timing are all wrong."

—Hey Tony, get some of your tea —Anko asked after throwing the tea they were served into a pot— We need to get this taste out of our mouths.

"Which do you want?"

"Green tea for me."

I want black tea.

"For my blue tea."

Tony took the teapot and using his devil fruit ability, changed the tea inside for each requested type until he poured himself a cup of his favorite red tea.

"This is something else," Anko sighed with satisfaction with her eyes closed.

Tayuya and Karin nodded at the statement, expressing their unconditional agreement.

"Looks like the nobleman is here," Tony commented as he took a sip of the sweet-note tea.

And sure enough, a man dressed in fine clothes and waving a fan walked in and sat on the pillow in front of them. Two servants stood at the door waiting in silence.

Tony never understood that part of holding a fan made someone seem more noble.

"Thank you for coming in such haste, I hope you enjoyed your tea." It's one of the best this season —the nobleman spoke— I'm Hizo and I've heard great praise from other nobles about Tony-kun's dishes.

A chill ran down Tony's back at the way the nobleman was looking at him.

"Thank you for your praise, Mr. Hizo," he replied, trying to be as polite as possible. "I wonder, how much time do I have and what kind of banquet would you like me to prepare?"

—My little daughter wants to have a big dinner tonight and has invited many of the children of the surrounding nobility, but after several occasions, the dishes are repetitive and the interest in attending decreases —he shook his head in dismay— So in an attempt to revive the social event, he started bragging that Tony-kun would be the cook this time. This was before he requested the mission.

-Understand.

In a nutshell, the noble's daughter lied blatantly and out of sheer panic, they paid several times the price of the quest to have the lie become the truth.

"About two hundred and fifty people are expected to attend," Mr. Hizo explained. "Most of them are old and young people, so just do something suitable for them. Three to five dishes per head will be enough. Not counting the desserts, of course. I already took care of the drinks on my own.

Tony and the rest were speechless at the casual statement.

Two hundred and fifty people?

Three to five dishes per head?

Not counting the desserts?!

Tony stopped himself from swearing in the nobleman's face. If he had to prepare that many dishes per person, it meant that he would need to make a total of between seven hundred and fifty and one thousand two hundred and fifty dishes before dinner!

And that's without taking into account the desserts for so many people!

When they got back to the village, he would tell Tsunade not to accept any mission like this in his name again. If some nobles wanted to repeat this, they would have to settle for the employees of their business!

They were losing money by considering this a grade C mission!