"Oh! This is incredible. How did you make this, Aoto?
"Aoto, you are brilliant. You create so many amazing stuff. At first, it was the cookie with the leaf symbol, and now this."
"Aoto, you have a great future in front of you."
Everyone praised Aoto as they stuffed themselves with the fried chicken. Aoto apologized for this and explained that it was all thanks to his pals who worked in his store. The people around thought he was also just humbling himself and thus ushered praise for everyone working in the shop.
While assisting John with the fried chicken preparation, Aoto was also keeping an eye on the bread sale. Aoto was confident that the fried chicken would be a success in Konoha because he could already see money flowing in quickly.
And Aoto wasn't mistaken—in the days that followed, more people stood in line for the chicken than for the bread. Aoto was forced to increase his sale and he needed to acquire more chicken for this. But while doing all of that, he also put up a sign warning that overeating could be bad for their health in the long run and appealed with them to curb their impulse to devour the chicken to avoid dying young.
Instead of alerting consumers to the health risk, this exterior sign increased store traffic. You ask why? They couldn't believe a company could be so forthright as to advise customers to purchase less items from the store.
People admired the honesty of the method, which had never been used in any store before. Following this, they arrived in large numbers, giving everyone quite a headache. Ayame arrived to lend her a hand after observing the rush.
Aoto refrained from becoming conceited and cheerfully shared how to make fried chicken. She obviously knew better than to reveal the secrets to others. She was simply grateful that Aoto had faith in her. Ayame's assistance was required because she was a budding professional chef and John's limited experience had fallen short in her presence.
She even experimented with novel spice blends to add intrigue and flavor to the chicken. Everyone adored it. Even Hot Pie went to aid Ayame and John after baking some bread. When the mobile shop construction was complete and finally delivered, this continued for a week.
Aoto decided that this particular store needed branding, so he visited many print shops to get a board with the words KFC, Konoha Fried Chicken, printed. Though the language of the world was primarily Japanese, but due to the inclusion of Hiragana letters in the letters, the people seemed to know English letters too. ( you can look up Hiragana letters to better understand why this is the case)
Aoto naturally requested Japanese letters as well, so that everyone could comprehend, in addition to English. Aoto also provided other items required for the operation of the mobile cart, such as paper buckets and cartons. John accompanied Aoto in this in order to understand how to market the things around.
He had adapted to the new surroundings at this point, and for the first time in a long time, he felt secure. He was thus delighted to carry out such menial tasks. Everything was prepared after two days of rushing around.
On the next Monday, John and Aoto rolled the cart to the entrance of the ninja academy and opened the store. A gate guard saw the newly arriving cart while standing there. He already knew that a new mobile was going to open, therefore he was interested in the goods that this store offered.
And it was safe to say, he had never seen those things in his life. The miniature jelly beans, which he had never seen before, came first, and then the chicken. He had recently heard tales about a new variety of chicken being sold in a store, but he had never bothered to taste any of them. The final one, however, completely blew his mind.
A chocolate that could eaten but was alive! What the fuck!
He would have liked to go and try what the hell this was if it weren't for his own work. But he got his curiosity fulfilled when he saw the children at the end of the class coming. One of the children actually knew of Aoto and his chicken and thus when he saw his face and the fried chicken on the cart he went running towards him.
Aoto was now offering buckets and cartons for sale. His pals, who were wondering why their friend had come dashing here, trailed the youngster. The youngster examined the price tags on the cart and asked.
"Uncle, will the pieces be large in the bucket like the one in the picture?"
"What Uncle? I am still young." Aoto responded, feeling young and enraged because, physically, he was still 12 years old and would turn 13 the following month.
"Umm.. Then bro will the pieces be large?"
"We can only say that the chicken will be the tastiest. The pieces will differ in sizes and not so much." John responded after noticing Aoto being irate for such a flimsy basis. This child was the first customer here so John didn't want to ruin it.
The youngster then bought a bucket filled with 12 pieces of chicken to share with his buddies and boast about. It cost 15 ryo, which was not much and was rather inexpensive. Another child in the group saw the chocolate frog and nearly jumped out of horror as the child was purchasing the bucket.
He was startled by the frogs' movement inside the container.
"Uncle.. I mean bro.. Don't you think it's cruel to keep the frogs in such captivity?"
"What frogs? These are chocolates. They can be eaten. Look closely."
His response astounded the kids, who paid closer attention to the packet. The creature was all chocolate in color.
"Can you eat this?" One of the girls approached, and for her age and gender, she seemed pretty brash. She was likely the group's Tomo-chan.
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Read 20 chapters ahead on my p@treon.com/thelightedghost