Haruto woke up the next morning and took a quick shower before setting off towards the Hokage tower to see if any of the people he wanted to recruit to help him create the handwriting recognition AI would be present.
And surprisingly-
"We're all here. We came as soon as we heard what you wanted to do for us, Haruto-sama." The old man leading the otherwise young group of genin shinobi said with great respect. "It's been hard to find other jobs in the Research and Development division after the Third Hokage passed away… so we're eternally grateful to you for your help."
Haruto nearly blushed with embarrassment but managed to control himself as he spoke calmly, "Alright, follow me for now, I'll show you the ropes in the I.T department and once you're settled in you can help my research progress faster."
"As you say Haruto-sama." the old man said with a smile on his face.
The twenty or so odd group of people soon reached Haruto's desk in the I.T department where Haruto helped them all into their own chairs in front of the computers he already had from before.
Once everyone was settled, Haruto began explaining the mission with a cold look on his face, "The mission is simple, all you have to do is to trim the characters in the bills and receipts into individual images using the software I've designed as best as you can."
Haruto demonstrated to each group how they could use the software and then stepped back for a quick second before asking them all, "Any questions?"
Everyone was mostly silent, ready to get started with the work since they'd been unemployed for nearly a month, but one young girl raised her hand with a shy expression on her face. "May I know what these will be used for Haruto-sama?"
Haruto's heart sank in his chest. He'd been hoping they wouldn't ask that question and simply get working after which he would leave to train with Kakashi on the Poison Extraction Jutsu, but the girl hadn't suppressed her curiosity at all.
Haruto sighed internally before speaking equally coldly as before, "It'll be used in the creation of a software that will automate transcribing bills into excel sheets."
Everyone's eyes widened at once.
"But-" The girl was about to voice her question once again but the old man from before spoke over her, "Thank you for providing us with this work Haruto-sam… we will do our best to fulfill our task."
The old man was being pragmatic. If Haruto was angered, he could just as easily fire them and rehire new workers who would comply with his aim and vision better. This was their only chance at earning anything and he couldn't let it slip, or several people in their group would sleep hungry once again tonight.
Borrowing food from neighbours was already shameful, if they had to dip into their savings further, things would only get worse, they'd probably have to beg on the streets.
Haruto understood their intentions well so he calmed himself and spoke small encouraging words, "The software that I will be making won't work well without good data. So it is up to you to provide food for it."
Everyone nodded, albeit solemnly like they were walking to their graves and Haruto sighed internally once again. He didn't have any better words to offer or even false promises to give, all he could do was turn around and walk away.
Once Haruto left, the old man sighed deeply as everyone looked at him with pain on their faces.
"Should we be doing this Nobi-san? Won't this… put more people out of work… just like us?"
Nobi's brows furrowed, he took a deep breath in and sighed again before speaking up, "Come on… don't go dragging your feet now, the contract says we will only be hired for an extended period if we perform well now."
The others wanted to argue or fight back, but a month of unemployment that was digging into their meager savings had already beaten the punch out of them.
But the young girl still asked her question, "But will Haruto-sama even need to hire us again?"
Nobi-san sighed deeply for the third time and spoke gently, "We can always return to the genin corps. I've heard that the Daimyo is going to be visiting the village for a meeting in the coming days. There'll surely be more missions assigned to the village then and we can all earn more money to sustain ourselves."
***
"Shouldn't we stop him, Minato? Tobirama-sama?" Kushina asked softly, while she observed the guilty expression on Haruto's face that he failed to hide. "He doesn't even need to perform this research anymore. He can be Kakashi's student full time and soon feed himself by performing genin missions. We can even equip him with skills like Taijutsu and various Ninjutsu."
Minato looked at Kushina's pleading expression and then at Tobirama, he knew the answer in his heart, he had been a Hokage before after all even if only for a short duration so he understood well that progress had no stoppers, and if something bogged down progress it would only risk becoming a fatal weakness.
Although Minato knew this he couldn't find it in himself to put it into words, especially in front of a pleading Kushina. So Tobirama picked up the burden, "If you haven't noticed, Danzo has increased Haruto's protection squad."
Kushina had a puzzled expression on her face and she asked, "Why?"
"Becuase that's how valuable Haruto's new invention is. If the other countries want to free up their shinobi from the bureaucracy of paperwork, they'll have to either steal the software from the village in some way or directly get it from the source, ergo Haruto."
"But… those people won't be good shinobi anyway… there's a reason why they chose paper and desk jobs in the first place! Because they weren't strong enough. It was a way out for the desperate that would only die on the battlefi-."
Enough Kushina." It was Hiruzen that interrupted, causing her to glare at him since she still wasn't over Naruto's 'fantastic' upbringing. "Cannon fodder are always necessary. And Danzo won't say no to them even more. At the rate at which the research department's projects are being axed, the people would've been out of their jobs sooner or later. Haruto's at least providing them with a buffer to smooth out their transition."
Kushina sulked but Minato quietly held her hand and gave her some strength.
In the end it was Tobirama who posed the important question, "I wonder… how Haruto got this method to make a computer automatically recognise handwriting in the first place… it can't have come from him since we never saw him go through any iterations like a normal inventor would, he jumped straight to the final product and never once looked back. Even when his first model failed, he quickly diagnosed the issue to be the data and not the code…"
"He does have really high creative intelligence…" Kushina said with a pout, only she knew if she was trying to annoy Tobirama by repeating his half hearted words from yesterday or if she was actually providing them with a viable reasoning.
"If it did indeed come from his own mind…" Tobirama started, "...then we must evaluate his statistics even highly… for his creative intelligence to be on the level that it secures a category of its own entirely… he must be quite intelligent when he's serious."
***
You can now read 10 advanced chapters on my patreon for just $3!!! Thank you for your support everyone! pa treon.com/hooin_kyoma_au