Chapter 174
"Treasure! The treasure is on the mountain?" Tsunade's eyes lit up as she looked past Haruto Saito. Her face immediately broke into an excited grin.
"Uh... yeah, it's on the mountain," Haruto replied, but deep down, he started to feel uneasy. Seeing how excited Tsunade was, he worried she might try to snatch the treasure for herself. He turned to look at the other man present and asked, "And... who's this? Aren't you going to introduce him?"
"He's Aken." That was all Tsunade said before she flickered out of sight, leaving only an afterimage behind. In the next instant, she was already up the mountain, eagerly searching around. It seemed like she was even more impatient than Haruto himself.
Haruto grew even more concerned. He saw Aken standing there with a helpless expression, so he stepped forward and said, "Nice to meet you, I'm Haruto Saito."
"I know who you are," Aken responded with a friendly smile. "The Hokage wants to take you in as his personal student..."
"I'm Inuzuka Ken. Nice to meet you, Haruto-san."
"I'm Tōmaru!" The black dog beside him wagged its tail enthusiastically and introduced itself in a surprisingly fluent manner.
"A high-level ninja dog," Haruto noted, glancing at the canine in surprise. Not all ninja dogs of the Inuzuka clan could speak human language—only a select few had that ability. However, all of them could understand human speech.
Additionally, the Inuzuka clan had a special way of communicating with their ninja dogs, even if they couldn't speak.
BOOM!
A loud explosion suddenly echoed from the mountain. Haruto turned around to see that Tsunade was moving massive boulders, digging around.