The bell rang three times, and Rodger opened his eyes.
On the streets of Konoha, in a narrow apartment.
All he saw was darkness. On a midsummer night, the wind chimes on the balcony swayed in the wind, making a lonely sound.
At this time, a strange soul descended upon Konoha and took over Naruto's body.
[Ding! The Take It Easy System is loading]
[7%]
Rodger had a severe headache and everything in front of his eyes was blurry and blood red.
'Am I going blind?'
'It hurts! Hiss~!'
'It's just a game. Do I have to die suddenly for this? How will I go to work tomorrow?'
'I'm just about to transition to a full-time position. I've almost made it.'
As the pain gradually subsided, Rodger opened his eyes, and in the dim light, he saw a strange and cluttered room.
The air was filled with a faint stench, and the walls were covered with old, moldy, pale yellow wallpaper. Clothes and books were scattered messily on the wooden floor.
Rodger seemed to realize something and looked down at his hands.
His pupils dilated slightly, and with a cry, Rodger fell backward.
'My hand has shrunk?'
[System loading progress 13%]
A mechanical synthesized voice echoed, and fragments of memory suddenly pierced into Rodger's mind, causing him to scream in pain and roll over on the bed.
Voices kept drilling into his ears like ants, the pain almost making him faint.
'Is it that child? How disgusting!'
'I told you not to play with him. Who knows what that freak might do!'
'It was that demon who killed the Yondaime Hokage.'
'Naruto, do you have the Will of Fire?'
'Hokage-sama is the most powerful person in the village and is the one who protects us. Naruto, you have to work hard if you want to become Hokage too.'
"Hokage? Are you kidding me?" Rodger's head throbbed painfully.
Memories flooded his senses.
He stumbled over and saw people roaming the streets in Konoha.
All kinds of people exchanging smiles and laughter to one another, but never to him.
Their eyes were full of disdain, indifference, and resentment whenever they fell upon him.
'Get lost! You monster!'
'I won't sell anything to you! Get out!'
'Why don't you just die? How can you still have the courage to live in this world?! You monster!'
The cold emotions mixed with pain surged in his heart, almost suffocating Rodger. He turned over, gritted his teeth, and clenched the sheets to his chest with all his might, and only then was he able to catch his breath.
[System loading progress 17%]
Rodger suddenly opened his eyes. Lying on the bed, he saw a slowly appearing panel in front of him. He had read many novels and played many games, so he roughly understands his current situation.
He had crossed over and become Uzumaki Naruto from Naruto. At the moment, he should still be in the Academy, and is about to face the genin graduation exam.
He took comfort with the knowledge that the system was here to make his transition smother.
'It seemed to be still loading, but what kind of system was it?'
'Whatever, having a system is better than having no system at all.'
Looking at the night scene outside the window, Rodger had no intention of sleeping. He turned over, got out of bed, and fumbled to turn on the room light.
With a click, the bright light dispelled the uneasiness in his heart.
"From now on, I am Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto ignored the messy room and the smelly table. No one could blame an orphan who had no one to care for him for not tidying up. After all, there was no one even to scold him.
Naruto sat at the table, took out paper and pen, and tried to write a line, automatically writing it in the Japanese Language.
But Naruto could also understand it. He tried to say a sentence, and it seemed he had several language choices. He could switch back and forth between his native tongue and the couple of languages he picked up in school. Although french and latin were useless in this world, as long as he knew Japanese Language, it would be enough.
He pulled open his clothes, but couldn't see the seal of the Nine-Tailed Fox on his belly.
'This was a bit troublesome, the seal was designed to leak minuscule amounts of the foxes chakra into his system over time. '
The Chakra leaking from the seal of the Kyubi flowed through his Chakra Pathway System, eventually turning into normal blue Chakra.
Although he could temporarily use the Kyubi's Chakra in the anime, it was not something that would help him at this time.
After thinking for a while, Naruto wrote down some of his training goals on paper. In this world, naturally, only the strong have the right to speak.
Being strong meant freedom in any world.
Then there was life goals to consider. Naruto scratched his head, stood up, and walked to the dressing mirror. Looking at the young face in the mirror, he grinned broadly, baring his teeth.
'To hell with being Hokage!'
'Who wants to be chained to a desk doing endless amounts of paperwork to run and protect a village filled with those who despise him? Dream on, better for them all to die! Bastards!'
He vented all the negative emotions accumulated in his heart, and instantly felt a lot more relaxed.
'Forget about becoming Hokage, but without that position open to him he had to make other arrangements to make his life better.'
'To hell with the Will of Fire. Those old decrepit elders have already taken it and bastardized a system dedicated to burning the young to keep the old in power. Living was for enjoyment. Once the system finished loading, I can walk around the village with confidence that life will become infinitely easier for me.'
While humming a tune, Naruto wrote down a list of training ideas on a piece of paper.
[System loading progress 34%]
…
The next day, at daybreak.
The first thing Naruto did upon waking was to pull up the panel to check the system's loading progress. The damned loading speed was like a 2G network, which was really frustrating.
[System loading progress 79%]
Naruto yawned. He didn't get much sleep last night. Seeing it was almost dawn, he could only drag himself out of bed to wash up.
Thinking that he still had a few theoretical classes in the morning, he could just lie down in the classroom and catch up on his sleep. Anyway, in the eyes of his classmates, Naruto was always like this, and no one cared about him as long as he was not being annoying.
After washing up, Naruto spent another hour tidying up the room.
Choosing his clothes before going out, Naruto had a really hard time even looking in his closet. His usual outfit was kill me orange, and the big jacket was too hot for summer.
After hesitating for a moment, Naruto sifted through a pile of clothes in the back of the closet and chose a casual black short-sleeved shirt with brown shorts.
He left the goggles on the table and walked out of the room.
He is not a genin yet, so he does not have a Konoha's forehead protector.
"I'm heading out!" He shouted into the empty room, receiving no response, but he didn't mind, and slammed the door shut.
He lived in an old apartment building on Konoha Street. Seeing people standing in the sunlight, Naruto paused for a moment. He didn't care what they thought of him but being given hostile looks from a crowd of people was still something that could make anyone feel uneasy
He lowered his head, and silently walked through the crowd.
The villagers' expressions were cold and indifferent, their eyes casting disdainful glances at Naruto before quickly looking away.
[System loading progress 87%]
At the Academy, Shikamaru lazily scanned the crowd and then seemed to notice something. He nudged Choji next to him and pointed in a direction for Choji to look over there.
"Isn't that Naruto?" Choji stopped eating his chips, "Wheres his usual orange jumpsuit?"
"hmmm." Shikamaru showed a pair of dead fish eyes, "who knows, maybe he lost it."
Choji threw the last chip into his mouth, crunching it loudly.
The two looked over once more and saw a group of troublesome students making their way towards the blond outcast.