Manda's Misfortune

"As payment, I need you to help me meet the True Dragon."

Sure enough, the White Snake Sage went on to state her condition.

"Lord Divine Dragon may not respond to me anytime soon, and coming here from another world would take at least several decades."

After a moment's thought, Orochimaru bluffed.

The several decades were something Orochimaru had made up. He said that because he was confident that within a few decades—or even less—he would gain the power to steamroll the Shinobi World.

By then, why the hell would he still care about the White Snake Sage?

"A human life is far too short. I can afford to wait, but can you, Orochimaru?"

The White Snake Sage flicked out her long tongue as she spoke.

"Please do not worry, Sage. Lord Divine Dragon has already granted me eternal life."

Eternal life? Though the White Snake Sage had lived for a thousand years, she had already become aged and decrepit. Clearly, she too could eventually die of old age.

She craved eternal life as well. That only strengthened her determination to meet the True Dragon.

"One hundred years, Orochimaru. If you can truly let me meet the True Dragon within a hundred years, everything in Ryūchi Cave is yours. I can give you anything you want—even the Three Snake Sisters!" The White Snake Sage stared at Orochimaru.

The Three Snake Sisters wanted to speak, but under the White Snake Sage's sharp gaze, they held their tongues.

Orochimaru's eyes lit up. Under the Three Snake Sisters' worried yet threatening stares, he spoke.

"Then aside from Sage Art, can I have Manda too?"

Orochimaru had no interest in being some outlaw hero. He liked them big and thick like Manda. Those were the toys real men ought to play with.

The Three Snake Sisters and the White Snake Sage looked at Orochimaru in bewilderment. He seemed like a smart man, so why had he taken a liking to a stupid snake?

Weren't three beautiful women far more appealing?

Orochimaru knew his limits. The Three Snake Sisters' importance to Ryūchi Cave went without saying; aside from the White Snake Sage, they were its most important beings.

Even if he did take them, he would not be able to command them, and the White Snake Sage would be displeased as well.

Even if he threatened them with the matter of the True Dragon, the Three Snake Sisters could still obey him in public while defying him in private. In battle, they could simply go through the motions, and Orochimaru would have no choice but to suffer in silence.

The White Snake Sage agreed and told Orochimaru to come find her whenever he intended to cultivate Sage Art.

Orochimaru returned to Konohagakure, rubbing his hands together. He needed to procure a large batch of supplies. He planned to give Manda a physical examination, then perform a few minor operations.

Back in his nest, Manda's heart skipped a beat, and unease rose within him.

Ryūchi Cave, inside Manda's nest.

Manda stared in terror at Orochimaru's perverted grin.

The Three Snake Sisters had restrained him with Sage Art: Inorganic Reincarnation, leaving him unable to move.

Manda's nest had changed drastically by then, filled with a high-tech atmosphere.

It had become Orochimaru's newly renovated sterile laboratory.

"Bastard! Orochimaru, what are you trying to do to me?!"

Manda glared furiously at Orochimaru, who wore a white lab coat.

"Of course I'm treating your eye! Manda, I promised I would restore the light to that eye of yours!"

If he replaced it with a mechanical eye, it would naturally see again. Orochimaru even planned to make Manda's new eye glow. Just thinking about it seemed cool.

Orochimaru was excited. This was his first time modifying such a powerful creature.

He now somewhat understood why Sasori liked turning powerful people he encountered into Puppets.

"Come on, don't move. I'll give you an injection first. It won't hurt at all."

Orochimaru flicked the syringe with his finger.

Of course it would not hurt, because it contained Tagitsuhime's venom. It had an extremely powerful paralytic effect. Once poisoned, the target would lose all perception of the outside world, including pain, and would also fall into a Genjutsu.

Once Manda had been successfully paralyzed, he would cut out Manda's prefrontal cortex. Then Manda truly would never feel pain again. Surely Manda would be delighted to know that.

Looking at Manda, whose face practically radiated happiness, Orochimaru viciously drove the syringe into Manda's body.

With a snap, the tiny syringe failed to pierce the tough skin beneath Manda's thick scales and broke.

Manda froze, then burst into arrogant laughter.

"Ahahaha! Orochimaru, you stupid idiot! You think a needle that thin can pierce my defenses? Go get a bigger syringe and come back!"

Manda's mocking laughter began to irritate Orochimaru. A vein popped on his forehead, and in embarrassment and anger, he shouted at Manda.

"Shut up! You want something thick and big? I'll satisfy you right now!"

With that, Orochimaru pulled out a giant syringe several meters in diameter.

Manda: w(?Д?)w

"Orochimaru, what are you doing?! That's too big! It won't work! Something will go wrong! You can't put that in! No!!!"

"Don't scream~ Uncle's giving you an injection~"

Excited, Orochimaru stretched out his long tongue and licked his chin. He hoisted the giant syringe and drove it straight into Manda's body. The icy needle pierced his skin and injected the paralytic toxin into Manda's blood vessels.

Manda was still struggling desperately, but that only made his blood flow faster, causing the drug to take effect more quickly.

Before long, Manda's struggles gradually weakened, his cries slowly faded, and at last he lay sprawled silently on the ground.

The Snake Sisters exchanged glances and stopped their Sage Arts.

"How terrifying. Good thing the White Snake Sage didn't really give us to Orochimaru."

Ichikishimahime, who looked like a little girl, said with lingering fear.

"This guy... he's such a freak."

Tagitsuhime watched Orochimaru perform cranial surgery on Manda, wearing a twisted grin and letting out a villainous laugh.

"We should leave him alone and let him finish up so he can get out of Ryūchi Cave sooner."

Tagorihime suggested. She did not want to stay here any longer. This scene was a little too creepy for snakes. What if Orochimaru saw them and suddenly decided to ask the White Snake Sage for them as experimental subjects?

The Three Snake Sisters left Manda's nest, leaving behind only the unconscious Manda and Orochimaru, who was holding a chainsaw as he performed cranial surgery on him.

"Hmm... the frontal lobe has already been removed. Next, I'll replace the mechanical eyeball.

"Snakes already have infrared vision, so there's no need to add any other Sensory Ability.

"The vitreous body can be modified to function like a telescope. That would count as a kind of long-range sensory ability.

"His scales are tough enough, so there's no need to replace them. What else can I do?"

"Flight? No, Manda is too heavy to fly. I'll get some smaller snakes to modify later."

"Venom? Manda really is nonvenomous. I'll fit him with one... no, two venom sacs. One for venom, and one for liquid fuel.

"The toads of Mount Myōboku can use Water Release to spray water. Surely it's perfectly normal for my snakes to breathe fire?"

After working for an entire day, Orochimaru's modifications to Manda's body were complete.

From the outside, Manda looked somewhat different from before. His blind eye had been replaced with a Mechanical Eye, which now emitted a faint blue glow.

A long, sharp, forked horn had been fixed to his forehead. With Manda's charging force, it would likely prove quite lethal.

Combined with his new venom-spraying and fire-breathing functions, his strength had improved to a certain extent. More importantly, he now had more varied methods of dealing with enemies—and best of all, he would not constantly run his mouth anymore.

However, Manda himself had no ability to produce venom or liquid fuel. Once the supplies in his venom sacs were used up, they were gone, and Orochimaru would have to replenish them personally.

Still, that had one advantage. If Orochimaru discovered a more potent venom or a liquid fuel that burned at a higher temperature, he could replace them at any time.

The venom currently inside Manda had been formulated by Orochimaru himself. Though it was not as potent as Hanzō's or Chiyo's poison, it still surpassed that of most poison experts in Sunagakure.

The flames produced by the liquid fuel were fairly hot, barely reaching the power of an average Jōnin's technique, though they were admittedly difficult to control. Their advantage was that they consumed no Chakra and could create widespread flames in a short time.

Once the modification experiment was complete, Orochimaru began sorting and putting away his equipment. However, he had no intention of moving it out of Ryūchi Cave. There were many snakes here, and as long as they were not the Three Snake Sisters or giant snakes with the potential to take human form, Orochimaru could handle them with ease now.

They were all excellent experimental materials. Snakes had strong vitality and reproduced quickly, and the snakes of Ryūchi Cave were far superior to those outside in terms of size, Chakra reserves, and other qualities. They could be used to create many biological weapons.

If snakes were mammals rather than reptiles, Orochimaru would have wanted to use them in place of laboratory mice.

Manda gradually woke up, but he did not start screaming and shouting as usual.