The Twentieth is Orochimaru

Orochimaru? How is he here?

Uchiha Chen looked utterly astonished. He knew that at this point in time, Orochimaru had not yet defected; under normal circumstances, he should have been inside Konoha.

"An interesting little fellow. To be able to perform ninjutsu at this age, and with such proficiency—how intriguing."

Orochimaru flicked his tongue, emitting his signature, chilling hiss.

Facing this man, Uchiha Chen realized immediately that his only option was to flee.

Damn you, System!

Is this how you play? Orochimaru is the twentieth person? Why didn't you just spawn Kaguya instead?

Uchiha Chen was completely speechless. While the system had been a nuisance in the past, it had never put his life in direct danger.

This time, it had actually dragged Orochimaru into the mix—a man who was the primary antagonist of the first half of the Naruto World.

"If I said I didn't know, would you believe me?"

The system's voice rang out, but Uchiha Chen wouldn't even believe the punctuation marks in its statement.

Ding, system notification: Hunting mission changed.
Escape mission initiated. Evade Orochimaru's pursuit. Mission failure results in host death.

"Screw you, System. You still dare to say you didn't know? You are absolutely trying to get me killed."

Uchiha Chen was beyond frustrated, but no matter how speechless he felt, there was clearly no way to reset the situation.

"It's rare to see a brat who can still move in my presence. I must say, you've piqued my interest."

Orochimaru flicked his tongue again as he spoke, a sight that was truly nauseating. Uchiha Chen, meanwhile, was racking his brain to figure out how to escape.

"System boss, just teleport me back to Konoha. I promise I won't say a single bad word about you ever again."

"I told you, this was truly outside the plan. Previous teleports required a casting wind-up; do you really think a guy like Orochimaru would just let you go? So, pray for your own luck. If you survive this, I will give you a very generous reward."

If there had been a one-in-ten-thousand chance that the system wasn't behind this, that possibility had now vanished entirely.

Left with no choice, a deeply exasperated Uchiha Chen had to face Orochimaru alone.

"Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

Realizing he couldn't rely on the system, Uchiha Chen launched an immediate preemptive strike, which caught Orochimaru slightly off guard.

After all, not to mention a four-year-old child, even a Jonin would be no match for Orochimaru.

Orochimaru, feeling playful, deliberately chose not to dodge the Great Fireball Technique. He was instantly swallowed by the flames, even going so far as to let out a convincing scream to play along.

However, Uchiha Chen knew the extent of Orochimaru's strength, so even upon hearing the scream, he turned and fled without hesitation.

"An interesting brat. It seems he knows who I am. Does that mean he's from Konoha? But he shouldn't be one of Danzo's subordinates. Could he be one of the old man's people?"

The "old man" Orochimaru referred to was naturally the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.

It was no wonder Orochimaru was suspicious; after all, this location wasn't too far from Konoha, and it was unlikely that someone from another village would travel all the way here just to kill bandits.

Because of this, Orochimaru was in no rush to finish Uchiha Chen off.

Uchiha Chen used the brief moment Orochimaru spent acting to barely widen the gap, but unfortunately, the disparity between them remained insurmountable.

"Whether it's taijutsu or ninjutsu, you are far superior to your peers. I see a familiar shadow in you."

"You're talking about Uchiha Itachi, aren't you?"

"You really are a brat from Konoha. Since that's the case, you should know who I am, right?"

"One of the Sannin, Orochimaru. I don't understand why you're here. Could it be that those bandits stole something of yours?"

Although he had confirmed that the wretched system was sabotaging him, Chen didn't believe the system had manipulated Orochimaru into coming here. There had to be a specific reason for Orochimaru's presence.

"They aren't qualified to covet my belongings. On the contrary, I had my eye on some small things of theirs."

"I see."

Hearing Orochimaru's words, Chen finally understood what was going on.

It was likely that Orochimaru was short on test subjects for his human experiments, and those bandits were most likely the targets he had been tracking. Chen had simply jumped in and killed them first, and so...

"System, you bastard, you can't just screw me over like this!"

"It has nothing to do with me; I didn't know Orochimaru would show up. Besides, instead of complaining about me, you should be thinking about how to escape. Good luck, I believe in you—you're the best."

"Go, big brother!"

The shameless system suddenly let out an incredibly seductive voice at the end, which only made Uchiha Chen feel even more disgusted.

"Since you know who I am, why not follow me? I can grant you power."

"At the very least, you won't end up in a situation where you don't even have the right to flee when being hunted down next time."

Orochimaru suddenly thought that his Cursed Seal happened to be lacking a test subject, so as he spoke, he suddenly elongated his neck and lunged toward Uchiha Chen.

"Fire Style..."

Orochimaru's speed was simply too fast, so much so that Uchiha Chen was struck before he could even finish forming the hand seals.

Feeling the strange erosion on his neck, Uchiha Chen immediately understood what this was.

"Bastard!"

The Cursed Seal was clearly not a good thing, and Uchiha Chen had even less desire to become a vessel for Orochimaru.

Enduring the intense pain, Uchiha Chen grabbed Orochimaru by the neck and, before Orochimaru could react, slapped all his remaining Explosive Tags onto him.

The next second, a violent explosion occurred, and Uchiha Chen was sent flying by the blast.

"An interesting brat. To be able to resist even in such a situation... perhaps he might actually survive."

Orochimaru's eyes were filled with fanaticism; for him, nothing was more interesting than a successful experiment.

As for the life or death of the test subject, Orochimaru did not care much.

Standing there, Orochimaru waited quietly for the dust to settle.

"Dead? What a pity."

Orochimaru spoke indifferently, yet what he did not expect was that Uchiha Chen, whom he assumed was already dead, was not only alive but had actually turned the tables on him.

Ding, system notification: Foreign energy erosion detected. Classified as an attack against the system. Erasing foreign energy... Erasure complete.

Lying on the ground and playing dead, Uchiha Chen heard the system's voice, and the sensation of being eroded by the Cursed Seal vanished, replaced by a wave of coolness.

Although he didn't understand why this unreliable system would help him, it was at least a good thing.

"Hey, you should properly thank this system this time. If I hadn't blocked Orochimaru's perception, do you think you could have played dead in front of him?"

The system's voice rang out again, and by this time, Orochimaru had already left, not even bothering to check the corpse.

"Isn't this all the trouble you caused? If you're so capable, why don't you kill Orochimaru?"

"Killing him would be too boring, but playing a few small tricks is perfectly fine."