He seemed to know he was the protagonist—that no matter how recklessly he acted, he would never die.
Naruto had always felt that he had no friends, yet after entering the Ninja Academy, he ended up with a whole bunch of them.
He had even dared to yell at Sasuke, who had been very cold back then, and even provoke him.
Only the prince himself would dare do something like that.
Who else would?
So in the original story, Naruto had been favored from the very beginning. He seemed to know he was the protagonist.
And that was indeed the case. Every important, well-known figure seemed to be helping and indulging him.
But this world was not like that.
Naruto was clearly no longer the protagonist. He had already felt the disparity.
And it had not been that way from the start.
He had begun to feel that disparity after graduating from the Ninja Academy.
The Third Hokage, who had once been incredibly tolerant of him, paid far less attention to him now.
Luckily, Jiraiya came along later. Otherwise, Naruto probably would have shut himself off completely.
After all, an optimistic disposition began with being accepted by others.
With Naruto's habit of pulling pranks all day, people might have initially kept their distance from him and rejected him. But as long as he had not been so disruptive—even if he had simply gotten slightly better grades at the Ninja Academy, not even the best, just normal ones—people would have changed their opinion of him.
You could see that from how people cheered for him when he won his matches during the Chunin Exams.
The villagers did not actually hold much prejudice against him.
Because not everyone knew he was a Jinchuriki. Or rather, no one really knew that he was