Ninjas at the End of the Bronze Age

The long day finally came to an end.

Orochimaru opened his eyes in bed, and his mother told him that starting today, he could go outside.

So he could go out on the streets after his birthday.

Orochimaru silently remembered this. After washing up, he eagerly followed Matsumoto Kazuka out the door, setting foot on Konoha's streets for the first time.

Everything in Konoha was new to him. But the villagers on the streets were far from friendly toward the two of them.

As Toji's disciple, Matsumoto Kazuka had always been watched closely by the villagers. Though news of her secret confinement had never been made public, rumors had long been spreading.

Many people privately claimed that she had offended Toji.

Now that Matsumoto Kazuka had reappeared on the streets, the villagers noticed that she had removed the glasses Toji had given her years ago, and that an unfamiliar little brat stood beside her.

A normal person might have assumed that the brat was Lord Toji's child, and that Matsumoto Kazuka had secretly left Gospel Hospital because of it.

But most Konoha villagers did not see it that way. In their eyes, given Toji's status, he would never have any connection with an outcast like Matsumoto Kazuka beyond that of master and disciple. They simply regarded Orochimaru as some wild child of unknown origin and gossiped about him in private.

On his first time out on the streets, Orochimaru felt no warmth—only the villagers' cold malice.

He watched his mother take out money to buy something, only to be turned away outright. Some merchants even ignored them completely.

Orochimaru could not understand why.

Didn't the Will of Fire say that the people of Konoha were all family?

Why did they treat family like this?

Fortunately, the Konoha villagers still feared