"It feels like we're an underground resistance. Next time, I'll bring something useful. As long as we're inside Konoha, we'll be able to talk whenever we want."
As Karn said this, he glanced around the gloomy Ryūchi Cave. He wasn't quite comfortable with a place like this; it was dark and damp, a giant snake might crawl through the cave at any moment, and what was that slime on the ground?
"If it were just my business, I could have sent it to you with a summoning snake, but the White Snake Sage wanted to meet the new contractor, so she asked me to call you here."
Orochimaru smiled before speaking to Karn. There was another reason as well: Konoha wasn't safe. By unsafe, he meant that his teacher, the Third Hokage, had more or less come to regard Karn as a hypothetical enemy.
Under these circumstances, he had changed their meeting place to Ryūchi Cave.
"It might have something to do with the little pets I've been raising, or perhaps it's because Ryūchi Cave rarely gets a new contractor."
Hearing this, Karn couldn't help asking curiously, "Orochimaru, does Ryūchi Cave have very few contractors? Isn't your student Nawaki one?"
"He hasn't signed a contract with Ryūchi Cave. He only learned some snake-based ninjutsu. Nawaki's fighting style isn't suited to large-scale Summoning Techniques, so I didn't have him sign a contract with Ryūchi Cave. As for its contractors, you and I are the only ones in nearly a hundred years," Orochimaru said.
Two people?
Karn thought back. If he remembered correctly, the Third Kazekage seemed to have signed a contract with one of Ryūchi Cave's giant snakes too.
Orochimaru seemed to know what Karn was thinking and spoke before he could ask. "Some people sign individual Summoning Contracts with snakes