This Naruto Is a Player!

Back at the starting point, Training Ground Three.

The three-person team of Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura stood, sat, or leaned against tree trunks, listening to Kakashi-sensei's lecture. Kakashi stood perfectly straight, arms crossed.

He scanned the three varied postures and expressions, then instructed, "Meet here again tomorrow at 8 AM. Bring your ninja tool pouches, don't forget."

After speaking, he stroked his chin, adopting a thoughtful expression. "Hmm, that's all."

Naruto climbed up from the ground and curiously asked, "What's the specific mission tomorrow, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Practice combat."

"Oh," Naruto mumbled. He suspected this might have been today's real assessment, but he'd somehow ruined it.

Practice combat? Yes, that was definitely needed. Otherwise, the teacher wouldn't understand the students' combat abilities, and the students wouldn't understand the teacher's strength. Forget trust, even cooperation would become an issue. Was this good? No, it was not.

"Alright, that's it for today. Now, dismissed!"

He turned to leave, but Naruto wasn't about to let him off so easily. Want to run after offending the monk?

"Wait, Kakashi-sensei!"

Naruto called out to the departing Kakashi. He grimaced in pain, stumbling weakly towards Kakashi, one hand clutching his stomach, the other reaching out to grab him.

"Sensei, I'm so hungry! I want to eat Ichiraku Ramen!"

Kakashi dodged Naruto's grasping hand, watching his performance expressionlessly. "If you want to eat, go eat."

"But I don't have any money!"

Naruto gestured towards the other two behind him, lamenting pitifully, "And Kakashi-sensei said yesterday that I'd throw up today, so I didn't eat anything yesterday, and I ran 500 laps this morning!"

As he spoke, he swayed a few times, making it seem as if he could collapse at any moment. "Kakashi-sensei, I feel like I'm about to faint from hunger."

Sakura came up to support him and also spoke, "Kakashi-sensei, I want to eat ramen too." This was her second chance to eat with Sasuke; she had to seize it firmly.

Hearing this, Kakashi looked at the third person. "Sasuke, how about you?"

"I don't mind eating ramen either," Sasuke changed his tune under Naruto's prompting and Sakura's pleading gaze.

"Alright then, I'll treat you to ramen."

"Yay!" Sakura nearly jumped.

"I'm going to eat ten bowls!" Naruto shouted.

That night, at home.

Naruto burped his way back home. Lying on his bed, he first opened the title he had just received today.

[Title: Genin]

[All Attributes +5%]

[Chakra ×120%]

[Chakra Recovery ×120%]

+5%, +20%, +20%.

Good heavens, was this the power of a title? Naruto was seeing such a massive increase for the first time. Other badges were only 0.1%, 0.2%. This title was directly 5% and 20%.

Though the numbers might seem small, with his attribute values around 300-400, 5% meant 15-20 attribute points. And the most exaggerated was his chakra, a 20% increase, directly adding over 2,000,000 chakra points. 2,000,000 chakra points—even Shukaku was only in that magnitude. It was a bit exaggerated.

No wonder it was a main quest that took six years to complete. Moreover, if a 'Genin' title was this strong, how strong would 'Chunin' and 'Jonin' titles be? And what about the even stronger 'Hokage' title?

At this moment, Naruto suddenly found himself coveting the Third Hokage's seat. You know, becoming Hokage has always been my dream, Uzumaki Naruto.

He closed the interface.

Naruto first went to the training space to greet the Nine-Tails. Upon seeing it, the Nine-Tails seemed to have gotten even rounder. Perhaps due to its color being associated with orange, or maybe drinking too much cola, the Nine-Tails had recently gained a bit of weight, showing a tendency to become a "chonky fox."

He wondered how a chakra entity could gain weight. Could drinking cola and eating fried chicken increase chakra?

With these questions in his mind, Naruto prepared to explore the last function of the game: the Duel Arena!

[You have entered the Duel Arena.]

[You can challenge opponents here, participate in ladder rankings, and players with higher rankings can receive fixed rewards.]

As soon as he entered, two large buttons appeared before Naruto's eyes.

[Match] / [Ranked]

He tried clicking [Match].

[Searching for match...]

It kept showing "searching."

As expected, everything was within his predictions. Luckily, it couldn't find an opponent; otherwise, Naruto would have to check if there were any other players in the entire ninja world. Clicking [Ranked] yielded the same result.

This seemed like a useless function.

After searching for a while, Naruto found a leaderboard.

The Heaven, Earth, Human, and Yellow lists. These four corresponded to Genin, Chunin, Jonin, and Kage, respectively.

Naruto was curious about the rewards, but with no one to battle in ranked matches, he had no score, couldn't get on the leaderboard, let alone anything else.

No way? After waiting nine years, was the [Duel Arena] just this?

Naruto was speechless. Was this another useless feature?

Unwilling to give up, he explored a bit more and found a new mode that seemed accessible.

[Training Mode]

He clicked to enter.

The interface suddenly switched to another screen, showing a five-minute countdown at the top and character thumbnails below.

[Please select training target.]

Although the thumbnails were quite small, Naruto still recognized several familiar faces.

Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi

Kakashi Hatake

Were these all possible opponents? They must be the NPCs of this world, and also relatively famous characters from the original story.

If so... where was Uzumaki Naruto?

Surely someone like him, the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki, deserved to have his name listed, right?

Naruto began to self-search and several results immediately appeared.

Uzumaki Naruto (Genin, 12 years old): This was his current age, likely just graduated from the Ninja Academy.

Uzumaki Naruto (Genin, 16 years old): Wait, I'm still a Genin at 16? Oh, that must be the original Naruto from the story. No problem then.

Uzumaki Naruto (Genin, Six Paths, 17 years old): Six Paths, what does that mean? Sage of Six Paths?

Uzumaki Naruto (Seventh Hokage, 32 years old): Wait? I'm the Seventh?

Naruto grew more and more confused the more he looked. How did he become Hokage? Wasn't he supposed to be the big villain?

No, wait.

This work is called Naruto, so the Hokage must be the protagonist.

Could it be that I am the protagonist?

Then what about Sasuke?

Uchiha Sasuke (Genin, 12 years old): Hmm, no problem.

Uchiha Sasuke (Rogue Ninja, Taka, 16 years old): Huh? Rogue Ninja?

Uchiha Sasuke (Akatsuki, 16 years old): Akatsuki? What's that? This outfit looks familiar; some of the people I saw earlier were wearing it.

Uchiha Sasuke (Six Paths, 17 years old): Six Paths again?

Uchiha Sasuke (World Traveler, 32 years old): Huh? Retired?

Naruto thought he already knew a lot about this world, but he realized he was still too shallow. He didn't even know who the protagonist of this world was.

Naruto had previously speculated that the protagonist of this Naruto world was most likely Sasuke, and that he himself was a major antagonist. His speculation stemmed from the fact that he, Uzumaki Naruto, was hated by the entire village and had the Nine-Tails inside him, an untamed beast that could easily tempt him towards destruction. And Sasuke? Born the young master of the Uchiha clan, then experiencing the script of clan annihilation. This was clearly protagonist treatment.

Yet, now he was being told that Sasuke actually defected and became a rogue ninja, while he himself was the future Seventh Hokage?

What? So, Uzumaki Naruto was the true protagonist all along?