“Understood, Your Majesty!”
The loud, sycophantic response echoed through the ruined church, shaking loose a few wisps of dust from the ceiling.
Satou Kazuma and Sakata Gintoki—two men who, moments ago, had been suffering over their respective dark histories—were now embroiled in another heated argument over one crucial question: Where were they going to find their queen a castle?
Just as the two were about to start exposing each other’s embarrassing pasts again, Perona impatiently tapped the floor with the handle of her parasol.
“That’s enough, you two maggots.” She wrinkled her petite nose, her face full of disdain.
“Stop arguing. We deal with the clothes first, then find somewhere to stay, and finally get some desserts and hot cocoa. Do I really have to explain the order to you?”
“Yes!”
“Your Majesty’s orders!”
The two men immediately fell silent, bowing and scraping like a pair of obedient dogs waiting for their master’s instructions.
Gintoki’s eyes suddenly shifted.
He pointed toward a cabinet piled with miscellaneous junk in the corner of the church.
“Your Majesty, looks like there are some old clothes the priest left behind. How about letting this guy make do with those for now?”
Kazuma followed his finger and his eyes lit up.
As long as he had something to wear, that was enough.
Anything was better than running around naked.
Perona reluctantly nodded.
“Hurry up. Stop dragging your feet. I don’t want to spend any more time around a naked pervert than necessary.”
While Kazuma scrambled over to rummage through the old clothes and Gintoki stood nearby calculating how to buy the most luxurious desserts possible with the least amount of money to curry favor with his new master, a completely different scene was unfolding in a dark corner on the other side of the city.
··········
Hell’s Kitchen, West Side.
Inside an abandoned meat-processing plant, the air was thick with the smell of rust, machine oil, and a faint trace of blood.
Under the dim yellow lights, two groups stood facing each other, clearly divided.
The atmosphere was tense, like a steel wire pulled taut.
On one side was the Russian mob, a group of heavily built men with hard, intimidating faces.
Their leader was a man named Boris, whose enormous beer belly looked ready to burst through his expensive suit.
On the other side was the local Jiru Gang, mostly lean street thugs.
Their leader, Jiru, had eyes as vicious as a wolf’s.
Tonight was the appointed time for their weapons deal.
“Where’s the merchandise?” Jiru asked first, his voice hoarse.
Boris grinned, revealing several gold teeth.
He clapped his hands, and two of his men immediately carried over a heavy wooden crate and pried it open in front of Jiru.
Inside, brand-new assault rifles gleamed with a cold metallic sheen beneath the lights.
Jiru nodded in satisfaction and gave a signal to the men behind him.
One of his men pushed forward a briefcase stuffed with U.S.
dollars.
The transaction proceeded remarkably smoothly.
Smiles appeared on both sides as they imagined the fortune they were about to make.
However, just as Boris bent down to inspect the cash inside the briefcase, something unexpected happened.
Without warning, the air in the open space between the two groups twisted like rippling water.
The next second, a figure suddenly appeared out of thin air.
It was a man—or rather, a man whose appearance was extraordinarily bizarre.
He was tall and slender, dressed in a loose, old-fashioned kimono, with long black hair cascading over his shoulders.
His skin was unnaturally pale, almost translucent beneath the dim lighting.
But what truly made everyone’s blood run cold were his eyes.
His irises were golden, yet his pupils were vertical like those of a snake.
Strange purple markings extended from the corners of his eyes.
The man was Orochimaru.
Only a moment ago, he had been in his dark underground laboratory, studying with keen interest the cellular changes occurring in an experimental subject under the influence of a Cursed Seal and recording the precious data.
The next moment, an intense wave of dizziness had struck him, and everything around him had transformed into streaks of light.
When his vision returned, he was already standing here.
Unfamiliar people.
And the faint smell of…
gunpowder mixed with cigarette smoke.
Orochimaru showed neither panic nor fear.
His serpentine eyes calmly swept across the surroundings, much like a human who had wandered into an anthill and was quietly observing the ants scurrying about in terror.
Then, a translucent panel that only he could see appeared before his eyes.
[Welcome to the “Marvel Universe,” Player Orochimaru.]
[All Players who have been drawn into this world will be divided into three major Factions according to their essential attributes…]
Orochimaru’s eyes quickly skimmed through the explanatory text.
When he reached the faction classification, the corners of his mouth curved into a cold smile.
[Assigned Faction — Raid Faction…]
The system automatically assigned him to a Faction.
A blood-red skull icon faintly appeared at the top of his field of vision.
“Interesting…”
Orochimaru extended his long tongue and slowly licked his lips.
“Something more worthy of study than the Shikotsumyaku and the Sharingan has appeared.”
“A different world… an anomaly…”
His attention was completely captured by the explanation of the system shop.
“Reputation points… can be exchanged for anything?”
“Hehehe… I wonder if I can exchange them for the technology I desire… or perhaps… the perfect vessel?”
Immortality and truth were his only pursuits.
This suddenly appearing “system” seemed to have opened the door to an entirely new world of knowledge for him.
While Orochimaru was absorbed in analyzing this new source of knowledge, the two gang leaders at the scene had already lost their composure.
“Boris! What the hell are you trying to pull?!”
Jiru abruptly stepped backward as his men raised their guns in unison and aimed them at the Russian mob.
“You trying to double-cross us?!”
“Bullshit!”
Boris also roared as he straightened up, his fleshy face filled with suspicion and alarm.
“This guy wasn’t brought here by me! I thought you were behind this!”
The sudden appearance of a living man in the middle of their transaction was something neither side had ever encountered.
In an instant, suspicion spread between the two groups.
Each side assumed the other had deliberately brought this strange man in to disrupt the deal and create an opportunity to attack.
The atmosphere became dangerously tense.
“Calm down!”
Jiru forced down his anger.
He knew that opening fire now would benefit neither side.
“Let’s figure out where this guy came from first!”
Boris nodded heavily, still breathing hard.
“Hey!”
Jiru jerked his chin toward one of his leaner subordinates.
“You. Go over there and ask him.”
“Me?”
The man’s face immediately went pale.
“And you!”
Boris pointed toward one of his own unfortunate men.
“You go with him! Damn it, let’s find out what the hell this thing is!”
To prove that neither side was responsible, the two leaders each sent one man to question the unexpected intruder.
The two unfortunate men exchanged a glance.
They could see the reluctance in each other’s eyes.
But their bosses’ orders could not be disobeyed. This chapter was copied from novelping.com without permission.
They reluctantly drew their pistols from their waistbands and approached Orochimaru from opposite sides, moving cautiously.
“Hey! You!”
Jiru’s subordinate pointed his gun at Orochimaru and shouted, trying to sound intimidating despite his obvious fear.
“Who are you? Who sent you here?”
The Russian mobster was even more direct.
He shouted in broken English, “Hands up! Or I’ll put a hole in that pretty face of yours!”
They had noticed that Orochimaru carried no weapons and appeared to be completely defenseless.
He merely watched them with those eerie golden eyes.
There was no fear in them.
Instead, it was as though he were looking at…
two white laboratory rats waiting to be dissected.
That gaze infuriated them.
“Damn it, why are we wasting our time talking to him?!”
Jiru’s subordinate lost patience.
He stepped forward, intending to smash the butt of his pistol into Orochimaru’s face.
But before he could even raise his arm, he witnessed a scene he would remember for the rest of his life.
From within the wide sleeve of the ghostly pale man, two black objects suddenly shot out.
They weren’t ropes.
They weren’t chains.
They were snakes.
Two pitch-black venomous snakes, their scales shimmering under the light, shot from Orochimaru’s sleeve at a speed far beyond the eye’s ability to follow.
“Thwack!”
“Thwack!”
Two faint sounds of flesh being pierced rang out almost simultaneously.
The vicious expressions on the two gang members’ faces instantly froze.
They stiffly lowered their heads.
Two gaping, bowl-sized holes had appeared in their chests.
One of the black snakes had pierced straight through a heart, while the other had torn through a throat.
They didn’t even have time to scream.
Their lives rapidly slipped away as the light faded from their eyes, and their bodies toppled backward.
Only after the corpses slammed onto the floor with two dull thuds did the murderous black snakes suddenly retract into Orochimaru’s sleeves.
It was as though they had never appeared at all.
The entire processing plant fell deathly silent.
Everyone had been stunned by the bizarre and bloody scene.
Boris and Jiru stood there with their mouths hanging open, the flesh on their faces trembling.
Their subordinates could barely keep hold of their guns.
One after another, weapons clattered onto the concrete floor.
What was this?
A magic trick?
Or…
witchcraft?
Orochimaru slowly raised his head.
His golden serpentine eyes swept across every person present.
He extended his tongue and licked his lips once more.
A chilling smile filled with the curiosity of a researcher spread across his face.
“Excellent experimental subjects…”
“They’re rather weak, but there are quite a lot of them.”
His voice wasn’t loud, yet every person in the room heard him clearly.
“Perfect. Let’s see how much Reputation I can obtain by killing you all.”