After graduating college, Richard became a corporate cog in the machine.
Endless overtime, working through the night on revisions, and clueless idiot bosses barking nonsense...
Even the rare statutory holiday had to be 'made up' with additional workdays afterward.
And as if all that wasn't bad enough...
He found that his girlfriend, whom he'd been dating since college, cheated on him with her boss just a week ago.
Worse yet, when he caught them...
She pointed at him and said, "You can't give me the life I want. Let's break up!"
"Only with President Louis have I felt true happiness like never before!"
So not only did she cheat on him, but she also made a short video about it, and now he's being roasted online by a swarm of keyboard warriors in the comments...
Clearly, this is a top-tier boss-level humiliation!
Now, Richard could only hole up in his dingy rental, finding slivers of life and meaning in video games and anime worlds.
Only there did he feel like an actual person, not just some soulless walking corpse trudging through life.
That night, after a couple rounds of gaming in his spare time, when Richard stood up, his eyes went dark, and his head hit the keyboard heavily.
After an unknown amount of time, Richard started hearing whispering voices from strangers.
The sounds grew louder, closer, more distinct...
'Wait!?'
'Wasn't I just gaming?'
'How... did I fall asleep?'
Richard suddenly opened his eyes and found that everything in front of him was blurry and like it was pixelated.
'What's going on?!'
'Why... I became smaller!?'
He flailed his arms in confusion, and through the fuzzy sight, he could make out…
A pair of chubby little hands?
They looked like the mascot of the Michelin tires.
'Wait, huh!?'
'I... turned into a baby!?'
Before Richard could even fully process it, a yellow-haired man and a red-haired woman suddenly appeared in his sight.
At this time, he finally realized that he had transmigrated...
And not just normal transmigration... but real reincarnation!
'Yellow hair?'
'Don't tell me this is one of those settings?!'
When he saw the yellow-haired man, Richard became extremely alert.
'A father with yellow hair...' he was really worried.
'Is my father a member of those NTR bastards?'
Swoosh-
Suddenly, Richard found that the scene had changed and his body was lifted into the air.
A few seconds later, he fell steadily into the arms of a stranger.
'Oh shit!?'
'Is this... a child trafficker!?'
'Where are mom and dad?! Save me!!'
The panicked and anxious voices of a woman echoed.
As for what was said, Richard couldn't understand the words.
But the tone cut deep, pulling at his heart.
However, Richard was still very anxious...
'I had just transmigrated!'
'Can you at least give it a chance to grow?'
'Now I'm caught by human trafficker...'
'What if they broke my limbs and made me beg on the street?'
When Richard was a child in his previous life, he often heard his parents tell tragic stories about children being abducted by human traffickers.
But he never expected that he would be kidnapped by a masked human trafficker right after his transmigration...
'Wait a second!?'
'Red-haired woman?'
'Yellow-haired dad??'
'Masked trafficker?'
The inexplicable sense of familiarity made Richard fall into deep thought.
The combination of the three made a golden light flash through his little brain...
'Holy crap!'
'Did I transmigrate into Naruto!?'
'No way!'
'I'm the prince of Konoha with the legendary Talk-no-Jutsu!'
"Roar…"
As if in response to Richard's thoughts, a deafening roar erupted around him.
His head buzzed violently from the sound, and his thoughts abruptly cut off as he passed out.
In the final moments before losing consciousness, his mind began to pray with utter sincerity.
'Uchiha Obito, screw you!'
'I, Naruto Uzumaki, will remember this grudge!'
Richard had begun to accept his new identity as Uzumaki Naruto...
Drip…
Drip…
The sound of water droplets echoed crisply, like a leaky faucet in an empty room.
Naruto's eyelids twitched and his consciousness gradually became clear.
However, the scene he saw when he opened his eyes was very different from what he had imagined.
"Roar…"
The familiar roar rumbled again near his ears.
'It's the Kyubi!?'
Naruto turned his head and saw a big blur of orange, as his vision hadn't fully developed yet.
From what he could tell, the Kyubi in front of him looked suspiciously like a giant orange cat.
Click, click...
At this moment, a strange, crystal-clear interface appeared before Naruto's eyes.
'Holy crap!!'
'Minecraft?!'
To his utter shock, the interface looked exactly like the one from his previous life's 'Minecraft'!
After flipping the interface, Naruto can also see all the items inside!
That's right… all the items!!
There are even enchanted potions and spawn eggs!!
He was in Creative Mode!!
And that wasn't all!
There are also more than 300 mods loaded in it!
They were all the mods he had personally downloaded in his previous life!
Things like industrial tech mods, magic world mods, and more.
For example, the industrial tech mod had everyday appliances…
While the magic world mod had monster eggs, teleportation portals, and all sorts of magical tools.
In short, these mods were filled with broken, overpowered items.
Even Naruto himself couldn't count the things inside.
And Naruto also realized that…
Perhaps this is the golden finger brought by his transmigration.
Although there wasn't any fancy 'ding ding ding' system announcement, he was more than satisfied.
After all, he wasn't just anyone in this world.
He was the chosen one in the Naruto World, with a massive Chakra Reserve and the Kyubi power bank inside him.
Now he even had Minecraft loaded with hundreds of mods?
This was the definition of a perfect start.
With just a thought, Naruto summoned a cow out of thin air.
Kurama, who is trapped in the cage, was about to overflow with malice.
He had intended to scare this brat a little, but then he saw a cow suddenly appeared in the sealed space.
Even stranger is...
'Why does that cow look a bit square?'
Kurama was very puzzled, but he couldn't help being curious.
For a moment, he forgot all about scaring Naruto.
"Hey! Brat!"
"How did you do that?"
"Abba babba."
Of course, Naruto couldn't understand a word Kurama was saying.
He knelt behind the cow and struggled to crawl on the ground.
Perhaps because the Uzumaki Clan has strong physique, Naruto's crawling speed is much faster than one would expect from a newborn.
It didn't take long to reach the cow's side.
He raised his tiny hand and smacked the cow with all his strength.
The cow shimmered and slid a short distance away… just like in the game!
Seeing this, Naruto's eyes lit up in joy, and then he began to chase the cow in the sealed space.
After a while, Naruto looked at the piece of meat on the ground and laughed.
Kurama, who is in the cage, had a question mark on his face.
He really couldn't figure out what this brat was doing, and...
How could such a strange cow appear in the sealed space?
Then, Kurama witnessed a scene he would never forget...
Naruto, who was sitting on the ground, laughed and started to play with the soil on the ground.
He would also plant a few oak trees from time to time.
Soon, a brand-new miniature forest appeared in the gloomy sealed space.
There is even a wooden house in the middle...
"Hey! Little brat, are you mocking me right now?!"
Kurama's voice was very loud, but the wooden house built by Naruto was surprisingly soundproof.
Even as Kurama screamed his lungs out, only a soft murmur can be heard inside.
'Well... it's a little quieter than the renovation work in my previous life.'
Naruto lay on the bed with mixed feelings.
After the excitement of being reborn, his heart gradually calmed down.
He couldn't help but think about what lay ahead.
Naruto knew that that by the time he regained consciousness...
His parents would likely already be gone.
'Tsk, I became an orphan just after transmigrating.'
'How depressing!
And when he thought about being hated by countless Konoha's villagers from now on...
He felt a little sad.
Lost in thought, Naruto slowly drifted off to sleep in his little wooden house.