[Quest Triggered: The Scholar Encounters a Fox Spirit in Distress.]
[Quest Objective: While traveling to the capital for the imperial examination, you encounter an injured fox spirit. Please care for it diligently.]
[Reward: A Fox's Gratitude.]
The system notification made Ryan stop in his tracks.
His expression darkened instantly as his brain began spinning at full speed.
Oh, so this is how it's going to be?
You promised me a cultivation world, and now you're pulling a Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio on me?!
A fox spirit's gratitude…
Couldn't you at least pick someone else?!
And more importantly—
I'm not a scholar!
I'm six years old!
In the ninja world, where the hell am I supposed to go take an imperial exam?!
Sasuke, walking behind him, noticed Ryan suddenly stop. Just as he was about to ask what was wrong, his eyes widened in shock when he looked at Ryan's head.
"Your head—why is it smoking?!"
Sasuke panicked. He swore he had never seen anything like this before.
"I'm fine!"
"Home. Now. We're going home!"
Ryan's peripheral vision caught sight of Naruto stumbling toward them in the distance.
In his mind, the images of fox spirits from various dramas overlapped perfectly with the blond kid's silhouette.
The result?
A six-year-old Ryan scrunched his face into a mass of wrinkles, every inch of his body screaming disdain.
To hell with this quest.
I'm not doing it.
A fox spirit repaying kindness?
No thanks.
Ryan grabbed Sasuke and abruptly sped up, retreating from the area at full pace.
They walked so fast that Naruto couldn't catch up at all, only watching helplessly as their figures shrank into the distance.
Naruto struggled to lift the bucket with both hands. Looking at the fish packed inside, his nose stung.
He clenched his teeth, set the bucket and fishing rod down, then raised his hands and shouted toward the disappearing figures—
Not caring whether they could hear him or not.
"Big brother! You smug jerk! Thank you for the fish!"
"I'll definitely repay you!"
"I, Uzumaki Naruto—my ninja way is to never go back on my word!"
Both Ryan and Sasuke heard it.
Their steps faltered in perfect sync. If they hadn't instinctively supported each other, they would've faceplanted on the spot.
"That brat… Ryan, you never should've given him the stuff!"
Sasuke was furious—not just because of the nickname, but because Ryan had decided to give the things away without asking.
Because—
He was the one who bought that fishing gear!
And more importantly, Sasuke was extremely dissatisfied with the way Naruto addressed them.
If that kid had only called him "smug jerk" and not said "big brother" to Ryan…
He wouldn't have been this upset.
"I regret it too!" Ryan rolled his eyes. "Go get it back, then."
Staring at the system notification floating before his eyes, Ryan felt utterly drained.
[Congratulations, Host. Quest Completed.]
[Reward Acquired: A Fox's Gratitude.]
[A Fox's Gratitude: Night Encounter with the Fox Spirit storyline unlocked.]
At this moment, Ryan desperately wanted to say a few heartfelt words to his system.
Brother. I'm begging you.
Can you please change worlds before giving out rewards like this?!
If the fox spirit were literally anyone else, he might've forced himself to accept it.
Sasuke immediately protested.
"Why me?! You're the one who gave it away—why should I be the one to go ask for it back?!"
As he spoke, he kept glancing back, then finally turned his head away with a cold snort.
"I don't care."
Ryan could tell.
Despite the annoyance on Sasuke's face, what he felt more than anything was sympathy—just poorly expressed.
Seeing Sasuke still sneaking looks toward Naruto's direction, Ryan chuckled.
"Tsundere brat."
"I! Am! Not!"
Sasuke raised his voice a few notches, firmly adhering to the principle that if you're loud enough, no one can tell you're embarrassed.
That blond kid was annoying—but what he said earlier had clearly been meant to help them by telling them where the fish were.
Sasuke had never seen someone so stupid.
The malnutrition, the torn clothes—
It reminded him of the many orphans in the village.
They were all the same.
Even in such terrible circumstances, that idiot still thought about telling them where the fish were plentiful.
The brothers continued walking home.
Halfway there, Sasuke suddenly sighed.
"Ryan… don't you think it'd be great if we could grow up faster?"
"Then Father wouldn't be so tired."
"And once we're older, we could learn tons of jutsu and become really, really strong."
"You remember Father's three-tomoe Sharingan, right?"
"Maybe one day, we'll have that kind of power too."
He talked nonstop the entire way—listing powerful clan techniques, genjutsu, and the might of the Sharingan.
While dreaming about the future, he didn't forget to mention—again—that it'd be amazing if he could learn to be a dog clone.
Ryan listened quietly, never interrupting Sasuke's imagination.
But as they neared home, Ryan slipped his hands into his pockets, glanced up at the sun, and spoke softly—almost sadly.
"Sasuke… sometimes, growing up isn't a good thing."
"You'll have more worries than you can imagine."
"You'll face countless setbacks."
He wanted to add that strength had nothing to do with age.
But fearing it might discourage the kid, he swallowed the words.
"Tch. Ryan, are you copying Father and Itachi now?"
"That's boring."
Sasuke was too young to understand.
To him, time passed unbearably slowly—six years already felt exhausting.
When they returned home, night had fallen.
The system kept prompting Ryan about going to the fox spirit's residence to trigger follow-up quests.
Ryan scoffed.
His head still hurts.
At first, he thought the system had bugged out by mistaking the ninja world for a cultivation realm.
After that Strange Tales quest—
He realized the truth.
This wasn't a bug.
This was a system running on top of a bug.
As for the follow-up quests…
Even ignoring how suspicious the fox-gratitude quest sounded, a clan head's son sneaking out at night to look for the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki was basically suicide.
No matter how you looked at it, Ryan had no intention of continuing this "Strange Tales" storyline.
Forget it.
As long as the system could trigger quests, that meant more chances would come.
After Ryan and Sasuke returned home, time seemed to fast-forward.
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
Itachi appeared to have taken another mission. Before he left, Ryan didn't forget to perform his routine "fortune-telling."
After that, they didn't see him again.
As for Sasuke—
After learning that dog clone cultivation was impossible, the stubborn kid still refused to accept reality, spending several days running back and forth to the Inuzuka clan's kennels.
Ryan himself wandered all over Konoha.
From the Inuzuka kennels…
To the Nara clan's medicine shop…
To the Akimichi clan's barbecue restaurant…
Not a single new quest triggered.
That day, as usual, Ryan went to the kennels to look for Sasuke.
While passing by a flower shop—
The system's familiar notification sound suddenly rang out in his mind.
...
Advance Chapters available on Patreon
patreon.com/MythArcStudio