Chapter 120: We've Received Player Feedback
The elders of Sunagakure couldn't help but frown.
Temari's face showed discontent. Though she feared Gaara to some degree, he was still her younger brother. Watching him get his scars torn open in front of everyone was painful. She wanted to speak up, but was stopped by the silent Kankuro.
Same old tactics again?
Mental stimulation, assassination attempts—it was all about killing him to replace the jinchūriki. Just because he was a "complete failure."
Yashamaru saw him as the one who killed his sister.
Temari and Kankuro feared him.
His father had always treated him like a mistake, constantly trying to kill him.
Even his mother, in her final moments, had hated him.
So, what was he?
Gaara lowered his head, the chakra within him surging violently.
In his mind, Shukaku's harsh laughter rang again.
Hatred. Misery. Killing…
That was the only meaning behind his existence.
The sand within the gourd on his back churned like a storm, wrapping around his skin and transforming half of his body into that of a monstrous raccoon—chaotic and full of malice.
"To kill all of you… That is the reason I'm still alive!"
"Still can't control yourself?"
Rasa frowned slightly.
He didn't unleash ninjutsu to restrain Gaara, as he used to whenever Shukaku ran wild.
Instead, he took one step forward, then another, walking straight up to Gaara.
"You want to kill me? …Then go ahead."
"A failure like me… a monster like me… should've died long ago, right?"
The monster lifted its head, staring at the man so close, yet so distant—the father who was nothing more than a stranger.
That loneliness—of being rejected by the entire world—was unbearable.
Rasa's gaze was calm, but his heart ached.
Ever since becoming the Fourth Kazekage, he had worked tirelessly for the good of Sunagakure. But not once had he truly looked at Gaara.
As Kazekage, he had to be cold and ruthless.
But in the moment before he died—killed by Orochimaru and Kabuto—the only image in his mind… had been Gaara.
"I'm the one who should be saying sorry."
Rasa took a deep breath… then deeply bowed to Gaara.
"To the Fourth Kazekage, you were a failure."
"But I'm not just the Kazekage… I'm your father. And from a father's perspective, I was the real monster—the true failure."
The appearance of the Samsara Game,
the fall of the strongest ninja village,
his own death—
had made Rasa reevaluate everything.
He used to push himself to the brink to revive Sunagakure, yet never trusted anyone. Not even his own son—he treated Gaara like a mere tool.
That path would have only led to ruin, like Konoha.
Kankuro's punch… had really hurt.
"You… are you crazy?"
Gaara's tightly-wound heartstrings suddenly trembled. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.
Yashamaru… his mother…
"It was all lies."
As if reading Gaara's heart, Rasa's eyes deepened with guilt. "Yashamaru… and your mother—they were the ones who loved you most in this world."
He spread his fingers—shimmering golden sand erupted forth.
It slammed against the gourd on Gaara's back.
Before Gaara could react, the sand inside began to pour out, meeting the gold sand and halting its advance.
A warmth surrounded Gaara, like a light piercing the darkness. A chakra so familiar, so gentle.
"Your Absolute Defense… doesn't come from Shukaku."
"It comes from your mother—Karura's chakra. Even as she died, she longed to protect you."
...
Amegakure.
The rain still poured down relentlessly.
Black, metal buildings filled the village—dense and oppressive, like a forest of steel choking out the sky.
At the top of one skewed, rusted tower, built from twisted pipes, sat a masked figure—Pain, perched atop the metal mask's tongue.
His expression was cold.
"Naive ideals."
Pain spoke in a low murmur.
He'd lost count of how many times he had argued with Konan recently.
Even as comrades who had walked side by side, when it came to ideological conflict, neither was willing to yield.
"Only pain can bring true peace. Naïve dreams of mutual understanding…"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Their murdered friends were proof enough.
Those who had never felt pain could never truly understand one another.
"Nagato."
Konan's voice floated down from the sky. Behind her, pristine paper wings made her look like an angel.
Nagato's eyes lowered reflexively.
She handed over a black envelope.
The Rinnegan's ripples stirred slightly as Nagato stared.
There was no chakra flow—but the envelope defied the rain, not a single drop touching it.
As though protected by a barrier that cut it off from the world.
"I founded the Dawn Clan. Each month, I receive two game invitations. That means you can become a player too, Nagato."
There was no one else present.
Konan's usually cold demeanor softened ever so slightly. A faint smile touched her eyes.
Nagato frowned. His raised hand lowered.
"I've told you—your ideal is unrealistic. Only by gathering the Tailed Beasts can we create peace. I don't have time for your plans."
"Becoming a player would make you stronger. It would help you gather the Tailed Beasts too."
Konan wasn't opposed to collecting the Tailed Beasts.
Lately, she'd spent much time among civilians.
She realized that changing reality required more than understanding—it needed overwhelming power as well.
"I don't need to grow stronger. I'm already this world's god."
The puppet body of Pain said it with no expression.
But in the real base, Nagato frowned—frustrated that his own partner was beginning to doubt him.
He possessed the legendary Rinnegan—the eyes of life and death.
No one in the ninja world could match him. Not even Uchiha Madara, hiding in the shadows of Akatsuki.
"I've heard,"
Konan looked him in the eye, "that a group of former Konoha shinobi—led by Sarutobi Hiruzen—have been spotted in the Land of Hot Water. Some say the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, is among them."
"Resurrecting the dead?"
"That's right. During Konoha's collapse, Sarutobi was killed by Ōnoki's Dust Release. But he came back… unharmed."
Such was the power of the Samsara Game.
Even the dead could return to the world of the living—perfectly intact.
Pain sat silently in the rain.
He too could revive the dead.
The Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique could bring life to the dead.
But at a cost—his own life force.
To revive someone recently deceased, like Hiruzen, was within his power.
But to bring back someone long gone—like Minato?
Not even sacrificing his entire life would be enough.
If it were possible…
Yahiko would have come back long ago.
After a long silence,
Nagato finally spoke. "An unbelievable ability. Perhaps the gap between the afterlife and this world is smaller in that realm—so they could develop a resurrection technique. It doesn't mean the Game Merchant is powerful."
He deeply rejected the Samsara Game—convinced it was an insult to true peace.
"It's not like that."
Footsteps echoed.
A voice approached slowly, stepping across the twisted pipes behind Pain, climbing the cold, dark tower.
"When we encounter something new, we must approach it, understand it, and absorb it. Not hide away like Hanzo did, locked in a dark room waiting to die."
"This mask-fortress of yours… how is it any different from Hanzo's old office?"
From behind the clouds, a dim, cold light fell on the figure.
The bright orange hair could not be hidden.
Yahiko looked at the puppet body controlled by Nagato… and smiled, warm as sunlight.
"It's been a long time, Nagato."
Outside Soulcamp,
countless players had gathered, all hoping to clear the dungeon.
Most weren't aiming for Hell difficulty, but rather attempting to beat the Adventure and Hero difficulties in hopes of farming some high-demand materials.
"Is anyone unluckier than me? Got killed four times in a row by Warrior-level Sarina. No heart, not even adhesive dropped."
"You can't even clear Warrior level? Bro, I just got a blue armor drop—want to buy one?"
"Whoo! Got four bottles of adhesive on Adventure difficulty."
A civilian player, fresh from clearing the dungeon, had incredible luck and pulled four bottles of adhesive at once. A crowd instantly formed around him.
A Sunagakure player, dressed in coarse robes, stepped forward. "Two hundred reward points per bottle—I'll take them all."
The civilian looked at him, hesitated, but eventually accepted.
After all, he was part of a clan—offending him wasn't worth it.
Plus, two hundred reward points was the market price. He wasn't being scammed.
"Damn, he got to them first!"
A Kirigakure player nearby cursed under his breath.
Players from other clans were lurking nearby as well, camping out by the dungeon's exit to maximize their chances of buying adhesive and heart materials.
They all tacitly avoided direct competition.
The price war between Kirigakure and Dawn over silver hearts had left scars. Everyone knew that undercutting each other would only lead to mutual destruction.
So, the leadership of the clans had privately agreed to divide the teleport zone outside Soulcamp into designated areas, strictly forbidding trespassing.
After acquiring the adhesives, the Sunagakure player handed them to a runner, who rushed back to clan territory.
"Is the Materials Workshop built yet?"
In one corner of the clan territory, Sunagakure players gathered around, unloading Ghoststone, Ghost Iron Ore, Ghostwood, and other materials, carefully piling them on the ground.
At the center stood an unfinished structure.
[Materials Workshop (Under Construction)]
Type: Clan Building
Level: 1
Function: Material Processing
Note: One of the most basic clan buildings. Constructed from low-tier materials like Ghoststone and Ghost Ore. Can be upgraded.
"Not yet."
A tired-looking Sunagakure player shook his head. "This broken workshop needs 2,000 pieces of Ghoststone and 800 of Ghost Iron Ore… that's enough to build the damn Kazekage Tower back in Sunagakure."
The most frustrating part?
Clan buildings were treated as rule-bound items in the Samsara Game. You couldn't just build them like in real life.
Otherwise, you could dig a pit with two jutsus, and a group of Jōnin-level players could throw together a building in a few hours.
[You inserted 50 Ghoststone into the [Materials Workshop (Under Construction)]. Status: Success]
[30 stamina consumed. 20 Ghoststone lost]
"Whew, lucky."
The Sunagakure player who just threw in some Ghoststone sat down and drank a stamina potion.
The delivery runner stood in stunned silence.
Another player explained with a sigh, "There are four outcomes when you contribute materials: failure, minor success, success, and great success."
"Failure wastes all materials, and construction progress doesn't budge."
"Minor success loses about 60% of materials."
"Success is like what you just saw. Great success means no materials lost at all."
When they first started building the workshop, they didn't understand the system. They dumped in 500 Ghoststone all at once. It failed. They lost everything. The logistics captain nearly had a heart attack.
Great successes were rare. Most results were minor or normal successes.
Failures weren't too common either.
At first, Sunagakure players raged at the Samsara Game for being a reward-point trap.
But now? They were praying for the game's blessing—hoping for nothing but great successes.
Their attitude shift was… smooth.
Even the logistics captain had a newfound respect for the system. He nodded thoughtfully. "At first, I cursed the game merchant for being a bloodsucker. But now I realize, maybe I misunderstood his good intentions."
"Really…?"
Another exhausted player downed a stamina potion, blinking in disbelief.
The captain nodded solemnly. "Think about it."
"Adhesive can't be used directly. You have to use the Materials Workshop to synthesize it with lower-quality hearts. At first, this seems like an unnecessary hurdle the game merchant added just to bleed us dry."
"Isn't that exactly what it is?" someone asked skeptically.
The logistics captain shook his head and grinned like a sage. "Not at all. This setup actually helps clan factions. It lets them buy up adhesives and low-tier hearts more easily."
If there were no [Material Synthesis] limitations,
ranger players or small parties would never sell their drops. They'd try synthesizing high-tier hearts themselves and resell them at higher prices.
Worse—
those without a clan might band together, pool their resources, and use the occasional drop of a junk clan token to start their own clans.
Then what? New clans would pop up like mushrooms after rain.
Those of them who had invested enormous reward points to buy real clan tokens and build real clans? They'd get destroyed in value.
After hearing the logistics captain's explanation,
most Sunagakure players nodded in sudden realization. They felt grateful, even impressed by the Game Merchant's foresight.
A few, still clear-headed, felt something was off.
Maybe… the Game Merchant was just milking them for reward points.
But even if they knew they were being milked, what could they do?
Unless they were ready to watch another clan snatch the First Clan title right from under them, they had no choice but to spend their points.
"Lord Kankuro."
Wearing a black cloak, Kankuro returned to the clan territory.
He'd just cleared Hell-level Soulcamp and had gotten lucky—he looted a silver-quality heart and rushed it back.
The silver heart was used, and the clan monument glowed with a pure white light.
A slight tremor followed.
The Sunagakure territory expanded again.
"Beautiful."
Kankuro looked around, admiration in his eyes.
To him, this wasn't just a game—it was home. He saw the clan territory the same way he viewed Sunagakure itself—if not with even greater passion.
After all, Sunagakure had been built by generations before him.
But this? This was something he had created with his own hands, brick by brick. The sense of accomplishment was incomparable.
Looking at the sluggish construction progress of the Materials Workshop,
he ignored the logistics captain's pleading eyes and ordered, "Speed it up. I want this built tonight."
"There's no time…"
Sunagakure players responded weakly.
Their stamina was drained. Even with potions, the fatigue lingered. The Samsara Game's exhaustion system made sure of that.
If you wanted to eliminate the penalty, you could buy anti-fatigue pills in the game store—200 reward points each. Guaranteed to let you work nonstop.
But no one wanted to pay that.
After all, resting would clear the fatigue anyway.
Why waste the points?
Two hundred reward points was more than a regular Sunagakure ninja made from several months of mission work.
Kankuro sighed. "Find a craftsman. I'll pay the points."
Craftsmen—
another life-skills player class. Specialists in construction.
They could increase build speed and success rate.
Compared to alchemists, potion-makers, or tailors, these players had been miserable before the clan territories were introduced.
They were real-world laborers, not good at combat, and no one wanted them in big factions.
Now? They were VIPs. Every clan wanted one.
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