Early Madarame's arc with 41 hours play time ?

A friend of mine started the game last year but never finished it. He says he was in the middle of Madarame's arc (he just unlocked the memento) with 41h play time.

No matter how I figure it out it seems impossible to me to have this much hours in the game just to be in the beginning/middle of Madarame. I mean, even if he really took his time I think he would have at most 20h.

I see 2 solutions here : either he let the game running while being afk (what he deny) or he doesn't remember his play time well.

What's your opinion about this ? Am I missing something ?