The Store, something that gave Asahi quite a bit of anxiety.

It was understandable, since even within the Mundane Objects section, he could buy an actual nuclear bomb for 100,000P.

In his mind, him having access to something like that, it was akin to giving a gun to a monkey. The only difference between him and the monkey, was that he didn’t want to take the metaphorical gun.

He started his expedition by the Enchanted Objects section, which wasn’t his most dreaded one. That would be the Advanced Technology section.

In his mind, magic had several degrees of disassociation for him. Seeing a magic object that could erase a person from existence, was vastly different from seeing an engineered device that could do the same.

Technology was something that was eventually achievable by humans, powered or not.

In the Enchanted Objects section, he found many things that could improve their day-to-day lives, but the problem was to safely use them without other people finding out.

It was an exacerbated version of his grocery problem. Technically, he didn’t need to ever go grocery shopping ever again, but he had no intention to stop doing so.

He knew that it was incredibly likely that he was already on the TS’s radar. It would be incredibly suspicious if all of a sudden, he and Mayumi stopped buying certain essential items.

Suddenly, he found something incredible, that was relatively cheap.

It looked like a portable trigger for an explosive device, but it was used to clean one’s body. He couldn’t give one to each of the girls, because they didn’t have an inventory to hide it properly, but they could still use it next to him.

‘It costs only 2,000P for the version that also gives you a refreshing sensation afterwards. I’ll buy one later.’

He was only looking around, since he barely had any points.

He found so many useful things, that he asked the System to make a note of them for him.

The thing that really caught his attention was a bracelet. It created a protective invisible shield around the wearer, preventing them from being harmed.

It cost 100,000P, but could protect them even from a grenade detonated at point blank.

However, it wasn’t perfect. The wearer could still be restrained, since it required a minimum amount of possible harm for it to be activated. To put it simply, it was a protection against punches, knives, bullets and such.

‘As soon as I get to 200,000P, tell me and remind me to buy two bracelets, please.’

[ Of course. ]

‘Can people notice that these items are enchanted? I mean, aside from an item spitting fire or something obvious like that.’

[ No. ]

Although that was good news, Asahi still knew that they could still create problems. But in the case of the bracelet, he didn’t care, because if it generated problems, it meant that it did its job and the girls would be safe.

He then took a deep breath. ‘Okay, the Advanced Technology section.’

As he expected, just looking at it made him feel like he was being bitch-slapped by anxiety.

There was hardware, software, blueprints, textbooks, basically anything tech related that he could ever dream of and much, much more.

There was something that was supposed to be a super-computer, but it looked like a 5cm cube, and cost 12,000,000P. It was like his brain chose to forget the numbers that he saw for the specs.

Energy weapons, game engines, computer viruses, satellites, and countless other items at his disposal. Assuming that he could pay for them, of course.

‘I knew it, this is fucking insane. This is so much scarier than the enchanted stuff.’

He kept exploring and having the System take notes.

 

Hours later, Fumiko woke up, and noticed Asahi looking at nothing, which meant that he was looking at the System.

She whispered, in order to not wake Mayumi up. “Good morning. Looking at something good?”

He gave her a light kiss, and also whispered. “Good morning. Just exploring the Store, which was something that I was postponing. I found some interesting things there, like a device that can instantly clean our bodies. I’m gonna buy it for us, since it’s fairly cheap, but I’m kind of broke right now.”

She looked at him with a quizzical expression. “When you say clean, how deep is this cleaning?”

He chuckled. “Yeah, it’ll prepare you for sex. Mayumi is really rubbing off on you, huh?”

Her eyes widened as she covered her mouth with her hand. “I meant flossing. How did your mind become so dirty?”

He gently tickled her, making her suppress a laugh.

Messing around, they heard Mayumi’s tired voice, as her arm wrapped around Asahi. “Good morning, noisy couple.”

Asahi caressed her arm. “Good morning. Sorry if we woke you up, wanna sleep some more?”

Her reply came in a lazy tone. “Yeah…”

Fumiko caressed Mayumi’s arm. “We’ll go make breakfast while you rest a little bit more.”

Mayumi let go of Asahi, lying on her back, almost immediately falling back asleep. “Omelet… cheese…”

Asahi and Fumiko softly giggled as they left the room.

 

As the two of them put the dishes on the table, Asahi asked something that had been bothering him. “Are my boosts too unfair? Aren’t I basically cheating?”

Fumiko laughed.

Asahi frowned. “I’m serious. I can learn anything I want so much faster, even powers that most people can only dream of.”

She shrugged. “Well, at least you earned your cheats, right?”

He furrowed his brow.  “What do you mean by that?”

She smiled, speaking in a soft tone. “Look at me as an example. I was born into a loving upper-middle class family with a stable income, which is not something that many people can say. I was also born smarter than most people on the planet, having learned my first coding language at the age of eight, and that was with me slacking off. How is any of that fair? And I didn’t earn any of that. If you should feel guilty, what about people like me? What do you think we should feel?”

He looked at her with a complicated expression, then facepalmed. “Fuck. Just replaying what I said in my head… I sound so fucking whiny and up my own ass. Do I always sound like that?”

She wrapped her arms around his waist. “Relax, that was just your most-likely-to-be impostor syndrome talking. You should be much more aware of this than me, but the world is quite unfair, and a lot of people don’t deserve and/or didn’t earn what they have. You, unlike them, have earned it. Even if you haven’t earned it to its full extent, so fucking what? You still have the moral high ground as far as I’m concerned.”

He sighed, resting his arms on her shoulders. “Maybe it’s because I’ve experienced how unfair it can be that I feel so guilty. I know that it’s just a dumb and irrational feeling, and when it comes to what I intend to do with the System in the future, I have earned it already, but I can’t help it.”

She chuckled. “And thanks to that, therapists can pay for their kids university tuitions. Look at that, you’re earning it even harder.”

He laughed and gave her a light kiss. “That’s true. Given the amount of fucked up shit inside me, I’m sure that I’ll spend a lot of money with therapy in the future.”

She grabbed his butt cheeks. “And if you ever need a sugar mama, I’m down. As you could guess by the complementary luxury Ryokan room, I make a lot of money with my freelance jobs.”

He pulled her in for a deep kiss. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Upon ending the kiss, he looked at her tenderly, and hugged her tightly, which she happily reciprocated.

 

Mayumi ended up having a late breakfast, due to sleeping in.

They spent the day together, playing video games.

The girls seemed more relaxed regarding everything.

Close to 6pm, they were finishing getting ready to the building party for Tokyo U students.

It was actually a very casual thing, so the three of them wore jeans and hoodies.

When they were about to leave the apartment, Asahi remembered something. “Oh, I promised Trish to stop by her place tomorrow. With everything that happened I almost forgot to tell you. When I come back, would you like me to ask her to come with me, so the three of you can talk?”

Fumiko nodded. “Absolutely. I have a lot of questions.’

Mayumi added. “Me too. But that aside, are you alright?”

Asahi sighed. “I’m pretty sure you noticed how I don’t really talk to guys, unless it’s necessary. The vast majority of my horrible experiences were with guys, so I’m not really inclined to interact with them. It’s not really a big deal, just a bit of anxiety.”

Mayumi caressed his chest. “We can leave at any time you want, so don’t force yourself.”

Asahi looked at her with a gentle smile, and hugged her tightly. “You don’t need to worry, just enjoy yourself there, but thank you.”

Fumiko caressed his back, smiling.

The three of them left to the building’s event space, while talking merrily.

 

The event space was quite large at 15x20m, with a kitchen and two bathrooms, not included in that measurement.

The event itself was pretty much drinks and food served by a catering company, but no alcohol, as per university’s request. There was also some background music, but not too loud, since the main point of the event was for people to get to know each other.

As the three of them arrived, a man in his early thirties from the catering company, was sitting behind a table. On the table, there were lanyards with names and photos.

Already predicting a problem, Asahi pulled out his wallet, and showed him his university ID.

The man looked at the photo, then at Asahi, then at the photo again, in disbelief. He didn’t say anything to them, except “Please, enjoy the party.” after giving them their respective lanyards.

There were over thirty students inside already, mostly wearing casual streetwear, with just a few wearing social clothing. Some of them had dyed hair of varied colors, others had tattoos, or piercings, and sometimes some combination of those.

The three of them were among the most inconspicuous ones there.

There were tables, couches, even a section with a beach towel and pillows on the floor. People were eating, drinking and talking all over the place.

A fairly handsome 1.79m-tall guy in his early twenties, came over to them. He had long hair, tied in a ponytail, wore jeans, a polo shirt, a jacket, and seemed to be quite in shape.

“Hi Fumiko. Hello to both of you as well, I’m Satoru, a physics student, about to start my doctorate. I’m the one in charge of the party, so if you need anything, just come find me.”

Fumiko chuckled. “Your name is on your lanyard.”

Satoru scratched his head. “Damn it, third time today. Sorry, I have to go check something with the catering folk.”

As he left, Mayumi grabbed Fumiko’s arm. “Former squeeze?”

“He’s one of my friends who’s too busy to play games with me, but we used to hook up, before he found the love of his life. Speaking of hooking up…”

As she said that, three girls were walking towards them.

One had pink hair tied in pigtails, slightly chubby, with a pretty face. The second one had bleached hair, almost white, tied in a bun, with a slender body. The third one had short black hair, and an hourglass body.

The three girls wore clothes that were casual, but at the same time, made for hunting a hook up prospect.

The slender girl, whose nametag had Keiko written on it, spoke as they approached. “Hi Fumiko, do you mind if we borrow your friend Asahi here? We’d like to get to know him better.”

Mayumi gave Asahi a look that clearly meant “You lucky bastard.”

Fumiko smiled. “If he wants to, by all means.”

Keiko extended her hand to Asahi, with a suggestive smile. “Come on, we’re here to get to know each other, right?”

Asahi smiled and grabbed her hand. “Sure.”

Watching him leave with Keiko and the girls, Fumiko held Mayumi’s hand. “I’ll introduce you to some people.”

As they were walking to their respective destinations, they heard a commotion by the entrance, and the man by the door speaking loudly, but with a trembling voice.

“Sirs, you can’t go in there, it’s a private party.”

Asahi didn’t even need to turn around to sigh. ‘For fuck’s sake, literally at my first party.’

Turning around, he saw nine guys from late teens to early twenties, all in expensive streetwear. The shortest one was 1.77m-tall, while the tallest one was over 1.9m, and all of them were in very good shape.

Walking briskly, Satoru quickly approached them, speaking with a serious tone. “Guys, this is a private party for Tokyo U students that live in the building, please leave.”

At the same time, Asahi had turned to them, and his eyes widened.

He could see panels of information on top of each one of them.

It only took a second for him to understand why that was happening. It was probably something that came with the System’s evolution. However, since the System knew him perfectly, they would also know that Asahi wouldn’t want to know about that ability unless it was necessary.

He used his ki to enhance his vision and started reading while Satoru talked to them. The reason as for why he didn’t move the panels to be in front of him, was because that way, he would look like he was just looking at the interlopers, not like he was looking at nothing like a crazy person.

One of the interlopers, 1.87m-tall, with bleached blonde hair sneered at Satoru. “Oh, chill out will ya? Me and my boys here just want to chat with some college people, what’s the problem?”

Satoru frowned. “Like I said, this party is for Tokyo U students that live here, and none of you fit those criteria. Please, leave, before I stop asking politely.”

The nine interlopers started laughing, and the atmosphere started to tense up.

The same blonde interloper spoke again. “We know who you are, mister Olympic Gold Medalist, we saw you on TV. Do you think your little sportsman Karate is gonna be of any use here?” He then pulled out a blinking device from his pocket. “And for the rest of you, even if you pull out your phones, there won’t be any service, not even the building’s Wi-Fi. If I see any of you recording this, I ain’t gonna be as nice as I’m being right now.”

Asahi was looking at the scene with cold eyes. ‘If they had powers, the screens would show me, right?’

[ Correct. ]

‘Good.’

Before Satoru could say anything, Asahi spoke up while walking towards them. “It’s alright, let me deal them.”

The tallest of the interlopers frowned at Asahi. “And who the fuck are you?”

Satoru also frowned at Asahi. “I appreciate your intentions, but just because you bulked up in the last couple months, doesn’t mean that you can handle them.”

Asahi ignored Satoru, and looked at the blonde interloper, who seemed to be their leader. “You and your stooges are coming with me to a quieter place, so we can have a nice talk. After we have that talk, I’m gonna have a talk with your boss, and make sure that a misunderstanding like this never happens again.”

They blinked at Asahi, like they couldn’t believe what they just heard, including Satoru and the other people at the party that could hear them.

Ignoring everything, Asahi just walked between the interlopers. “Come on, stop staring at me like idiots.”

As he was passing by the tallest one, the guy grabbed Asahi’s shoulder. “I asked who the f…”

With a swift motion, Asahi grabbed the guy’s hand, twisting his wrist and making him kneel and scream in pain. “Do. Not. Touch. Me. Next time, you lose your arm.” Still immobilizing the tall one, he looked at the rest. “Just follow me, and leave these people to their party.”

He let the guy go, and kept walking.

The interlopers had a mix of anger, caution and fear on their faces, but mostly anger.

Their leader spoke, sneering at Asahi’s back. “Let’s go.”

Meanwhile, in front of Mayumi and Fumiko, a screen appeared.

[ He is going to be fine, do not worry. Those earthlings might as well be toddlers in front of Asahi, including the ones above them. Just try to make sure that the other students do not call the police. ]

Both girls looked at the message with complicated expressions.

 

Outside of the property building, Asahi walked leisurely with his hands inside his hoodie’s pockets for a while, and with the nine wannabe thugs following him.

‘I can’t believe I’ve never asked this, but can you erase my recorded footage after sending it to someone?’

[ Of course. Even if it is in their device, it is still a part of me. ]

After walking a little bit more, they arrived at an alley, and Asahi walked towards the dead-end.

The blonde thug took out a switchblade and spoke. “Now we can have some fun. Let’s see if you can take all nine of us.”

Asahi sighed as he stopped walking, without turning around. “You’re such a moron. You just moved to that building because your daddy is a very rich and high-ranking member of the yakuza. Okumura clan, right, Miyagawa Ginjiro? Your first move was to cause trouble in a party filled with the cream of the crop from Tokyo U. What a stupid and insecure little bitch you are.”

Ginjiro frowned, and spoke with an unstable tone. “You know my name and who my dad is, big fucking deal. If you know that, you should know better than to mess with me. If you thought you could come out of here live, you just lost your chance.”

Asahi laughed. “Look at your phones, you all have a nice video to watch.”

Upon saying that, their phones beeped.

They frowned and looked at the video.

As they watched, their eyes widened.

It was a video of them walking towards the event space, still almost 80m away from it. Some of them, including Ginjiro put it in 5x speed, and it only ended with them in the alley, with Ginjiro saying that Asahi lost his chance to get out of there alive.

What sent chills to their spines, was that it switched between so many angles that they didn’t know what to think.

Asahi then turned around, and as he did, the video vanished from their phones, startling them.

“Now, you’re gonna call your father, and tell him that you messed with someone you absolutely should not have. You’re gonna tell him to send a car to pick both of us up, so I can have a talk with him.”

He finally took his hands from his hoodie’s pockets. He wore black gloves, and held a black face-mask on one hand, and a 9mm pistol with a suppressor on the other.

The thugs in front of him only had disbelief and fear as their expressions.

Asahi put the face-mask on, and pulled his hood up. “It’s either that, or all of you die here.”