On the couch with Mayumi and Fumiko, many things crossed Asahi’s mind regarding the TS, the Consortium, and charities.

“System, is it possible for me to unlock something akin to a banking function, like an untraceable account where I can keep money and transfer it to charities?”

[ Yes. It costs 75,000P with all the upgrades. It can do everything you are thinking of and more. ]

“The banks will recognize them as legit transfers, right?”

[ Of course. You will not be creating currency out of nowhere either way. ]

“Buy it for me then, please. Oh, can I use the funds on that account to buy things at the Store?”

[ Done. For that an evolution is required, but even then, only objects and texts can be bought without Points. ]

Asahi grinned. “That’s alright, I only needed the objects.”

Mayumi lightly slapped his shoulder, chuckling. “You have kind of an evil smile right now.”

Fumiko displayed a pensive expression. “How many points did the bracelet cost?”

[ 100,000P ]

“And may I know if there is a price increase for buying them with money instead of points? Assuming that the exchange is one point for ¥100,000.”

[ 20% increase. ]

Fumiko looked at Asahi. “Did you know this?”

Asahi shook his head. “Nope. I just know the System quite well at this point, and there is one thing that I understand the most by now. The effectiveness of the System is inversely proportional to the development level of the planet the bearer resides in. Earth might as well still be banging rocks together in hopes of curing diseases, at least comparing to what it’s out there in the universe, which is why it’s so absurdly effective here.”

Mayumi’s eyes widened. “Oh, you wanna create an infinite loop using the money from initial sales.”

Asahi nodded. “Of course, not as a short-term thing, because that would be suicide. I’m also not gonna sell offensive items. Speaking of which, I didn’t show you something that I bought as a precaution. I’m gonna make it appear on top of the table.”

The 15cm wide pitch-black sphere appeared on top of the center table, then started floating.

The girls looked at it with curious expressions.

Asahi made the orb float around, demonstrating incredibly high speed and nimbleness.

Fumiko looked at him. “Is it a type of attack drone?”

Asahi nodded. “It can shoot four rays per second that can tear through our bracelets’ defenses with ease.”

Fumiko displayed a pensive expression.

Mayumi looked at it with curiosity. “Can I touch it?”

Slowly, the orb floated towards her, landing on her lap.

She slowly put her hand on it, like she was patting its head. “Wow. It looks metallic, but it feels like soft rubber.”

Fumiko looked at Asahi. “It’s better if you keep this one to yourself for as long as possible.”

He nodded. “Absolutely. This would incite greed to an unfathomable degree. Just for the sake of curiosity, System, how much would the orb be worth?”

[ Other Earthlings would need the controller, which I did not generate because you do not need it. You could easily sell it with the Recharging Station for upwards of ¥8,000,000,000,000. ]

Their mouths went agape.

Asahi shook his head, like he was exorcising the number from his mind. “Well, I won’t be doing that though. Right, can I completely change the subject?”

“Sure, I think we had enough mini heart attacks for today.” Said Mayumi, caressing the orb on her lap.

Fumiko laughed. “Is this your pet now?”

Mayumi chuckled. “But it feels so nice, touch it.”

Fumiko touched it, only to display a surprised expression. “It feels really nice.”

Asahi looked at them, and smiled.

Noticing it, Fumiko blushed slightly. “Sorry, you wanted to say something.”

“Yeah. I already told Fumiko, but tomorrow I’ll be going home with Trish from our training, since I didn’t go to her place today. I’ll most likely be going to the house that I got instead of her place, so I can check out the training room. Something that I completely forgot to mention was that a girl from my Business Finance class had invited me to lunch last Tuesday, but I was too busy, so I’ll be doing that this Tuesday.”

Mayumi beamed him a teasing smile. “At this rate you should look into hiring an assistant to handle your schedule.”

Asahi displayed a pensive expression.

Mayumi slapped his shoulder. “Oh my god, I was joking!”

He laughed and kissed her. “We missed you.”

Fumiko hugged her from the side, and kissed her cheek. “We really did.”

Mayumi blushed slightly, smiling. “I missed you too.”

Asahi caressed Mayumi’s thigh. “Wanna eat some pizza while watching a movie?”

Mayumi nodded. “You bet.”

That night, after the movie, they went to Mayumi’s room.

Mayumi was the one getting the VIP treatment, being all about pleasing her, and she gladly ran the show.

 

Early in the morning, the three of them were having breakfast in bed, naked, with Fumiko in the middle. Each of them had a small foldable table with their meal of choice.

Asahi gave Fumiko’s cheek a little lick, then kissed it. “You had some jam on your cheek. Oh, I was thinking about the books that I can buy from the System.”

Fumiko smiled. “I’m listening.”

“Well, points are not really scarce anymore, right? After we get the new house set up, we can get a fancy magical sci-fi thing to protect the books, then you can read whatever you want. I rather not keep something like that here in this building, in order to not potentially involve other people in some TS/Consortium bullshit.”

Fumiko kissed him, smiling brightly. “Thank you. I have also been thinking about it, and as much as I’m curious and want to read them, I’d like to wait until I finish my Masters. I want to start reading them when I’m fully free, so I can really get into it.”

Asahi nodded. “That makes sense.”

Mayumi caressed Fumiko’s thigh. “I feel you. I’m dying to check out everything that’s gaming related on the Store, but I want to at least get my degree first. I wanna learn everything that professor Kimathi has to teach me, sort of a walk before you run kind of thing.”

Asahi chuckled. “And I’m the one that’s good at holding himself back, huh?”

The girls laughed as they finished their breakfast.

After they were done, Asahi transported everything to the trash via his inventory, and stored the tables.

He got up with a smirk on his face, and looked at Mayumi. “Get up, I have something to show you. Did you notice that there was a flowery smell in the apartment?”

She got up. “I did, why?”

He made the room cleaning device appear on the floor, and with a light glow, the entire room got cleaned, including them. With that, the faint flowery smell appeared.

Mayumi looked at the device with sparkling eyes. “Does this mean that we don’t have to clean the apartment anymore.”

Asahi shook his head. “It’s not just that. Literally everything that is in the room gets cleaned. Also, thanks to the System and Existential Analysis, there is no chance of anything going wrong.”

Mayumi performed small jumps of delight. “Yay, freedom from cleaning!”

Asahi smiled. “I’ll also stop by Fumiko’s place once in a while to use it in her room. Speaking of her room…”

He showed Mayumi the sound containing device, while they talked about how they could actually hang out in Fumiko’s room without worrying about making too much noise.

 

After their morning classes, it was time to have lunch with Amaya. Since she wanted to have a private conversation, she asked to cook for them at their apartment.

They stopped by a grocery store, and after Amaya confirmed with them that they could both handle spicy food, she bought the ingredients to cook traditional Indian curried meat.

Amaya had a tinge of red on her cheeks for the most part of it, as usual.

The lunch itself was delightful, and her cooking skills didn’t lose to her baking in the slightest.

Both Mayumi and Asahi sat on their large couch with satisfied expressions.

Amaya sat on one of the couch chairs, wearing a casual dress and a light jacket. She fiddled with her long single braid, with a tinge of red on her face.

They waited for her to start the conversation at her own pace.

After a minute or so of silence, she took a deep breath. “When we all hung out here that day, I purposefully didn’t talk about school. Mayumi already knows this, but for the last three years, I attended an all-girls boarding school for powered people. I haven’t had any meaningful interactions with guys, aside from my older brother, which doesn’t really count. I know, this sounds like a tropey character from a manga or something like that, but I get really shy around guys.”

Asahi chuckled. “It does sound like that, but that’s fine. I’m the bog-standard rags-to-riches and weak-to-strong story tropes, and it’s even condensed in a couple of months.”

Amaya laughed, awkwardly trying to suppress it. “That’s true. Obviously, I didn’t want to do this in person just to tell you this. I also wanted to ask for your help, Asahi.”

He nodded. “Sure, just tell me what you need me to do.”

Amaya looked down for a for a dozen seconds or so, then back at him. “I would like to spend time with you, just the two of us.” Realizing what that implied, she quickly explained herself. “No, not like that. I mean like friends, playing games, talking, things like that. Which is why, when you’re not too busy, can we hang out, just the two of us? Again, just as a regular friend, not a date or anything like that.”

He facepalmed. “Fuck, I just realized. Sorry to interrupt your train of thought, but the thing about me sensing the outline of other people’s bodies, that’s why you went silent that day. Sorry about that.”

She fiddled with her fingers. “That’s okay. I have something similar, since I can sense the electrical signals in other people’s bodies without even trying to. You don’t need apologize for the passive results of your training, and besides, you had no idea.”

He sighed, relieved, then smiled. “Alright then. Can we hang out on Saturday? Otherwise, I will only be available at night.”

Amaya nodded. “Of course.”

As she said that, Asahi’s phone rang. He looked at it, and it said blocked number.

He got up. “Excuse me just a second.” Walking to the kitchen, he answered the call. “Yes?”

A delicate yet stern voice replied. “Hello, Kinoshita-sama. All the paperwork has been finalized. When and where would you like to meet?”

He remembered that voice, it belonged to the 128-year-old receptionist from Nagamine Kagome’s office.

“Oh, hello. How about in an hour, at the Sunflower Cafe near Tokyo U?”

“I shall be there.”

“Okay, see you there.”

He then hung up, and walked back to the living room. “Sorry, but I’ll have to leave in about half an hour.”

Mayumi looked at him, slightly worried. “Is everything okay?”

He nodded. “The paperwork that I was waiting for is done, I just need to go get it. From there, I’ll just go meet Trish, since her beginner’s course has met its end already. I’m surprised that it lasted this long.”

Mayumi smiled. “Oh, that’s good, the paperwork I mean. Was her course that harsh?”

He sat down on the couch. “Oh yeah. You need to be fit and have the motivation, otherwise just go home. Her class was an experiment, trying to reach more people with that, but her father seems to have a military background, and it shows. Two people managed to get through to a regular basic course, so for her father it may have been a success, but she bailed on it for good.”

Amaya looked at him quizzically. “Strange. From what I know of her, I thought that she would be interested in things like that.”

Asahi laughed. “Fuck no, that shit bores the fuck out of her. She enjoys training herself, but she’s a monster-level genius with the same level of effort, and that’s a conservative measurement on my part. For her to teach other people is a snooze fest, especially average people. She did it mostly as a favor to her father. Don’t get me wrong though, she didn’t do it half assed.”

Amaya furrowed her brow. “Isn’t she personally training you?”

Mayumi cleared her throat. “You see, he’s source material to her writing, due to his glow up from background character to protagonist. That, and he’s incredible in bed.”

While Amaya reddened even more, Asahi pinched Mayumi’s cheek. “You little perv, she was just saying how she she’s shy around guys.”

Amaya chuckled. “It’s fine, I don’t dislike it. I mean, I do watch… stuff.”

Asahi and Mayumi looked at her, surprised. Not that she watched porn, but that she actually said it.

Fiddling with her fingers, Amaya looked at the ground. “It’s just the interacting part that I’m bad at, and it’s not that bad with all guys, just the ones that…”

Mayumi looked at her with anticipation.

Amaya covered her face with her hands. “…make me all tingly.”

Mayumi displayed a complicated smile. She wanted to tease Asahi, but at the same time she wanted to apologize to Amaya.

Asahi nodded. “That’s completely understandable. If I had no exposure to girls at all, I’d probably be a bit awkward around them as well, at the very least. My meeting with Mayumi would probably have been awkward as hell, since she was fresh out of the shower, wearing booty shorts, and a crop top with no bra.”

Amaya looked at Mayumi, with a mixture of shyness and curiosity.

Asahi crossed his arms. “Don’t be fooled by her cuteness, she’s an evil temptress. That day you saw us at that ramen place, was my second day here, and she bit my god damn earlobe.”

Mayumi stuck the tip of her tongue out.

Amaya blinked, then started laughing. “You two were really made for each other.” She then stopped, realizing what she said. “No, I mean, I’m not trying to imply anything. I know that you are… urgh, sorry.”

Mayumi smiled. “Don’t worry about it. We actually knew that from day one, literally insta-BFFs.”

Asahi nodded. “We also had the ‘let’s not get physical right away’ talk on day two, so you’re on point there.”

Amaya sighed, relieved. “The few friends I have are either virgins like me, or full-blown lesbians with no guy friends, so I didn’t even get to talk about guys with someone experienced. My knowledge of a guy/girl dynamic is very limited. Obviously, I’m not counting movies or anything like that.”

Asahi smiled. “Oh, don’t worry about that anymore then. Between Mayumi and Fumiko, you’ll have more stories than you can probably handle.”

Mayumi chuckled. “I can’t even pretend to deny that.”

Amaya fiddled with her fingers, smiling. “I better go now, but thank you both for this.”

After a less awkward than expected goodbye, Amaya left.

 

They both went back to the couch, where Asahi sat down, with Mayumi sitting on his lap sideways.

She kissed him. “So, how does it feel to be on the cusp of owning a kick ass mansion?”

He sighed. “Like the System destroyed my sense of normalcy. I’m actually more affected by the money I’m making with my novels than by the multi-billion-yen mansion, and it’s not even close.”

She laughed. “You’re not alone. I never even stopped to think about the price of these enchanted items until you said the number out loud. But then again, the System is something on a cosmic scale, so a mansion, or the bracelet, might as well be nothing to them.”

Asahi nodded. “Pretty much.” He then gave her a light kiss. “If you ever need or just want something, don’t hesitate to ask. I’m not really talking about mundane stuff, because I know you can buy those. I’m talking about like an earring that changes your hair color, or whatever else that money can’t buy.”

She smiled. “Okay. I know what I want then.”

“What is it?”

She puckered her lips. “More kisses.”

Feeling quite warm at the sight, he kissed her.

They stayed on the couch kissing, until Asahi had to leave.

 

A while later, in front of a modern-looking and slightly upscale coffee shop. Asahi was wearing his usual clothes, with his backpack on his back.

He was about to enter when he chuckled. ‘Wow, she’s being followed by four people from different organizations, and all from the TS’s side.’

Shaking his head, he went inside.

The interior was rustic chic, and most clients seemed to be students, the more well-off ones. It was a bit noisy due to the amount of people chatting with each other.

At the back of the cafe, in a booth-style table, sat Nagamine Kagome’s receptionist, wearing a similar skirt-suit to the one she wore during their previous encounter. She had a briefcase by her side, and a cup of coffee in front of her.

Since his clothes were simple and cheap, he stood out a bit in that establishment, but no one looked down on him. Be it the confidence in his steps, his calm demeanor, or his raw magnetism, everyone understood that Asahi wasn’t average by any stretch of the imagination.

That was the effect of having a minimum of 8 in the stats of the System, which were the condensation of countless different attributes. It was especially effective in a place like that, where people cared more about the ‘specs’ of a person.

He approached the seat opposite from where the overpowered receptionist was sitting, but before sitting, he looked around, looking coldly at the few people that were still looking at him, making them mind their own business.

Sitting down, he smiled. “Hello, Lìshǐ Fen-san.”

For a millisecond, she displayed a slight frown.

He chuckled. “Don’t worry, no one heard me, I can tell. I wasn’t trying to show off by the way, I just didn’t know what to call you. Since no one would hear it anyways, I saw no harm in it. I also know about the four people following you, and the fact that they can’t read my lips from where they are, nor can they properly hear us with their capabilities due to the chatter around us, and the fear of being discovered.”

Fen displayed a faint smile. “Now you are showing off.”

He raised his hands. “You got me.”

They just looked at each other in silence as a waitress in her early twenties approached their table.

The waitress looked at Asahi. “Would you like to order something sir?”

At that moment, a few people nearby stopped talking out of curiosity, the most specs-driven ones.

Asahi looked at the waitress and smiled. “A blend of Peaberry and Blue Mountain on a large cup, with three tea spoons of brune vergeoise sugar. I’ll also have a glass of melon juice, and a wagyu steak sandwich, with black cherry tomatoes and tierenteyn mustard.”

Yes, the System had absolutely spoiled him.