We have seen the specials on NHK. We have seen it from the outside, as a subject of awe and gossip. But do any of us, day-dwellers and normies that we are, truly understand the sanctuary that is a NEET's room?

 

The floor is littered with trash bags, discarded cans and bento boxes, packages he had not even bothered to open, food he had forgotten to eat or refrigerate, dirty clothes, Zamazon packages, bottles of urine (as well as bottles of spring water), scarves of dust and lint... Fans he'd placed in strategic locations about the floor blow the air of particularly repugnant sections of the room -- the origin of whose scents were quite non-trivial to root out -- away from his kotatsu and gaming area, and keep the olfactory situation just barely endurable.

To a civilized stranger -- even to the average homeless person in Tokyo -- the prospect of living here would cause the "gorge to rise", the spirit to sink... Any random alley or crook in the neighborhood would be preferable as a domicile. Anywhere in Tokyo, outside of a literal dump, was cleaner and more refreshing to look at...

Indeed, even to our 22 year old protagonist, Sora, if the memory of his room could somehow be obliterated, and its prospect presented afresh to his mind, the renewed force of the image would be so repulsive to him that he would have changed himself, changed himself not by force of will and determination, but from force of sheer repulsion.-- Some people, as we know, are motivated by objects of desire, by things they feel they rightfully deserve, by a thoughtless and perjurous demon of  lust. Others, meanwhile, are motivated by what inspires in them the feeling of disgust.

Disgusting as his room might seem to anyone looking in, the simple fact that it is his own causes him now, as he enters it after a long day outdoors, to feel rather a sense of serenity, slowness, and purity return, than a sense of uncleanliness.

He drops his bags. He opens one of the snacks he's bought. As he eats it, he dashes about the room, turning on the electric kettle, turning on his computer, rapidly clicking through his folders for the right anime soundtrack, queuing up in the lobby of a game, unpacking his new purchases, taking off his street clothes, and stroking himself all the while, in anticipation of enjoying his new "onaho".

He resumes the comforts of the room with an almost bestial frenzy, dashing from thing to thing, and succeeding in enjoying none of these activities in themselves: eating a bite of street food, then gooey takoyaki, then a single piece from a pack of limited edition sweets, turning on music he ignores, browsing the web, masturbation he hardly feels. And yet...taken all together, they could be said to coalesce into a single whole, a higher unity weaved together out of all these disparate actions by the genius of a single consciousness, creator, and genius. As exquisite a Whole as its comprising parts are common, plebian, inexquisite in taste-- I speak, as my readers already know, of the state of being comfy.

To such a human being as Sora, "being comfy" is not a feeling, not a sensation that one merely registers in consciousness and then identifies with the accepted terminology... Being comfy, to these connoisseurs of Stasis, is quite literally a "Way of Being" (as our pseudo-intellectuals say), something that involves the entire person, his desires, expectations, and capacity for reaction... Being comfy is a lifestyle, and one that is "a jealous mistress", will harbor no rivals for its attention...

My readers, can a man who has in such a fashion pledged his honor to Comfiness realistically be blamed for not having a job, friends, ambition, or future in society? Can he? Oh my readers. Let us not be rediculous.

And can I even describe to you, inexperienced as I myself am, and as strange as this topic no doubt is to my listeners, the spiritual delights, the truly "unknown pleasures" that our Sora feels, stepping out of the chaos of a Sunday afternoon in Tokyo, where he must be ever conscious of his appearance -- mere appearance! mere appearance! -- and into the perfect stillness of a world that is his own?

Indeed, in the darkness of a room where he can even escape the rhythm of days, the irruptions of chance, where he can escape the very concept of a workday, workweek, the passing of his life, and mounting evidence of his wasted time,-- he feels his mind grow soberer, purer, clearer. He feels within himself, where he had previously detected only selfishness and pettiness, the capacity for the highest acts of goodness, self-sacrifice, and magnanimity. What treasures he finds within himself now! aw so much goodness! aw so much capacity! ...a capacity, albeit, that being in his room he repeatedly sets aside, being no opportunity for it. And when opportunity for it exists-- no capacity...

 

* * * * *

 

Today he had gone outside for two reasons. One, to pick up a VR headset he had been obliged to repair. Two, and more importantly, it was to attend the release event of an Onaho in Akihabara.

He had never known an onaho till now to have a release event. The fact that this one did was proof that it was special and worthy of one of his rare excursions outside.

There had been many attempts in the past to create an onaho that could be linked to the emerging genre of VR eroge games. None of them had even gotten close, and they were almost universally decried as wastes of money.

This is the first one that has "gotten it right". It has even more than gotten it right. The product is still in its alpha stage and has only been released to a select number of testers so far. Nonetheless, reviewers are already announcing that the human female has been replaced; that a new era was beginning; that though they had long been cynical, they now look back on humanity's achievements with a glowing pride, with the fondness of a salaryman attending his son's graduation; that after their experience they have lost all of their ambition; that the onaho is to sex what, in pre-modern times, sex was to masturbation.

Our protagonist, Sora, had been reading posts on the subject for several weeks. Hyping himself up and having no shortage of time on his hands, he managed to reserve a spot for himself as a tester as the product entered its beta stage.

. . .

Feeling his heart beating in his chest, he tries to calm himself and proceed methodically, with the vague idea that every delay and frustration will end up enhancing his reward. He painstakingly removes the packaging so that it comes off intact. He prepares the scene of the action. He closes all of his applications but the eroge game linked to the onahole. Finally, he holds the onahole trembling in his hands. He attempts to cast a cool gaze, taking an overview of the product as he's known professional reviewers to do. Then he flips the switch on...

. . .

Then, all of a sudden, he stops feeling pleasure.

Why does he feel no pleasure?

When he opens his eyes again, he is surrounded by white. Not a fog, not a mist, not a room that is merely white, but the color white itself, insofar as a human mind can comprehend being inside color without space.

Did he die? Did he actually die? Did it feel so good that he met his end?

What a shameful scene he's left behind. He thought of his family and acquaintances back in the countryside. Not that it matters now.

Before him: a woman with features resembling no earthly ethnicity. She is the only substance that he can perceive. He immediately recognizes this is not the VR game he'd entered.

As I trust my readers are all well-acquainted with this part of the story, let's skip ahead a chapter or two.

 

* * * * *

 

It was a day since his reincarnation.

Sora, after a sleepless night out in the wilderness, found a road that led him to the walls of a town.

Though it used to be of some military importance, it has been many years since anything more than drunken disputes had taken place in its gates. The walls, impressive as they appeared to our hero Sora, were relics of a bygone age. The little heads of children peeped between its crenelations. Great layers of moss and ivy covered its surface. Beams of sunlight poked through missing stones in the facade.

The Goddess had had the foresight to give him a bag of money. Together with a language ability and the trusty [Identify] Skill, he was not completely unprepared for the new world.

To the guard at the gate, he paid a toll of two bronze coins. At any other town he would likely have been detained and searched, not because he looked different -- the inhabitants of the world were acquainted with much greater differences between races than we are -- but because he did not have the strength just then to hide his nervousness. Luckily for Sora, the town had been accustomed to peace for so long the guard let him off with no more than a look of suspicion.

Once he was inside the gate, Sora cursed at himself, feeling humiliated by his lack of readiness in front of the Western-looking guard.

Of course, he had not expected the new world to feel so real. But at the same time, he had come from a world that was just as real, that was more technologically advanced. He knew things that the people here surely did not. He could take pride in the secrets he kept. And, on a more tangible level, he had been given a cheat skill by the Goddess. Why did he allow himself to be nervous?

He swore to himself that he would not hesitate to lie in the future.

As it was a working day, most people were away at their jobs. Only a scattering of servants, children, and housewives were left on the street. There was even one pretty-looking girl who had a collar around her neck. "A slave!" thought Sora, and his heart began to race.

The idea of a female slave, of being able to legally possess another human being, of being able to do whatever he liked, sent his thoughts reeling away in confusion. It was several minutes before he regained enough control to consider his immediate priorities.

The first thing he needed to do was to find a room A soft bed. Shade from the sun. Protection from people's gazes. His purse was still full of gold and silver coins. He would take a nap first, and then think about what he needed to do.

He noticed that very few of the shops had signs on them. After an hour of wandering, he had still not found a single one he recognized as a hotel. There were a few that seemed like taverns, but as no one was inside he was scared to enter by himself. The reason that there were hardly any signboards on the shops in the town was because everyone already knew what everyone sold. Only rarely did new shops open or old shops close. Family businesses were often passed down. Things were found out in the town by asking questions as opposed to reading signs. Many of the townfolk could not read at all. When Travelers and Adventurers from out of town passed by, they would ask people at the guild, town guards, or random strangers about where to find things.

It was only after another quarter of an hour that friendless Sora, approaching the most amiable looking girl he could find, worked up the courage to ask for directions.

The girl so happened to be the daughter of one of the three ruling houses in the town. She had noticed the strange-looking boy walking timidly about for the last few minutes. "He looks so young," she thought to herself. "Is he lost? Has he been abandoned?" When he began fumbling in speech to her questions, she decided that he was hiding something from her.

"Sure, there's an inn just nearby. It's for Adventurers though, so it gets a bit rowdy sometimes. If you don't like it, there's another inn on the other side of town, but it's pricier and a long walk, so..." (Young Girl)

"No, anything's fine!" (Sora)

"Hmmm," thought the Young Girl to herself. "Judging from his delicate skin, he's probably not a menial or field worker...maybe he's a servant who's run off with his master's money...? That's probably what that bag at his side contains. Well, so be it. It's not any of my business, I suppose." Then, taking another look at him, she shook her head. "No, how could anyone so innocent and harmless on the surface do so horrible a thing as rob his own lord? No, it can't be. The common folk say it's a different thing to know and to believe. Though I know such hideous deeds do occur, that such hateful perpetrators do exist, for now I won't believe in them. For now, I'll believe what he says, that he's a foreigner looking to join the Adventurer Guild,-- though I know most likely, he's not... Only later, only later, I'll make up my mind about him later, when more of his true nature is revealed."

Soon Sora found himself entering one of the rustic houses he'd seen earlier.

The houses in the town are not log cabins, as one might have expected going by the depictions of our earthly mangaka. Some of the older ones are made of a rough brick. Most of them however, were facaded with highly finished stone. Some were painted a light beige or yellowish brown. The one she had led him had a smooth and clean-looking, though rustic, facade that was painted light teal. Though the buildings were obviously not as geometrically perfect as ones in Tokyo, they were nonetheless built with a high degree of skill and architectural knowledge.

His room cost only 2 silver coins a night. For a prolonged stay, he was told that he could even bargain with the innkeeper to have it lowered. When he accounted for necessities like food and weapons, he estimated that he had more than enough to stay for three months.

When he was alone, he lay on the small cot -- only about the size of a twin bed. He felt pleased with what he had accomplished so far. Despite the humiliation at the gate, he had found a town. He had met a cute girl. Most of all, he was safe. He now had obtained the bare minimum sufficient for his contentment. He did not need anything more. He did not miss anyone, any real human being, back on Earth. With his all-important bag of money tucked beneath his shirt, he soon fell sound asleep.

 

* * * * *

 

When he woke up it was morning. By his estimate he had slept more than 12 hours.

Yawning, feeling refreshed and only slightly nervous, he used his [Identify] skill a few times on the random objects around his bed.

"Yes! It's really real! It's really real!" Sora thought, delighted by the names and sentences that bobbled about his room.

Finally, he used the skill on his own person.

What came up was a screen similar to the status screens in our favorite JRPGs. Let us abbreviate:

 

[NO NAME] [Lesser Human Lvl. 1]
[Magic Points: 5/5] [Hit Points: 10/10]
[Total Combat Power: 10]
[Unique Skill: Dimensional Onaho]
[Unique Skill: Identification Lvl 10]
[Blessing of the Goddess of Lust]

 

There was an additional page of stats corresponding to the usual gaming data: STR, DEX, etc, etc. There were a few more pages of information that he did not have the interest to investigate yet.

Most important-- the Unique Skill...

Dimensional Onaho: Gives the owner the right to use the Holy Onaho item.

His whole body shaking, he took the legendary item out from his bag...

Holy Onaho: Legendary Relic. Bound Item. Summonable Item. Haunting Matter.
Atk 6
Dur 9999
Instantiates a one-way link from the owner to the vagina of a targeted lifeform.
Can be auto-equipped when within 1 ft of owner. Can be auto-unequipped.
Equips On: penis.

When he used the Identify skill on one of the attributes, he saw the following.

Bound Item: Bound to owner.
Cannot be removed from owner's possession.
Cannot be withheld from owner's usage.

Summonable Item: Can be summoned by the owner.

Haunting Matter: Can only be perceived by owner.

He tried pushing his finger into the hole but could not do it. Though there was nothing keeping it from getting in, and though he could not feel any sensation on his index finger, he felt a force blocking his way. "As expected," Sora thought. "It's only equipable by...by...--"

It happened that after his long sleep, he had a case of nocturnal tumescence. As he had not emptied his bladder yet, it did not give him any pleasure to "use" the legendary relic immediately. Nonetheless, he was curious. He wanted to see whether anything happened when he equipped it.

To his surprise, when he tried pushing his "part" into the hole, he found that the same thing happened. A force was blocking the way inside.

For a few moments, he stood with a puzzled expression, the worse possibilities running through his mind. Could he not be the real owner? Did the Goddess mess up? Did he misinterpret the description? Did he need to level up, level up?

He read the description of the [Dimensional Onaho] one more time.

"Hmm...maybe I need to have a target for it to work?"

Now, Sora's room in the inn, though clean, was not the most distinguished of residences. It was only about the width of an adult wingspan (about 6 feet). The bed itself took up about two-thirds of the width. It was longer than it was wide, but, honestly, not very long either. Opening the door, one was immediately presented with the bed in front and a little sideboard on the right that stored a washbasin and chamber pot. There was just enough space for a thin person to squeeze themselves in the gap between the bed and the wall to the table at the far end of the room. Behind this table, where Sora had set some bread and water from yesterday, there so happened to be a window -- more of a slit in the wall -- that was designed to be just sufficient to let a little daylight in. It was not meant for looking out of. Still, it was all Sora had...

Peering through it, he could just barely make out objects in the street below.

"I'll just do it once... just the tip... just to make sure it works..."

It was nearly half a minute before he saw someone walk by. He could not see her clearly, but it seemed to be a young woman. Unfortunately, before he could react, she had already disappeared from view, and he was met with the same invisible resistance in the [Dimensional Onaho].

The window was not intended for people-watching but lighting the room. Due to the narrowness of the slit and the thickness of the wall, he could not get a good angle to follow a moving object in the street.

"Dammit...next time I'll act immediately," Sora thought to himself. "The next girl who walks by -- I don't care how she looks, as long as she's not too fat and not too old. I'll concentrate on the thought that she's the target. And at the same time, I'll try pushing my son into the onahole."

He rehearsed these steps a few times in his mind as he waited for the next passerby.

To Sora's good fortune, the next person who walked by his viewport was also a young and pretty woman.

Immediately he concentrated with the thought that she was the target. And this time, he instinctively felt that something was activated. He was sure that somehow the onahole had responded to his thoughts. With all his gamer agility he rammed the onahole at his morning wood...and met with the same resistance. She was already out of sight.

"Dammit, dammit! I almost had it. She was walking too fast. I felt something working. Something activated when I concentrated."

Though he still had not emptied his bladder, he was determined now to get it right at least once.

He pressed his face harder against the wall.

He waited one minute...then two...

Again, to Sora's magnificent fortune, it was a young woman who passed his narrow viewport. In fact, it was the pretty slave girl he saw yesterday. And, to top it all off, she was walking slowly, seeming to be lugging something in tow.

When he concentrated on her, he noticed something flashing below him. A semi-transparent magic circle appeared for a second, only for a second, on top of the legendary sex toy. His eyes widened.

And, not looking away from the collared girl for a moment, focusing entirely on keeping her within his gaze, he pushed the onahole against his still-turgid organ...

...and missed.

When he realized he that had hit the side of the legendary equipment, that his attempt was frustrated once again, he had had enough. He looked down just enough to aim and, with his arm in mid-motion of ramming the onahole, turned his head up, and refocused on the girl.

It was a feat of incredible dexterity. No longer self-aware, he had let his intuition improvise the exact sequence of actions that would take the least time to carry out...

And this time, the resisting force was gone...

"Ah...ah...I did it!"

Though it was dry and unpleasant, though the feeling was not remarkable in the least, though he could not have gotten more than an inch inside because of the friction, he had finally "graduated from his virginity".

Unfortunately, in his impatience, he did not realize that it was already too late. Young Sora had now made a fatal mistake. Though he was concentrating on his target, he had in reality been staring blankly ahead, "looking but not seeing", focused entirely on not missing the onahole again. When he finally registered what he had actually been looking at, he was surprised to realize that he was staring, not at a slender slave girl as he expected, but at an extremely thick and muscular black ass -- and a tail.

Then he heard a neigh below.