Yukitoshi Shimizu was an intense otaku. He had an unhealthy obsession with Japanese media. His bookshelves were filled with light novels and manga, he had a figurine rack with all kinds of suggestive figurines from different anime and his room had countless posters of different anime girls.

He’d always fantasized about being isekai’d to another world and getting a harem of women.

Although he was an otaku through and through, none of his classmates knew it. He hid it very well. Why? Because he knew what would happen if anyone found out about his hobbies.

Hajime was a living example of someone who was an anime enthusiast but he was consistently bullied for that.

He wasn’t brave enough and in his own words no one but an NPC.

So, when he got summoned to another world he was on cloud nine for a few seconds before he realized that his entire class was also there.

Things went the same way with Amanogawa getting the hero class. Even after being summoned to another world, he was still no more than a side character.

He grew jealous and spiteful with each passing day.

Then one fateful day, when the class went to the Orcus labyrinth, Shimizu thought, ‘I’ll prove myself here. I’ll show them that I’m better than that hero.’

But all that happened that day was nothing but an unprecedented trauma for Shimizu. First, he got his ass handed to him by the monsters on that dungeon’s 60th floor. Then one of the classmates fell into the abyss, presumably dead. Then one of them died in an extremely gruesome way. Lastly, the hero who was stronger than everyone was utterly destroyed by one of the people in the group, as his blessing was ripped away from him.

After that traumatizing event, Shimizu withdrew from everyone, focusing on his books about dark magic which was perfect for his job, Dark Mage.

This magic dealt with mostly influencing others and other types of mental magic.

Shimizu was doing this to learn to control another person’s mind as he thought that it would help him to realize his dreams of being a hero.

The demons took advantage of his fragile mindset and manipulated him with visions of grandeur. They handed him a monster army that was created using monster creation magic and gave him a mission.

The demons chose him since his job as Dark Mage was perfect in helping them manage and control the large numbers of the mindless monsters.

Sadly, all that went down the drain due to him going out of commission before the battle even began. Due to him being lost at the start the monster army became much less threatening since they were but mindless beasts after that.

…

When Masashi pulled off the hood from the black-robed man’s head, Aiko recognized the face of the person.

“Shimizu-kun, Shimizu-kun! Shimizu-kun, wake up” Aiko tried to wake up the mastermind of the massacre.

He’d already fallen from the portal with a thud that woke him up.

“Ugh…” Hearing Aiko’s voice he opened his eyes while feeling a throbbing headache.

Aiko tries to reason with her student and talk to him.

Shimizu starts his dumb sob story of how he wants to be a hero and needs to prove himself. The only to do that would be to kill everyone in this town.

Masashi had no interest in the dumb sob story which he knows the end of so he turns to flirt with Mai.

“You did great today Mai.” Masashi gives her a light kiss and her face lights up with a smile.

“You know… I think we’re forgetting something after we finished with the Divine Mountain.”

“We are? Fuck we are! The quest rewards.”

“I feel underwhelmed with the quest rewards now.”

“It’s fine, we’ll be even more overpowered for this world after we clear all the labyrinths.”

“True.”

[Main Quest 3: Clear the Divine Mountain Labyrinth (Completed)

Reward: 2000 Levels, 50x SP Potions, 50x MP Potions, Soul Killer]

[Main Quest 4: Clear the Great Gruen Labyrinth

Reward: 2000 Levels, 50x SP Potions, 50x MP Potions, ???]

[Soul Killer LVL 1: Gives all attacks a soul damage property. A percentage of the damage is converted to soul damage which directly harms the soul of the enemy. Current Level: 1%.]

’I like this auxiliary ability. Recovering one’s soul is far more difficult than recovering from a regular injury. Although I could potentially add this property using Spirit Magic myself, it would be a great hassle to add it to every ability. With this, every single one of my attacks damages my enemy’s soul.’

‘I presume we can level this ability up by increasing our mastery over Spirit Magic. It seems directly tied to that.’

‘I agree.’

Mai and Masashi do their own thing while the annoying wannabe villain is still not done with his bullshit.

At this point, Masashi just zones the surroundings out as he focuses on his system and allocates his stats while Mai does the same thing.

Under the guise of cheesy flirting, they both work on their stats.

‘That’s new.’

{ <Status>

Name: Masashi

Age: 26

Class: The Gamer

Titles: N/A

Authority: Creation, Gravity, Spirit

Level: 7238 (EXP 83%)

Race: [High Human]

HP: 36000

SP: 36000

MP: 10,000,000

TE: 248

STR: 24000

END: 24000

DEX: 24000

INT: 26000

WIS: 28000

CHA: 33000

LUK: ???

Regen Rate: 120000 (Per Min)

Mana Regen: 54000

Stat Points: 2112

}

{ <Status>

Name: Mai

Age: 26

Class: The Gamer’s Wife

Titles: N/A

Authority: Creation, Gravity, Spirit

Level: 7102 (EXP 17%)

Race: [High Human]

HP: 34500

SP: 35500

MP: 10,000,000

TE: 248

STR: 23000

END: 23000

DEX: 25000

INT: 26000

WIS: 28000

CHA: ∞

LUK: ???

Regen Rate: 115000 (Per Min)

Mana Regen: 54000

Stat Points: 1486

}

‘Perfectly Balanced… As all things should be.’ Masashi conveys to Mai that his physical stats are now all the same value.

’Try to make your voice a bit deeper. It’ll be a better Thanos impression. Like this: Perfectly Balanced… As all things should be.’

‘I don’t know whether to be sad or proud that my girlfriend can do a better Thanos impression than me.’

‘Don’t be sad, babe. I can only do that impression telepathically. I can’t physically make my voice that deep.’

‘You always know how to comfort me, bunny. Also, look at that massive increase in TE since we cleared Miledi’s Labyrinth. It went from around 150 to almost 250.’ Masashi looks at Mai lovingly with a playful smile.

‘Don’t-‘ Mai’s face starts getting red.

‘We should spend more days like those five days.’

Mai gets embarrassed thinking about the stuff that she did with Masashi during that time and lightly punches his chest, hiding her face in the crook of his neck.

Masashi gave her a loving look as he hugged her close.

Then Masashi realizes something that breaks him out of his flirting with Mai.

Masashi realized that Shimasu, or whatever his name is, is threatening Aiko with a poison needle that would kill her very quickly.

‘Hey, Hajime!’

’What is it? Be quick.’ Hajime is calm signifying his confidence in saving Aiko.

‘You planning to add your teacher to your harem?’

‘What kind of twisted question is that? No. Of course not.’

‘You sure? You seem to be collecting your harem of unique women here. There’s Shea, Tio, your yandere school bestie. A teacher-student relationship is taboo enough to get anyone going.’

‘What’s wrong with you? Sensei’s life is being threatened and you’re asking me about whether I want to fuck her or not? Are you sick or something?’

’…In retrospect, you’re right. I picked the wrong time to ask this. The thing is that she will get grazed by that needle and you’ll need to feed the ambrosia or my health potion to her mouth-to-mouth since her airways will get constricted. I wanted to ask whether I should prevent that or not.’

‘ARE YOU FUCKING—‘

Hajime is already boiling in anger at Masashi’s dumb bullshit and has more than one vein popping on his forehead but before he’s able to have an outburst Masashi bursts out with an unholy speed using [Dexterity] and brings out two railgun-powered revolvers that he made after copying Hajime’s design.

No one can react before Masashi shoots the gun in two different directions.

One of the bullets nicks the hand of Shimasu, or whatever he’s called, and makes him drop the needle while letting go of Aiko.

The other bullet goes into the far distance behind Aiko, seemingly having missed.

But the next moment there’s the cry of a wyvern that takes flight in a panic, signifying that Masashi’s shot hit the mark.

With that Masashi shoots a few more bullets at the dragon. They hit perfectly since the rider had already been hit with a headshot and the wyvern was just running away due to the danger that it felt.

“…Masashi-kun?”

“Yeah sensei?”

“She’s not your sensei.” Masashi hears from someone but just ignores them.

“Who was that?”

“Oh yeah, that was Fried Bagwa, one of the big bad of the demons. That’s the guy who enticed your student onto the dark path sensei. I never encountered him but he’s like a cockroach. very hard to kill. I got the shot so I took it.” Masashi still calls Aiko sensei because he’s having fun with that form of address.

“And you killed him? Just like that?”

“Yeah.”

“There are better ways than just outright killing someone, especially someone who wasn’t threatening you.”

“I agree.”

“You can’t just resort to— Wait… did you just agree with me?”

“Yeah.”

“Then why-“

“Why did I kill him? I killed him because that was the most straightforward option. I don’t have the patience to give bad people pep talks and convince them to reform. Especially not those religious types.” Masashi shivers at the mention of the religious enemies. 

"Also the threatening thing. He was, he was charging a rupture spell that could’ve shot through your student’s chest, killing you and at least hurting Hajime in the process."

“What-“

“Oh look! Your student’s awake.” Masashi points to the fallen kid who’s clutching his hand that has a hole in it.

Aiko turns to look at him and in that instant, Masashi runs away, pulling Mai with him.