On Monday, a pleasant May morning, while riding the train toward Yotsuya Station, the system notification appeared.
[Check-in Days: Tamamo Harumi · 24 days, Yukishiro Miki · 7 days]
[Player has received a Check-In Reward Pack]
[Money: 1,000,000 yen]
[Intelligence 50% Discount Ticket (usable only if Intelligence is below 10, and can raise it by just 1 point)]
[Charm 50% Discount Ticket (usable only if Charm is below 10, and can raise it by just 1 point)]
So the weekly rewards were just money and discount coupons.
Sooner or later, once Watanabe Tetsu no longer cared about money, and once his Intelligence, Charm, and Strength exceeded ten points, these weekly check-in rewards would lose all meaning.
He wasn't expecting much from the yearly or ten-year check-ins, but he hoped the monthly reward wouldn't be this meager too.
Leaning against the train door, Watanabe Tetsu pondered how to use the two discount tickets.
Charm? That one wasn't even an option. Yukishiro Miki didn't respond to charm at all. It worked almost too well on normal people—so much that he'd recently been afraid to smile.
Intelligence? That wasn't as convenient as it sounded either.
According to the Appendix, increasing Intelligence wouldn't turn him into a super-genius who could predict everything. It only enhanced his natural talent within a specific field.
Spending 100,000 points to raise Intelligence granted him talent in a field—but he still had to learn everything from scratch. Compared to using the same 100,000 points to instantly buy a master-level skill, raising Intelligence only gave him the potential to someday surpass master level.
The problem was that these "career skills" in this romance game were way too realistic.
For example, if he wanted to create artificial intelligence—a monumental undertaking—he'd need the unified strength of top experts across several fields. Just having "Computer Talent" didn't mean he could start building AI overnight.
A single person would need talents in mathematics, engineering, logic, and countless other fields—every single one indispensable.
With just one point of Intelligence, or even adding another point with the remaining discount, Watanabe Tetsu could perhaps, after decades of research, become a world-class leader in some field: winning a Nobel Prize, pushing the boundaries of human knowledge, maybe even advancing civilization itself.
But… using that to take on the Yukishiro family, a clan with trillion-yen assets?
He might as well go work for them.
What about investing in "Combat Talent"? Even if he trained to a superhuman level, the best he'd manage was killing Yukishiro Miki and fleeing for his life.
And then what?
What would happen to his parents?
They had raised him with such difficulty. His duty wasn't to think only of himself. Even if he died, he couldn't let them suffer.
He had also considered choosing Pharmacology, researching the Healing Potion to secure his survival, slowly amassing strength, and only striking back when he had absolute certainty.
But how long would it take to recreate something as supernatural as the Healing Potion?
After getting off at Yotsuya Station, Watanabe Tetsu looked up at the slope between the station and Shinkawa Prep.
For a month and a half, he'd climbed this fairly steep road every day. He wasn't tired anymore—but the uphill road of his life was at its most brutal point.
If he slipped even a little, he'd end up like Gatsby from The Great Gatsby—a life ending in a lonely funeral.
"'Great' seems like an unlucky adjective… maybe I should switch to 'grand'? Never mind. Even if I share his final fate, I must learn from Gatsby's spirit—advancing with all my strength, fighting against the current. Watanabe, you're a 'Tokyo pretty boy.' You must have the confidence to accomplish anything!"
With that self-pep talk, Watanabe Tetsu stepped onto the hill.
Inside the classroom, more students were arriving early, all preparing for the upcoming exams.
During the morning meeting, Koizumi Aona brought several announcements.
"This time, our school will be taking a joint exam with Keika Girls' Prep and Aoyama Prep."
"Ehhh!?"
Groans filled the room.
"We can't beat them!"
"Our whole year is always at the bottom! The previous year was still okay, but we're hopeless!"
"Some of the top students transferred to those schools for exam season—there's no way, no way!"
Koizumi Aona clapped twice to quiet everyone.
She smiled reassuringly. "I checked the records—there are students who turned things around after joining our prep school, even if they lost to the others before. Don't give up!"
The protests continued—"too hard," "impossible," "why us," and so on.
Koizumi Aona looked troubled.
"What should we do? The three-school joint exam is already decided. No matter what, you all must take it. So… all we can do is work hard. You wouldn't give up, right? Aren't you proud to be students of Shinkawa Prep? You wouldn't want to disappoint your supervisor, would you?"
The moment the young, beautiful supervisor said that, the boys were instantly fired up.
"In that case, we just have to do it!"
"Yeah! Let's push through! I met a friend who transferred to Keika, and she made fun of me for joining Shinkawa!"
"For Shinkawa!"
Soon the girls joined in.
Koizumi Aona nodded in satisfaction and continued, "The exam will cover all material taught at this prep school, so it might be a little difficult—"
Before she even finished, another wave of wailing exploded.
"Seriously!? We haven't even finished all the classes!"
"I just learned the new material, I haven't started reviewing, and I don't understand half of it!"
"Forget new stuff—I haven't mastered the old stuff!"
"Everyone!" Koizumi Aona clapped her hands together. "There are many difficulties, but I believe in every one of you! Last announcement: due to a new directive from the Ministry of Education, club activities will not be suspended, but the school encourages students to study while participating in clubs."
"EH!?"
The screams were even louder.
Not just Class 4—yells could be heard from Class 3 next door, too.
Classes 1 and 2, though out of earshot, were definitely reacting the same way.
"Unless you're sick or have special circumstances," Koizumi Aona continued, "during the exam period everyone must stay at school until six. Sports clubs may apply to temporarily use indoor classrooms. All teachers will remain on campus—if you don't understand something, feel free to visit the office."
Was this an indirect way of telling students to convert their clubs into study groups?
During the break between the meeting and first period, the entire school buzzed with discussion.
Saitō Keisuke groaned, "What is the Ministry doing? Isn't education relaxed enough already? Even during exams, we still have club activities!?"
"I want to study more too," Kunii Osamu said, "but when I think about how the baseball teams at the less academically strict prep schools are still training, and summer Koshien qualifiers are coming, I guess practice is important too."
"What's Koshien got to do with you? You're a benchwarmer," Saitō jabbed.
"Hey! That's rude, Saitō!"
Listening in, Watanabe Tetsu realized most classmates thought the same: this half-hearted state between studying and club activity was worse than simply pausing club activities and attending cram school.
As expected from Shinkawa Prep.
A prep school famous for sending students to top universities naturally had a far more advanced curriculum than ordinary schools.
When Watanabe first applied, he'd aimed for a cheaper prep school, but zoning rules forced him to choose Shinkawa instead.
During entrance exam season, Shinkawa accepted many transfer students from other schools—but thanks to its accelerated teaching, the exam difficulty was exceptionally high.
Coming from a nearly abandoned countryside school with only five total staff and students, Watanabe had studied entirely on his own—yet still ranked third in the Shinkawa entrance exam.
The academic content of Japanese prep schools far exceeded what he'd learned in his previous life. The most obvious example: calculus.
Because his previous major had been in the humanities, he was completely stunned when he opened the math portion of the entrance exam.
The entire time he suspected Tokyo hated outsiders and had given him alone a different exam.
Luckily, even though Shinkawa's curriculum was extremely advanced, calculus counted for only a small portion of the points. He not only passed but ranked third.
After entering the school, he had worked hard to keep up—but he always assumed that since it was still early in the term, and since his grades weren't bad to begin with, he could take things slow.
But now, he no longer allowed himself to take things slow.
This was part of his training—his battle against weakness.
The biggest problem was that from now until the exam period ended, he had to go to the Human Observation Club every day and spend two and a half hours alone with two dazzling, mutually antagonistic beauties.
Honestly… maybe it would be easier to just confess everything to Yukishiro Miki, hand over a few Healing Potions, beg her not to harm his parents, and let her deal with him however she wanted.