I'd be lying if I said things are going according to my plan... but beggars can't be choosers, right?
…
The sound of splintering wood pierced the morning silence like a thunderclap. Zeke's eyes snapped open. Fragments of his reinforced oak door lay scattered across the polished marble floor like wooden confetti.
"Yawn?!!"
His voice cracked with disbelief. He stood frozen, staring at the familiar silhouette framed in the wreckage of his doorway.
He rubbed his hands against his eyes with desperate intensity, the friction creating small sparks of light behind his lids. Had to be dreaming.
Yeon showing up in his dreams would be unusual, yet plausible. He didn't know many people in this life, and in the past year, she'd starred in at least three nocturnal dramas.
But this felt too real—the cool air against his skin, the distant hum of traffic, the dust motes dancing in the slanted morning light. Too many intricate, unkind details for his subconscious to fabricate.
"What the hell!" he barked, his voice echoing off the minimalist walls. "That door was expensive!" He strode forward, bare feet slapping the cold marble, and threw a death-glare at Yeon that could have melted steel. His jaw was a hard line of contained fury.
Before he could step past her, her hand shot out. Her fingers closed around his forearm like ice-cold vises, her grip shockingly strong. A jolt, not of attraction but of sheer unsettling intensity, shot up his spine.
"Anime." Her voice was a hoarse whisper, strained as if from hours of disuse. "I need more."
"Eh?"
Zeke's anger stalled, replaced by pure shock. He truly looked at her for the first time.
She looked… deranged. A specter of obsession. Her usually immaculate hair was a chaotic nest, strands sticking out at wild angles. Hollow eyes, underscored by deep shadows, stared from a pale, gaunt face—the classic portrait of a screen-time overdose.
Yet, his heart gave an traitorous, eager thump.
She talked about anime.
The irony was delicious. She looked like the ultimate shut-in otaku. That meant she watched anime. A wild, unexpected hope surged in him. He may not remember his past life, but his head was a permanent archive of every pop culture artifact he'd ever consumed—every theme song, every plot twist, every glorious piece of brain rot. And with that archive came the deeply ingrained understanding: a fellow otaku was the dream.
He could already envision it—the cosplay plans, the passionate debates over filler arcs, the shared, comfortable silence over a shared bowl of ramen.
Shudder.
The fantasy dissolved, clashing violently with the feral reality before him. "Urgh. No" he muttered under his breath, low enough for her not to hear. "I'd rather walk into the sun than date this… entity." Her state was genuinely alarming.
But… she watches anime.
A bro?
The concept crystallized with perfect clarity.
Yeah. A bro.
An eerie smile spread across his own face, mirroring her unsettling intensity. He took her cold, slightly trembling hands and guided her—not ungently—toward the massive gray sectional sofa. The leather cushions sighed as they sank down.
"Enlighten me on your journey, young Padawan," he intoned with mock gravitas, genuine curiosity lighting his eyes.
…
The tale she spun was equal parts tragic and absurd. After confiscating the trio's phones, her father hadn't granted her a peaceful viewing session. Instead, he'd transformed her into the trio's personal drill sergeant. For three relentless months, freedom was a myth—every moment consumed by brutal training and tactical drills.
Only when the trio finally departed for a dungeon dive did she seize her chance. She binge-watched every scrap of anime on their devices.
And now she was stranded. She needed more. Specifically, she needed to see Zoro-chan again—to witness his impossible swordsmanship and endearing lack of directional sense.
But before receiving enlightenment from the self-appointed high priest of weeb culture, she had to confess. She detailed every series consumed, every peak moment witnessed, laying bare the extent of her newfound addiction.
Satisfied with her impromptu testimony, Zeke delivered the harsh verdict.
He didn't have the new One Piece episodes she craved.
The next best thing? Fanfiction. But that, he explained, was graduate-level otaku material. First, she needed a foundation: webnovels, manga, manhua, manhwa. She had to develop a palate. Then, and only then, could she brave the wild frontier of fanfic, where canon was a polite suggestion.
She would especially need to brace herself for the unique… cadence of Chinese webnovels.
Courting death!
From the timeless classics to the… other classics.
He guided her through installing the specialized software—a gateway to Zero's meticulously curated archive. Over the past three months, Zero had engineered this system: a digital paradise containing every anime, every manga, every webnovel, every song and show from Zeke's past world. A complete taxonomy of NEET culture, organized with a librarian's precision and a collector's zeal.
Yeon was to be its first external initiate.
Following his recommendations, she began to explore, immediately curling into the corner of the sofa, legs tucked beneath her, clutching a throw pillow to her chest like a lifeline.
"Shoo." She flapped a hand dismissively in his direction, eyes glued to her screen. "You've served your purpose. Go… do whatever it is you do."
"..."
Silence stretched, taut and disbelieving.
"This," Zeke said slowly, with the exaggerated patience of one addressing a simpleton, "is my house. You broke my door. Invited yourself in. And now you're shooing me?"
"Hmph." She didn't look up. "You should be grateful a lady is here to purify this mansion of its pervasive male-slut energy." She made a vague, sweeping gesture, as if dispersing a cloud of spiritual contamination.
"You…" Zeke's accusatory finger trembled in the air. Words failed him.
Huff.
He exhaled a long, steaming breath through his nose, turned on his heel, and walked toward the shattered doorway with the rigid, measured gait of a man clinging to his last shred of sanity.
"'Be social, be friendly, introduce people to anime,'" Zeke muttered under his breath, his voice thick with self-directed sarcasm. "Now you can't have peace in your own house. Good job, Zeke. Real stellar work."
He summoned his pristine red toolbox from his inventory in a flash of blue light. It landed with a soft thud on the marble floor, gleaming under the recessed lights. As he unlatched the lid, the tools inside shifted with a musical clink.
The source of his aggravation emerged from his state-of-the-art kitchen, her arms laden with an obscene haul of his snacks—chips, cookies, energy drinks, what looked like a full bag of beef jerky. Spotting Zeke kneeling amidst the wreckage of his door, she let out a soft, mocking snicker.
"A handyman. A definite step up from posting naked pictures." She laughed at her own joke as she launched herself back onto the couch, making the expensive leather groan in protest, and immediately refocused on her phone.
Bitch.
The thought flashed through his mind, sharp and unbidden.
{You should really adjust your internal monologue before people assume you're just male trash,} Zero chided, his tone carrying a note of weary disapproval.
"What?"
{You seem to have forgotten she's female. It's like calling a straight man a slur meant for a gay man—the insult lies in mislabeling the identity. So is calling a woman that word.}
Oh.
The realization dawned with a flush of chagrin.
Right. Must have forgotten she was female.
His follow-up thought was less enlightened.
Too flat. Definitely doesn't fit the 'jade beauty' archetype.
{Hah. I'll wait for the day you eat those words,} Zero added, his voice tinged with cryptic amusement.
Eh, whatever.
Zeke returned to his work, the rhythmic sounds of scraping, hammering, and the whisper of screws biting into wood filling the space. It formed a bizarrely domestic soundtrack to Yeon's occasional gasps or quiet exclamations from the depths of the sofa.
…
Since the earth-shaking Minotaur attack, the system had been… peculiarly active. It dispensed rewards at frequent, seemingly random intervals—like a slot machine with a short attention span.
Notifications would pop up at the strangest times: while brushing his teeth, once while in the shower (he'd nearly slipped trying to read the floating blue text).
Surprisingly—or perhaps, given his luck, predictably—there had been no more overpowered, world-breaking gifts.
Instead, he'd accrued a collection of miscellaneous items ranging from the useful to the utterly inscrutable.
Like this toolbox. Officially designated: "The Handy Bag of All Mundane Miscellaneous Things." The name alone made him wince. It sounded like it was conceived by a committee utterly devoid of imagination.
Wait until you hear the matching ability.
He thought bitterly.
"The Knowledge of All Mundane Miscellaneous Things." It sounded even worse spoken aloud.
Their functions, however, were straightforward. The bag could summon any object that existed in the world, provided it was "mundane"—meaning not powered by magical energy or mana stones. A fork, a pen, a car, a book. If it was ordinary, the bag could produce it.
The ability, meanwhile, downloaded comprehensive knowledge and instantaneous mastery of all non-magical tasks directly into his brain. Cooking a five-star meal, repairing a combustion engine, performing complex surgery—if it was a skill achievable without magic, he now possessed it at a master level.
Other rewards included resources tailored for the Awakened: mana potions that glowed with a soft cerulean light, health potions that tasted of liquid sunlight, armor and weapons of various ranks, and magical trinkets with purposes he couldn't begin to fathom.
All essentially useless to someone of his particular… constitution.
The truly valuable rewards were the stat points, which he could allocate on a whim. Lately, feeling particularly inclined toward overwhelming force, he had leaned into magic.
He pulled up his status window.
[STATUS]
Name: Zeke Vaughn
Age: Irrelevant
Race: Human (Classified Undying Variant)
Rank: S Rank
…
STATS
Strength: A (735)
Agility: S (912)
Endurance: A (700)
Perception: A (750)
Magic Power: SSS (1790)
…
INNATE ABILITY
Predatory Mimicry (SSS Rank)
…
SKILLS
Messi's Legendary Football Skills (S Rank)
One Hit to Change the Face (SSS Rank)
Observation (SSS Rank)
The Knowledge of All Mundane Miscellaneous Things (C Rank)
---
TRAITS
Quantum Disentanglement (SSS Rank)
Immortality (SS Rank)
Martial Instinct (S Rank)
Reservoir (D Rank)
…
{Remark: Magic power carried.}