After telling Yanami Anna where he currently lived and where he went to school, Ayanokouji Ren quickly left the shop.
Once he was outside, the first thing he needed to do was go back and find a place with no one around to confirm the effect of [Teleportation].
After all, he had gained so much in just one morning.
It was even more than what he had gained in the past half month, so Ren gave up on the idea of continuing to step on people’s feet out on the street.
He quickly hailed a taxi and got in.
“To XX Residence.”
Seeing that his passenger seemed so anxious, the driver lowered the handbrake and slammed the accelerator.
The engine roared, the wheels spun, and the car shot forward several meters at once.
Ren immediately asked the driver to slow down.
After all, large trucks were everywhere.
Some time later, the taxi stopped in front of a luxurious and imposing villa.
It was not the villa from his childhood.
As a capitalist who had done every evil thing imaginable, Ren’s cheap father owned several villas in Tokyo.
After passing through the central hall, Ren rushed into his family’s private gym.
He pulled the curtains shut and confirmed that no one could see what was happening inside.
This was an iron rule all transmigrators shared without needing to discuss it: never let anyone discover you have a system.
Ren looked around the empty room and nodded.
But then he suddenly remembered something and casually lifted a section of a barbell onto his shoulder.
“I can only use it once a day, so I might as well test this too.”
Ren muttered to himself, his gaze sweeping over a corner of the room.
With a thought, his vision shifted.
The next second, he appeared in front of that corner.
The barbell in his hand was still there too.
Success.
And the effect far exceeded Ren’s expectations.
There was no startup delay when the skill activated.
After teleporting successfully, his body did not stiffen at all.
His thoughts had not been interrupted during the teleportation process either.
Rather than saying his body had moved over there, it felt more like the entire world had taken one step toward him.
The only unfortunate part was that the skill’s level was too low.
Because of that, the cooldown was far too long.
Once per day was practically useless.
“LV1.
At least it can be upgraded…
But why did it come out as LV1?”
The system said that the more intense the emotion, the greater the chance of getting a big prize.
Because of that, Ren was a little confused.
He had clearly used Anna’s most intense emotion, the [Love] that came from the strawberry sundae, for the draw.
“If it’s not because my luck is too bad, then it only proves that her love for strawberry sundaes wasn’t deep enough.”
Ren stroked his chin.
He decided to find a chance to test other delicious food later.
However, Ren also knew that the emotions he had collected earlier were all the kind that appeared today and might be completely forgotten tomorrow because of exhaustion or other worries.
As for intense emotion…
That probably referred to the kind of emotion someone could never forget for the rest of their life.
For example, an irreconcilable hatred from the murder of one’s father?
Or perhaps…
Love so deep it drove someone mad?
Ren suddenly felt like he understood.
He pulled open the curtains.
There was still quite some time before sunset, and the sunlight outside the window was bright.
But farther away, beyond his line of sight, dark clouds had already gathered over the other side of Tokyo.
The weather forecast had indeed mentioned there would be thunderstorms today, so Ren was not too worried that Matsuzaka Satou would run around everywhere just because she could not contact him.
But…
“Matsuzaka Satou…
Is she the Matsuzaka Satou from that anime I watched back in middle school?”
In truth, Ren knew he had transmigrated into an anime world.
After all, he could tell just from his fiancée’s name.
Shijou Maki.
A very famous losing heroine.
But Ren was not exactly a harcore anime fan.
In his previous life, he had been obsessed with studying, and after becoming an adult, he had been buried in work.
The only time he had to watch anime was that short period in middle school.
Even then, he had only picked a few niche series to watch, along with the insanely popular works from that era.
So at this point, it was already difficult for Ren to remember the things he had watched before.
After all, countless boats passed beside a sunken ship.
And now, even the world itself had changed.
…
Outside a train station in Tokyo, heavy rain poured down.
Branching lightning flashed through the clouds, and thunder roared beside people’s ears.
A little girl’s body trembled instinctively, and then she started crying.
The mother beside her quickly crouched down with a smile and comforted her.
Matsuzaka Satou stood not far away, holding her suitcase.
She calmly watched the mother and daughter, her pink eyes staring straight at them, slightly lost in thought.
Matsuzaka Satou was not afraid of thunder.
It was just that the thunder reminded her of someone.
Her aunt.
Her aunt had been taken away by the police for hiding a murderer.
On the day the police came, the criminal was still in their home, and he had a weapon in his hand, so the police used their guns.
Gunshots were much louder than thunder.
That was why Satou was not afraid of thunder.
But Satou was afraid of gunshots.
Because when the gunshots rang out, no one came to comfort her.
The police and the criminal were in a standoff, drawing guns and firing back and forth.
Her aunt, meanwhile, stood off to the side, covering her mouth with her bandage-wrapped hand and giggling as if watching a show.
She had always been like that.
No one and nothing could make her afraid.
However, when the police told her that she would be arrested and sent to prison too, a little panic did appear on her face.
But that was probably because her aunt knew she would never again be able to live as recklessly as before.
So panic was inevitable, right?
Satou did not know.
Or perhaps her aunt had thought of her cute niece, who had only just started school and would now have to live alone or be sent to an orphanage.
Was that why she showed that expression?
Satou thought that was impossible.
But when her aunt contacted people to find a guardian for her, she really did work hard.
“Satou is a good girl, you know!
She can already cook by herself!
If you take her in, she can cook for you!”
Are you trying to send me there as free labor?
But cooking…
Honestly, my current level is just heating up bentos in the microwave.
“Satou is very obedient, and her grades aren’t bad either.
She can tutor your child…
Eh?
They already got into university?
Then never mind.”
Mm.
If it were elementary school lessons, maybe I could.
The police and her aunt contacted many people one after another.
She heard they were all relatives and friends from her mother’s life.
But perhaps because she came from a criminal family, her aunt included, the search for a new guardian did not go well.
No one promised that they would definitely take Matsuzaka Satou in.
Every answer over the phone carried just the right amount of concern, along with the helplessness of not having spare money.
After all, living expenses were a huge problem.
Her aunt obviously had no money.
“Then I’ll find you a rich family!”
That was what her aunt told Satou.
Hehe.
“I don’t mind.”
Satou actually did not care that much about where she would live next.
After all, no matter how bad it was, it could not be worse than living in her aunt’s house, right?
How bad had it been?
Her aunt was very lazy, so ever since she was little, Satou had to wash her own clothes and clean the room herself.
Her aunt never prepared three meals a day regularly either.
Their daily living expenses were usually around 500 yen, so Satou had learned in elementary school to search through convenience stores that specialized in expired goods, looking for expired food to fill her stomach.
Satou still remembered one time when she ate canned food that had expired for too long and spent the entire night vomiting in the bathroom.
Yet her aunt was in the next room flirting and laughing with a man, completely ignoring the sound of vomiting outside.
Life had already been that difficult.
And that was not even mentioning her aunt’s twisted education about [Love].
Her aunt liked showing Satou the bandage-covered scars on her body as proof that she was loved by everyone.
“Satou-chan, this is love.”
Her aunt often liked saying that.
But even if her aunt had not repeated it so often, Satou would still have remembered those words forever.
It happened when she was little.
She once accidentally saw her aunt being beaten by a strange man until blood flowed from her nose.
But afterward, her aunt only smiled and wiped the blood from her body, then explained to the confused and frightened Satou.
“Satou-chan, this is love.”
What kind of messed-up love is that?
Because of that, Satou felt that anywhere was fine.
But unexpectedly, her aunt actually succeeded.
From who knew what genealogy record, she dug out an extremely rich zaibatsu relative who also happened to be very kind-hearted.
After hearing about Satou’s tragic situation, with both parents dead since childhood and her guardian thrown into prison, that relative immediately said this younger sister would be taken care of by her.
Although Satou had always been somewhat cautious about good fortune falling from the sky, after verifying things online and communicating with the police, she had no choice but to admit that her luck had truly turned around.
She had climbed onto a high branch.
That zaibatsu big sister would not only send her son to pick Satou up and bring her to Tokyo to live in a mansion, but also arrange for her to transfer into a prestigious school called Shuchiin.
Thinking of this, Satou took out her phone and pulled up the number that big sister had given her.
She stared at the string of digits and fell into thought.
“Big sister’s son…
In other words, am I an aunt now?
That seems like the same generation as my aunt.”
After realizing this, Satou’s expression moved slightly.
“Then I have to be a good auntie.
I can’t be like my aunt.”
Thunder rang out again.
The rain outside the station seemed to grow even heavier.
So Satou thought she would tell her nephew to come pick her up after the rain stopped.
After all, the rain was really heavy.
If he accidentally got soaked and caught a cold because of her, that would be bad.
She dialed the number.
“The number you have dialed is currently switched off or outside the service area.
Please try again later.”
?