So, being reborn in Tokyo really did mean dead parents, a little sister, and a house were the true marks of a protagonist, huh?
In the modest living room, the lingering scent of burnt incense clung to the air and refused to fade.
Beside him, soft sobs rose and fell in broken little intervals.
Higashino Akira stared past the thin smoke curling above the incense burner, his gaze settling on the black-and-white memorial photo placed at the center of the altar before slowly going blank.
[Emperor: Higashino Akira] [Spirit: 9] [Physique: 6] [Authorities: Aura Reading, Imperial Investiture] [Territory: 100.3 square meters] It had all started with a phone call seven days ago.
The caller informed him that his deadbeat father—the man everyone back in the neighborhood had treated as dead for the last twenty-something years—had actually died this time.
And dying alongside that old man was a Tokyo woman Akira had never even met.
According to the police investigation, the two of them had been on their way to register their marriage.
They had apparently looked far too happy, hugging and clinging to each other right outside the ward office, and ended up provoking a man nearby who had just gotten divorced, gone bankrupt, and was preparing to take revenge on his ex-wife.
On impulse, the man stabbed them too.
Legally speaking, Akira now had to decide whether to inherit his father’s estate.
The inheritance consisted roughly of a standard detached house sitting on a plot of about one hundred square meters, plus several hundred thousand yen in liquid cash left over after the funeral expenses and inheritance tax.
And also, the Tokyo woman’s high school daughter.
Honestly, the girl could not even really be considered his little sister.
After all, the old man and that Tokyo woman had not even finished registering their marriage.
However, the old man had left behind a strange will.
If his son refused to care for this “little sister,” then Akira would be treated as having automatically forfeited his inheritance rights.
The estate would then pass down the line to some distant relatives who were practically strangers, or even to the Tokyo woman’s relatives, and all they had to do in exchange was be willing to look after a high school girl for a few years.
As for his old man, Akira could not say he hated him, nor could he say he felt grateful.
But he had no intention of giving up the inheritance.
This was Tokyo, where every inch of land cost a fortune.
Including the land itself, this detached house was worth at least one hundred million yen, which was roughly the amount a fresh university graduate would only be able to save after entering the workforce and grinding away for almost thirty years without eating or drinking.
A person could not give up money just because of a little inconvenience, right?
After rushing around for several days and finally completing the funeral procedures, the moment the house officially passed into his name, something resembling a system panel appeared.
[Congratulations, Host.
You now possess a sovereign territory that belongs entirely to you.
The Eternal Emperor System has been successfully activated.] [Permanent Main Quest Unlocked: Expand Your Territory (In Progress).
Land is wealth.
For every square meter of territory expanded, reward: daily money +100.] [As the emperor, please build your imperial residence as soon as possible to anchor your fortune.
Reward: daily fortune +1000.
(Completed)] Akira had already been in this world for twenty-one years.
From the hopeful anticipation at the very beginning, to eventually giving up on fantasies and forcing himself to study, he had never imagined that the standard transmigrator cheat he had once wanted most would appear in this kind of way.
What if he had not inherited the estate?
What if he had obediently finished university, prepared for the civil service exam, then taken out a mortgage to buy a home?
And considering Japan’s general situation, there were plenty of people who spent their entire lives renting without ever buying a house or land.
Would that not mean his system might have activated ten years later, or maybe never at all?
Fortunately, heaven never truly sealed off every path.
In the end, his situation had taken an unexpected turn.
As the saying went, when the tide rises over Tokyo Bay, only today do I finally know who I am!
Closing the system panel, Akira turned to look at the little girl beside him.
Her eyes were red and swollen from crying, and although she looked utterly miserable, she could still be considered a pretty girl for the time being.
“If I remember correctly, your name is Yotsuya Miko.
From now on, is it fine if I just call you Miko?” Hearing the question, Yotsuya Miko sniffled and quickly shook her head.
“That’s fine, Onii-chan.” This was the first proper conversation the two of them had held over the past few days.
Akira paid no mind to the slightly calculating way the teenage girl deliberately used such a cutesy form of address.
Instead, he was thinking about how oddly familiar her name sounded.
A long time ago, ever since he learned that this world had the Shinomiya Group, and that one of his high school classmates was named Yukinoshita Haruno, he had already realized that he had transmigrated into a mixed anime world.
Perhaps he had met other anime characters before, or other people tied to certain series.
Unfortunately, Akira had not watched every anime out there.
Not to mention, after his previous life began going head-to-head with reality, the number of anime he watched only grew smaller and smaller.
Even his crunchyroll subscription gradually lost its appeal.
Sometimes, even when he came across clips from some anime, he could no longer muster the motivation to actually follow the series.
Theoretically speaking, if the name Yotsuya Miko sounded familiar enough to leave an impression, then she was very likely a character from some anime.
She might even be the protagonist.
Unfortunately, there were probably too many protagonists in this world.
At this point, it was hard to say whether the protagonist of any given anime still had something like a protagonist halo in a world like this.
Besides, when it came to characters he did not understand, Akira was unwilling to be overly optimistic about someone else’s personality or attitude.
“According to the requirements of the will, I’ll be serving as your guardian from now on.
So you don’t need to worry about money.
If you have the talent for it, I’ll cover your reasonable living expenses and tuition until you finish university.” In other words, if she had no talent for studying, his financial support would stop after she graduated high school.
The girl lowered her head slightly and answered in a quiet voice.
Perhaps she had remembered the warmth of the days when her family had still been alive, because the sorrow in her voice was impossible to hide.
“I understand, Onii-chan.” “In that case, it’s already getting late.
I remember your break should be ending today, so go rest early in a bit.” Late at night, Akira lay alone on the large bed in the master bedroom of the detached house, holding his phone as he looked through his classmates’ internship updates on social media.
He was not in any hurry to sleep.
After all, as a university student currently in his internship period, all he needed to worry about was eventually producing internship results good enough to graduate.
Compared to Miko, who was still in high school, he could take far more time off.
Then midnight arrived.
Akira’s phone suddenly vibrated.
A transfer notification popped up, followed immediately by two short messages from a senior in his club.
[Dreaming of Becoming a Rich Tokyo Lady: I forgot to tell you during the day.
A new underclassman came to visit the club today and took a liking to that calligraphy piece you made before.
She bought it for ten thousand yen.] [Dreaming of Becoming a Rich Tokyo Lady: I asked your advisor, and apparently you won’t be returning to school to report in until next month, so I transferred the money straight to you.
Congratulations, you’re one step closer to becoming a great calligrapher.] Back then, Akira had only joined Reio University’s calligraphy club to fit in.
He was not exactly diligent when it came to practicing calligraphy.
Although the club did occasionally sell works to students who liked collecting them, to be honest, there were plenty of students whose calligraphy was better than his.
No matter how he thought about it, this sort of thing should not normally have fallen to him.
And yet the amount was exactly ten thousand yen, not a single yen more or less.
It perfectly matched the system’s daily reward for his one hundred square meters of territory.
Akira understood.
This was probably the system exerting its power.
He just had not expected the money to be delivered to him through such a coincidental yet relatively reasonable method, one that even came with an explainable source.
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