Inside the car heading toward Sobu High, Hiratsuka Shizuka kept glancing at Higashino Akira in the driver’s seat.
She looked like she wanted to say something, then swallowed it, only for the urge to speak to rise again a moment later.
“Just say it if you’ve got something to say.” Akira could hardly stand seeing the usually straightforward Shizuka acting like this.
Hearing that, Shizuka seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.
“Higashino, your little sister is really strange.” “Got a reason for saying that?” “Uh, not exactly… It’s just… mm…” Shizuka hesitated, clearly too embarrassed to go into detail.
“Forget it.
Anyway, you should probably pay more attention to her.” She fumbled over her words, unable to explain properly.
After all, what happened that morning was honestly mortifying.
Who would have thought that even as a teacher, she could get swept up in chuunibyou nonsense and mistake herself for someone who had awakened superpowers?
But what exactly was going on with that kid?
There was nothing wrong with her body.
She could clearly see and hear.
Yet somehow, she had managed to pretend she knew nothing without showing the slightest flaw.
It was her own home, but no matter how Shizuka tested her, the girl stayed completely unmoved.
She did not answer a single word and acted so naturally the whole time.
And her reaction at the end had obviously shown that she was badly startled when Higashino Akira spoke to Shizuka.
Even after thinking about it for a long time afterward, Shizuka still could not make sense of it.
It could not be that the girl had mistaken her for some filthy thing from the very beginning, right?
Ridiculous.
Akira gave her a speechless glance.
Why did this woman always dangle people’s curiosity and then refuse to explain?
“By the way, why did you go out of your way to drive me here?” Shizuka stiffly tried to change the topic.
Akira sighed.
“I was afraid you’d drive your car into a ditch, then come back and scam me afterward.” “Bullshit!” Shizuka’s fist tightened.
“Alright, actually, my heart has been fluttering lately, and I want to find a JK to have a relationship that is both pure and material.” Shizuka gave him a dry, humorless laugh.
“Then puberty sure came late for you!” “My family has no connections, so they can’t arrange a decent internship that matches my major.
I can only struggle on my own, inspect the market, and prepare to start a business.” “Starting a business?
That won’t be easy.
Be careful you don’t lose yourself along with the money.” Shizuka sounded a little worried about him.
Starting a business was never simple.
But their teacher-student relationship was already in the past and long expired, so she was not in a position to stop him.
All she could do was remind him to watch the risks.
Sometimes, telling the truth only made people less likely to believe you.
Honestly, with the system backing him, Akira was not worried about failure.
Even if things really did go wrong, he could quickly start over again with the system.
As for what he was going to do, that was still undecided.
At first, Akira had planned to mortgage the house and borrow a sum of money.
Then he would use that loan to buy houses and land on installments, before repeating the process by using the new properties as collateral for more funds.
As long as the real estate was nominally under his sovereignty, it would satisfy the requirements of the Expand Your Territory quest, and the system’s daily rewards would be enough to keep up with the monthly repayments.
Unfortunately, after looking into it carefully, he discovered that this kind of scheme was basically very difficult to pull off.
Modern banks already had a strict and complete review process for loans.
Besides, those people had always been good at lending umbrellas on sunny days and taking them back when it rained.
To make this kind of thing work, just how strong would his connections inside the banking system need to be?
In any case, Akira did not have President’s abilities.
With limited funds, how to maximize his benefits still required more thought.
They chatted along the way until Akira drove the car to a parking lot near Sobu High.
After returning the keys to Shizuka, the two parted ways on the spot.
Shizuka entered the school to prepare for class, while Akira stayed outside and found a nearby restaurant.
He chose a window seat, ordered a drink, and quietly waited.
At present, it was already known that characters who had appeared in anime generally had higher fortune than most ordinary passersby.
And with less than two days left on the mission countdown, Akira clearly no longer wanted to randomly try his luck.
Nor did he have any intention of honestly dating anyone.
Before long, just as class was about to start, a tired-looking figure slowly approached from a distance, arriving right at the last moment.
Knock, knock— When the other party passed by the window, Akira lightly knocked on the glass and drew her attention.
Then he held up his phone toward her.
On the screen was a photo of her working late at night in a high-end bar.
Akira beckoned to her, signaling for her to come inside.
With leverage in someone else’s hands, Kawasaki Saki did not dare simply walk away.
She could only enter the chain restaurant with a sour little cat-like expression.
“What do you want?” Her tone was terrible.
She had an impression of this man.
Last night, he had accompanied Hiratsuka-sensei to the place where she worked part-time and drank there.
At the time, she had done her best to avoid the two of them, but she had still been discovered in the end.
“Have you eaten breakfast?” Akira did not rush into the main topic.
“None of your business.
Say what you want and get it over with.
Don’t expect me to agree to anything unreasonable.” Kawasaki Saki was not buying that approach at all.
Hearing that, Akira nodded.
“So even if the school advises you to withdraw, you don’t care?” Saki turned her face away.
“Yeah!” “You’re working late at night in a place forbidden by the school, then dragging yourself back to class during the day even though you’re this exhausted.
That clearly means you still care about your studies.
Your actions don’t look nearly as indifferent as your words.” Akira spoke one sentence after another, and with every sentence, Saki’s expression grew uglier.
“Excessive part-time hours.
Falsified age.
You may even have lied about your identity.
You need money badly.” “Did you come here just to show off your superior intelligence or your sharp observation skills?” “Quite the opposite.
I admire you.” Akira looked calmly at Kawasaki Saki.
“A beautiful face, unyielding effort, mixed with a touch of overconfident foolishness—the whole person appears both clumsy and cute, sensitive yet soft.” “Y-Y-Y-You…!
What is wrong with you?!
Who’s awkward?!
What are you even saying?!” Under Akira’s direct praise, Kawasaki Saki’s face suddenly flushed red.
In an instant, her cold mask slipped away, and she became much softer.
She stared at the man in disbelief, stammering out a protest that had no bite and had already lost most of its logic.
How cute.
“No question about it.
I think highly of you, Kawasaki Saki-san.” “If you keep going like this, even if I help keep your secret, reversing day and night will only lead to one result.
Not only will you fail to protect your studies, your body may collapse under the strain as well.
Then your family’s finances, which probably aren’t comfortable to begin with, will only get worse.” “So, do you want to make a deal?” Kawasaki Saki clearly had not caught up with this sudden turn yet.
“What?” Akira looked at her and said seriously: “Sell your life to me.” “Become mine.
Then, you can still go to school and make friends; you won’t have to make your family worry anymore, nor will you need to be exhausted and sleepy every day.
You will be able to afford to help out at home, and you can still join your friends to sing karaoke, go shopping, and enjoy good food.” …
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