Yasui rubbed the hilt of the knife with his thumb, his purple eyes half-lidded as they darted back and forth inside the dimly lit room.
He hadn’t turned on the main ceiling light, leaving only a small desk lamp by the bed.
Its warm yellow glow illuminated half of his face softly, while the other half remained hidden in shadow, his expression shifting between light and dark.
Thoughts spun round and round in his head.
If he could transfer this pain to someone else—no, transferring it to someone else was far too boring, too cliché.
Besides, why transfer it?
Wasn’t he relying on the pain to exchange for points in the first place?
But what if it were shared?
If he could share the pain with someone else, at least he would have a companion, a bit of psychological comfort.
Suffering alone was called misery; two people hurting together was called sharing hardships.
The nature of it was completely different.
Or even better…
If he could make the person hitting him hurt along with him, wouldn’t that fucking be…
Awesome!
An idea struck him.
In that instant, his expression looked as if he had just conceived the most brilliant prank in the entire world.
Those eyes, still glistening with tears, suddenly lit up—shining brilliantly in the dim glow of the desk lamp, absurdly bright, dangerously so.
“Hey~ System~”
He called out in his mind.
His voice trailed off into a soft, drawn-out lilt in his head, dripping with sweetness—though unfortunately, it was a razor blade coated in syrup.
[Present, Host.]
The System’s voice was forever in that exact same key—a nauseatingly greasy electronic tone with a built-in sycophancy.
Disgusting.
Every time Yasui heard it, he felt this System should go sell health supplements instead; it would easily pull in tens of millions a year.
“Little friend System.”
Yasui raised the boning knife before his eyes, inspecting the curve of the blade against the light of the desk lamp.
The blade was paper-thin, thin to the point of near transparency.
Light passed through the edge of the blade, casting a shadow on the wall so faint it was barely visible.
His tone carried an overly sweet friendliness, sweet enough to arouse suspicion.
If the System possessed human vigilance, it would have already started scanning its host’s brainwaves by now.
“I wonder if there’s something like pain sharing available?”
He deliberately enunciated the words “pain sharing” very softly and slowly, making it sound as if he were asking, “Is the candy sweet?”
The result, naturally, was sweet.
The System fell silent for a second.
That silence differed from the ones before—earlier it was helplessness, but this time it was a search query.
A second later, the electronic voice sounded, its tone carrying a subtle hint of delight.
[There is, Host.
There is.]
Yasui’s eyes lit up completely.
He sat up straight, crossed his legs, laid the knife across his knees, draped his hands over the hilt, and rested his chin on the back of his hands.
This posture resembled a child waiting to hear a bedtime story, except what he was waiting for wasn’t a fairytale, but a skill that could make people hurt together.
The System popped up an interface.
The translucent panel emitted a faint blue glow in the dim room, reflecting onto Yasui’s face and illuminating his smiling eyes until they sparkled brightly.
[Ability: Know Pain!]
[Price: 50 Points]
[Description: Unknown.
Please explore on your own.]
Yasui stared at that name for three seconds.
Then he burst out laughing.
It wasn’t a normal laugh, not the polite, restrained, socially appropriate chuckle.
It was the kind of laughter born from having an incomprehensible funny bone tickled—heartfelt and completely uncontrollable.
He fell backward onto the bed, burying his face in the blanket, his shoulders quivering as his laughter got muffled by the quilt into whimpering sounds, like some small animal happily rolling around in its den.
That boning knife was tossed aside by him, its tip sinking into the mattress and nearly stabbing his own leg, but he didn’t care in the slightest.
That iconic phrase—anyone who had watched even a little bit of Naruto knew it.
When Pain invaded Konoha, he descended from the sky, spread his arms, and delivered that legendary line.
“Know pain, contemplate pain, accept pain…”
His roommate in his past life had been a diehard Naruto fan, a terminal case of chuunibyou whose go-to catchphrase was precisely this dramatic speech.
He quoted it when he lost a video game, quoted it when he bombed an exam, and quoted it when he got rejected by a girl, brainwashing the entire dorm room in the process.
The System actually named a pain-sharing skill after Pain’s chuunibyou speech.
“You fucking…”
Yasui managed with great effort to raise his head from the blanket, the corners of his eyes wet once more.
He had laughed so hard just now that tears came out, glistening on his eyelashes, mixing with the tears shed earlier from the pain until it was impossible to tell which drop was which.
Of course, there was no need to separate pain and pleasure so distinctly anyway.
His voice still carried faint gasps from laughing too hard.
“Are you sick in the head?”
[The naming of all functions in this System has undergone strict review.]
The System’s electronic voice put on a formal tone, as though it were truly conducting official business.
Yet beneath that tone, there still lingered a nauseatingly thick lilt, paired with a touch of ill-intentioned humor.
It was like a person who knew full well they were spouting nonsense, yet insisted on telling it to you with a straight face.
“I yield, alright?”
Yasui sat up, raising a hand to casually wipe the corners of his eyes with his sleeve, rubbing away those few tears brought out by laughter.
Then he thoroughly reviewed the interface once more, sliding his finger through the void to flip open the skill’s detailed page.
Or tried to flip it open.
The details page contained only a name and a price; the rest was entirely blank, without even a single parenthetical note.
50 points.
The description column was blank—it was unknown, a “please explore on your own.”
Based on his understanding of the System, a blank description column usually meant two scenarios: either it was too simple to require a description, like straightforward, self-explanatory things such as “Strength Boost” or “Speed Boost.”
Or the effect was so atrocious that it was embarrassed to write it down—for instance, discovering after purchase that there were hidden side effects, weird usage restrictions, or add-on clauses that made one want to curse its ancestors.
This ability was clearly not the first kind.
“Where’s the description?”
He asked, his tone carrying a calm that said “I’m already prepared to be scammed by you.”
[The effect is as indicated by the name.]
The System’s reply was airtight.
“Spell it out clearly, will you?
What do you mean by ‘Know Pain’?
Is it Pain’s actual ‘Know Pain,’ or is it just some weird scam?” Yasui pressed.
This had to be clarified—if he spent 50 points only to buy back a joke, that would be ridiculous.
Although he felt the System wouldn’t be that boring, it wasn’t entirely impossible either.
[The former.]
The System gave an affirmative answer.
“Feel pain…
pain sharing?”
Yasui confirmed.
His fingers tapped lightly twice against his knee, his purple eyes narrowing slightly as his brain already began simulating various usage scenarios.
“You’re not pulling a bait-and-switch on me, are you?
Don’t tell me after I buy it, you’ll inform me that ‘Know Pain’ just means summoning a giant bag of rice to smash people with.
That would be hilarious.”
[No, Host.]
The System’s tone took on an imperceptible trace of smugness.
[This System has always operated with integrity.]
Yasui automatically ignored the second half of the sentence.
He thought for a moment, then asked again: “What about the sharing ratio?
The range?
Distance limits?
Any side effects?
Who does it work on?
How is it triggered?”
He asked a string of questions in a single breath, his speaking speed several times faster than usual.
His purple eyes focused intently on the floating translucent panel before him, that lazy, completely unbothered demeanor vanishing entirely, replaced by pure delight.
50 points was no small sum, but if it could truly be used to seek entertainment, that would be fantastic~
The System fell quiet for two seconds, as if organizing its answers.
That brief data-processing time was merely a blink of an eye in human perception, but Yasui felt it was definitely pausing on purpose to make itself look professional.
[The core effect of this ability is: share the pain borne by the Host to a designated target in a certain proportion.
No distance limits.
Can be actively triggered or set with automatic trigger conditions.] The System’s voice was steady and formal.
No distance limits.
Those three words caused Yasui’s eyebrows to twitch upward.
Which meant that even if the person hitting him was far away in Kyoto, as long as the sharing was triggered, the pain that was meant to hurt would hurt all the same.
This range was a bit exaggerated.
“A certain proportion?
How much is ‘a certain’?” he pressed, his fingers ceasing their tapping.
[The base sharing ratio is ten percent.]
After saying this, the System made a subtle pause, then appended a sentence that made the corners of Yasui’s mouth curl up madly.
[It can be increased according to the Host’s preference, up to a maximum of one hundred percent—as long as you wish.]
Oho.
One hundred percent.
Which meant if he took a knife slash, the opponent took a knife slash too.
If he hurt a hundred times over, the opponent hurt a hundred times over as well.
If he shed tears, the opponent had to shed them too.
If he curled up on the bed waiting for the tide of pain to recede, the opponent had to find a spot to crouch as well.
Equal distribution of favors, universal harmony—nobody even think of escaping.
Ah, the idiom didn’t seem to be used that way.
Whatever, doesn’t matter.
This ability was awesome.
Yasui sat cross-legged on the bed, hands draped over his knees with his chin resting on the back of his hands.
The curve of his mouth curled up bit by bit, reaching an angle that could be called radiant.
Those purple eyes reflected the blue glow of the System panel.
50 points.
Worth it.
With almost zero hesitation, he raised his hand and tapped the translucent purchase button.
The instant his fingertip touched the panel, a faint blue light flashed, and the point balance in the System Shop jumped from 306 down to 256.
At the same time, the point deduction chime rang out in his mind with a ding-dong, crisp and pleasant to the ear.
Immediately after, a surge of new information flooded into his consciousness.
Detailed explanations of the ability, usage methods, trigger conditions—all the content the System hadn’t written in the description column earlier was directly stamped into his brain at this very moment.
This sensation of knowledge infusion was quite magical, as if he had known it all along and had simply recalled it just now.
He closed his eyes, taking a few seconds to digest the information before opening them again.
In those purple eyes, that sheen of tear mist hadn’t completely dried, yet the smile within was full to the point of overflowing.
On the day Jujutsu High’s term started, he really wanted to find someone to beat him up.
Should he go provoke Gojo the cat?
He flopped back onto the bed, pulling the blanket up to his chin, staring at the lamp on the ceiling as he plotted the application schemes for this new ability in his head.
How to select the target for sharing, what ratio was appropriate to set, whether to turn on automatic triggering, and if turned on, what conditions to set.
Trigger when attacked by Cursed Energy?
Trigger when touched with malice?
Or simply set it to “trigger whenever injured”?
There were far too many ways to play; just thinking about it filled the future with anticipation.
He even began to feel a subtle trace of sympathy for those who might have to hit him in the future.
Not much, just a sliver.
Mostly, it was pure pleasure and anticipation.