Whether it was because he'd been getting bitten a little too enthusiastically these past couple of days or not, Yūto Shō couldn't say — but lo and behold, today's shop lineup coughed up a real oddball: Cock Toughness Technique. Weird as it was, after mulling it over, he decided to pull the trigger and buy it anyway.
Three hundred points amounted to barely a day's income for him, and this junk-hardening jutsu could singlehandedly save him from the tragic fate of becoming a eunuch. The cost-to-benefit ratio was, frankly, S-tier.
After all, he bullied girls on the regular. If even one of the girls he'd broken down badly enough decided to hold a grudge and, mid-act, went full Ramsay Bolton with her teeth — well, his entire scumbag career arc would flatline right there in the finale.
The skill did exactly what it said on the tin: when crisis reared its head, his little buddy downstairs would gain a boost in tensile toughness, no longer doomed to the guillotine of a pair of molars. Genuinely useful, all things considered.
Pair this passive with his Vitals Evasion skill, and Yūto Shō figured he could pretty much sleep easy knowing his family jewels were insured against catastrophe.
After grabbing that one, Yūto Shō also snagged another dose of the Stamina Elixir. As for Hypnosis — a skill capable of causing genuine society-wide ripple effects — for now he could only window-shop and drool, because that bad boy demanded a jaw-dropping fifty thousand points.
Purchase confirmed, and a warm tingle radiated through his lower half. He glanced down to inspect the merchandise but couldn't spot any visible difference. Not that he had any intention of Naruto-running headfirst into a wall to test the durability firsthand, mind you.
Then Yūto Shō took stock of his current inventory and skillset.
Scum Points remaining: 2,450.
Skills unlocked: Enhanced Olfaction, Vitals Evasion, Cock Toughness Technique.
Items in inventory: 1x Hemostatic Bandage, Lust Marker, 1x Miraculous Eraser, 10x Perfect Contraceptive Pills, 1x Bone-Softening Sinew-Melting Pill, 9x Stamina Elixir, 1x Lactation Experience Card.
Right on cue, his phone rang. Yūto Shō glanced at the screen and clocked Sato Ruri's name flashing. After a beat of consideration, he swiped to answer.
The line connected — but no voice came through immediately. Through the receiver he could just barely make out the girl's tense, uneven breathing, the kind of breath somebody takes when they've dialed a number without a script prepared.
Fine. If she wasn't going to speak, then neither was he. Standoff mode: engaged. He'd wait her out like it was a Gojo–Sukuna staring contest.
After what felt like an eternity, Sato Ruri finally cracked. "Are you… listening?"
"Mm-hmm. I'm here."
"Then why aren't you saying anything?"
"I was waiting for you to talk first."
Hearing Yūto Shō's dead-serious reply, the girl was momentarily struck speechless. Then she heard him add, "What's up? Calling me this late — miss me or something?"
"Pffft — as if. Who'd miss you." She spat the words out, hesitated a heartbeat, then muttered, "Kirei-chan said you chipped in on the apples. I ate one. It was… decent, I guess."
Her tone was carefully packaged in an I-couldn't-care-less wrapper, but if she truly didn't care she wouldn't be dialing him at damn near midnight just to file a status report.
Except that wasn't what caught Yūto Shō's attention. His expression twisted into something odd. That bag of apples — the same one he'd defiled and Kirei Ryu had "conveniently" wiped clean — Kirei Ryu had actually gone and handed off to Sato Ruri. To eat.
Did this girl have some kind of vendetta against Sato Ruri? Weren't they supposed to be besties, thick as thieves?
Fake-friend energy. Certified plastic-sisters behavior straight out of Mean Girls.
While Yūto Shō chewed on that bizarre revelation, the girl on the other end — not hearing him respond — was already spiraling into a full mortification loop. She stammered, voice pitching into panic, "Okay, well, it's late, I need to sleep. Hanging up now—"
Yūto Shō snapped back to attention. "Wait."
"W-what is it?" the girl asked, jittery as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
Yūto Shō softened his voice into something almost tender. "Does it still hurt down there?"
Sato Ruri made a scandalized little hiss. "I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about."
"I'm sorry, you know? I got carried away that day. I've been worried I hurt you." Yūto Shō exhaled a slow, aching sigh, laying the sincerity on thick as Nutella.
"…Kohn, kohn." A sudden fit of coughing burst through the receiver — she sounded genuinely rattled — followed by a burst of muffled scrambling static as she fumbled the phone.
A moment later, he heard her voice drop to barely above a whisper. "…It's nothing serious anymore."
"So you'll be back at school tomorrow?" Yūto Shō pressed.
"Probably, yeah." Her tone had brightened, tipping her hand — she sounded a little too pleased about it.
Then Yūto Shō's mouth curled into a mischievous grin. "Which means we get to see each other again tomorrow, huh? Guess I'll have plenty of chances to do all kinds of naughty, embarrassing things to you—"
Sato Ruri's eyes went glassy for a full second. Then the meaning of what he'd said finally registered, and her chest heaved up and down like a bellows. Through gritted teeth she snarled, "You mega-pervert — go rot in hell already!"
Having spat her fury into the receiver, Sato Ruri slammed the phone down and immediately… sat there. Staring at it.
Her cheeks blazed cherry-red. She pressed a hand over the swell of her chest and could feel her heart hammering like a taiko drum solo, some strange, unfamiliar emotion fermenting beneath her ribs.
The sensation, honestly, had started the second the thought of calling Yūto Shō had first flickered into her head. The instant she heard his voice, her heart had reflexively lit up with this mortifying blend of happiness and nerves. She'd genuinely forgotten how to string words together.
Why was she reacting like this?
The girl posed the question to herself — but she vaguely already knew the answer.
After that night, that jerk hadn't so much as sent her a single "hey, you okay?" text. And yet she — because Kirei Ryu had let slip one throwaway comment — had gone ahead and shamelessly, giddily, dialed him up first, tail wagging like some love-struck idiot.
She was acting exactly like a maiden with a crush. A total shoujo protagonist. Yumeko-tier delusional.
The moment the phrase "maiden's crush" surfaced in her head, her face burned even hotter. Involuntarily, her mind wandered back to that night — being shoved down onto the bed by Yūto Shō, being toyed with however he pleased, her pleas for mercy ignored as he'd forced his way inside her with brutish, unrelenting thrusts, pounding her until finally emptying himself deep inside her body.
Recalling those images, the girl's cheeks scorched, her heart drummed dokun-dokun-dokun against her ribs, her breath went ragged, and for a moment she straight-up short-circuited, dazed and slack-jawed.
She stayed like that for a long, long stretch before slowly climbing back down to earth. And when she did, an inexplicable, dangerous thought began to bloom in her chest — and once it surfaced, there was no shoving it back into the box.
Almost trembling with excitement, she scooted over to her desk, sat down at the computer, and opened up a Q&A platform. Her fingers flew across the keys as she hammered out post after post.
She fired off three in quick succession.
"There's this boy who bullies me all the time. Can I still date him?"
"My boyfriend is a total pervert. What should I do?"
"If you date a pervert, what should you watch out for?"
The posts had barely gone live when replies started rolling in.
Sato Ruri clicked on the first and saw a reply from a user named "Lelouch Is Your Master No. 98."
"Nah, don't do it. Dude's literally bullying you and you still wanna date him? That's straight-up masochism, sis."
Sato Ruri bristled, temper rising, and clicked into her second post. Same user again: "Lelouch Is Your Master No. 98."
"Recommendation: dump him immediately."
Third post. Still that same "Lelouch Is Your Master No. 98."
"Recommendation: do not date him."
"Recommendation: shove your recommendations up your ass!"
Unable to stop herself, she pettily fired off that reply and then blackholed the account faster than an isekai truck. What the actual hell was up with this person? Constantly harassing her online, no matter how many times she blocked them, they always crawled back with a new alt — the smurf number had already climbed to freaking ninety-eight.
To keep this creep from ruining her night any further, she nuked all three of her own posts and then just… sat there. Blankly. Frozen at her keyboard, unsure of what to do next.
A moment later, a spark of resolve lit up in her chest. She opened a fresh document on her desktop and typed out a title with grim determination: Scumbag Rehabilitation Project.
Step One: Understand him.
Not far from her building, in another apartment nestled a few blocks over — inside a bedroom drenched in girlish knickknacks and pastel plushies — Kirei Ryu was sprawled belly-down across her bed, thumbing at her phone with barely-contained glee, refreshing the feed and waiting for her target to drop another post. Her current display name blinked innocently on the screen: "Lelouch Is Your Master No. 99."