The gifts were nothing particularly expensive, just a few small accessories and postcards.
Still, the thought behind them made Utaha and Michiru genuinely happy.
Once that was taken care of, Saku took a shower and returned to his room.
He'd already relaxed for three days.
It was time to get back to work.
Romance and beautiful girls were wonderful, but those pleasures were temporary. His career was what truly mattered.
Saku still understood the difference between having something for a moment and securing it for a lifetime.
His invincible "little brother" had already been dispatched to garrison Jingzhou, and wouldn't be making another appearance anytime soon. Unless someone deliberately tried to flood the seven armies, there was no reason to deploy his little brother to battle.
At least, that was the plan.
Reality didn't always cooperate.
He had barely switched on his computer and hadn't even gotten the chance to test his newly upgraded Programmer's Heart when his bedroom door opened.
Utaha slipped inside suspiciously, then immediately locked the door behind her.
The moment she entered, her gaze landed on the bed.
There were several decorations there that clearly didn't belong in a boy's room.
Anyone could tell Mai had left them behind.
Utaha's jealousy instantly flared.
Then her eyes darted around and a wonderful idea occurred to her.
This was Mai's bed, right? So if she and Saku did it on here... wouldn't that count as NTR?
"Utaha? Why are you here?"
"Don't ask."
She walked straight toward him.
"Kiss me."
Utaha leaned closer, fully expecting Saku to cooperate.
Instead, he gently pushed her back.
"Nope. Ceasefire today! My little brother's been dispatched to garrison Jingzhou."
"Huh?"
Utaha puffed out her cheeks, looking at Saku in disbelief. Was this really a man?
"Why?"
She looked genuinely aggrieved.
"Do you have any idea how much I missed you? I don't want to be apart from you for even a second. I just want to—"
"BEEEEEP—!"
Saku stared at her.
"What the hell did you just say?"
Even the world's censorship system had apparently stepped in.
He hadn't heard the actual words, but judging from the result, they were probably pretty pornographic.
"Utaha."
Saku sighed.
"We have a very, very long future ahead of us. There's no need to obsess over a little happiness right now."
"Instead, shouldn't we focus on building our careers together?"
Utaha shook her head vigorously.
Nope.
Not listening.
As far as she was concerned, Saku currently sounded like a monk chanting scripture.
After finally closing so much of the distance between them, Utaha had become completely addicted to the taste — her body had already been shaped to Saku's form. There was nothing else in her mind.
In other words, her love brain had kicked in.
Seeing that Utaha was completely unmovable and only wanted lewd things, Saku had no choice but to bring out his trump card.
Special Achievement: Dream's Charisma.
He began painting a picture of their future.
"Think about it."
"If we only chase immediate happiness now, but I end up spending the rest of my life buried in work just to make ends meet, we'll barely have any time together."
"But if we endure a little now and focus on our careers..."
Saku's voice gradually gained momentum.
"Once we've succeeded, maybe by the time we're thirty, we won't have to spend our lives chasing money anymore."
"We could travel wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted."
"We could actually enjoy life together."
Then Saku got carried away.
"And when I see others stuck home alone with empty rooms, I could be the Old Wang next door..."
Saku suddenly realized what he was saying and hastily clapped his hand over his mouth.
'How did I say my inner thoughts out loud? Miscalculation, miscalculation. Hopefully Utaha didn't catch that.'
Fortunately, Utaha hadn't caught the strange final implication.
Under the influence of Dream's Charisma, her love-addled state gradually receded.
Her ambition returned.
And when Saku presented her with two completely different futures, the answer suddenly seemed obvious.
A little immediate happiness was tempting.
But if indulging themselves now meant neglecting their careers and eventually being forced apart by work, that wasn't the future Utaha wanted.
She wanted to work hard with Saku.
She wanted them to earn more money than they knew what to do with.
Then, one day, they could stop struggling entirely.
They could lie flat and live a shameless, indecent life with Saku.
How should she choose?
There was no longer anything to think about.
"Mm."
Utaha nodded firmly.
"Saku-kun is right."
"This isn't the time to start enjoying the rewards yet. We need discipline."
The haze in her eyes disappeared, replaced by determination.
"I'll work hard."
"Together with you, Saku-kun."
"We'll reach the top."
Even so, before leaving, Utaha launched one final surprise attack and stole a kiss.
Only then did she leave Saku's room.
At that moment, her mind contained nothing but dreams and ambition.
Terrifyingly rational.
"Phew! Good thing I didn't need to deploy any troops."
Saku exhaled in relief.
It wasn't that he truly resisted — after all, with youthful vigor, the inner fire was easy to stir up. Sometimes you just needed to drink some herbal tea and cool the fire down.
But being consumed by that kind of pleasure every day wasn't what Saku wanted.
After all, that wasn't true pleasure — ultimately, it was just a narrow understanding of it. As a proper practitioner of pleasure, Saku was ashamed to settle for so little.
Besides, he needed to adjust his state of mind, and he couldn't allow himself to sink into such things.
Once Utaha was gone, Saku finally began testing his new ability.
Programmer's Heart was genuinely powerful.
In fact, it seemed even stronger than the system's description had suggested.
The sensation was almost addictive.
He could look at a problem once, immediately identify what was wrong, generate several possible solutions, then refine those solutions almost instantly.
The ability had completely eliminated the fatigue and drowsiness he used to experience while coding.
More surprisingly, it seemed to have indirectly enhanced his thinking speed.
According to the description, the full effect was only supposed to activate while working on programming-related problems.
Yet even outside those situations, Saku could tell his thoughts were moving much faster than before.
Put simply, it felt as though someone had replaced the processor inside his brain with a significantly better one.
Combined with the no-fatigue bonus, the improvement was absurd.
Saku now genuinely possessed the productivity of an entire professional team by himself.
In a sense, it was already approaching a superpower.
Wanting to test its limits, he tried several activities that weren't directly related to programming.
Drawing.
Modeling.
Writing.
To his surprise, Programmer's Heart helped with all of them.
The effect simply wasn't as dramatic.
After some thought, Saku understood why.
Anything created or processed on a computer ultimately became binary data at the lowest level.
All of those tasks were still being carried out through software.
As long as the work remained computer-based, Programmer's Heart could exert at least some influence.
The difference was that his brain couldn't automatically generate complete answers for those fields the same way it could with programming.
Saku first needed a clear understanding of what he wanted to accomplish.
Only then could the ability assist him.
Programming was like full automation.
Saku barely needed to think before the ability started optimizing everything on its own.
Other computer-based work was more like manual control.
He had to remain actively involved throughout the process, while the ability provided support.
Even with that limitation, Saku still thought the skill was absurdly overpowered.
And this was only an SSR-Rank ability.
What would happen if he someday pulled a UR-Rank reward?
Saku almost couldn't imagine it.
Maybe genuine supernatural abilities really were possible.
Whether they existed or not, he'd find out eventually.
After all...
A person needed dreams.
...
Time quietly slipped away while Saku immersed himself in work.
By the time he was completely absorbed in the pleasure of productivity, Mai had also returned.
She'd originally planned to come back immediately after finishing her work in Tokyo.
Unfortunately, her younger sister, Toyohama Nodoka, had unexpectedly shown up and asked to stay with Mai for a few days.
That delayed Mai's schedule.
Only now had she finally found the chance to return to Saku's house.
…