Issei Hyoudou... that was his name.
Every day followed the same dull pattern: go to school, do boring shit, and complain about how completely ass his life was.
Everything felt like a chore.
Attending school alone consumed almost half of his existence.
Then he had to sit through lessons from some old male teacher instead of the beautiful women he always saw in hentai and dramas.
The worst part was the homework assignments that ate up whatever free time he had left, forcing him to repeat things he had already learned in class and stealing hours of sleep he desperately needed.
As if that wasn't enough, his two so-called friends constantly borrowed money from him and never returned a single yen.
Where was the part of the story where a bully confronted him in the locker room, he fought back, and suddenly the most beautiful girl in school, the cheerleader and girlfriend of that same bully took an interest in him?
They were supposed to talk, grow close, fall into bed together, and become partners in crime.
Instead, what did he get?
A balding old teacher and soul-crushing, boring lessons.
No romance.
No real prospects for the future.
Just endless assessments and shitty people filling an already shitty life.
Looking at all of this, Issei Hyoudou came to a clear conclusion: the real world was a lost cause.
He would never go to college or slave away in some corporation for the rest of his life.
So he decided to throw himself completely into the internet and the digital world, the only place that seemed to offer an escape from everything.
He started as a gamer and eventually became a pro player. He was genuinely good at it and earned a solid amount of money from championships.
When that no longer felt like enough, he tried becoming his own boss by creating a private server.
In the end, almost no one played his game, so he shut it down.
Maybe he simply wasn't talented enough as a game developer.
Even being a gamer eventually grew boring.
Most modern games weren't challenging or realistic enough for him.
They also weren't fantastic or free enough, the kind of games where he could ride a dragon through the sky and bang beautiful NPC girls without restriction.
That was the real fantasy.
What existed now was a wasteland of heavy censorship, greedy corporations, and banks, the most corrupt institutions on the planet controlling everything.
Issei hoped they would all go to hell, along with the government that loved censoring everything he enjoyed while taxing his income.
Fuck them.
He was still teenager, and they already treated his money as something they could freely take.
He didn't even care that much about the money itself being stolen.
What truly pissed him off was that they gave nothing in return and then had the audacity to censor the very things he loved.
That was why he held zero affection for the government.
He hated capitalists for the same reason, not just because they were greedy as hell, but because they also censored everything he cared about and offered shitty customer service even after taking his money.
The banks were no different.
Same shit, different name.
As boring as school was, at least it offered one small consolation: there were plenty of hot girls to feast his eyes on. Among them, Rias Gremory stood at the top, his biggest crush in all of Kuoh Academy.
She had a beautiful face, striking green eyes, and a pair of breasts so large they were impossible to ignore.
When they happened to be alone in the library, Issei didn't hesitate.
He walked up to her and directly expressed his interest.
"Rias-senpai, go out with me. I like you."
Rias only murmured a quiet reply.
"Sorry. I already have a fiancé."
Then she turned and left without looking back.
Issei felt as if an arrow had just been driven straight through his heart.
Fuck…
Who the hell was her fiancé?
What Issei hated most in life was the fact that almost every hot girl already had a boyfriend or a fiancé.
He privately prayed that all those guys would just go to hell and die so he could take the girls for himself.
Still cursing under his breath, he headed home, his mood completely soured.
He decided, once again, that he hated everything about life.
That was when his two friends approached him.
Matsuda had a shit-eating grin on his face as he threw an arm over Issei's shoulder.
"Yo, Issei. Having a bad day? Your face looks terrible."
Motohama chuckled beside him.
"Don't worry, man. We've got you. This news might cheer you up, there's a party happening!"
"Fuck both of you. I don't have time for some entitled brats' party," Issei snapped, still fuming over the fact that the most beautiful girl in school had already been taken.
"Come on, dude, just come," Matsuda pressed. "There'll be a lot of hot girls there. Plus, the party was actually started by Rias Gremory-senpai..."
He didn't get to finish. Issei grabbed him by the collar and yanked him forward.
"What did you just say? Rias? Why the hell is she throwing a party? Does she want to show off her hot boyfriend and force us nerds to watch their shitty lovey-dovey act?"
Matsuda choked. "Urgh... chill, dude… I can't breathe!"
"Let him go, man! We'll explain everything!" Motohama quickly added.
Issei released Matsuda and ordered coldly,
"Talk. Why is she hosting a party?"
Matsuda coughed a few times before answering.
"Well… turns out she's actually a huge nerd. She's a big fan of anime, games, all that stuff. There's a massive rumor that DxD Online is launching tomorrow, so she wants everyone to know about it and play with her. It's her treat, she'll even buy the helmets for us and invite us into her guild. Sounds pretty good, right?"
"Sounds good, my ass," Issei said with open disdain. "She already has a boyfriend. She's off the market. Street material."
"Dude, what the fuck is wrong with you?!" Motohama shouted. "Just because she has a boyfriend doesn't mean she 'belongs to the street'!"
"Then pay back the money you owe me, you broke ass," Issei shot back.
Both of his friends touched their noses and looked away awkwardly.
"…Okay, maybe you're right, Issei. She's a thot."
"Good. This emperor is pleased." Issei nodded in satisfaction. "We're going to her party. I want to see how bad her taste in men is… and then beat the shit out of the guy."
Matsuda and Motohama exchanged uneasy glances and whispered to each other.
"Maybe this was a bad idea, dude. What if he actually tries to fight the guy?"
Issei clapped his hands once, cutting them off.
"Enough whispering. We meet at the usual place. See you later, losers."
"Yeah… see you later, Issei."
As they walked away, both of them let out long, worried sighs.
They could only hope they wouldn't end up regretting this.