On a small road in Ashikaga Ward, Riku was easing a Rolls-Royce along at a steady crawl. It was a top-tier performance car, sure, but on a lane like this, there was no way to open it up.
"I am Kurumizawa Satania McDowell, future ruler of Hell! Stand down at once, you beast!"
As he passed a familiar alley, an exasperated shout made Riku pull a face. He stopped the car, glanced over…
"Waa, oof!" A string of dog barks echoed. "If you don't back off, don't blame me for getting rough! I'm a future arch-demon if I wanted to, your life would… Ah, don't you dare steal my pineapple bun!"
"That's my most precious lunch!" A girl's scream is heart-rending.
It sounded like carnage; in reality, a white dog was making off with a red-haired girl's pineapple bun.
"As expected, it's that IQ-challenged little demon." Riku facepalmed. He couldn't bear to watch.
You're a demon; how do you let a dog rob you? Even if that mutt gets called an angel's lapdog, it's still just a regular dog.
"Uuu… my pineapple bun…" Humiliated, Satania sank to her knees, stretching a hand toward the dog with a tearful face.
The dog gave her a distinctly human look of disdain, wagged its tail, and trotted out of the alley with the bun clamped in its jaws…
A dog, looking down on a demon.
'Emmmmm…' To be honest, this was funny in anime; seeing it in person, though, Riku felt the "art style" was indescribably bizarre.
In the end, Riku opened the door and got out, not to chase down a bun for Satania. Having a demon lord do that would be a bit disgraceful.
"Hey, little demon." He walked up, looking down at her, at a loss for words.
"Uh, how do you know I'm a demon? Are you an angelic assassin sent by Heaven to eliminate me, the future sovereign of Hell?" Satania froze, then sprang up warily, took a fighting stance, and backed away…
Pat!
"OW! That hurts!" only to bang the back of her head on the wall mid-retreat and well up again.
Riku's mouth twitched. He was beyond commentary. Peak stupidity with delusions to match. Stick around, and his IQ would drop. With a "sovereign of Hell" like this, Hell was doomed.
"I mean, you're a demon and you let a dog steal your bun, don't you find that a bit humiliating?" Riku deadpanned.
"Y-you, you were peeking at my battle! That's the sort of vile thing only an A-class demon would do!" She trembled, pointing at him, aghast.
That counts as an A-class where you come from? The Netherworld really is quaint.
Riku rolled his eyes, too tired to snark. He'd never seen demons this embarrassing.
"As a demon, you've got some power, right? Just kill the dog and take the bun back," he said with a straight face.
"Hah? Kill it?" Satania stared wide-eyed as if she'd heard the unthinkable. "How could you, an angel, suggest something so insane! Even SSS-class demons can't do that, you'd be thrown into the Eighteen Levels of Hell!"
"Forget it, your underworld's beyond saving," Riku waved dismissively. Killing a dog surpasses SSS-class? Meanwhile, Gabriel threatens to blow up the world every other day.
Truly, morals decline by the day; the Netherworld remains… wholesomely rustic.
Shaking his head in mock regret, Riku got back in the car and drove off, leaving a baffled Satania behind.
That day, Satania met a dangerous angel; she'd have to be careful, or that angel might scheme against Hell's future monarch.
Satania wrote as much in her diary…
…
After that little farce, Riku finally returned to the apartment building, parked, then headed first to Sagiri's place to praise her a bit.
For Sagiri, even chatting frankly over a video call was a big step forward. After that, he headed home.
"Shiro, I bought your favourite snacks." Seeing her gaming, Riku ruffled her silver hair and set a bag on the desk.
"Onii-chan, that 'Silver' is pestering you again. Seven years straight, I'll grant him some grit. I can't even beat you; how does he still not get it?" Shiro tore open a bag of chips, speaking in her usual lazy drawl.
In one line, she managed to praise Riku and herself. To be fair, both claims were true.
"It is the weekend, after all," Riku said with a small grin, rubbing his chin.
He and Shiro loved board games and had left behind plenty of legends. In shōgi in particular, a user with the handle "Silver" had been challenging him tirelessly for seven years after losing to him.
At first, it was several times a day; eventually, realising the gap, it tapered to three times every weekend.
Originally, Riku meant to block those who want constant pestering. But then he learned this "Silver" was a girl, and an extremely cute one.
Yes, reality is like that. It's a looks-based world. Cuteness is justice.
Of course, Shiro didn't know Silver's gender and just assumed it was a guy.
Ginko Sora, the heroine of The Ryūō's Work Is Never Done! Because she's the protagonist's upperclassman and sometimes acts a little sadistic, the otaku crowd just calls her "Senpai." She looks older, but in reality, she's a fourteen-year-old girl.
In this world, though, Ginko is only thirteen.
Just then, the notification chime on Riku's desktop pinged again. It was the all-in-one board games app he and Shiro kept open on their PCs; they played there a lot.
Of course, most of the time, it was Riku and Shiro playing each other. Even the good opponents were, to them, seasoning someone to stomp now and then to blow off steam.
Mm, usually that happened after Shiro lost to Riku and, in a huff, went off to farm other players.
Riku sat down, scanned the messages, and smiled.
They were all variations on the same theme:
"Online?"
"It's the weekend. Please play a match with me."
Over and over. Because Riku hadn't replied, "Silver" had been sending one message every so often. They'd piled up past a hundred by now.
You had to admit the persistence was impressive.
Then again, that was just who Ginko was. Ever since losing to Riku, she had challenged him relentlessly for seven years.
When she was four, after losing to the man who would become her teacher, the pro 9-dan Kōsuke Kiyotaki, she used the internet to find his address and took the train there every day for a rematch. There's even a legend that since she couldn't reach the ticket machine, the station staff put a little stool in front just for her.
In every sense, Riku respected Ginko Sora.
"Had something this morning, sorry to keep you waiting," Riku typed back.
"It's fine. I should be the one apologising for bothering you so long," Ginko replied.
Riku rolled his eyes. So she does know she's been pestering me forever.
"Shall we start?" Ginko typed.
"Mm," Riku answered.
They launched a match.
Against Ginko, Riku always held back. If he played seriously, he'd crush her so hard it might break her confidence.
He didn't like sandbagging, but it depended on the opponent. Only those he recognised as true rivals got his full strength.
And while he'd never met Ginko offline, they'd known each other online for seven years now. Their relationship was part mentor, part friend.
Every time they played, Riku throttled his strength and deliberately steered the flow to patch Ginko's weak points.
Before long, three games were done. As usual, Riku won in the end.
"I lost again… but I won't give up. Riku, next weekend I'll definitely beat you."
Riku smiled at the message. He'd seen that line… who knew how many times.
"Onii-chan, if you're done, duo with me to rank up," Shiro said, glancing over.
"On my way." Riku nodded and joined her for some League of Legends.
…
"Ginko, you lost again?" In a large house in Osaka, a bespectacled middle-aged man looked at the dejected girl across from him and asked a question that was really a statement.
"Yeah. He's too strong," the girl said with a sigh.
She was slim, with shoulder-length silver hair and a snowflake clip on the left fringe. Her features were fine, her light-blue eyes bright, very much a beauty in the making, though her face still had a youthful softness.
She wore a black sailor uniform; sheer black tights ran down her slender legs. The faintly forceful, mature air of her bearing mixed with her youthful looks to make a peculiar charm, like a "little queen," cute and gorgeous at once.
She was the idol of the shōgi world, a prodigy among women's players: Ginko Sora.
And the middle-aged man was her teacher, pro 9-dan Kōsuke Kiyotaki.
"He really is strong," Kiyotaki mused. He knew Ginko's talent. Women were at a disadvantage in shōgi, but Ginko was different already on par with many pros.
The player with the handle "Riku," though, was something else entirely. Watching their games, Kiyotaki had realised: the man was teaching Ginko mid-match without her even noticing.
Ginko's rapid growth, breaking the ceiling for women's players at age thirteen, owed no small part to him.
"The title matches start soon, right?" Ginko lifted her face, earnest. "Yaichi's challenging for the Ryūō this year, too, isn't he?"
"Mm," Kiyotaki stroked his beard and nodded.
"I wonder if he'll go," Ginko murmured. "No, he probably isn't interested. He's not even registered with the Association."
"Sensei, I want to meet him in real life," she said at last, looking up.
Kiyotaki blinked, surprised and then smiled and nodded. "If that's what you want, do it."
"But take Yaichi with you," he added. "You're a girl; you shouldn't go alone. It's safer that way."
-
"Boring. I don't want to play anymore. Onii-chan, I want omurice today." After a few rounds of League, Shiro looked utterly uninterested.
"Fine." Riku rolled his eyes at that. When he and Shiro duo-queue, even "Kings" are like grade-schoolers to them.
They climb to Challenger at a 100% win rate, every game a double-carry, so the two of them once again became legends. Yup, a League of Legends legend.
That might thrill ordinary players, but for Riku and Shiro it's routine. Any game they touch ends up like this.
"Another message from Silver? Rarely does she want a rematch already?" Seeing the sudden ping, Riku muttered.
"Riku, add me on LINE. My ID is…"
"Weird." Riku raised a brow. For Silver to bring that up was surprising. Their exchanges had basically stayed inside the shōgi app; LINE had never come up.
Still, Riku didn't overthink it and calmly sent a friend request.
"Riku, I want to meet you in real life. Is that okay?" Ginko Sora (Silver) asked straight out.
Riku's eyes gleamed; he smiled. Another meet-up request, huh. They were piling up lately.
There was Machida-san's, the one with his Fantasy World guildmate pencilled in for May… and now Ginko.
"Sure," Riku typed back without delay. Taking an online friendship offline is how you deepen a bond. And as a man, when a girl invites you out, refusing isn't on the table.
"I haven't decided the time or place when I do, I'll tell you. Probably within the next half month. :)" Seeing Riku agree so cleanly, Ginko relaxed and sent another message, capping it with a cute smiley.
"Let me know once you pick, and I'll come if I'm free," Riku replied, the corner of his mouth ticking up.
He'd thought schedules might collide, but apparently not. Ginko's style was decisive; she wouldn't wait around for the Golden Week rush.
"Mm-hm!" she answered quickly, smiling through the screen. "Then I'll treat you to local specialities here."
"Looking forward to it," Riku chuckled.
After chatting a bit with Ginko, Riku headed off to make omurice.
Once Shiro ate, brushed her teeth, and washed up, she flopped straight into bed. The sun wasn't even down yet, but after a full day out, she was wiped.
If an ordinary kid kept those habits, their body would have given out already. But with Riku around, nothing ever goes wrong.
"…Which kind of makes this feel more like keeping a pet than raising a little sister," he murmured, stroking Shiro's sleeping cheek.
"Speaking of pets, Mashiro Shiina is the real 'pet girl,' isn't she?" Riku drew his hand back with a small shake of his head.
"Time to deliver rations to a certain useless angel." He took a pizza from the fridge, muttering to himself.
He'd meant to run it to Gabrielle earlier, but got sidetracked by a dozen things and forgot.
Before long, Riku was at Room 505, where Gabrielle lived, and pressed the doorbell.
No response the first time; none after the third. Riku's brow creased, and he called out:
"Gabrielle, if you don't stop gaming and come out, I'm tossing your pizza."
"Pizza!? You actually bought it for me?" came a voice from inside at last.
"So hurry up and get out of here," Riku said, exasperated. He did have a key and could also just teleport in, but if it wasn't necessary, he preferred not to beam himself into a girl's room.
…Though, in Gabrielle's case, it somehow felt like it didn't matter.
"Wait a sec, let me finish this match! About thirty minutes!" Her voice came again. Since her membership tier in Fantasy World wasn't high, she could only play six hours a day; after Shiro converted her to League, she'd been on that instead.
"You literally just queued up!" Riku was speechless.
Scratch that, keeping up that fig leaf wasn't worth it for Gabrielle.
Riku teleported straight into her room.
And the scene made the corner of his eye twitch:
Several jumbo trash bags were strewn about, giving off a rancid funk. Gabrielle, orange jacket on top and just panties below, sat gaming at her PC, still on the loading screen.
You can't even open the door during a load screen? How lazy are you.
A single week and she'd degenerated this much; Riku had underestimated Gabrielle's sloth.
"Maybe what she needs is corrective training to break her down and rebuild her. …Worth considering," he said flatly, staring at her.
"Hey! How did you get in here? This is trespassing, you know!" Gabrielle glared, scratched her butt, and snapped, "And you just said you were going to 'train' me, didn't you? You did! Even if I'm an angel, I can still get mad!"
"Tsk, so you still remember you're an angel. I've never seen a 'can't-resist-temptation' angel this useless," Riku said, one hand holding the pizza, the other pressing down on Gabriel's head. "And even if you are a little angel, I could poke you to death with one finger."
"Tsk, listen to yourself brag," Gabriel brushed off Riku's hand with open disdain. "I'm an angel and a top honour graduate of the Angel Academy. 'Poke me to death with one finger'? You think you're God or something?"
"That 'God' you're talking about? I can poke her to death with one finger, too," Riku said airily.
"Cut it out, you're enjoying this. Slandering God, careful you don't get smitten," Gabriel sniffed. "I'm telling you, watch your mouth. If you were a normal human, you'd just have a streak of bad luck. But for people on the occult side, it could mean blood on the horizon."
"You should be worrying about your God instead," Riku said, amused.
"What the why does everything hurt!" At that very moment in Heaven, God, who'd been watching ecchi anime, suddenly had a nosebleed and felt pain all over.
She'd been backed up by her own rules.
"Yikes, what kind of monster is rampaging in the human world? Can't mess with that. Better tweak the rules and bail," she muttered, immediately pausing her anime to "do real work."
God chickened out.
"Whatever, you sure can talk big," Gabriel waved him off, looking languid. "Okay, put the pizza on my desk and leave. I'm going back to my game."
"Gabriel, are you itching for a lesson? Guess I'll just throw this pizza out," Riku said with a half-smile.
"C-c-come on, don't I haven't had dinner," Gabriel instantly dropped the attitude, forcing a grin. "Please forgive my rudeness, dear landlord."
"Did a dog eat your shame along the way?" Riku said, exasperated.
"What's the use of 'shame'? If I could sell it, I'd cash it in for artefacts and skins," Gabriel said, perfectly serious.
"If you want the pizza, clean your room first. It reeks," Riku said flatly, lifting the box.
"You're really making me clean? Are you a demon?" Gabriel stared at him in disbelief. "How cruel can you be?"
"I'm the Demon King, nice to meet you. And cleaning is for your own good. How's that cruel?"
"But the match already queued if I go take out the trash, we'll lose for sure," Gabriel dead-eyed him, martyr mode engaged, determined not to bow to pizza-based coercion.
"I'll play for you," Riku said, still smiling. "If you argue one more time, next month's rent doubles."
"You!" Gabriel glared, swallowing back. You'd really stoop to such dirty tricks. If rent doubled, her budget would tank and she'd have to cut back on gacha. And if that pull had been an artefact… the loss would be tragic.
In the end, Gabriel, miserable and sulking, tugged on a skirt and started bagging trash.
Riku, meanwhile, sat like a victor in her chair, set the pizza aside, and idly piloted her account. "Hmph, it's only Gabriel. Even if I spot you both hands, so what."
"Tsk, one day I'm going to slap your face with holy light," Gabriel grumbled.
By the time she hauled the various trash bags out, came back, microwaved the pizza, and returned to her room, the fresh match was already over Riku playing "casually."
"No way…" Gabriel stared at the scoreboard: 15 minutes, 15/0/5. She gaped at Riku. "Fifteen minutes and that KDA? You're actually a pro."
"When did I ever give you the illusion I wasn't?" Riku said, smugly.
Gabriel felt the crit land cleanly. In the Fantasy World, she could only look up to him as a high-tier player; now, even in League, she couldn't catch up.
"Riku, take me as your girlfriend," Gabriel said, fixing him with a look. "That way I can mooch your food every day, you can gift me, say, a casual hundred eighty artefacts, and once my League account hits 30, you can duo-carry me to ranked."
"Hard pass.. I don't need a girlfriend who's this embarrassing," Riku said, face full of disdain.
"I'm an angel. Having an angel girlfriend is a steal, isn't it? That's a perk most humans can't get," Gabriel said, dead-eyed serious.
"Sure, an angel whose halo is black. The shame of angels," Riku shot back with the same dead-fish stare
"Even if it's black, a quick wipe and it still works." With a blank face, Gabriel summoned her halo already pitch-black and actually took it off to rub at it with a tissue.
"…" Riku's eye twitched. There were so many things wrong with that sentence, and since when can a near-corrupted angel's halo be cleaned with a tissue?
"Ugh, too much work. Forget it." After two half-hearted swipes, Gabriel gave up. The faint gold she'd coaxed back into the halo snuffed to soot again as she plopped it atop her head and hid it away.
Riku could only stare, speechless. "If you weren't at least a little cute, you'd have zero chance of getting married in this lifetime."
"Who wants to get married? Life's freer solo." Gabriel shrugged. "If you don't mind, though, I could marry you. You're cracked at games, and you can keep me fed, S-tier meal ticket."
She was clearly picturing that blessed future: gaming all day, food appearing by itself, zero responsibilities.
"Straight from 'be my girlfriend' to 'let's get married,' huh." Riku looked at her like she was hopeless. "Useless angel, did you forget I said having you as my girlfriend would be embarrassing?"
"Tsk. Now I remember." Gabriel kept her dead-fish stare. "Feels like you're thinking something very rude."
"I'm not. You're imagining things," Riku said calmly, no guilt in sight. As a seasoned vet, fooling a slacker angel like Gabriel was child's play.
"Tch, fine. Have it your way." She smacked her lips, annoyed. "Since you don't appreciate the chance, I guess I'll use force."
"Oh? Force what, exactly?" Riku's eyes smiled. This might be fun.
"Know what this is?" Space rippled in Gabriel's hand, and a golden horn appeared.
"The Apocalypse Horn. Blow this, the world ends." She raised it to her lips. "If you don't want that, be a good boy and become my meal ticket, wait, no, my boyfriend."
"You really are…" Riku couldn't help laughing.
Tell me a joke: an angel threatens a Demon King with the end of the world so he'll date her.
"Gabriel, I think Hell suits you better."
"Eh? I kinda think so too. Maybe I should try falling, being a fallen angel sounds cool." Her eyes lit up, itching to try.
"Taking that back. You're better off in Heaven. Don't go terrorising the Underworld," Riku muttered, helpless.
Angels threatening to end the world at the drop of a hat; God hiding in Heaven binging ecchi anime; demons who'd get expelled for killing a dog; and the Demon King working part-time at a burger joint.
Gods, angels, devils… you're all an embarrassment.
"Well? Yes or no? If it's no, I'm really gonna blow," Gabriel huffed, waving the horn.
She had no intention of actually blowing it, just scaring the jerk who kept rejecting her.
"Handing something this dangerous to a useless, slacker angel like you, your ecchi-loving God's got nerves of steel," Riku said, reaching out.
Gabriel blinked; her hand suddenly felt light. The golden horn was gone.
"I'll hold onto this," Riku said, casually flashing the Apocalypse Horn before tossing it into his system storage.
"…" Gabriel stared with the deadest of dead eyes, chill enough to raise goosebumps.
"Five hundred thou… no, fifty thousand yen. I'll sell it to you. Pay up." Just as Riku thought she was mad, Gabriel calmly held out a pale, delicate hand.
"…!" Riku rubbed his temples. "Gabriel, your God is going to hang you up and tan your behind if she finds out."
"Riku, last chance." Gabriel leaned in. "A cute angel like me offering to be your girlfriend, that's your luckiest day. Don't blow it."
"Nope. Pass. Out of my way." Riku fired off a triple-refusal without blinking. "Having you as my girlfriend would be the unluckiest event of my life."
He had more than enough angels in his harem already, pretty ones, cute ones, charming ones, naturals; lolis, onee-sans, every archetype. He even had four seraph daughters.
Compared to that…
Riku glanced at Gabriel and sighed. "Yeah… can't bring myself to like this one."