Akira was sleeping peacefully, more comfortably than usual, hugging something warm and familiar.
In his deep sleep, he felt a sudden small prick in his neck—a brief sting that disturbed his rest.
Ever since he was little, his parents… well, mostly his mother—had trained him to react to threats even while unconscious.
Not even a mosquito could bite him without dying instantly.
So the fact that something had managed to pierce his defenses meant only one thing:
It was someone he trusted completely.
And Akira already knew who it was, too.
He slowly opened his eyes.
Sure enough, Erika was still curled against him, eyes closed in half-sleep, gently biting his neck and drinking his blood.
Akira didn't move or speak.
He simply looked at her with a soft, resigned expression.
"Ah… it happened again."
He didn't stop her.
Erika continued drinking greedily for a few more seconds before her eyes slowly fluttered open.
Her crimson irises met his in sudden shock.
Akira smiled faintly.
"Why do you always drink my blood when you're sleeping?"
Erika immediately woke up fully and pushed him back in a fluster.
Akira tumbled off the sofa and landed on the floor with a soft thud.
"Ouch…" he said in mock pain. "Do you have to push me?"
Erika took several deep breaths, her crimson eyes fading back to their usual blue.
Then she looked at Akira on the floor, blushing slightly.
"Are you fine? Does it hurt?"
Akira sat up, rubbing his neck lightly.
"Oh, it doesn't. I told you before, vampire saliva makes it so there's no pain after the initial bite."
Erika's face turned even redder.
"That's not what I'm talking about! Did you hurt your back?!"
Akira waved it off with a grin.
"Don't worry. A fall like this is nothing."
Erika opened her mouth, unsure what to say anymore.
Just then, Selena's voice came telepathically, sounding amused.
"Oh, good evening. Did both of you have a good sleep?"
Akira stretched lazily.
"Oh, sis. Is it already evening?"
Selena sighed.
"Technically it's 6:30 p.m. You two had quite a long nap."
Akira yawned.
"I just got a bit too tired. It was a long day after all."
Selena replied dryly,
"Well, it was an eventful mission. So eventful that both of you forgot to greet me when you returned and didn't even check the mission evaluation or collect your rewards."
Akira coughed.
"Oh yeah… I forgot about that. Anyway, how are you, sister?"
Selena huffed.
"Just come to the castle soon and get your rewards. I have other things to do."
"Fine," Akira nodded.
Erika stood up, smoothing her uniform.
"Wait, at least let me change first. I'm still in my school uniform, and you're still in your tuxedo."
Akira looked down at himself.
"Well, that's true too."
He snapped his fingers.
A black sphere of light suddenly covered him, and when it dispersed, he was refreshed and wearing comfortable casual clothes.
Erika shook her head.
"I'm doing it normally."
She walked away to change.
It took a while for both of them to get ready and head to the throne room.
Akira and Erika, now changed into normal clothes, appeared in the throne room.
Selena looked at them from her seat on the throne and teased with a knowing smile.
"You guys are finally here. You slept for so long."
Erika asked, still a bit embarrassed,
"Why didn't you wake us up sooner?"
Selena's smile widened.
"I wanted to, but you two had been sleeping so peacefully and happily with smiles on your faces… I couldn't bring myself to."
Akira immediately nodded with a bright grin.
"Yeah, I really had a great sleep. I want to sleep like that all the time."
Erika blushed and elbowed him lightly.
"Don't say stupid things!"
Akira fake-winced and looked at her with big, innocent eyes.
"What? Don't you like sleeping like that? Wasn't it good?"
Erika looked at his face for a moment, then muttered,
"…It was good… Wait, what are you making me say?!"
She tried to catch him, but Akira dodged with a laugh and ran.
Erika chased him around the throne room, face flushed.
"Stop right there!"
Akira laughed as he circled the throne.
"You can't catch me!"
Seeing them like this, Selena sighed and clapped her hands once.
Suddenly, the space itself solidified.
Akira and Erika froze mid-run.
With a casual wave, Selena telekinetically pulled both of them in front of her throne and released them.
Akira blinked.
"Sis, since when can you do that?"
"Always," Selena said dryly. "Anyway, before we get distracted again, let's complete this mission and get your rewards."
Erika nodded, still a little flushed.
"Yeah, let's finish this first."
Akira muttered under his breath,
"But you started it…"
Both Selena and Erika gave him a look.
He immediately shut up.
Selena gestured, and a large screen appeared in front of them.
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ QUEST EVALUATION ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[Side Quest: Gather Ingredients]
Objective:
Obtain Rainbow Fruit from the Toriko world within the time limit.
Status: COMPLETED
Analysis:
✓ Rainbow Fruit successfully obtained.
✓ Objective completed within time limit.
✓ Target preserved in excellent condition.
✓ Mission requirements fulfilled.
Base Reward:
×1 B Rank Gacha Ticket
+200 Star Credits
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ HIDDEN QUEST ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Hidden Quest: Bonus Harvest
Condition:
Collect additional ingredients beyond the main objective.
Status: COMPLETED
Analysis:
✓ Additional ingredients secured.
✓ Total Bonus Ingredients Collected: 63
✓ Exceptional initiative detected.
Bonus Reward:
+1575 Star Credits
(25 Credits × 63 Ingredients)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ FINAL RESULT ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
MISSION PASSED
Overall Rank: S
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
Akira looked at the screen and grinned.
"So that's the hidden quest. I knew it."
Erika looked at him as she finally understood.
"So that's why you ran off for last-minute shopping."
Akira took a proud pose and declared,
"Yep, I already figured it out. That's why I made the last-minute run."
Erika asked curiously,
"How did you figure it out?"
Akira explained with a grin,
"Well, Selena said the hidden quest is hidden but related to the main quest. So I thought—what is the main quest? It's gathering ingredients, right? And look at all those ridiculous ingredients. Don't you want to get all of them? So I figured the hidden quest was just gathering extra ingredients. I brought as much as I could."
Erika tilted her head.
"That's great, but why only 63? I'm sure you could have brought more, right?"
Akira scratched his cheek.
"Well, I wanted to, but after buying that beach villa, I basically ran out of money."
Erika sighed.
"You should have asked me and Erina for extra money. We could have gotten more Star Credits."
Akira shrugged.
"I wasn't 100% sure it was the hidden quest, so I had to play it safe."
As Erika was about to reply, Selena cut in with an amused tone.
"Come on, you got 1575 Star Credits. That's way more than you should have gotten from a one-day side quest. Don't get too greedy."
Both of them nodded, realizing she had a point.
Selena continued,
"Anyway, let's check your rewards soon. I want to see what both of you got."
Akira said eagerly,
"Then I'll go first."
He opened his system and activated the B Rank Gacha Ticket.
A holographic animation burst to life—a falling meteorite glowing brighter and brighter, then shattering in a brilliant explosion.
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ REWARD ACQUIRED ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Item: YT-2400 Light Freighter
Rank: SR
Description:
A fast, durable, and highly modifiable light freighter produced for cargo hauling, transport, and long-range travel.
Specifications:
✓ Class 2 Hyperdrive
✓ Class 12 Backup Hyperdrive
✓ Integrated Navicomputer
✓ Deflector Shield System
✓ Reinforced Double-Armored Hull
✓ High-output Power Core
✓ Advanced Modification Capacity
✓ Dual Laser Cannon Turrets
✓ Cargo Capacity: 150 Metric Tons
✓ Passenger Capacity: 6
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
Akira jumped in excitement.
"Yeah! I finally got a Star Wars spaceship!"
Erika asked, eyes wide.
"You got a spaceship… Is it a good one?"
Akira grinned.
"Well, it's not bad. If I had to say, there are better ones, but I only wanted the hyperdrive technology. In the future, I can make my own interstellar spaceship with it."
Erika's eyes sparkled.
"Can you take it out?"
Before Akira could answer, Selena interrupted with a smile.
"You guys can do that later. Erika-chan's reward is still waiting."
Erika nodded.
"Alright."
She activated her gacha ticket.
The same falling meteorite animation appeared and shattered.
[━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
[ REWARD ACQUIRED ]
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Item: Super Shiny Charm
Rank: SR
Description:
A radiant charm that resonates with dormant life. Pokémon Eggs nurtured nearby are more likely to awaken in rare shiny forms. On rare occasions, hidden traits may manifest.
Effects:
✓ Greatly increases chance of hatching Shiny Pokémon from eggs
✓ Increases chance of encountering Shiny Pokémon in the wild
✓ Slightly increases chance of rare variants appearing
✓ Passive experience gain bonus during training
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━]
Akira, Erika, and Selena all stared at the result for a moment, not sure what to say.
In the end, Erika spoke first.
"How exactly is this and a spaceship that can travel faster than light on the same rank?"
Akira also looked at Selena, waiting for an explanation.
Selena leaned back on her throne and explained calmly,
"Ranking is judged through rarity, potency, impact, versatility, and authority. Not every item needs all five, but those are the lenses we use."
Erika frowned.
"Speak human."
Selena smiled.
"Well, if I had to put it plainly—for items from the Star Wars universe, a YT-2400 Light Freighter is SR rank. An Imperial-class Star Destroyer is SSR, and a Death Star is UR."
She leaned back slightly.
"At the same time, even within the same rank there are high and low tiers. For example, both the Imperial-class and Venator-class Star Destroyers are SSR, but the Venator is worth fewer Star Credits than the Imperial. Do you get it?"
Akira asked curiously,
"What about the Executor-class or Eclipse-class?"
Selena snapped back,
"Check it yourself."
Erika then asked,
"What about the thing I got? It's from the Pokémon world, right?"
Selena nodded.
"Hmm. For them, a Poké Ball is C rank, a normal Shiny Charm is R rank. The Super Shiny Charm is SR. A Master Ball is UR. Did you get it?"
Akira grinned.
"Yeah, that thing can capture gods of that world."
Erika hesitantly nodded.
"I think I understand… But what exactly are we going to do with this?"
She took out the Super Shiny Charm from her inventory.
It was a beautiful red ribbon charm in a bow shape with a glowing blue crystal in the middle.
Erika continued,
"It looks cute, but it seems like it can only be used in the Pokémon world."
Akira's eyes lit up.
"Well, we can probably go to the Pokémon world, or… wait, can we buy Pokémon from the store?"
Selena shook her head.
"You can't buy a sentient living creature directly from the store, but there is a grey area."
Akira leaned forward.
"What is it?"
Selena smiled mysteriously.
"Well, sentient living creatures may not be available… but what about an embryo?"
Akira immediately realized what she meant.
"Wait—we can get Pokémon eggs?"
Selena nodded.
"Not exactly. It's still in the grey area. You can't buy them directly, but there is a way—gacha."
Akira muttered,
"Yeah, I'm not optimistic about the probability."
Selena chuckled.
"You never checked the gacha section, did you?"
Akira opened his system store and scrolled to the gacha section.
Erika leaned in closer to see.
To their shock, there wasn't just one gacha.
There was the standard gacha, but also weapons gacha, skills gacha, magic items gacha, books gacha, food gacha… and many more.
But what caught their attention most was a particular banner.
Both Akira and Erika froze.
"Pokémon Eggs Gacha?"