When Chris returned to his dorm and locked the door behind him, his phone buzzed twice in quick succession from his pocket.
Two Line notifications.
The first was from Ichinose Honami.
"Chris-kun, I've made it back to the dorm safely. The training swords have been returned to the kendo club in perfect condition, so please don't worry. Today... I'm truly, truly grateful for your guidance. (Deep bow .jpg)"
Honestly.
The way she was reporting her whereabouts like a routine status update — it had that distinctly forced, running-out-of-things-to-say energy to it.
Not that it was hard to understand why.
After all, when they'd come down from the rooftop just a little while ago, Ichinose had still been changing in the shadows behind the door — while on the other side, Karuizawa Kei, in the heat of the moment, had been pledging her loyalty and practically offering herself up. Her voice may have been hushed, but it was definitely not quiet.
If Ichinose hadn't specifically covered her ears, she'd have caught more than a few details.
And according to the loyal GANTZ playback footage —
This pink-haired little angel had not only failed to cover her ears — she had actually frozen up from sheer panic, arm suspended uselessly in midair, jacket zipper stuck halfway.
"Still too thin-skinned."
"It's not even your fault. If it were me, I'd have pressed my eye straight up to the door crack, watched every second of it, and then spent the rest of the day roasting both of them. Shameless pair."
Chris shot back a casual "Yeah, get some rest" and shifted his attention to the second message.
It was from Karuizawa Kei.
The message was long. The first half delivered a crisp, no-frills account of everything that had gone down — how Amasawa Ichika had intercepted her at the stairwell and applied pressure to probe for weaknesses.
Below that section of the report came a system transfer notification.
[Your account has received a transfer from Karuizawa Kei: 41,400 Personal Points.]
Through the GANTZ backend, he could confirm it — Karuizawa Kei's account balance had been reduced to exactly zero.
Damn. She really did go all in. Didn't even leave herself enough for next month's personal necessities. This girl had committed to the "burn the boats" strategy with her whole chest.
Chris couldn't help but shake his head with a quiet, amused laugh.
Even without being granted an official "girlfriend" title in the end, that tribute transfer had already placed her squarely where she'd wanted to be. No question about it.
What exactly was this — keeping someone, or being kept?
But there was no denying it. The sheer weight of someone handing over everything — their entire life and fate, every last chip on the table — did have a way of satisfying a certain deep instinct in a man. That fundamental desire to hold, to control.
"Wasn't planning on bringing you in this fast," Chris tapped the screen idly with one fingertip. "But since you insisted — and went as far as handing over your proof of allegiance — I suppose I should at least make sure you feel like that protection fee was worth every single point."
[Points received. As for Amasawa Ichika — for now, act like she has something on you. Play double agent. Whatever moves she instructs you to make from here on, relay them to me first.]
With those loose ends tidied up, Chris moved to his desk, sat down, and let his focus sink into system-space to retrieve today's daily item — the one that had refreshed just this afternoon.
A soft pulse of eerie green light filled his palm — and a heavy smartwatch materialized there. Sleek, aggressively futuristic in design, with a distinctive green hourglass symbol emblazoned on its face.
[Omnitrix (Initial Prototype)]
Source: Ben 10.
Originally crafted by Azmuth as a kind of cosmic Noah's Ark — designed to promote peaceful understanding between the civilizations and species of the universe, and to preserve the DNA of endangered alien races from extinction.
Of course, what it was most famous for was something else entirely: letting its wearer instantly rewrite their own DNA and transform into any number of alien heroes on the spot.
"Man... this thing was the absolute coolest when I was a kid."
Chris turned it over in his hands, something wistful flickering behind his eyes.
Even now, being able to transform into aliens was objectively awesome. Who in their right mind wouldn't want that?
The only problem was... he couldn't really make use of it right now.
What the system had handed him was the base prototype — it didn't include Way Big, the reality-warping alien. It only carried the initial ten alien DNAs from the original lineup: Heatblast, XLR8, Four Arms, and a handful of others.
Honestly, if he was thinking purely in terms of practical combat utility and ease of use, the combo of his [Devil's Passport] + [Time-Stop Watch] was still more straightforward, more brute-force, and more satisfying to operate.
"That said, the little watch isn't completely useless. Its ceiling is right there for everyone to see..."
Chris stroked his chin, turning it over in his thoughts.
This thing could scan and absorb new DNA.
On the off chance the system ever blessed him with Arceus's Tablet — or some item encoding the genetic makeup of a higher-dimensional entity — he could just reverse-engineer his way straight into transforming into a god of creation.
Multiverse-tier strength. Level twenty peak technology. Go ahead and try to compete with that.
"Other than that... at the moment, the only real use I can think of for this thing is creating an alt identity."
But he was already the hidden hand pulling every string behind the scenes — and the Black Sphere had already swept up most of the relevant players in this area into its orbit. There was genuinely no need to fabricate an alt just to go around sav—
...wait.
Actually.
Chris's eyes lit up.
"Hang on...
"An alt doesn't have to mean fighting. Spinning off a black-market merchant persona — a shady NPC who runs an underground shop — actually sounds like a pretty interesting direction to take this."
In survival games of every flavor, that one merchant barricaded in the safe room — jacking prices the moment things got desperate, squeezing every last coin out of players who had nowhere else to turn — was just a natural part of the genre. An unavoidable feature of the experience.
And as a bonus, it would naturally distinguish itself from the Black Sphere's own built-in equipment shop with its existing cyberpunk aesthetic.
The only question was — if he was running a black market, what would he actually put on the shelves?
"Aside from MC Milk and Golden Apples, I don't think I have anything else that's really suited for retail..."
Equipment like the Black Pot Armor from Boonie Bears — nothing overpowered, but with enormous entertainment value — he'd originally planned to duplicate a few sets using the Copy Mirror and toss them into the prize pool as low-tier rewards.
But anything genuinely powerful — or anything that might introduce unpredictable, uncontrollable ripple effects into reality — Chris had absolutely zero intention of putting up for sale.
"Ugh, my system — you've really made life needlessly complicated for this emperor!"
Chris let out a long, theatrical mock-sigh.
Whatever. He'd cross that bridge when he came to it.
For now — time to check in on Shiranami-san, and the new arrivals.
He tossed the Omnitrix into his equipment inventory with a casual flick of the wrist, then waved his hand to pull up the GANTZ internal surveillance feed.
"Let me see how our poor Shiranami-san is holding up — and what state our newest guests are in."
First screen: locked onto Shiranami Chihiro's home.
With the Black Sphere having quietly adjusted her settings to something resembling a "Transparent Person" — rendered invisible to everyone around her — Shiranami Chihiro had been enduring a genuinely brutal stretch of time.
In the surveillance feed, the girl was slumped listlessly in the corner of her own bedroom.
She'd tried to explain herself to her family, only to be ignored completely — her parents walked straight past her as if moving through a pocket of empty air.
She'd tried desperately to make her way back to the Advanced Nurturing High School to seek help — only to find that no matter which direction she walked, she'd hit an invisible wall approximately two kilometers from home and find herself inexplicably, helplessly walking back to where she'd started.
She had been transformed, in the most literal physical sense, into something like a spirit bound to a location.
Admittedly, the logic was a little strange — a person killed by a monster at school somehow becoming a location-bound ghost haunting her family home. But regardless, the crushing isolation of having every single social connection severed was doing an excellent job of cultivating that atmosphere of despair. That hollow sense of having already, truly, left this world.
"Since the atmosphere is already perfect... and since her resurrection match score isn't anywhere close to enough yet — it seems like the right moment to activate Ghost Mode for her."
Tell her she cannot be discovered by anyone. Being found counts as a true death — no resurrection match, no second chances. But if she hides herself perfectly... she might still find a way to help Ichinose and the others.
Then, have the Black Sphere notify the other examinees: somewhere in the exam, there is a living, walking mystery chest. Find it, and claim the reward.
Good lord. How can I possibly be this brilliantly wicked?
Chris rapped his knuckles against the desk, then finally turned his attention to the surveillance zone marked "new arrivals."
Then.
"Oh... damn."
Even Chris — who had seen more than most — couldn't suppress a sharp intake of breath when the images on the screen came into full focus.
The Black Sphere had helpfully divided the feed into multiple sections for easy identification:
From Transformers: Decepticons, their bodies encased from head to toe in gleaming metal armor.
From Resident Evil: brain-exposed Eliminators — and a Tyrant, carrying a production price tag of 180 million dollars.
From Demon Slayer: the entire Lower Moon Five spider family — the type that a single Pillar could handle solo.
And — to cap it all off — from Attack on Titan: a Smiling Titan, unhinging its jaw impossibly wide.
"Quite a few veteran-tier ones in the mix this time..."
Chris wiped at the nonexistent cold sweat on his forehead.
Thankfully, the Black Sphere had contained these things early and erected cognitive suppression barriers around all affected areas right away.
Because if that crowd had been allowed to run loose in modern society... no spin operation the Japanese government could run was going to put that genie back in the bottle.
"Come to think of it... Tokyo really does have something going on with its feng shui, doesn't it?"
Chris couldn't help but mutter.
Out of the entire planet, why was it always this one city that kept getting hit?
If it wasn't for the fact that his future self had been doing a bit of retroactive cause-and-effect manipulation in the area... this particular patch of ground was giving off some serious metaphysical energy. There were almost too many candidates to choose from at this point.
But since the next exam was supposed to ramp up the difficulty, in practice there were only a handful of entities actually worth selecting.
---
Meanwhile.
In stark contrast to Chris, who still had the composure to joke around about feng shui —
In Ichinose Honami's dorm room.
"Nngh——!"
The moment she stepped back into her room, Ichinose Honami didn't even bother turning the lights on. She belly-flopped straight onto her bed with a full-body thud.
She clutched her pillow in a death grip, buried her blazing-hot cheeks deep into the soft fabric, and began frantically rubbing her face back and forth — her throat producing a series of small, adorable, hopelessly mortified sounds, like some tiny distressed animal.
"Ahhhhhhh——"
She rolled wildly from one side of the bed to the other, her long, slender legs kicking aimlessly up into the air with no particular purpose or direction.
If anyone from Class B had witnessed this scene, their jaw would have hit the floor.
The class representative they knew — always composed, warm, unfailingly dependable — was currently so overcome with embarrassment that she could barely hold herself together. She had been reduced to a wriggling, writhing pink caterpillar of a person, curled into a ball and convulsing across her bedsheets.
She hadn't expected any of this.
All she'd wanted was to go up to the rooftop for a swordsmanship training session with Chris. How on earth had she ended up accidentally walking straight into the middle of a girl practically pledging her entire self to him?!
Although...
As the memory of those fragments she'd overheard drifted back, Ichinose's frantic movements slowed slightly.
What Karuizawa Kei had said — laying bare everything she had, offering her body and unconditional submission as collateral in exchange for protection — that was, strictly speaking, probably not a "confession" in the romantic sense.
It was more like... the desperate, clawing grip of someone drowning, latching onto a piece of driftwood.
Even so, the sheer audacity of Karuizawa's words had delivered a considerable shock to the soul of the endlessly gentle Ichinose Honami.
And in particular —
When she'd heard, through that distinctly non-soundproofed iron door, Karuizawa make a comment — born entirely from misreading the nature of her relationship with Chris — that amounted to: "I swear I won't be any worse than her technically" —
Ichinose had felt something detonate inside her skull. She'd been cooked. Completely and thoroughly cooked.
"I'm going to die, I'm going to die, I'm going to die..."
The girl squeezed her pillow so hard it must have been suffering in silence. She wanted to cry but had no tears left.
If Doraemon's time machine were somehow real, she would not hesitate for a single second — she would go straight back a few hours and physically drag her past self away from the moment she'd agreed to go train on the rooftop.
A basement, a gymnasium corner, literally anywhere else would have worked!
However.
As that wave of embarrassment gradually ebbed with each revolution across the mattress —
The cold weight of reality quietly crept back into Ichinose Honami's heart.
She lay there, still clutching the pillow, staring blankly up at the darkened ceiling.
If even someone like Karuizawa Kei — someone who always projected confidence and pride, who seemed utterly untouchable — had been pushed to the point of having absolutely no sense of security in the face of the Black Sphere. To the point where she was willing to trample her own dignity just to barter for shelter.
Then among the students of this seemingly calm, ordinary school — those who carried a fear similar to Karuizawa's —
There must be quite a few of them.
"What would it take..."
Ichinose let out a quiet, hollow sigh.
"What would it take to find the path... the one where everyone makes it out alive?"
Ding.
Just as Ichinose was sinking deeper into that spiral of thought, the phone on the pillow beside her — set to silent — suddenly lit up.
She reached for it and looked.
The sender was... Shiina-san from Class C?
— End of Chapter —
---
Author's Notes:
Note ① — Omnitrix (a.k.a. "the little watch"): Functions the same as described in the main text, but there's an additional mechanic where absorbed DNA is modeled after the most exceptional individual within that species group. Whether it always locks onto the absolute best specimen of the species or just a standout one — honestly, I don't quite remember the details on that one.
Note ② — MC Milk & Golden Apple: Milk, when consumed, immediately removes all active status effects from the player. A Golden Apple restores +4 hunger points (equivalent to 2 chicken drumsticks) and +9.6 saturation, grants 2 minutes of Absorption I and 5 seconds of Regeneration I, cures zombie villagers, and increases the success rate when taming horses.
Note ③ — Black Pot Armor: A high-tech pot gifted to Qiang (the lumberjack) by his boss Li. Built-in features include a chainsaw, hammer, jetpack, tranquilizer dart launcher, fly swatter, electric fan, and slingshot — widely regarded as the direct design prototype for Chainsaw Man. Can haul an entire cart-load of timber plus both bears with a single hand.
Note ④ — Decepticons: Due to the power scaling in the Transformers comics being somewhat... elevated, the version featured in this story is movie-verse.
Finally: Since author notes on this platform can't include images, I've placed all of this content inside the main chapter body for easier reading. For those keeping track — chapters under 500 characters don't count toward paid content, so consider this extra material at no additional charge.
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👻🔥Walnut-chan🔥👻
🔥 New history: Re:Zero: Wrath Route Yandere Emilia Watches the Projection
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