For seven days and six nights, the wailing of a wretched man echoed through the forest. For seven days and six nights, Kage pushed him repeatedly to the breaking point without rest. Even meals were eaten while trying to Kage's assault, and Erza stealing his food while he was distracted. Whenever he would collapse from exhaustion, ready to fall asleep and retreat into a more peaceful world, Erza would play with his manhood till both he and his little brother were fully erect and ready to go. Only to squash his dreams and happiness with her "Ara Ara. Not till you've earned it. *Fu Fu*". What happened to the sweet, loving, protective, caring Erza he had wished for!
{Right here, idiot. She is doing this for your own good.}
Thankfully his fully upgraded Swift Learner perk didn't let him down, and in his week of torturous training, he learned more about fighting than most people learned in a lifetime. However, Kage and Erza still didn't let up. One nice thing he discovered was that Vergil's hairstyle was natural, and, no matter how messed up it got, it would always lay back down in the same slicked back, shocked style as it had been in before after a little time or wash.
Finally, he couldn't take it anymore and collapsed. His exhaustion was so complete that not even Erza's magic hands could bring him back from the land of dreams. With his last wisp of consciousness, he thought [Finally I can rest]
{Yeah. No. Watching others sleep is so dull.}
[Huh?]
*BANG BANG BANG* "I know you're in there, Hiro! Open the door!" The pounding on his door and the shouting of a familiar voice roused Hiro from where he had collapsed in a heap of dirty laundry when Susie had sent him to Kamitsuki. He had escaped! He was back on Earth. Back in his apartment. The nostalgic sight made him want to cry. But there was still a screaming harpy pounding on his door, demanding his attention.
"I'm coming! I'm coming! Cool your jets, Mayumi!" Hiro shouted back as he rubbed his aching head. His body in this world may be fully rested, but he still carried over the mental fatigue and just wanted to sleep for another 24 hours. Unfortunately, it sounded like his childhood friend had other ideas.
"What is it?" Hiro asked as he opened up the door.
*Eeek* "Put some clothes on, you pervert!!" He didn't even get a good look at his uninvited guest before a pink knockoff designer handbag slammed into his face, knocking him back into his apartment and his door was slammed shut again. In everything that happened, he had forgotten that a hungry succubus had shredded the clothes he had been wearing before he left, and in all the excitement afterward, he had forgotten to put on a new set. Five minutes later, he opened the door again, clothed this time, if in noticeably baggy sweats.
"What the hell, Hiro!?" the girl standing outside his door complained when he opened it again. Her round face apple red from embarrassment and anger visible even under the thick layer of makeup. Shoulder length brown hair kept back by a sunflower hairband. A full figure that Hiro would call huggably pudgy, but she wouldn't. Wearing a salmon pink cardigan and skirt over a white blouse and white leggings with a pink floral pattern was Toshiharu Mayumi. An aspiring newspaper reporter and journalism major at their college and Hiro's childhood friend from as far back as he could remember. Up until they had entered college, the two had been as close as two peas in a pod. Unfortunately, after they entered college, Mayumi had joined a sorority and had completely changed. The inquisitive, mischievous, self-confident girl he had grown up with had started calling herself fat and spending all her money on knockoff designer clothes and makeup. She had even started going out with a stereotypical dumb jock, the type of guy she had loathed in high school, all for the sake of fitting in with her new sorority sisters. Naturally, this also included no longer hanging out with her uncool, fat, perverted, otaku childhood friend.
"Sorry about that." Hiro apologized, ducking his head meekly in apology. Hiro, meanwhile, had taken the loss of his childhood friend, the challenges of living in a new environment, and the struggles of college life very badly. Halfway through his first semester, he had simply given up. College was too hard, and instead of putting in the effort when he had no one and nothing to motivate him, he instead indulged himself in the anime and manga that he loved and became a NEET. That was nine months ago.
"What's up?" He asked her. While his family and his high school friends had called him several times to try and encourage him, this was the first time any of them had come banging on his front door since he had shut himself away from the hard cruel world.
Instead of answering him, Mayumi just looked him up and down for a while.
"Mayu- What tha!? HEY!" Hiro started to ask before his childhood friend suddenly lifted his sweatshirt over his head. "First, you scream at me for answering the door naked, and now you're stripping me!?" He complained as he forced his shirt back down and stepped back, arms covering his chest defensively, the memory of being r*ped still fresh in his mind even after a week of hell.
"You've lost weight" Mayumi just smirked at him and answered.
"Uhh, yeah, I guess," Hiro muttered.
"And you've put on some muscles!" Mayumi's smirk got bigger.
"Carrying around an extra 90 kg all the time will do that, I suppose." Hiro joked, but Mayumi clearly wasn't listening.
"You've finally decided to take my advice and start trying to become an acceptable member of society instead of just a fat tub of lard." Mayumi's smirk was a full-blown smile now. "Ok, first of all, we have got to get you some decent clothes." Mayumi grabbed him by his wrist and dragged him out. "Let's shop!" Hiro barely had time to snatch his wallet and keys from the basket beside the door where he kept them and lock the door behind him before Mayumi had dragged him away in higher spirits than he had seen her since their high school graduation and Niu's death.
{Niu? *Shudder* What was that!?}
A short 30-minute walk later and the two had arrived at one of the malls near campus.
"What should we start with? Shirts? Shoes? Pants? Grooming? Accessories? Or perhaps nutrition and exercise equipment to help you keep that shape you've worked so hard on?" Mayumi said more to herself than Hiro.
[I don't think getting r*ped by a succubus counts] Hiro thought, but instead suggested, "How about socks and shoes?" gesturing at his bare feet. Mayumi and Hiro had been introduced to the hidden world of the supernaturals while they were in high school thanks to some 'unique' friends they had made, so Mayumi probably would have understood if Hiro told her how he had really lost weight. But she seemed so excited about his apparent change in attitude that he couldn��t bring himself to tell her the truth. Besides, the fact you got r*ped by a succubus wasn't exactly something to go around bragging about.
Though, to be honest, he felt rather bad that he hadn't even considered the Companion option. Sure he could have only given himself three or four powers and spent 50 of his points to bring 10 of his friends with him to share in this adventure with him. Sure they each would have gotten 10 points of their own to spend compared to the 5 it cost him to bring them along effectively doubling his points. However, it hadn't even crossed his mind to invite them. Maybe he had become more of a NEET than he thought, or perhaps he had just subconsciously wanted to have his own adventure. Maybe he wanted to be the protagonist for once after being a side character for his friends' awesome adventures. Whatever the reason, he hadn't, and now it just felt too awkward to tell anyone.
{Or maybe your mind was being manipulated to lead you away from thoughts of companions. *shishi*}
[Yeah, maybe- Wait! Who said that!?] Hiro frantically looked around, trying to locate the oh so quiet voice, yet so clear to him, in the bustling crowd of a college mall the week before the start of fall classes. [Am I going crazy?]
He wasn't given much time to think about it, however. Soon he was laden down with packages and dressed in new blue jeans with fixed rolled-up cuffs, a shirt that looked like it was a blue and tan plaid fleece jacket over a white t-shirt but was a single piece, a new pair of white and grey basketball sneakers over white tube socks on his feet, and his black hair cut and styled in Vergil's slicked back and shocked style that didn't fit his rounder face, but he insisted on. Naturally, only about half of the packages were for him. You couldn't expect to go clothes shopping with a woman and for her not to buy anything and everything that caught her eye after all.
One good thing about surviving their crazy paranormal high school years was that they, like all their friends, had money to burn for a lifetime. A career for them was just a way to spend their time and live their lives rather than a necessity for survival. One of the many reasons Hiro hadn't felt the need to push himself to achieve a college degree. Not that anyone outside their circle knew about their financial security. What sane, normal, ignorant of the supernatural forces that live in the shadows, person would believe that a group of highschoolers had looted the castle of an ancestral vampire patriarch, or been named honorary elders of the largest werewolf pack on the continent, or blackmailed an elven queen with nude photos, or taken down the largest crime syndicate in the country, or bribed an archangel, or staffed an around the world race for dragons, griffins, phoenixes, unicorns, and all manner of other magical creatures, or helped recover the legendary sword Excalibur, or gotten one of their friends crowned as the crown princess of England. Ok, that last one might be believable since everyone knew that Morgana was slated to be the next queen once the current queen retired in two years. Good times, crazy, but good.
The pair was currently sitting in the food court, resting their feet, and eating an early dinner before heading back into the medley. That was when Mayumi finally asked the question.
"So, what classes are you planning to take this semester?"
"Where did that come from?" Hiro raised an eyebrow at her question and turned around to follow her line of sight. Behind him, he found an advertising billboard that had just changed from showing a weather forecast for the day along with the time and date to an ad for a sale at American Falcon. [Wait! Today's the 4th!? But I could have sworn it was the 1st before that… lovely demo- Arch! Lovely archdemoness, I mean! Visited me.] Hiro was quickly distracted from the three days he seemed to have lost by the chill rippling down his spine every time he started to think something unpleasant about the Archdemon of Sloth. However, before he could further investigate the familiar sensation, his childhood friend drew his attention back to her.
"Classes start tomorrow. You are going to attend classes this semester. Aren't you?" Mayumi asked with a smile that was not a smile. Hiro shivered. Now he knew why he was so familiar with that spine-tingling warning. It was the same tingle he used to get from the girls when he was on the edge of pissing them off, and they were daring him to disappoint them. Naturally, while he may be a NEET, he did have his pride as a man.
"I'm not taking any classes," Hiro said with a straight face as he braced himself for the explosion. She didn't disappoint.
"What!? Unacceptable! You have to get a college education! You-"
"What's the point!!" Hiro interrupted her with a shout. "I have more than enough money to live comfortably for two lifetimes! Why should I waste my time and subjugate myself to such stress when I don't need to! I��m not a masochist!"
"Then what do you plan to do with your life?!"
"There are plenty of games and books to keep me entertained! If I get bored with that, maybe I'll make some of my own. I don't need a college degree for that!"
"And that's fulfilling!? Such a life makes you feel proud of yourself!?"
"What does having a degree have to do with being proud of myself?! We were all plenty proud of ourselves in high school!"
"That's not the same, and you know it! We were kids then! Now we are supposed to be adults!"
"I am an adult! I vote, pay taxes, drink, and support myself! All without having completed college!"
"That's not the point!"
"Then what the hell is!"
"It's so that you can hold your head high as a respectable member of society!"
"I don't care what other people think about me!"
"Oh yeah? What about Yuuki-chan? Don't you-" However, before she could finish, their conversation was interrupted by a voice she was 'supposed' to be happy to hear.