"Hajime, seriously, what is wrong with you?"
"Yeah, you look like you haven't slept in days. Were you up all night wanking to your 2D girls again?"
"You're such a hopeless, sweaty nerd, Hajime!"
The crude, mocking laughter echoed through the stuffy classroom, thick with the stifling summer heat and the restless, frustrated hormones of third-year high school boys.
Suzuki Tanaka wasn't involved. He sat quietly at his desk, observing the scene that played out almost every single day. He couldn't help but wonder if the boy currently hunched over his desk—Hajime Nagumo—would eventually just snap. More importantly, Suzuki wondered how the bullies weren't entirely bored of harassing the same weak target every afternoon.
The university entrance exams were looming just around the corner. Yet, these idiots were still entirely preoccupied with cheap, juvenile power trips that would mean absolutely nothing in a few short months.
Did they genuinely not worry about their futures? The results of their upcoming exams would be the sole deciding factor between coasting into a third-rate university or becoming a miserable ronin—a failed student left behind by society. Did they actually delude themselves into thinking they would live comfortable lives?
Suzuki knew the bitter reality. For boys like them, their futures were a stagnant, downward spiral into failure.
Why do people love to bully others? It was a simple, pathetic psychological release. They wanted to aggressively assert their dominance, addicted to the brief, intoxicating high that distracted them from their own miserable, failing grades. Pushing someone else down was the only way they could trick themselves into feeling like they weren't at the absolute bottom of the food chain.
Yet, at the same time, Suzuki had very little sympathy for someone who simply laid down and let himself be bullied.
He knew not everyone was born physically strong. Still, if Nagumo just smiled, took the abuse, and quietly waited for graduation, he was wasting his youth. Even if he fought back and lost, struggling against the current would at least forge a certain resilience—a raw, gritty quality that would make him special.
However, looking at the silly, trembling, soft-spoken otaku, Suzuki knew Nagumo didn't have the spine for it.
Knock! Knock!
The sharp, rhythmic sound of hard knuckles rapping against a wooden desk suddenly pierced the noisy classroom, instantly demanding absolute attention.
"Excuse me."
Suzuki didn't even flinch as every single pair of eyes in the room snapped toward him. He sat perfectly relaxed, his broad shoulders and lean, heavily muscled frame completely filling his uniform. "I don't really care if you boys want to 'play' together in class, but keep your volume down, okay? Some of us are actually trying to study for the entrance exams."
He didn't need to raise his voice or stand up. The moment the words left his mouth, the atmosphere shifted. The other serious students in the room, emboldened by his intervention, silently turned and glared at the group of bullies.
"L-Let's just stop..." the lead bully muttered, avoiding eye contact.
If they had been real delinquents, they might not have backed down. But these boys were cowards who only dared to bare their fangs at the weak. Faced with a larger group—and specifically faced with Suzuki—they immediately tucked their tails and scurried away.
Suzuki instantly lost interest, smoothly flipping the page of his advanced collegiate textbook. His ultimate life goal was incredibly simple: to live a quiet, easy, and luxuriously stable life. He was entirely done with living a chaotic, colorful, bloody existence. Given a second chance at life, he deliberately chose the "gray" path. It might be boring, but it was safe, comfortable, and warm.
As for enjoying the fleeting romance and passion of high school?
Suzuki didn't care. High school was a brief, three-year hormone trip. Adulthood lasted forever. In terms of sheer Return-On-Investment, it was mathematically obvious which era of his life he should be investing his energy into.
"T-Tanaka-kun... thank you..."
Suzuki paused, letting out a soft sigh as the nervous young man shuffled over to his desk. His mature mind wouldn't let him just ignore the boy.
"Instead of wasting your time playing erotic dating sims all night, have you ever considered just studying for the entire night, Nagumo?"
"Eh?!" Nagumo squeaked, his face flushing violently.
Suzuki didn't bother giving an inspiring speech about standing up for oneself. Forcing someone to change was exhausting and rarely worked. True metamorphosis had to come from within; the desperation had to be genuine.
"Well," Suzuki added dryly, his eyes scanning his textbook. "Your parents are wealthy and incredibly famous in the creative industry. Even if you bomb your exams and end up at a third-rate college, you'll be fine. You can just comfortably ride the waves of their nepotism right into a cushy job."
"....."
Nagumo was entirely speechless, a heavy bead of sweat rolling down his cheek. The harsh, blunt truth stung, but he knew Suzuki was absolutely right. The only reason Nagumo could afford to slack off and play video games while everyone else was having panic attacks over their futures was that he possessed a financial safety net.
But Suzuki? Suzuki was a completely different breed.
The reason the bullies had instantly backed down wasn't just because of Suzuki's intimidating physique. It was because Suzuki Tanaka had already secured an early acceptance letter into the Faculty of Economics at Tokyo University (Toudai)—the absolute pinnacle of Japanese academia!
While everyone else was scrambling in the dirt, Suzuki was already casually walking the elite path.
Furthermore, Suzuki was a physical beast. He was the star marathon runner who had won the National High School Ekiden Championship three years in a row, serving as the legendary Anchor who carried the team's crushing burden across the finish line. He possessed a black belt in judo, was undeniably handsome, and radiated a cool, dominant masculine pheromone that made the weaker boys instinctively submit.
Did Nagumo want to be like Suzuki?
Absolutely not. Just looking at Suzuki's relentless, grueling work ethic made Nagumo feel exhausted. Everyone knew Suzuki was a hard-working orphan. He didn't have a safety net; he had to claw his way to the top with his bare hands.
Nagumo knew that the second they graduated, their paths would violently diverge. While the rest of the class would spend their adult lives grinding away in miserable cubicles, drowning their sorrows at mandatory, soul-crushing drinking parties, Suzuki's life was already set in stone.
"But... you're going to end up in the creative industry anyway," Suzuki murmured, finally looking up. "In that world, personal taste and vision are vastly more important than a math grade."
"Y-Yeah..."
Nagumo felt a sudden, strange warmth in his chest. Suzuki's blunt, pragmatic validation was strangely comforting. "But... what about you, Tanaka-kun? You've already been accepted into Toudai. What are you going to do after you graduate?"
At that question, the surrounding students subtly leaned in, their ears practically twitching. Everyone desperately wanted to know the grand ambitions of the school's ultimate genius.
"What else?" Suzuki shrugged casually. "I'm going to become a mid-level corporate accountant. Or maybe a back-office administrator at a massive public utility company, like Tokyo Electric Power. Or perhaps a Tier-1 local government worker in a quiet, incredibly wealthy ward."
"That's so simple!" Nagumo blurted out, stunned.
"It is," Suzuki smirked slightly. "I will clock in at nine, sit in a heavily air-conditioned office, clock out exactly at five, and go home to relax. Unlike the rest of you, who will spend your entire twenties completely burnt out, sweating in a cramped office until midnight."
"....."
The listening students collectively swallowed hard, completely unable to refute the brutal reality check.
Regardless of his sharp tongue, Suzuki's desk was the only real sanctuary Nagumo had in the entire school. Nagumo was an isolated loner, constantly judged by everyone else. Suzuki was the only person who treated his otaku hobbies as a simple byproduct of nepotism rather than a moral failing.
"By the way," Suzuki suddenly said, his eyes narrowing slightly.
"Yes?"
"Do not stand close to my desk for the next ten minutes."
"Why?!"
"Because the loud, overly fragrant group is approaching, and I actually want to study."
Suzuki immediately looked back down at his advanced economics textbook. Deep within his mind, the Manager AI was rapidly absorbing, organizing, and categorizing thousands of pages of macroeconomic theory and global financial data, actively searching for highly profitable arbitrage opportunities and market inefficiencies.
"What?!" Nagumo panicked, but before he could even move, the classroom doors slid open, and a painfully sweet, melodic voice chimed through the air.
"Nagumo-kun~!"
This was the ultimate source of all of Hajime Nagumo's problems. He just wanted a quiet, peaceful life. But as a high-school boy practically overflowing with repressed hormones, what was he supposed to do?
Kaori Shirasaki, the absolute most popular, stunning girl in the entire school, bounded into the classroom.
The stuffy air was instantly sweetened by the intoxicating scent of vanilla and floral shampoo. Her pristine white uniform blouse clung tantalizingly to her soft, developing curves, the fabric straining ever so slightly with every bubbly step she took. Her pleated skirt swayed playfully, offering fleeting, maddening glimpses of her smooth, porcelain thighs. As she jogged over to Nagumo, her chest bounced with a subtle, mesmerizing softness that completely paralyzed every teenage boy in a five-meter radius.
Her lips parted into a bright, painfully beautiful smile, her cheeks flushed with an alluring, rosy warmth specifically directed at the stuttering otaku.
Even if Nagumo eventually fell into the abyss and became an edgy, god-killing monster in the future, his core motivation would always remain the same: he was a teenage boy fundamentally driven by the overwhelming, primal urge to build a harem.
As the classroom erupted into whispers of intense, burning jealousy over Kaori's arrival, Suzuki simply pushed his glasses up his nose, completely immune to the pheromones and the bouncing skirts.
He just wanted a quiet, financially stable life. It was the only thing he had been desperately craving since day one.
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Welcome to Arifureta!