Chapter 25: The Simp Experience, Delivered in Full
Crazy Diamond: @RawrSoFierce — Admin-dono! Admin-dono!
Crazy Diamond: @RawrSoFierce — Admin-dono! Admin-dono!
Crazy Diamond: @RawrSoFierce — Admin-dono! Admin-dono!
The next morning.
The sun had already climbed well above the horizon. It was 10:10 AM. Yagami Ryū, who had the deeply ingrained habit of sleeping until his body naturally decided it was done, had not yet gotten out of bed.
He was in the middle of a perfectly good dream when three successive DING notifications rang out inside his mind.
He jolted awake. Blinked at the ceiling with bleary, half-open eyes.
Sunlight was coming through the window directly onto his face.
He squinted against it, rubbed some life back into his stiff face, yawned enormously, and let his consciousness sink into the Dimensional Chat Group.
"Better than an alarm clock. No easing into it — just: awake."
Inside the group, the culprit was immediately apparent. Josuke Higashikata had pinged him three times in a row and was radiating urgency.
RawrSoFierce: @Crazy Diamond — Your dashing Admin awakens, refreshed as always!
RawrSoFierce: What happened? Something going on?
Crazy Diamond: Admin-dono — that Jotaro Kujo you mentioned before, my nephew who's like fifteen years older than me — I ran into him today!
Crazy Diamond: You also said something about my grandfather being in danger?
RawrSoFierce: Right, that. Your grandfather is going to be in danger, yes. Give me a moment to sort through the plot, and I'll fill you in properly.
Crazy Diamond: Got it, thanks Admin-dono!
Ryū rubbed his still-hazy eyes and dug back through his memory of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 4. He'd watched it in high school — the broad strokes were there, but he had to think.
After Josuke met his nephew Jotaro, a fugitive named Angelo started showing up in the plot. Angelo had a grudge against Josuke's grandfather, who had been the officer responsible for his arrest. So Angelo had targeted the old man, using his Stand ability to kill him.
That was the rough shape of it, anyway. The details had gotten fuzzy.
Either way — Josuke was a Group member. As Admin, Ryū had an obligation to look out for him. And this directly involved a Group member's family's life. There was no version of this where he stayed uninvolved.
RawrSoFierce: @Crazy Diamond — I've sorted out the general direction of your world's near future. Sending it to you privately now. As long as you don't let your guard down at the critical moment, your grandfather will be fine.
Crazy Diamond: Got it, got it! Admin-dono is the greatest! Undefeated! #1 forever!
Kaguya-sama: Congratulations to the new member for unlocking the title: Ultimate Simp.
The Little Wandering Planet: Admin-dono is the greatest! Undefeated! #1 forever!
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: Admin-dono is the greatest! Undefeated! #1 forever!
Edward Newgate: Admin-dono is the greatest! Undefeated! #1 forever!
Kaguya-sama: …Okay, I genuinely cannot picture Whitebeard typing that. The man was just hammering Blackbeard into the ground two days ago. The tonal whiplash is fatal. His entire image — gone.
RawrSoFierce: Pfft — if anyone's image is in ruins here, it's yours. You started out the Ice Princess of Shūchi'in Academy and now you're slowly sliding down the gremlin pipeline.
RawrSoFierce: Or is Little Kaguya trying to challenge the Admin's authority?
Kaguya-sama: Admin-dono!! The greatest!! Undefeated!! #1 forever (voice crack)!!
No one, it turned out, could outrun the Law of "Actually That's Pretty Good." The law recognized no dimensional barriers. Even Kaguya Shinomiya — female lead of the currently airing Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, academic battlefield general, ice sculpture incarnate — was not exempt.
Though, to be fair, some of the credit probably had to go to the sheer atmospheric weight of Ryū's Admin Presence. His standing in the Group was remarkably high, all things considered.
No one in the Group had ever seen him fight. They didn't even know his real name. He didn't look particularly old.
And yet — with Yukari Yakumo as the precedent, who was going to believe the Admin of the Dimensional Chat Group was just some young person? In the minds of every Group member, including Yukari herself, Ryū was a figure of at least ten thousand years. Possibly considerably more.
After all, The Little Wandering Planet was several billion years old. Surely the Admin wasn't younger than a member?
Even if he was younger — surely not by that much?
And so, through the miraculous alchemy of collective wishful thinking, Ryū had been enshrined in the minds of Kaguya, Yukari, Whitebeard, The Little Wandering Planet, and Josuke as an ancient and unfathomable power of unknown vintage.
The real Ryū, for his part, had no idea this was the impression he was giving. He wasn't even sure he could beat a Chūnin yet.
He glanced at the sun through the window, shuffled to the bathroom to brush his teeth and wash his face, then ate four or five bread rolls in rapid succession. Breakfast, handled.
"Almost forgot to do my Daily Sign-In. Even a mosquito has meat on it."
Over the past several days, Ryū had been faithfully using the Daily Sign-In function. His accumulated total was currently 404 Points — respectable, given his luck wasn't consistently exceptional, but had never dipped below 50 per day either.
He tapped the Sign-In option.
His balance shifted. 404 became 502.
He blinked. "502 minus 404 is… 98 Points? My luck today is something else."
He took a screenshot and posted it to the Group.
RawrSoFierce: [Image] — Another lucky streak. Agonizing to be 2 Points short of 100.
Crazy Diamond: I've only been in the group two or three days and I already have 100 Points.
Crazy Diamond: Whoa… Admin-dono has over five hundred?!
Kaguya-sama: My luck has been terrible lately. Two Sign-Ins, 30 Points each — total of 60 over two days. Embarrassing.
Edward Newgate: Gurararara! I got 91 today — not as much as Admin-dono, but it's my first time breaking 90!
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: …Worthless Sign-In. Destroyer of youth. Ruiner of fortune.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: I am going to cry. I joined the Group so much earlier than the new members, and somehow my Point balance is fifty lower than theirs.
The Eternally Seventeen-Year-Old Maiden: I suspect someone has been stealing this sage's luck.