Life Is a Play, and It All Depends on Acting Skills! (New Book, Please Support!)

Conquest Missions:

Conquest Target: Sakura Matou. Progress (Affection): 25%

Conquest Target: Tohsaka Rin. Progress (Affection): 15%

Shinji stopped after reading only the second conquest target and asked the System in confusion, Why did Rin's progress suddenly increase by 5 points? Aren't all the initial values 10? I've never even met her.

Grandpa does not know.

Shinji immediately bristled. "Damn it! Enough already! How much have you taken advantage of me over the past three years? Are you never going to stop?"

Is that any way to speak to Grandpa?

"Fuck XX! I'm done playing! So what if I become a vegetable?"

Even if you become a vegetable, you cannot unbind from me. Grandson, you will still be able to hear my voice.

"AAAAAAAAAH!!!"

Shinji, on the verge of collapse, sprang off the bed and began smashing it with his pillow, venting the hatred in his heart!

As it happened, Byakuya Matou had just finished assisting with some work and was passing his son's room. Hearing Shinji's banging and crashing inside, along with his continuous, teeth-gritted "damn its," he could only shake his head and sigh helplessly.

So what if he did not have Mage Circuits? Wouldn't it be enough to give up early and inherit the family business with him?

Why work himself so hard?

This foolish son really took after him in none of the slightest ways.

After venting for quite some time to no effect, Shinji ultimately decided to go out for some air. But the moment he opened his door, he saw Sakura standing outside it, hugging a little rabbit plushie with empty, lifeless eyes.

She had probably... been tormented once again.

He did feel sorry for her. After all, he was a mature adult with a fully developed mind. He really could not stand seeing a child being abused.

Many times, Shinji had wanted to shout it outright.

—That was not how you treated a loli!

She should be dressed in cute little dresses, dolled up beautifully, and smelling all nice and sweet. That was the right way!

Of course, he only dared think such things in his heart.

"Big Brother..."

"Hm?" Shinji frowned, obvious displeasure showing on his face.

"Good night..."

Sakura bowed, then turned around with the rabbit plushie in her arms and slowly walked away.

Only after Sakura returned to her room at the other end of the hallway and shut the door did Shinji move.

Thud!

Gritting his teeth, Shinji slammed his fist against the wall as though saying, What was that supposed to mean? Showing off or mocking me?

Naturally, that was an act too. After all, Bug Grandpa had a god's-eye view. It would be bad if he let something slip, and if he was putting on a show, he had to see it through to the end.

Though Shinji wore a disgusted, resentful expression throughout his night run, Sakura's face from earlier kept flashing through his mind.

It was an expression of despair—one that no longer hoped for salvation, as though she had already resigned herself to her fate.

Of the three routes, the only one who brought salvation to that poor girl was Shirou, the protagonist of the Heaven's Feel route. Sakura, who had little screen time in the other two routes, only showed her face at the ending. As for what Sakura's future was like in those two routes, Shinji did not know.

It was probably somewhat better, but not particularly wonderful.

Shinji truly wanted to help but lacked the power to do so. He could only hope that the girl would hold on until the moment he completed the first main quest.

In any case...

Tokiomi! Get out here and take the blame!

Time flew by.

Two and a half years passed in the blink of an eye.

Now in his first year of middle school, Shinji was still no different from before: skipping class, training for his daily missions, and then cultivating.

There was, however, one difference from the original story that made Shinji happy.

He had nearly reached the height listed for Second Grandpa in the setting materials, with only seven centimeters to go. By his estimate, he would surpass Second Grandpa before entering high school!

To borrow his teacher's description—he was a handsome honor student who loved skipping class and was surprisingly popular despite his personality!

Though he did occasionally behave strangely—for example, walking into the wrong school on his first day of middle school, then confessing to a new student at someone else's school gate, only to be rejected and beaten up.

Or wearing unique pink swim trunks printed with cute anime girls during swimming class without feeling embarrassed in the slightest.

October arrived, and with it came the Cultural Festival.

As a notorious student who had skipped no fewer than sixty days of school in the half year since entering middle school, Shinji was intercepted by his homeroom teacher after school the day before the Cultural Festival.

Looking at the bespectacled woman in a purple business suit, around twenty-five years old, who stood in the classroom doorway with her arms folded and a dark expression on her stern face, staring straight at him, Shinji brushed back the hair over his forehead.

"My, my~ Teacher Yuko, it's not like I can't accept this forbidden kind of relationship, but could you give me a little time? Blocking a student after school will cost you points with me, you know~"

Ignoring Shinji's antics, his homeroom teacher—the female teacher named Yuko—said irritably, "Matou, do you remember how many times you've come to school since enrolling?"

"Teacher, could it be that you think about me every moment of every day?" Shinji looked astonished, then frowned with a touch of reluctance. "I'm truly sorry, Teacher. I failed to notice your sincere feelings. I'll think it over carefully and give you an answer. See you tomorrow... no, the day after tomorrow... or the day after that."

Yuko gave Shinji no chance to escape. She instantly grabbed the back of his collar as he tried to pass her, adjusted her glasses, then turned around and dragged him toward her office.

"Teacher, where are you taking me?" Shinji finally became serious and asked helplessly.

"Grades do not represent everything, Matou! Your absenteeism problem is far too serious! The student council has come to me more than once! We are going to have a proper talk today! If this continues, then Teacher will have no choice but to call in your parents!"

Hearing that, Shinji sighed. "Teacher, if you can get my parents to come, I'll really promise not to be absent again. But that probably won't work... They do not care about me that much."

By the time Shinji left the teachers' office, the sky had already gone completely dark.

In the dim corridor, Shinji walked toward the staircase not far away with his hands behind his head, utterly bored. As for his homeroom teacher's lecture just now, most of it had gone in one ear and out the other; he did not remember a single word.

As Shinji checked the System panel while walking toward the stairwell corner, the accumulation of two and a half years of desperately completing daily missions, along with his own day-and-night cultivation, had finally allowed him to break through the Onmyoji Qi Gathering Realm and enter the Soul Condensation Realm.

An Onmyoji's levels were roughly divided into Qi Gathering, Soul Condensation, Spirit Tempering, Thought Fusion, Spirit Gathering, River Transformation, Mountains and Seas, Sun and Moon, Dao Illumination, and Universe Passage.

Each realm was further divided into several minor stages, and every advancement brought a qualitative leap. However, the minor stages in each realm differed as well. For example, Soul Condensation involved solidifying the dispersed three souls within the body, while Spirit Tempering involved tempering the seven souls.

According to the Dog System, to "save" Zouken with ease, he needed at least the cultivation of Spirit Tempering Stage Three. But Shinji felt that going from having just entered Soul Condensation, without even successfully gathering his first soul, to Spirit Tempering Stage Three across so many minor stages in a little over four years was nothing more than a fool's dream.

Of course, there was one thing Shinji, who had never used his power and was always cautious out of fear of being discovered, had yet to realize.

Perhaps the magecraft and magic of this world had been regarded as Cthulhu-like things in his original world, but what he was learning now was the true Cthulhu of this current world—or rather, an ancient and mysterious Eastern nightmare...