At the same time, Houtonji High School was located in the city center, making it an excellent place both to build a career and to follow the latest drama.
Beika Town was on the left, Akihabara was on the right, Chūkagai lay to the north, and Tokyo Dome was less than half an hour south. With entertainment and food options maxed out, he could even find time to scour Professor Agasa's place in Beika Town for some black technology.
Studying here would basically ensure that he would not miss a single piece of drama he wanted to see during his three years of high school.
Before obtaining the Diary, Miyauchi Hiyage had already privately planned out his entire high school life.
Whenever he had time, he would look for familiar characters from this world and see what other monsters and demons it held.
Then he would get up close and collect memories with those anime characters he had liked in his previous life.
He would watch Kessoku Band's first performance, listen to MyGO play Haruhikage, and see which route the male leads of those stock-picking stories ultimately chose.
Of course, Miyauchi Hiyage had to admit that besides all those reasons, Kasumigaoka Utaha's pair of incredibly textured thigh-high stockings in the anime had indeed been an important factor he could not ignore when choosing Toyosaki.
After all, who wouldn't like thigh-high stockings?
It was just that Miyauchi Hiyage had not expected the cheat ability he had waited over a decade for to arrive only now, and to immediately saddle him with a Pure Yang Body that could easily make him lose his head.
"If this physique weren't barely controllable, I wouldn't even be planning to go to school," Miyauchi Hiyage muttered helplessly as he woke up in the afternoon, feeling the surging heat in his body.
"I've spent all these years building a career, and the money I've made is already more than enough for an ordinary person. I could've started thinking about my personal life, but now I have to make new plans all over again."
He had started building his career in middle school not only because he wanted to raise his little sister like a princess, but also so that this version of him would have the confidence to face anyone, unlike the one who had muddled through life in his previous world.
As for making tacky videos...
Even Miyauchi Kouka thought that constantly messing around with weird stuff would make it hard for him to find a girlfriend in the future. Did Miyauchi Hiyage himself not know that?
No matter how handsome a man was, he could not survive lines as painfully cringe as "You can't step on my Chelsea." So after writing the scripts, Miyauchi Hiyage only gathered people to film them and never appeared in front of the camera himself.
But now...
Getting close to pretty girls was nowhere near as interesting as watching a group of pretty girls get utterly shaken by him.
"I mentioned Yukinoshita and Kasumigaoka in the Diary before. Going by the usual diary novel tropes, there's a good chance that anyone mentioned in it might receive a copy of the Diary."
"I wonder what Hoshino Ai would think after learning about her future if she could see the diary."
"Still, with Yukinoshita and Kasumigaoka's personalities, they'll probably agonize over the diary all night. Though I wonder whether their mental states can hold up."
Yukino Yukinoshita in particular had always pursued perfection. If she discovered that her journey toward perfection was merely the story of a light novel, she would probably be the most likely to crack.
But after thinking it over carefully, Miyauchi Hiyage felt that it should not be a big problem.
They were all fifteen- or sixteen-year-old middle school students, at the age when people were most capable of accepting new things. If Yukino Yukinoshita's convictions collapsed over something like this, then she would never have become a character loved by so many people.
"I've read so many webnovels in my previous life. I can use those chat group protagonists as reference for how to fool the group members and play the mastermind behind the scenes," Miyauchi Hiyage muttered as he considered what to write today.
After giving it some thought, Miyauchi Hiyage quickly made his decision.
"Right, those girls probably don't even know what supernatural threats exist in this world. I'll give them a little warning today."
Shinomiya Kaguya's Investigation
While Miyauchi Hiyage was pondering what to write in today's diary and miserably discovering that he could now handle, at most, mildly spicy food, the Diary's contents were being continuously verified by its holders elsewhere in Tokyo after a day of fermentation.
In the Shinomiya Family mansion, Shinomiya Kaguya, who would be entering Shuchiin Academy in a few days, was waiting for Hayasaka Ai's investigation report.
Last night, just as she had lain down and closed her eyes, a black Diary had landed squarely on her face.
At the time, she had been ready to teach the person behind such a prank a lesson they would never forget.
However, her bedroom had been empty. The windows were locked from the inside, the door was shut tight, and the Diary seemed to have appeared out of thin air.
When she opened the Diary with a frown, saw the message that could be summed up as "I'm Tom, send money," and, like Kasumigaoka Utaha, discovered that it could not be damaged or discarded and that its pages had no end, she hesitated for only a minute before decisively taking out a pen and writing in it.
"I am Shinomiya Kaguya. What is your purpose?"
It was a mysterious Diary. Although Shinomiya Kaguya had never encountered anything like it, the education she had received since childhood taught her never to overlook anything that might have value.
Although she belonged to the Shinomiya Family, the family had always followed a patriarchal tradition. She had three older brothers, and she herself had been born to a mistress. In the future, she would be fortunate if she received a few insignificant companies and was not used by the family as a tool for marriage alliances.
After more than ten years of family education, Shinomiya Kaguya had thought she had long accepted her fate.
But this Diary, which had appeared out of nowhere, seemed to awaken her long-dormant heart.
Yet just as she wrote that line in the Diary with a spark of anticipation, an emotionless notification sounded in her mind.
"Your accumulated Reading Points are insufficient. You cannot unlock the permissions to use the Diary."
The prompt that had suddenly appeared in her head
made Shinomiya Kaguya's body stiffen. Then she cautiously asked,
"What are Reading Points?"
There was no response.
Watching the line she had just written rapidly fade from the Diary, Shinomiya Kaguya bit her lip and wrote her question in it again.
This time, she received a new response.
As long as she read the Diary every day, she would receive one Reading Point.
To gain the permissions to use the Diary, she needed to accumulate seven Reading Points, which meant the feature would unlock after one week.
According to the prompt in her mind, Reading Points seemed to have other uses as well, but she did not currently have the permissions to know what they were.
"Who is Tom? Does magic exist in this world?"
When she wrote that question in the Diary, the response was still that she did not have the permissions to use it.
For the next half hour, Shinomiya Kaguya continuously wrote questions in the Diary, trying to probe it from every angle.
Although most answers stated that she lacked permissions, she still managed to test out several things.
The diary would automatically update with new entries every day, and reading them would earn Reading Points.
She could not mention the Diary to anyone who did not possess one, nor would they notice its existence. To let others see the Diary, she would need to unlock higher permissions.
"There are people besides me who possess diaries. Did this self-proclaimed wizard named 'Tom' grant me these permissions? How many others did he give them to?"
As Shinomiya Kaguya pondered that, an entry of over a thousand words appeared before her, completely shattering the worldview she had built over the past sixteen years.
She had a habit of instantly calming down whenever she touched her left cheek with her right hand. Yet even though she kept touching her left cheek, her heart still stirred after finishing the Diary entry.
Was she the female lead of some work too? Was that why she had received this Diary?
Then what kind of story was hers?
But the diary did not mention her name, so even if she wanted to analyze it, she could not extract any useful information.
It was not until late at night, when she could no longer suppress her exhaustion, that she reluctantly went to bed and dozed off for a while.
After waking up the next day, she immediately ordered her personal maid, Hayasaka Ai, to investigate the contents of the Diary.
Yukino, the Second Daughter of the Yukinoshita Family, Kasumigaoka, Senpai, the idol Hoshino Ai, Kamiki Hikaru, Mouri Kogoro, Edogawa Conan, Shionji Yuko, and of course the name the Diary's owner had first impersonated: "Tom Marvolo Riddle."
She handed every name mentioned in the Diary to Hayasaka Ai for investigation.
Out of trust in Hayasaka Ai, she even tried mentioning the Diary to her, only to watch Hayasaka Ai calmly go and bring her a cup of tea as though nothing had happened.
It seemed that whenever she tried to mention the Diary to someone, her actions would be distorted into something else in that person's eyes.
This time, it had only resulted in a cup of tea. Who knew what it might be twisted into next time?
Thus, Shinomiya Kaguya abandoned the idea of continuing to test the Diary.
The Shinomiya Family's intelligence network was formidable, but there were so many people to investigate, including foreign names and several incomplete names. By the time Hayasaka Ai delivered the information, evening had already arrived.
The information Shinomiya Kaguya received now was far more complete than anything Kasumigaoka Utaha had found online herself.
Aside from Kasumigaoka, Senpai, who had five possible matches, and Tom Riddle, whose identity could not yet be found, everyone else, including Edogawa Conan, had a complete file.
There was only one person in all of Japan with the surname Yukinoshita, the right age, and the status of the family's second daughter: Yukino Yukinoshita. That was why Yukino, the Second Daughter of the Yukinoshita Family, had no possible alternatives.
Holding the five photographs of possible Kasumigaoka, Senpai candidates, Shinomiya Kaguya took one look and identified the prettiest one as Kasumigaoka Utaha.
After all, this Kasumigaoka, Senpai was clearly a highly popular female lead. Picking the prettiest one could not be wrong.
After reading Kasumigaoka Utaha's nearly flawless profile, she found another impeccable profile under Yukino Yukinoshita's name.
As expected of popular female leads. Though they still could not compare to me.
Shinomiya Kaguya ignored the fact that even Yukino Yukinoshita, whose chest barely had any curves, had a better figure than her, and turned to the other files.
Hoshino Ai and Kamiki Hikaru, the two names heavily emphasized in the diary, were the ones she focused on.
One was fifteen and the other fourteen. Both were younger than her, yet they had gone this far.
One had become pregnant before marriage and hidden it from her fans.
The other had not been satisfied with getting her body and had even wanted her life.
Seeing that the two currently intersected at a theater troupe called LALALAI, Shinomiya Kaguya gently touched her left cheek.
Was Hoshino Ai a Diary holder?
Did she possess any value that I could use?
Although their considerations were entirely different, she and Kasumigaoka Utaha both chose to stand by and watch.
In Shinomiya Kaguya's mind, Hoshino Ai after giving birth might even be easier to control than Hoshino Ai, who currently had nothing tying her down.
With that thought in mind, a new entry appeared in the Diary before her eyes and drew away her attention.
The World's Secrets
I didn't sleep well on the first night after getting the Diary. When I got up at noon and checked the news, I saw that the second daughter of the Suzuki Conglomerate had encountered a murder case at a university reunion. Thinking back, the Conan storyline should be at the Bandage Freak case from the Childhood Trauma Series.
I wonder what will become of that manga, which still had not ended even after thirty years of serialization in my previous life, in this world.
Still, Conan's setting could never be judged by normal standards, especially since APTX4869, the core of the story, was never something that should have existed in this era.
After swallowing one capsule, a high school student who was five foot nine and weighed over a hundred pounds turned into an elementary school student barely over three feet tall and weighing less than forty pounds within ten minutes.
Even more absurdly, drinking a bottle of baijiu could temporarily turn him back into his original form. God knew how the dozens of pounds that appeared and disappeared out of nowhere were converted into energy.
But although Conan's side looked wildly unscientific, with all kinds of black-tech gadgets being thrown around, it was still a detective manga, so the story's development had to follow basic logic. At most, there were just more criminals than usual.
On the other hand, another manga by Conan's author, Kaitou Kid, truly had an unfathomable witch hidden in its setting. According to the work's lore, the Pandora Gem Kaitou Kid had been searching for supposedly contained the secret to immortality.
Unfortunately, when I transmigrated here, both works were still far from finished. I have no idea who the final villain is, and I have no interest in joining their plots just to watch the show. The two protagonists can work hard and defeat their own bosses.
As for the female leads reading this diary, don't even think about getting involved.
One is a modern Sherlock Holmes, while the other is a phantom thief with an IQ of four hundred according to the setting. If you suddenly appear before them, they'll notice something wrong in minutes.
Besides, APTX4869 has a mortality rate above ninety-nine percent. Only a tiny number of people can enjoy the benefit of becoming young again. Even if you somehow get your hands on it, you'll most likely attract the attention of a world-class criminal organization.
In the story, they're super terrorists who dare to bomb the Shinkansen, sweep Tokyo Tower with armed helicopters, and blow people up just for being looked at too long. Even the second daughter of the Suzuki Conglomerate nearly died to their guns over a trivial matter.
So for the sake of your lives, stay away from Beika Town as much as possible for the next few years unless you have a reason to go there. It will probably have the highest murder rate in all of Japan.
Since we're talking about supernatural powers, I might as well mention that Hoshino Ai's story also contains supernatural elements.
If she is already pregnant, then the two children in her womb are reincarnators with memories of their past lives. After Ai is murdered, they will secretly investigate the true reason for her death.
Honestly, that development is pretty exciting. But considering how the manga author's previous work, Lady Kaguya, suddenly started pulling bizarre moves, playing politics and business wars when everything had been going well, losing control of the plot, producing a pile of infamous scenes, and then ending hastily, I have no way of guessing what the truth behind Hoshino Ai's death really is.
I seem to have gone a little off topic. After all, it is still uncertain whether Hoshino Ai is even pregnant, and talking about events years or even more than a decade away is far too premature.
Come to think of it, how many unseen secrets are hidden in this world?
Still, I have no plans to get involved with any of those things right now.
I'm not some ally of justice. What I can do now is lie low and write diaries for a few years. It won't be too late to come out once I'm invincible. There's no need to make things difficult for myself.
As for you all, there's no need to worry either. Even if the sky falls, other protagonists will be there to hold it up. Living your own lives well is what matters most.
Today's diary updated a little early because I was worried that after reading it, you might stay up all night unable to sleep again. Pretty thoughtful of me, right?
Shinomiya Kaguya read today's diary word by word.
Today's entry was a little shorter than yesterday's, but what it revealed was just as explosive.
She first pulled out Edogawa Conan's file.
Before you continue