Luo Shu opened his eyes and stared blankly at the rows of bookshelves before him.
Under the dazzling lights, the bookshelves and the city nightscape beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows left Luo Shu unable to think for a moment.
Just then, an utterly emotionless electronic voice rang out.
[Primary consciousness has awakened. Beginning transfer of general knowledge.]
The next second, Luo Shu felt as though his head had exploded.
Luo Shu, born in China, originally from Fujian. At fifteen, he had transferred to the high school division of the private Toyogasaki Academy in Japan because of his parents' job relocation.
At sixteen, his parents had died in a plane crash... a part-time job at a bookstore... an hourly wage of 850 yen... Scene after scene flooded into Luo Shu's mind along with the information, making him raise a hand to press against his temple.
"What the hell?"
Luo Shu was still dazed. One second, he had been lying in bed scrolling through short videos on his phone. The next, how had his bed turned into a bookstore?
He had also become several years younger, turning into a high school student who shared his exact name. Everything had changed so fast that Luo Shu couldn't process any of it.
Before Luo Shu could recover from his confusion, the voice from earlier spoke inside his head:
[The system's host consciousness has been detected as awake.] [Activating energy collection system. Activation successful.] [Activating prompt panel system. Activation successful.] [Activating ability system... insufficient energy. Reactivating ability system. Restart failed. Investigating cause. Cause: insufficient energy.] [System holder, please replenish energy as soon as possible. Warning: system holder, please replenish energy as soon as possible.]
Along with the repeated warnings came waves of pain, as though his strength were being drained away.
It felt like drowning. Luo Shu's breathing grew labored, his face flushed red, and the sensation became unbearable.
"Hey, system or whatever you are, what's going on?"
[Answer: having lived two lives, the host possesses excessively powerful mental energy, which is placing pressure on the brain's nerves.]
"Fuck!"
Luo Shu couldn't help cursing under his breath at the answer. So now it's my fault that my mental energy is too strong after transmigrating?
"Then how do I fix the mental energy problem?"
[Answer: the host can integrate the 'Energy Collector' into a 'protagonist's' body, collect their excess energy, activate the ability system, and awaken his own existential rank to alleviate the condition. Note: integrating the Energy Collector requires the 'protagonist's' consent.]
"Fuck, I need their consent too? Fine, whatever. Where's a protagonist right now?" Luo Shu asked immediately, feeling his breathing becoming difficult.
[Beep!] [Activate the scanning system to scan the surroundings?]
"Acti... like hell I will! Doesn't the scanning system need energy too?" Luo Shu had been about to agree, but then remembered that the whole problem was the system's lack of energy. His face went green.
He couldn't fix the mental energy problem without enough energy, and he needed to activate the scanning system to find a protagonist, but activating that system also required energy. It was a damn vicious circle!
[Activating the wide-range scanning system requires 100 energy points. The short-range scanning system requires no additional energy.]
"How big is this short-range scan?" Luo Shu hurriedly asked, without time to think.
[Range: a fifty-meter radius centered on the host.]
"Fifty meters? Then turn it on. Let me know as soon as you find one of those protagonists."
As he spoke, Luo Shu took off his bookstore employee's cap and uniform and tossed them aside.
"Shu? What are you...?"
The female manager's puzzled voice reached his ears, but Luo Shu had no time to explain. He simply said:
"Something urgent came up. Cover my shift for me, boss."
With that, Luo Shu rushed out of the bookstore, borrowed its communal bicycle, and began pumping his legs at a furious pace.
"System, scan the surroundings."
[Nothing detected.] [Nothing detected.]
"Holy shit."
Luo Shu cursed under his breath. As he pedaled even faster, his expression darkened.
"You stupid fucking system, are you messing with me?"
"Is this some game being played by a big shot?"
"Don't tell me some powerful nonhuman is lurking nearby, pretending to be a system or an old mentor or something, handing out missions with death penalties so I can entertain them like a clown on a stage?"
"So this is all a dream, and I'm actually still lying in bed looking at my phone?"
Despite saying all that, some inexplicable intuition told Luo Shu that every one of his guesses was wrong.
There was no bored big shot toying with him. Everything happening now was caused by the system that had suddenly appeared within him.
Luo Shu had no idea where that inexplicable intuition came from, but it only made him more agitated.
Even someone with nerves of steel would lose it if they woke up to discover they were about to die. Luo Shu considered his own mental resilience merely average, which made it even worse.
If he had a knife right now, and if he could actually reach the system, Luo Shu would absolutely stab the fucking thing to death.
And just as Luo Shu was hurtling down the sidewalk on his bicycle, listening to the screams around him-
[Ding!]
A notification sounded that Luo Shu would later consider heavenly music.
[A target has been found.] [Search complete!] [Primary system, please move twenty centimeters to the left, and raise your head to an elevation angle of thirty degrees.]
Following the system's instructions, Luo Shu turned and looked up. With its assistance, he quickly locked onto a girl in the neighboring alley.
But the sight left Luo Shu stunned.
At that moment, the girl came running toward him barefoot. While Luo Shu stood frozen, she also raised her head and spotted him.
The next second, the already terrified girl shouted anxiously:
"Don't just stand there! Run!!"
Luo Shu's pupils contracted at her words. He spotted the calf-sized rat behind her and instinctively cursed aloud:
"Holy shit!"
Luo Shu quickly stuck out a leg and braked with his foot. The rubber tires scraped black marks across the ground, and with that improvised braking, he forced the bicycle through a full hundred-and-eighty-degree turn and roared:
"Get on!"
"Huh?" The girl froze for a moment. Before she could react, Luo Shu had already started pedaling.
At a time like this, Luo Shu didn't dare waste words. She had been kind enough to warn him, so he had returned the favor. His top priority now was getting the hell out of there.
As he thought that, Luo Shu felt considerable resistance through the pedals. With no time to dwell on it, he pushed down hard and fled on the bicycle, heedless of where he was going.
However, five minutes later...
Luo Shu stared at the wall in front of him, his mouth twitching. He turned to look at the giant rat blocking the alley's entrance and its dirt-caked incisors. His scalp prickled as he spoke to the girl, who was already pressed against the wall:
"Hey, before we die, can you let me put a device inside your body?"
Utaha Kasumigaoka froze at the question.
Before you continue