“This is only fifty thousand yen… What exactly can I do with this?”
In the bustling city, a girl dressed in men’s clothing muttered to herself, standing out conspicuously among the crowd.
She possessed a goddess-like beauty straight out of mythology; even in men’s clothes, her charm was undeniable.
Both men and women couldn’t help but turn their heads to look at her.
Of course, Wanmie Ayase didn’t care about any of that.
Right now, her only concern was to fill her stomach and then find a place to stay.
She had just snatched fifty thousand yen from a group of delinquents, then changed into one of their clothes.
After all, walking down the street in such a revealing Spirit outfit would definitely get her arrested by the police as a suspicious person.
After wandering the streets for a while, Wanmie entered a family restaurant and ordered an omurice.
She couldn’t help but think that prices in Japan were truly expensive.
An omurice in the mainland would only cost about ten to twenty yuan, but here it was priced at 800 yen, roughly fifty-six yuan in RMB.
Looking at it this way, fifty thousand yen wouldn’t even last a week, and with the costs of clothes and lodging factored in, it might not even get her through the night.
Ding dong~
Just as Wanmie was eating, her phone suddenly buzzed with a notification.
But without WiFi or a SIM card, what message could it possibly be?
Curious, she unlocked the phone, and the screen automatically switched to the System page.
On the main page’s bottom left corner was a plus sign blinking with a red dot.
When she tapped it, a “Task Completed” prompt popped up.
“Task completed? Did I do something?”
Wanmie wasn’t quite sure.
She opened the task details and read a line of text.
“First time defeating three delinquents, earned three Coins~”
Coins?
This broken system even had a currency system?
Now that she thought about it, there was indeed a shopping cart icon at the top right of the main page.
Wanmie tapped the shopping cart, and the page immediately changed to a product showcase resembling a popular online marketplace.
Various skills and weapons were for sale, costing anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of Coins.
But she had no mood to explore these yet, because she discovered a very intriguing option—exchanging Coins for cash.
One Coin could be exchanged for 10,000 yen.
Since she currently had three Coins, that meant she could exchange them for 30,000 yen.
So whenever she was short on money, all she had to do was complete tasks?
Wanmie felt like she had discovered a new world, nearly laughing out loud.
Returning to the task interface, there were main quests and side quests.
The side quests mostly involved social labor and eliminating delinquents, generally awarding fewer than ten Coins.
The main quests seemed related to the Date A Live storyline, such as “Invite Tohka for dinner” or “Challenge the Yamai Sisters in a girl-power contest.”
But since she hadn’t even solved her basic needs yet, the main quests could wait.
Among these, the quickest and most lucrative tasks were eliminating delinquents.
If those delinquents were as easy to handle as the three she had just met, things might be much simpler than she imagined.
No time to waste.
After finishing her meal, Wanmie bought a set of comfortable sportswear at a random clothing store and began her mission.
***
“Recently, there have been frequent reports of citizens being attacked late at night in Tengū City. The police are currently making every effort to apprehend the suspects…”
Early morning, Itsuka Shidou was making breakfast while listening to the news program his sister, Itsuka Kotori, was broadcasting.
This type of news seemed to be popping up more often recently, making Shidou somewhat uneasy.
“These recent incidents really don’t give anyone peace of mind. Kotori, what kind of person would persistently attack passersby every night?”
“There are plenty of bored people out there. Let the police handle this kind of thing.”
Kotori’s response was indifferent as she popped a lollipop into her mouth and continued, “If Tohka wants to go out at night during this period, you have to accompany her. If something dangerous happens and her Spirit Power backfires, it won’t be easy to handle.”
“True…”
Shidou smiled wryly.
Although Kotori was more responsible now in her commanding officer mode, he still missed the innocent, carefree sister he once knew.
“Kotori, do you think the culprit behind this might be a Spirit?”
“A Spirit…”
Kotori thoughtfully put the lollipop back in her mouth and considered for a moment.
“There are indeed such Spirits in the world, but Fonaxinas has detected no Spirit waves recently, and there hasn’t even been a Spacequake. The chances of it being a Spirit are very low. Shidou, stop guessing all day. Could it be that you’re just too sensitive after sealing Tohka’s Spirit Power?”
“Maybe…”
There were more Spirits than just Tohka.
Shidou still remembered what Kotori had told him: several Spirits had already been confirmed by Ratatoskr.
They might all be like Tohka—yearning to be accepted by the world. So he wouldn’t ignore any of them.
***
At AST headquarters, commonly known as the Anti-Spirit Team, Lieutenant Kusakabe Ryouko was sighing heavily over some documents.
Beside her, Okamine Miki tried to offer comfort but looked somewhat flustered, unable to find the right words.
“Mike, do you really think this is a Spirit?”
After a long pause, Ryouko asked.
“Mike” was her affectionate nickname for Miki, and though she had heard it many times before, this time it startled her. She trembled slightly as she replied, “I…I think so. There’s no doubt that the thing she’s holding is an Angel.”
“That may be so, but there isn’t a trace of Spirit waves from her…”
Ryouko tossed the report onto the desk.
It was a dossier about the recent spate of mysterious attacks on innocent citizens.
Someone had bravely taken a photo of the assailant, and indeed, she was holding a weapon very similar to an Angel.
“Maybe it’s a new Spirit?”
“It’s too soon to jump to conclusions. Later, notify all members of the team to come to the conference room.”
Ryouko sighed again.
Handling Princess’s case had been exhausting enough; she had been relieved when Princess hadn’t appeared recently, hoping for a break.
But now this. If this were a simple criminal case, the police could handle it.
But it seemed AST had to intervene.
***
After several days of effort, the number of Coins in the System had reached one hundred, meaning she could now exchange a full million yen.
Even for an ordinary family, this wasn’t a small amount.
Her daily expenses were fully covered, but Wanmie didn’t exchange all one hundred Coins into cash.
After all, she had taken down quite a few delinquents recently, and she had rented a cheap single apartment, so lodging and food were no longer problems.
“The Extinction Gun—such a cool name!”
As mentioned, Wanmie had her eye on a skill called “Extinction Gun,” the cheapest skill in the shop, costing only fifty Coins.
The description sounded formidable.
“Equipped to Oblivion, it fires bullets that annihilate everything. Anything hit, whether person or object, is instantly swallowed by the void.”
In simple terms, it was a very high-damage single-target skill.
She wanted to try out the power of the Extinction Gun, but wondered if using it on humans would be too cruel.
After all, in her previous life, she hadn’t even dared to kill a fish.
The idea of killing people was deeply uncomfortable for her.
Incidentally, the delinquents she had attacked were only knocked unconscious or scared off, as the task seemed to only require making opponents unable to resist.
What kind of “elimination” was that? Wanmie had grumbled more than once.
But she didn’t want to kill, so this was a way to get task rewards without taking lives.
Maybe it was a System bug?
To witness the Extinction Gun’s effect, Wanmie chose to test it in the outskirts far from the city center—at the place where she had awakened.
Since it was a single-target skill, there was no worry about harming innocent bystanders.
She remembered the way to the small park clearly and soon arrived.
It was as quiet as ever… Or so she thought, until a certain notable figure standing where she had woken up caught her attention, seemingly waiting for Wanmie’s arrival.
The girl wore a gothic outfit in black and blood-red, her twin long hair dancing in the wind.
Beneath her cold and elegant exterior was an unforgettable aura of mystery.
Of course, the most striking feature was her left eye—her pupil was a clock, a “clock eye.”
Wanmie knew this person all too well, as she was one of her favorite characters from Date A Live—the infamous Kurumi Tokisaki.