If one day, your world turned into a game—what would you do?
Would you become a warrior, rising up to slay the demon known as the Capitalist?
Or would you be Prometheus, stealing the spark of fire and painting the Earth red with revolution?
Sakurai Saki chose to do absolutely nothing.
[Today's Superpower: Player Task System]
Ability: You will receive tasks at irregular intervals. Completing them grants permanent attribute or item rewards.
Side Effect: The ability's effect period is extended—lasting a full seven days.
Simply put: this Superpower is extraordinarily ordinary. Refreshingly straightforward.
It's like a task system in any online game. The process is brutally simple: accept task, run errand, complete task.
Don't doubt it—half the quests in MMOs are just glorified fetch quests.
Even in Apex, half your playtime is spent sprinting across the map.
Too much meaningless time, consumed by the machinations of despicable game developers who want to keep you logged in forever.
Mobile game dailies? Same trick. Waste ten minutes every day for a handful of in-game trinkets—not even enough for a single pull. And yet, some players still call the game generous. Isn't that something?
[You have received a task — Morning Exercise]
[Run 10 laps in the park]
[Reward: Stamina +1]
See? A fetch quest. Right on schedule.
"Would anyone run for a single point of Stamina? Probably not, right?"
"Sigh. A cheat finger is only so much. Those novel protagonists who blindly follow their systems are no different from fools."
Sakurai Saki shook his head, got dressed, washed his face—and went out for a run.
Deep Blue! Give me more points!
Arriving at the school gate, Sakurai discovered that this Superpower also had a peculiar taste in quests.
[You have received a task — Kiss (Part One)]
[Kiss the individual named Iino Miko, and extend your tongue.]
[Reward: A mobile phone equipped with a hypnosis app]
Pushing his bicycle, Sakurai Saki didn't even glance at Iino Miko's soft pink lips. He walked past her with flawless, unbothered composure.
After he left—
Miko touched her lips with her fingertips. Just now, Sakurai Saki had been staring at that exact spot.
'Did something weird get on it?'
She turned away discreetly, pulled out a compact mirror, and checked. Finding nothing, she exhaled in relief.
Thank goodness.
But… why did Sakurai-kun look at her lips like that? How strange.
No!
Could it be that Sakurai-kun wanted to kiss her? But…
He already has a girlfriend!
Miko's mind spiraled for a few minutes before she forcibly yanked herself back to reality.
'I must be overthinking it. How could Sakurai-kun possibly want to kiss me?'
At the shoe lockers.
Sakurai received another task. He noticed that task triggers seemed to depend on location.
[You have received a new task: Love Letter]
[Write a sincere love letter and place it in Kaguya Shinomiya's shoe locker]
[Reward: Obsession Pill x1]
Are you sure this is a player system?
Not something… stranger?
Player—wait. This isn't a player from some eroge, is it?
Sakurai seriously suspected that after completing this prerequisite task, the Superpower would next instruct him to drug Miss Kaguya.
No way. I'm a decent person.
And she's Kaguya Shinomiya—are you sure?
The wielder of the Ice Kaguya title. Sure, she's softened a bit recently, but they still bicker nonstop. What's the point of drugging such a strange woman just to make her like him?
He headed to the classroom.
Sakurai sat in the protagonist's special seat—the last one by the window. They called it that, but it was literally just the window seat.
The view from here was excellent. He could see the main entrance clearly.
Is that… Yotsuba? Is she going to be late?
Sakurai hadn't come early today; he'd arrived right on time.
Being late meant writing a self-reflection. Sakurai Saki had written three recently and had absolutely zero desire to write a fourth.
He turned his head and glanced at Hayasaka Ai.
[You have received a task: Kiss (Part Two)]
[Kiss the individual named Hayasaka Ai.]
[Reward: Physical Strength +1]
Sakurai noticed something: the task rewards seemed to scale with the difficulty.
The more he didn't want to do something—the higher the reward.
For example: kissing Miko. A normal person wouldn't do that, right? Better to cherish such a cute junior.
In contrast, kissing his actual girlfriend carried zero psychological burden.
"Ai-chan, come here for a moment."
Hayasaka Ai leaned over, confusion flickering across her face.
Sakurai glanced around, confirmed no one was watching, then gently looped his arm around her fair neck and kissed her.
A brief touch.
They separated. Even such a fleeting kiss turned Hayasaka Ai's face crimson.
"Why did you kiss me?" she whispered, scanning the surroundings. After confirming no one had noticed, she let out a quiet breath.
"A good morning kiss," Sakurai said gently.
[Physical Strength +1]
Task complete.
After school, Sakurai skipped the Student Council meeting—naturally, to cut off any further contact with Kaguya.
He was afraid the task rewards would be too tempting. Too generous. Too hard to resist.
You might ask: since he's already a Superpower user, why does he still need to complete tasks to get items?
Shallow! Extremely shallow!
If a person has no limits, they lose enjoyment.
If you cheat in a game—max out your attributes to instant-kill, fill every item slot to 999—it might be novel at first. But after a while? It becomes boring.
That's why Sakurai Saki was so interested in today's Superpower.
Because lately, he had no real goals.
The main quest was simple: defeat Kaguya Shinomiya, then make her wear a Miko outfit and dance for him with a blushing face.
Side quests… well, there weren't any. If he had to name one—perhaps improve the grades of the Five Sisters?
It was nearing the end of the semester. He needed all five of them to pass. Sakurai Saki didn't set grand, unrealistic dreams.
For example: Could Nino's grades improve to be the best in the entire school?
The answer: impossible!
Even if Nino worked herself to the bone—still impossible!
Moreover, ever since the news of his relationship with Ai-chan went public, Nino's motivation for studying had taken a critical hit!
Sakurai couldn't quite figure out who exactly she was studying so hard for.
People often complain about teachers' lectures: "Your grades are your own! This example problem is right here—the points are practically given to you! Are you going to review it or not?!"
But everyone knows—deep down—that studying is for oneself.
Nino, however, didn't seem to understand that.
Love-struck girls are terrifying in that regard.
They can do anything for love—but they can also fall into extremes just as easily.
For example… becoming a yandere.
[Sakurai-kun, if I can't have your heart… then I'll have your heart. (Yandere face)]
With a thousand thoughts spiraling through his mind, Sakurai walked into the Library.
Today was the day before Tanabata. Wednesday.
Tutoring continued as usual.