The 100 Girlfriends | Meta Breaker | ENG
Chapter 1: System Reboot 💻
One Hundred Echoes and a Spark ⚡
😏🇦🇷 Valentino Mori
<< Sometimes, to win the game, you don't need to be reincarnated as some hero with OP powers. You just need to be the only player in a world full of NPCs. And me... I've always been a player. >>
The world didn't fade. It didn't turn to black. It simply froze.
Akechi-san's mouth—the girl from the literature club with the glasses and the shy smile—was still slightly parted. The afternoon wind that had been rustling her skirt and hair a moment before was now a static painting. A cherry blossom petal 🌸, halfway between a branch and the ground, was suspended in the air like an insect trapped in amber.
The words—"I'm sorry, Aijo-kun, but I can't"—weren't a sound. They were a vibration. An echo reverberating in Rentarou Aijo's chest cavity, a gong 🔔 struck for the hundredth time. The number 100. A round, perfect number, almost comical in its symmetry of failure.
Rentarou's soul, a fabric already frayed by ninety-nine previous tears, finally gave up. It didn't break; it disconnected. Like an overloaded computer that, to protect its vital components, enters a state of deep hibernation. The pain was no longer sharp. It was a dull, omnipresent hum, the sound of an operating system that has stopped responding. His eyes, fixed on Akechi-san's frozen face, lost their focus, their light, their hope. They were empty.
And in that void, in that deafening silence of the soul, a spark jumped.
It wasn't a thought. It was a sensation. A short circuit. An electric shock ⚡ that came not from the outside, but from the depths of his own being. A stream of corrupted data began to flood the system.
The smell of ozone right after a lightning strike, mixed with the aroma of milanesas frying in his abuela's kitchen. The rough scrape of sandpaper on wood. The soft touch of cold lips on a night of torrential rain 🌧️. The satisfying click of a mouse under the pressure of an expert finger 🖱️. The roar of a Twitch chat: "POGGERS!", "F IN THE CHAT!", "VAMOOO VALEN!".
…my name is Valentino…
The surge was answered by another. A weaker, familiar current, tinged with melancholy.
The smell of disinfectant from the school nurse's office. The texture of a rejection letter's paper 📜. The sound of a closing door. The echo of one hundred "no"s. Number 87, 88, 89… The weight of a middle school uniform, a shroud of failed normality.
…my name is Rentarou…
The two data streams, two lives, two consciousnesses, collided. Rentarou's frozen world flickered, distorting like an old VHS tape. The image of Akechi-san tore, momentarily overlaid by a PC monitor displaying a video game 🎮. The suspended cherry blossom petal transformed into a raindrop racing down a windowpane.
It was a silent, cataclysmic war waged in the span of a nanosecond. Rentarou's soul, weakened and in shock, offered no resistance. Valentino's soul, older, tougher, forged in self-sufficiency and online competition, advanced like an unstoppable virus seeking a host system.
And then, a neutral, cosmic interface appeared in the darkness behind his eyes. White text on a black background, like a divine programmer's terminal.
[ALERT: FATAL SYSTEM ERROR.]
[PRIMARY SOUL (AIJO, R.) HAS ENTERED A NON-RESPONSIVE STATE.]
[SCANNING… ANOMALY DETECTED: SECONDARY SOUL (MORI, V.) PRESENT.]
[INITIATING EMERGENCY PROTOCOL: SOUL FUSION.]
[CALCULATING COMPATIBILITY… MATERNAL CONNECTION (SILVINA A.) DETECTED. ADJUSTED COMPATIBILITY: 78.4%.]
[COMPATIBILITY THRESHOLD EXCEEDED. FORCED MERGE INITIATED.]
[WARNING: MEMORY INTEGRITY MAY BE COMPROMISED. GOOD LUCK, USER.]
Rentarou Aijo's body convulsed. A violent spasm shot down his back, arching it unnaturally. The veins on his neck and arms bulged under his skin like overloaded cables about to burst. His previously empty eyes became bloodshot, the whites of his eyes stained a furious red as a thin line of crimson blood began to drip from his nose. The body was rejecting the overload, fighting against the rewriting of its own source code.
He staggered backward, a single clumsy step that broke the moment's stasis. The cherry blossom petal finally touched the ground. The wind began to blow again.
Akechi-san, oblivious to the cosmic drama but not to the terrifying physical reaction, gasped, panic painting her face. "Aijo-kun?! Your nose! Your eyes! Are you okay?"
A hand rose, slow and deliberate, and wiped the blood from under his nose with the back of the thumb, smearing his pale skin. Then, that same hand pressed hard against his temple, knuckles white. Rentarou's bloodshot eyes blinked once, twice. The desperation was gone. The pain was gone. In their place was a glacial calm. An analytical depth. A latent danger.
When those eyes opened for the third time, the intense red had begun to recede, leaving only a pinkish echo behind. They locked onto her, and Akechi-san felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening breeze. It was no longer the gaze of a heartbroken high school boy.
It was the gaze of a player who had just taken control of a new avatar.
It was the gaze of Valentino Mori. 😏
Labyrinth of Phantoms 🌀
"I'm fine."
The line came out of his mouth automatically. A pre-recorded script. Valentino didn't stick around to analyze Akechi-san's expression of confused relief. He turned and started walking, leaving the scene of the "crime" behind. His crime. The theft of a body, of a life. Or maybe... a rescue. He wasn't sure yet.
The outside world felt like a video game with terrible lag. His head was spinning, not from dizziness, but from processing overload. Every step was a negotiation between two incompatible operating systems. Rentarou's muscle memory moved his legs, but it was Valentino's will giving the command. The result was a strange dissonance, like playing with a controller that has a one-second input delay.
Step. Step. Step.
The sound of his own shoes against the pavement was the most disturbing part. They sounded distant, alien. As if he were watching a character walk in a horror game, and he was only controlling the direction. He could hear the echoes of his steps, but he couldn't feel them as his own. It was a lucid dream, a hyper-realistic simulation where every sensation was simultaneously vivid and fake.
He felt the fabric of the school uniform rubbing against his skin. The fabric was real, coarse. But his own skin, Valentino's skin, remembered the worn-out softness of a hoodie, his daily armor. The sensation was a contradiction, a tactile ghost.
The school backpack was heavy on his shoulders. He could feel the pressure of the straps, the weight of Rentarou's textbooks. But his phantom back yearned for the familiar weight of a laptop in his own bag, the comforting bulk of his high-end headset. It was like carrying someone else's gear on a mission you didn't prep for.
The smells of the street assaulted him. The sweet aroma of a crepe stand, the scent of hot asphalt, the perfume of a woman who walked past. Rentarou's brain identified them, gave them names. But Valentino's brain compared them to other smells stored on a different hard drive: the scent of burnt coffee from a 24-hour café, the aroma of choripán from a street stall in Buenos Aires, the vanilla-scented perfume of an ex-girlfriend.
Every few feet, the system would "glitch."
For an instant, the Japanese sidewalk would vanish, replaced by the broken tiles of a sidewalk in his hometown. The face of a passing old man would transform into one of his Discord mods. The buzz of a motorcycle would become the roar of a colectivo. They were flashes, microseconds of a superimposed reality that left him momentarily blind and disoriented. He had to stop, blink hard, and wait for the simulation to stabilize again.
It was a labyrinth of phantoms. The phantoms of Rentarou's life, imprinted on every street and every corner. And the phantoms of Valentino's life, projected onto a reality that wasn't theirs. He was trapped between two worlds, not fully belonging to either.
In his mind, the battle raged on. The pain of the 100 rejections kept sending notifications. They were like the whispers of enemies in a stealth game, reminding him of his vulnerability.
"You're not good enough."
"You'll always be alone."
"Why would anyone ever want you?"
Valentino, the player, the strategist, did the only thing he could. He didn't fight the whispers. He silenced them. He created a rule in his new mind's firewall: IF source="Aijo_R_Trauma" THEN action="MUTE".
Little by little, the white noise began to fade. The system lag started to decrease. The echo of his footsteps became less distant. It wasn't total control, not by a long shot. But it was a truce. A fragile peace in the middle of his soul's war.
He saw the gate to his new home in the distance. It was a checkpoint. A save point. He knew, with a certainty he couldn't explain, that what he found on the other side would define the next level of this impossible game. He needed data. He needed an anchor. He needed to look in the mirror and see who—or what—was now in control.
Diagnosis and Anchor ⚓
The door to the Aijo house slid open with a soft hum, a sound that stood in stark contrast to the silent thunder inside his head. The genkan, the small entrance foyer, was a threshold that was not just physical, but psychological. The air inside the house was different, permeated by a stillness that smelled of tatami mats and a faint scent of floral air freshener.
Rentarou's body moved on pure instinct, bending down to untie his shoelaces. Valentino watched the process from within, both fascinated and repulsed. Every movement was fluid, practiced, and completely alien to him. It was like watching his avatar perform a preset animation.
Once inside, his feet now in a pair of indoor slippers, Rentarou's programming told him to turn right, toward the living room. But Valentino's will took over. He forced the body to turn left, down a narrower hallway. Every step was a struggle, a real-time rewriting of neural pathways. Finally, he stopped in front of a light wood sliding door. The bathroom. The place where identities are confronted.
He shut the door, and the click of the lock echoed in the silence. It was the sound of the outside world being shut out, and an inner world demanding to be faced. He looked up and met the mirror.
The reflection returned a stranger's gaze.
It was a young face, almost painfully innocent. Dark, straight hair in a functional cut that screamed "average Japanese student." Kind eyes, though now, under the fluorescent bathroom light, the aftermath of the fusion was clear: the broken veins in the whites of his eyes created a pinkish web. The skin under his nose was still stained with a trace of dried blood he'd forgotten to wipe away completely.
The body under the uniform was slender. Not skinny, but lacking the hard density Valentino had cultivated through years of calisthenics. "Default hardware," he thought, and this time the smirk was one of pure strategic assessment. "Mediocre base stats. High growth potential, as long as you invest in the right skill trees."
He raised a hand—his hand, now—and placed it on the mirror's cold glass. The reflection's fingers touched his. It was real. This was his new interface. This was the character he had to play.
But who was the player?
He forced himself to dive back into the Aijo_R.dat file, this time searching with purpose. He skipped the "School," "Rejections," and "Hobbies" folders. He looked for the root, the main directory: "Family." He mentally double-clicked.
Father: Aijo Daiki. Salaryman. Hard-working, kind, rarely home. A blurry figure, more of an idea than a presence.
Mother: Aijo Silvina.
The scan stopped. Silvina.
The name resonated in the chaos of his mind like a church bell. It wasn't a Japanese name. And suddenly, a flood of new memories, warmer and more vivid than any of the previous ones, washed over his consciousness.
The image of a woman with his same dark hair, but with bolder, more Latino eyes, filled with a mischievous spark. A woman who spoke fluent Japanese but peppered it with Spanish phrases, especially when she was excited or angry. An international translator who traveled constantly, but whose presence, when she was home, transformed the quiet Japanese household into a whirlwind of music, laughter, and exotic smells. His mother. Rentarou's mother. An Argentine woman.
A crooked smile, the first genuine one since the fusion, slowly formed on the face in the mirror. Valentino's signature smirk.
It was no longer a cosmic error. Not a random glitch. There was a connection. A reason for the 78.4% compatibility. The soul of a 22-year-old Argentine streamer hadn't just fallen into any random vessel; it had found a nest, a home with a pre-existing connection, a cultural anchor in the middle of an ocean of strangeness.
"Silvina," he whispered, and the word felt incredibly right on his tongue, like a password that unlocked a hidden part of his new self.
In that instant, one of Rentarou's sensory memories, so potent he could almost taste it, hit him: the smell of garlic, parsley, and breadcrumbs. The rhythmic, dull thud of a pork cutlet being pounded and tenderized on a cutting board.
Milanesa.
Valentino's smirk widened, showing a flash of confidence. 😏 The anchor had taken root.
"Well," he said to the reflection, his voice now firm, with no trace of Rentarou's hesitation. He leaned closer to the mirror, his eyes meeting his own. "So we have a foundation. A starting point. Some fucking lore that actually makes sense."
He straightened up, and for the first time since rejection number 100, he felt completely in control. The labyrinth of phantoms hadn't disappeared, but now he had a map. The inherited pain was just a background stat. The confusion was sharpening into a clear, focused purpose.
He washed his face with cold water, cleaning off the last traces of blood and the day's grime. The water was a baptism, a way of claiming that face as his own. He dried himself with a towel, never taking his eyes off his reflection.
"Alright, pibe," he muttered, patting his now-clean cheek, the sound sharp and dry in the bathroom's silence. "Diagnosis complete."
He leaned forward, bracing both hands on the sink. His eyes locked onto the reflection's with an icy intensity, a silent promise of dominion.
"Time to optimize this piece-of-shit system."
His gaze was pure defiance. The game had begun.
The Battle Plan 📝
Valentino walked out of the bathroom feeling, for the first time, like he owned the place and not like he was a trespasser. The house no longer felt like a labyrinth; it was his base of operations. He walked up the stairs with a clear purpose and entered what was now his room.
Rentarou's room was... decent. Tidy. Impersonal. A desk with textbooks stacked at a perfect angle. A couple of shelves with popular manga series, but nothing too obscure or niche. A closet with methodically folded clothes. It was the room of a good boy who followed the rules, an NPC with a pre-set routine. A blank canvas.
Valentino ignored all of it. His target was the desk. He rummaged through the drawers, skipping past colored pencils and old notes, until he found what he was looking for: a new notebook, with simple lines and a black cover. Functional. Perfect.
He sat down, the squeak of the chair the only sound breaking the silence. He opened the notebook to the first page. He picked up a pen, and the stroke it left on the paper was a statement of intent in itself. He didn't write in the neat kanji and kana that Rentarou would have used. He wrote in Spanish. His Spanish. The handwriting was sharper, slightly slanted, the letters connected with an efficient urgency. At the top of the page, he wrote a title, as if it were the name of a new RPG campaign.
PROJECT: THE SUMMER OF RECONSTRUCTION
Below it, he drew a line and began to break down his strategy into four fundamental pillars. His 22-year-old mind, accustomed to managing an online community, optimizing streaming schedules, and planning content, got to work with ruthless clarity.
🧠 1. MINDSET (Software Update):
He couldn't afford to be dragged down by the torrent of Rentarou's weaknesses. Empathy was useful, a tool for understanding others, but self-loathing was poison.
He wrote: "Process the 100 rejections as data, not trauma. Extract lessons in empathy. Fuse Aijo's inherent kindness with Mori's confidence. The new OS directive must be: Zero panic, maximum calm. Doubt is an unacceptable 'debuff'."
💪 2. BODY (Hardware Upgrade):
His gaze scanned his own slender arm. Unacceptable. He needed power, endurance. Not for vanity, but for preparation. A strong body housed a strong mind. It was the basic principle for any gamer prepping for a long session.
He noted: "Daily calisthenics regimen. Focus on functional strength: pull-ups, push-ups, squats, core. The body is the avatar; it needs to 'grind' stats. Objective: get back to my previous life's fitness level before school starts. Stamina will be key."
💰 3. RESOURCES (Economy Management):
Money was freedom. It was power. It was the ability to act without asking for permission. Relying on an allowance from his parents was for NPCs, not the main player. And he had a feeling he was going to need resources.
His pen moved quickly: "3-step plan: A) Get a summer job (seed capital). B) Buy PC components and streaming gear. C) Launch an anonymous channel (new alias). Start generating income. Financial independence is non-negotiable."
🍳 4. SKILLS (Specialization Unlock):
He needed a unique skill, something that would define him, an "Act of Service" that was authentically his. The connection to his mother had given him the answer. It was his secret weapon.
The final note was simple but potent: "Cooking. Perfect Mamá Silvina's Argentine recipes. Milanesas, empanadas, asado if the chance comes up. It will be my signature. My way of connecting. My 'ultimate skill'."
He closed the notebook with a sharp, satisfying snap. The plan was laid out. The path was clear. He looked out the window at the moon hanging in the night sky, a half-smile on his face. He didn't have the faintest idea what awaited him in high school. He knew nothing about gods of love, soulmates, or intertwined destinies.
He only knew that life had given him a second chance in a new, unknown game.
And the game was about to begin. And for the first time in one hundred attempts, this player wasn't planning on losing.
Yesterday's Contract 📜
😏🇦🇷 Valentino Mori
<< You are your own worst enemy... especially the version of you from last night, who had a brilliant idea and now leaves me to do the dirty work. >>
The night in Rentarou's room was peaceful. There were no nightmares about rejections. No anxiety-fueled insomnia. Valentino slept the deep, dreamless sleep of a system that has completed a successful reboot and is now in standby mode.
The sun had not yet begun to paint the horizon gray when his eyes opened. It wasn't an alarm, but an internal clock forged by years of streaming schedules. The darkness of the room was cool, and the sheets, a mix of soft cotton and his own body heat, were an incredibly tempting sanctuary.
He lay still, enjoying that perfect limbo between sleep and wakefulness. Rentarou's body felt comfortable, relaxed. And a lazy, seductive thought slithered into his mind: "...five more minutes..."
It was real. It hadn't been a fever dream. The notebook on the desk, with his plan written in Spanish, was the testament to his new, complicated reality.
The original Rentarou would have stayed in bed. He would have curled up under the covers, seeking refuge from a world that had only offered him pain. And honestly, Valentino, the 22-year-old who loved gaming into the wee hours and sleeping until noon, wanted to do the exact same thing. He wanted to shut down his brain, pull the sheets over his head, and leave the problem for "Future Valentino." It was a perfectly valid strategy in his old life.
But then, the memory of the last line he had written the night before flashed in his mind: "My 'ultimate skill'."
A vein throbbed at his temple.
The comfort of the bed transformed into a cage. The warmth of the sheets felt suffocating. Laziness was replaced by a wave of pure irritation, aimed entirely at himself.
He got out of bed with a movement that was intended to be one of fluid fury, but which his uncoordinated body turned into a comical fumble. One foot got tangled in the sheet, causing him to stumble and nearly face-plant onto the wooden floor. He stabilized himself at the last second, panting more from frustration than from the effort.
"Aaargh, dammit!" he whispered with contained rage, pointing an accusing finger at the innocent notebook on the desk. "Whose idea was it to write that down? You'll pay for this, Past Me!"
He paused, running a hand over his face. A small, ironic smile began to form on his lips.
"Although... coming up with such a great plan..." he muttered, his tone shifting to one of playful self-praise. "I couldn't expect anything less from someone like me."
He let out a long, resigned sigh, the air whistling through his teeth. Reality was inescapable. He had signed a contract with the him from last night, a him full of determination and purpose. And if there was one thing Valentino respected, it was winning. Even against himself.
"Well," he said to the silent air of the room, stretching his arms over his head with a crackle of joints. "You've gotta face hardship with a smile. That's what my abuelito always said."
With that sliver of family wisdom as his only comfort, he got dressed in the pre-dawn gloom. Not the school uniform, but a set of sportswear he found at the bottom of a drawer, clearly barely used. A pair of shorts and a simple t-shirt. He sat on the edge of the bed to put on a pair of running shoes, taking a little longer than he should have to tie the laces with fingers that still didn't quite feel like his own.
The First Experience Point 💪
😏🇦🇷 Valentino Mori
<< Pain is just an experience bar filling up. Repeat until you level up. >>
He made his way downstairs quietly and slipped out of the house, closing the door with enough care not to wake anyone. The morning air was cold and clean, with that smell of damp earth and asphalt that comes before dawn. The streets were empty, the still-lit streetlights casting long shadows on the pavement.
He didn't run. He walked with a steady, determined pace toward the neighborhood park. The internal laughter about being a video game nerd had given way to practical acceptance. It was true. He was treating his new life like a game, and right now, he was executing his first quest: "Upgrade Your Avatar." It was the only way his mind could process the overwhelming task ahead of him.
He reached the playground, now deserted and almost ghostly under the orange glow of the streetlights. He ignored the swings and the slide. They were for kids. His target was a metal structure, a set of monkey bars. It was high enough. It would do. It was his first "dungeon," and that bar, his first "boss."
He stopped beneath it. He took a deep breath of the cool air, feeling it fill lungs that still didn't feel entirely his own. He exhaled slowly, his breath visible for an instant in the cold.
He jumped and grabbed the metal bar.
The shock was immediate. The metal was ice-cold, and the weight of his body—that of a teenager who had never seriously exercised in his life—felt like a lead anchor. His muscles protested with a silent scream. His thin, unused arms trembled violently under a strain they were not prepared for.
With a choked grunt that tore through the morning silence, he tensed every fiber of his being. His mind, Valentino's mind, remembered the feeling of power, the ease with which his old body could crank out sets of twenty without breaking a sweat. But the current hardware, while athletic by a teen's standards, was trash in comparison.
He struggled, his face contorted with effort, teeth gritted.
One. Easy. Rentarou's body could handle this.
Two. Still in the comfort zone.
Three. The first hint of real effort.
Four. The muscles in his back began to protest.
Fiiiive. The movement slowed to a crawl, becoming torture. Every inch was a victory.
Siiiiix… A violent tremor shot through his arms. He could feel his tendons screaming.
Seeeveeeennn… His vision started to blur at the edges. His chin was millimeters from the bar, an insurmountable distance. Rentarou's body had hit its absolute limit.
"AAAAhhhh!"
The cry was pure frustration. His hands gave out and he dropped, his feet landing with a clumsy, dull thud in the sand below. He fell to his knees, gasping, trying to force air into his burning lungs. The pain in his arms was sharp and searing, a fire that threatened to consume them.
Seven. Seven fucking reps. In his old life, that was barely a warm-up. Now, it was his limit. The humiliation was almost as painful as the physical strain.
But as he caught his breath, heart hammering in his chest, a smirk began to form on his face. It wasn't a smirk of joy. It wasn't a smirk of amusement.
It was the smirk 😏 of a player who had just earned his first, measly seven experience points. The hardest ones of all.
He looked at the bar again, his eyes glowing with a cold determination in the pre-dawn gloom. He was going to get back up there. And again. And again. Until it hurt. Until it hurt so much that the phantom pain of 100 rejections became a distant memory.
The summer of reconstruction had just begun. And every dawn, every drop of sweat, every aching muscle, would be an investment. One more step toward leveling up in this impossible game.
The Forgotten Isekai ❓
The first week of what Valentino mentally dubbed the "Spring of Reconstruction" was a strange mix of muscle soreness and a persistent itch in the back of his brain.
Every morning, after his ritual of fighting against laziness, he would go out into the world, a world that was simultaneously familiar and alien. And with every interaction, with every anonymous face that passed by, the feeling grew stronger.
This wasn't just a second chance. It was an isekai.
The idea, which at first seemed like a joke from his own geeky mind, solidified with each passing day. The soul fusion, the body of a Japanese teenager, the inexplicable Argentine connection... it all reeked of an anime or light novel premise. The problem was, in his past life, he had consumed hundreds of them. His memory was a mess of plots, archetypes, and clichés.
One afternoon, after a particularly frustrating training session, he sat on a park bench, sweating and panting, and tried to take a mental inventory.
"Okay, let's recap," he thought, closing his eyes. "No Truck-kun that I can remember. No clumsy goddess offering me OP skills. No status screen floating in front of me. So we can rule out 90% of generic fantasy isekai."
He focused on the character he now inhabited: Rentarou Aijo. A normal high school boy with a streak of bad luck in love. One hundred rejections. The number was so absurd, so exaggerated, that it had to be a gag, the starting point of a comedy.
"A romantic comedy, then. Probably a harem, given the ridiculousness of the premise," he reasoned. And that's where the itch in his brain became unbearable.
It rang a bell. It rang a huge bell.
One hundred... one hundred something. One hundred girls. One hundred demons. One hundred... girlfriends.
The memory was a ghost. He remembered seeing memes. Maybe a clip or two. He remembered thinking the premise was insane. A guy with a hundred girlfriends? How the hell did you even manage that? But the details, the girls' faces, the plot points... it was all a blur, like trying to remember a dream right after waking up.
"Shit," he muttered aloud, opening his eyes and looking at his hands, which were beginning to show the first signs of calluses. "Was it one of those cute, wholesome series? Or was it one of those with hidden psychological drama where everything ends in a bloodbath?"
The uncertainty was a new and fucking potent layer of motivation. He was no longer just training to get his old physique back. He was training because, if his hazy memory served him right, he was about to be thrown into the center of a social and emotional hurricane of biblical proportions. And if he was going to face... a hundred girls?... he'd better make sure his avatar was in the best possible shape.
Not having all the information was frustrating, but also liberating. He wasn't bound by knowledge of the future. He couldn't take any shortcuts. He could only do one thing: prepare. Get stronger. And hope that when the main plot finally kicked off, he'd have the stats and gear needed to not die in the first act.
"Whatever it is," he told himself, standing up and looking towards the metal bar that had become his personal nemesis, "I'm not going to be some dense, pathetic harem protagonist."
With that new purpose burning in his chest, he began to stretch his aching muscles. The mystery of his future wasn't a source of fear. It was a challenge.
And Valentino Mori had never turned down a good challenge.
The Quest for Starter "Gold" 📝
Physical training was only part of the equation. Valentino knew this well. He could have the physique of a Greek god, but without resources—without "gold" in his inventory—he'd still be a stagnant player. His plan to be reborn as a streamer needed a cash injection, and the wad of yen his father had left him was for survival, not for investing in a high-end graphics card. He needed a job.
So, after his morning training sessions and a quick shower, the second phase of his daily "grind" began: the job hunt.
Armed with the appearance of a 16-year-old and the mindset of a 22-year-old, he walked the streets of his new neighborhood. His approach was different from that of a normal teenager. He wasn't looking for something "fun" or "close to his friends." He was looking for efficiency.
[NEW QUEST: Acquire Stable Income Source.]
[Parameters: Maximum hourly wage / Minimum unnecessary social interaction / Schedule compatible with training.]
The first day was an exercise in frustration. He walked into a second-hand bookstore, thinking it would be a quiet gig.
"Experience?" the old owner asked, peering over his glasses.
"I've managed online communities of thousands and optimized digital content monetization," Valentino thought.
"Not much, but I'm a fast learner," he said aloud.
The old man smiled kindly. "Sorry, son. We're looking for someone for the full-time shift." Next.
He tried a trendy coffee shop. The manager, a university student with an impeccable hairstyle, sized him up.
"Availability?" she asked, a clipboard in her hand.
"Flexible, but I prefer shifts that don't interfere with my... personal projects," Valentino replied with his usual calm.
The girl arched an eyebrow. "Ah, I see. 'Personal projects'." Her tone made it clear she translated that as "playing video games and hanging out with friends." "We'll call you." They wouldn't.
The reality of it hit him. He was an adult, a professional in his field, but the world only saw a high school student. His experience was worthless in this context. He was a high-level player forced back to the tutorial missions.
He decided to change his strategy. He stopped looking for jobs that required interviews and "potential." He started looking for the ones that only required a functional body and a willingness to work the hours no one else wanted.
Finally, he found the perfect spot on a bulletin board across from the train station: a 24-hour konbini. They were looking for staff for the night shift, from 10 PM to 6 AM. The pay was surprisingly good for an unskilled job, precisely because of the hellish hours.
It was perfect.
It would allow him to train in the morning, have the afternoons for his own projects (future videos), and work at night. He would sleep in the gaps, just as he was used to from his years of streaming.
He walked into the konbini and spoke to the manager, a middle-aged man with a perpetually tired face. There were no questions about "personal projects." Just one.
"Can you start tomorrow?" the manager asked.
"Yes," Valentino answered without hesitation.
"You're hired."
He left the store with a half-smirk. The mission was a success. The job was monotonous, soulless, but it was exactly what he needed: a steady stream of "gold" to fund his real plan.
He had overcome the first real-world obstacle. Now, he just had to survive the night shift and the 3 AM drunk customers. Piece of cake.
The Phantom Muscle Echo 🦾
With the night job secured, Valentino's mornings became even more sacred. They were his only window for physical forging, and every second counted. But the reality of his new body remained a constant source of humiliation, a battle waged not against an external enemy, but against the ghost of his own past.
He quickly discovered that Rentarou's character canon was true: the kid was "relatively athletic." He wasn't a noodle. He had the basic stamina of a healthy teenager, the kind who could survive a basketball game in gym class without dying. He could run. He could jump. His muscles had a base tone, a latent promise of strength.
But to Valentino, that "base" was an insult. It was like handing a Formula 1 pilot the keys to a family sedan. Yes, they both have four wheels and an engine, but the experience, the power, the response... they were worlds apart.
Every morning in the park, he confronted that dissonance.
He would stand under the metal bar, close his eyes for an instant, and his brain—Valentino's brain—would send him a perfect simulation. The sensory memory of a flawless muscle-up. He could feel the textured grip of his old bar, the explosion of power in his lats and shoulders, the buoyancy of his rising torso, the effortless transition of his wrists, and the firm, dominant final extension above the bar.
Then he would open his eyes, jump, and reality would crush him.
The metal was smooth and cold. The grip felt insecure. The initial pull was good, Rentarou's body responded... but only up to a point. He'd get halfway through the movement and the system would collapse. There was no more power. The body didn't understand the command to "transition." He'd be left hanging, pathetically, halfway between a pull-up and a failure.
"Come on, you son of a bitch," he'd growl through his teeth, dropping down. The frustration was a bitter taste in his mouth.
He decided to focus on the basics, to rebuild from the foundation. Pull-ups. The king of exercises.
He hung from the bar again. The first rep was clean. The second one too. By the third, the effort was showing. By the fifth, his arms were shaking. By the seventh, his body was screaming for him to stop. He managed to get his chin over the bar with one last, agonizing pull and let himself drop, his chest heaving as he fought for breath.
Seven. Seven fucking reps.
In his old life, that was a warm-up. Now, it was his absolute limit. The humiliation was almost as painful as the fire burning in his muscles. He felt like a prisoner in a jail of flesh and bone that didn't belong to him.
One morning, after a particularly grueling session where he barely managed six, he limped back home, frustration rolling off him in waves of heat. He opened the fridge with more force than necessary, looking for something to eat, anything with protein to silence his protesting muscles. That's when he saw it.
Stuck to the door with a cat-shaped magnet was an envelope. Inside, a wad of yen and a note in a hurried, masculine script.
"Rentarou," it read, "an important project came up in Osaka and I'll have to stay there for the rest of the break. I've left money for expenses in the usual drawer. Eat well and don't cause any trouble. Dad."
Valentino held the note, reading it over and over. A slow, crooked smile, devoid of any humor, formed on his face. The game, the universe, whatever it was, was clearing the obstacles from his path. It was almost too convenient. Father: out of the equation. Mother: on the other side of the world. He had the house, the time, and now, confirmation that he wouldn't have to explain himself to anyone.
He crumpled the note and threw it in the trash with a sharp gesture.
The freedom didn't bring him joy. It brought him an even greater burden of responsibility.
There were no more excuses. No one to blame. No supervision to hold him back or make allowances for him.
It was just him. Him against the ghost of his former self. Him against the seven-pull-up limit. Him against the weakness of this borrowed body.
His father's absence wasn't an invitation to rest. It was a declaration of war. And Valentino planned to use every second of that freedom to make sure he won. The battle to reclaim his strength had just gotten a lot more personal.
Reclaiming the "Avatar" 💈
The confidence earned through physical effort needed an external manifestation. With the job at the konbini secured, the first pillar of his resources was in place. But Valentino knew that the reconstruction couldn't be purely internal. Every time he passed a shop window and saw his reflection, the dissonance hit him all over again. The body was starting to feel like his, the financial future was starting to clear up, but the face, framed by Rentarou's docile and generic haircut, was still that of a stranger. An NPC.
He couldn't afford to start the main "game" with the default avatar. He needed to customize it. To reclaim it.
So that afternoon, after his training routine and before his first night shift, he made a decision. He changed his route and headed to a more modern part of the city, far from the quiet residential neighborhood. He looked for a barbershop that didn't look like it was straight out of the 80s, one with neon lights and pop music blasting from inside.
He walked in. The air smelled of expensive hair products and a vague, youthful energy. The barber was a young man with ear piercings and a hairstyle so elaborate it looked like a sculpture.
"Hey, welcome," the barber said, looking at him with a professional smile. "First year of high school? A cut to start things off right?"
"Something like that," Valentino replied, taking a seat in the chair. It was the same answer he'd given at the other place, but his tone was different now. More confident. He wasn't testing the waters; he was there to execute a command.
He took out his phone and showed the same photo of his former self.
The young barber leaned in. His eyes widened with professional interest. "Oh? Bold. I like it. Buzzed on the sides, platinum streaks... you sure? School rules can be hell."
"My school's pretty lax," Valentino lied with an ease that would have terrified Rentarou. "Besides, I need a change. A fresh start."
His tone wasn't that of a teenager asking for permission. It was that of a client giving an order. There was a calm and a certainty in his eyes that threw the barber off for a second. The man then grinned from ear to ear. "Got it. A 'character reset'. I love it. Leave it to me."
For the next hour, the sound of scissors and clippers filled the shop. Valentino closed his eyes, feeling the weight of the old hairstyle disappear, feeling the image of "good boy" Rentarou being erased from his head. The chemical smell of the bleach was the scent of rebirth.
When the barber finally said, "And... we're done. What do you think, champ?" Valentino opened his eyes.
The change was seismic.
The face in the mirror was still Rentarou Aijo's, but it was now framed by the identity of Valentino Mori. The contrast between the dark hair and the platinum streaks gave him a rebellious, artistic vibe. The buzzed sides sharpened his features, making his jawline look more defined.
For the first time since the fusion, he didn't see a stranger. He saw a younger version of himself. A version he could recognize.
He ran a hand over the buzzed part, feeling the short, rough texture. A genuine smile, wide and full of satisfaction, spread across his face.
"Zarpado," he whispered in Spanish, a word the barber didn't understand but whose sentiment was universal. "It's perfect."
He paid, thanked the man with a nod of his head that was far more relaxed than the average Japanese person's, and walked out onto the street. The afternoon sun seemed brighter. The air, fresher.
People looked at him differently. Some looks of disapproval from the elderly, some looks of curiosity from the youth. He didn't care. For the first time, he felt that the image he projected to the outside world was beginning to match the man he was on the inside.
He had reclaimed his face. He had customized his avatar.
The "skin" was updated. And it felt fucking good.
The First "Level Up" 🏆
The first two weeks of the "Spring of Reconstruction" came to an end. They had been a whirlwind of activity and a baptism by fire for his new life. Now, with a night job secured and a new look that felt like his own, there was only one front left to conquer in this initial stage: the tyranny of his own body.
One morning, a few days before April began, the air was crisp and promising. Valentino was finishing his routine. He felt exhausted, his muscles vibrating on the verge of failure, a constant tremor that was both painful and strangely satisfying. But there was one last mission he had set for himself to close out the week, a personal "miniboss" that had become an obsession: to complete a set of ten perfect, wide-grip, no-kip pull-ups.
He stood before the bar, his new platinum hair shining in the first rays of the sun. He took a deep breath, his vapor visible in the air. He jumped, and the cold of the metal was a familiar shock.
The grip was firm. His hands, now with budding calluses, held onto the metal without hesitation.
One, two, three. The first reps came out with a fluidity that surprised him. It was Rentarou's base strength, polished by two weeks of relentless work. They felt good. They felt controlled.
Four, five, six. This was where the real "grind" began. The movement slowed. Every inch of ascent was a negotiation between his will and his muscles' protest. He could feel the fire igniting in his lats and biceps.
Seven. The wall. The limit that had humiliated him days ago. He gritted his teeth, a low growl vibrating in his throat. He ignored the silent scream of his tendons and pushed his body upward, breaking through the mental and physical barrier.
Eight. Uncharted territory. The world narrowed to a tunnel of effort. The birdsong faded. The murmur of the waking city became white noise. All that existed were his hands, the bar, and the liquid fire coursing through his arms.
Nine. His vision started to blur at the edges. The movement was agonizingly slow, a battle of millimeters. He could feel every muscle fiber tearing and rebuilding in real-time. It was a monumental, almost nauseating effort.
Ten. It wasn't elegant. It was a convulsion of pure will. With one last, guttural roar, he threw the rest of his energy into a final pull. His chin cleared the bar by a clean margin. For one glorious second, he hung suspended at the peak, the morning sun filtering through the sakura petals above him, the entire world silent.
His hands opened. It wasn't a conscious decision; there was simply no strength left.
He dropped, landing in the sand with the grace of a sack of potatoes. He didn't just fall to his knees; he collapsed, landing on his side, his entire body shaking uncontrollably. Air rushed into his lungs in harsh, desperate gasps. His heart hammered against his ribs as if trying to escape.
But beneath the exhaustion, beneath the pain that made every cell in his torso scream, there was something else.
A feeling he hadn't felt since his reincarnation. The solid, pure, and quiet satisfaction of real progress. The knowledge that his will had bent his body's weakness. That he had rewritten the limits.
He lay there in the sand for nearly a minute until the shaking subsided. Slowly, with an effort that felt Herculean, he sat up. He raised his hands and looked at them. The palms were red, raw, the new calluses already forming. They were the hands of someone who worked, who fought. They didn't feel like Rentarou's anymore. They felt like his.
A small smirk 😏 formed on his tired, sweat-covered face.
"Okay... okay, that wasn't so bad," he muttered to himself, his voice hoarse from the effort. "First 'miniboss' defeated."
He looked around at the park, bathed in the morning light and the cherry blossoms.
"Let's see what it 'drops'..." he paused, flexing an arm and feeling a sharp pang of pain. "...ah, right. More muscle soreness. Great."
He let out a soft, genuine laugh. It felt good. It felt real.
The first stage of his new life was coming to an end. He had secured a job, reclaimed his appearance, and now, he had won his first physical battle. The road ahead was long and unknown, but the foundation was built. The first "grind" had been a success.
He was ready for the next level.
😏🇦🇷 Valentino Mori
<< The spring tutorial is over. The 'skin' is updated. And the first 'grind' was a success. Now... let the real game begin. >>
[End of Chapter 1]