"Beep beep beep—"
The alarm went off right at six o'clock.
Fujiwara Reya reached out from under the covers to stop the alarm clock on the bedside table.
When he opened his eyes, he saw the Snow Woman floating sweetly asleep in the space between the bed and the ceiling; her long silver-white hair hung straight down, exuding a faint chill, like a winter waterfall frozen in ice.
"Ah~"
"I really should make an air conditioner cover out of cardboard to keep you in."
Fujiwara Reya yawned as he got out of bed, half-opened his eyes, and went to the bathroom to brush his teeth, wash his face, and count his abs before putting on clean sportswear.
While washing his face, feeling quite captivated by the person in the mirror, he couldn't help but wash for a few extra minutes.
His eyes were clear and lively, his features as delicate as a Greek sculpture, and the shape of his eyebrows gave off a blade-like sharpness.
He grinned slightly, a touch of playful arrogance in his smile, giving off a dashing rogue charm, very nice.
He straightened his bangs in front of his forehead to cover his eyebrows and gave a shy smile.
With his vision slightly obscured, the rogue charming boy transformed into an artsy handsome youth, filled with a poetic beauty of clarity and haziness.
Fujiwara Reya ruffled his messy hair, a tad troubled.
Though he was a monster who lived by his skills, due to his exaggeratedly handsome face, almost everyone who laid eyes on him for the first time instinctively assumed he got by on his looks.
So...
The prejudice of humans is really something!
Coming out of the bathroom, Fujiwara Reya left the shrine directly.
It was just past six, the eastern sky revealing a faint glow. There were still many patches of milky morning fog on the road, making the outlines of electric wires and buildings appear faintly visible.
He started his morning run along the embankment of the Sumida River.
In the year since he arrived in Tokyo, morning runs had become one of Fujiwara Reya's regular exercises. Such workouts brought negligible strength gains, but the main goal was to maintain his physique.
Even among the monster community, those who adhere to aesthetic standards are prevalent, and the chubby style isn't favored by peers.
Asakusa is the oldest district in Tokyo, with rather chaotic urban planning. Low residential buildings are densely packed, and the roads are narrow and congested.
It was still dark at this time, with few pedestrians. On the streets were only workers delivering milk and newspapers, prompting Fujiwara Reya to slightly quicken his pace, running along the flow of the Sumida River towards the distant Skytree.
This section had fewer people and numerous slopes with appropriate ups and downs, making it ideal for running.
Arriving under the 634-meter-high Skytree, Fujiwara Reya bought a can of ice-cold cola from a vending machine.
He popped the tab and took small sips.
He wasn't thirsty.
He just felt like drinking some fizzy cola.
He brushed his sweat-dampened bangs with his hand, looked up at the sky. As time passed, the eastern sky's pale pink dawn had become considerably brighter than when he first set out, and the morning mist in the air was turning moist and dense.
Once he got home, he'd immediately take a shower and change into clean school clothes before returning to school.
On the way back, the sky gradually turned blue. The banks of the Sumida River were planted with ivies and evergreens, occasionally revealing beautiful gradient blue hydrangeas.
Halfway through his run, Fujiwara Reya casually opened the system to take a look.
[Panel]
[Shop]
[Tasks]
[Card Pool]
Four options floated in front of him, and he clicked into the task interface.
The system's tasks were divided into awakening, random, and daily tasks.
He hadn't triggered the first type.
As for the second, well... it was uncertain. Anyway, random tasks seemed to give random points and random materials.
The third type, seemingly the simplest daily task, was the main source of obtaining points.
[Constant Daily: Randomly select a lucky ghost and exorcise it, reward 300 points.]
[Rotating Daily 1: At precisely noon, retrieve a 500 yen coin from under the sleeping fat ginger cat in the school courtyard, reward 100 points.]
[Rotating Daily 2: At 4:05 PM, purchase all the cans of Pepsi on the third row of the vending machine in front of the school building to trigger the machine's 0.005% grand prize, reward 100 points.]
Completing all three daily tasks could earn 500 points.
He could buy 2.5 ice pops for the Snow Woman baby!
Closing the system, Fujiwara Reya couldn't help but laugh at the thought.
For such a great system to be in his hands only to be used as a nurturing game, in hindsight, it seemed a bit wasteful...
However, as soon as such feelings of regret surfaced, he quickly brushed them aside.
As a noble-born "young master," he possessed innate conditions unattainable by most monsters around the world, so there was no need to rely on external forces like a system to become stronger.
I!
Fujiwara Reya, am naturally destined to be strong!
With such a curious slogan flashing in his mind, Fujiwara's heart immediately ignited with a strange fighting spirit. Humming "Fly to that azure sky," he picked up speed to sprint.
As he was about to turn away from the Sumida River bank, a sudden scream came to his ears.
Fujiwara Reya turned to look.
In front of the door of a riverside western-style pastry shop, a woman riding a Honda Cub with a basket of bread was shrieking while twisting the throttle uncontrollably, heading straight towards the Sumida River.
The sheer suicidal bravado of it startled Fujiwara Reya, and by the time he came to his senses, the woman had already plunged into the river, bike and all.
"Splash—"
A spray of water erupted.
"Ah, glug—"
A brief scream sounded, then was cut off by the gush of water.
What followed was the fierce splashing of water, a steady flapping sound as the river surface churned, and ripples spread out in circles.
If she doesn't drown, she'll surely die of stupidity... Fujiwara Reya quickly dashed over and dove headfirst into the water, swimming swiftly to the woman's side, grabbing her arm to swim back to the shore.
But then...
That woman grabbed onto his arm.
When she drew close, she clung tightly to Fujiwara Reya's neck, with her legs somehow wrapping around him too, like a tightly bound octopus.
Being hugged so intimately by a woman, besides feeling her softness, was quite uncomfortable.
At this point, for Fujiwara Reya, swimming, let alone even keeping afloat, became a problem.
What a hassle.
Feeling helpless, he could only try to paddle the water with his arms, dragging the woman towards the surface.
Their heads barely emerged from the water.
"Hey, don't do this... let me, glug glub glub..."
Fujiwara Reya had just managed to shout out, but in her panic, the woman pressed his head back underwater again.
She herself let out an "Ah," then also began to "glug glub glub."
"Let me swim, glug glub..."
"Help me, glug glub..."
"I'm saving you, glug glub..."
It's said that even if someone is a good swimmer, they can be dragged down by the panicked flailing of the drowning person they are saving, ending up going down together.
Luckily for Fujiwara Reya, he was a monster; otherwise, he'd probably have met his end at seventeen.
After expelling all the air he could from his lungs, he sank to the riverbed, and walked along the bottom with the woman on his back to the steps leading out, taking quite a bit of effort to drag her up onto the bank.
He was dripping wet, looking thoroughly disheveled.
The woman wasn't much better off, lying on the ground, continuously spewing the river water she had swallowed, the retching sounds incessant.
"Hey, c'mon," Fujiwara Reya turned back, sounding a bit frustrated, "If you don't know how to ride a motorcycle, just ride a bicycle. Slower and more tiring it might be, but at least you won't drag others down."
"I-I'm sorry..."
Saying so, the woman leaned over and vomited again, water dripping from her hair strands, her soaked clothes clinging to her delicate body, and her long legs trembling slightly.
In Tokyo in April, the temperature was only around ten degrees in the mornings and evenings, and her lips had turned blue from the cold, evoking a kind of pitiful charm.
Fujiwara Reya waved a hand in front of her eyes: "Are you alright now?"
"Th-Thank you..." the woman sat up, hugging her knees with a shy voice, "It's my first time riding a motorcycle, and I wasn't really sure how to stop it..."
Originally feeling a bit sorry for her, Fujiwara Reya was suddenly taken aback and loudly questioned, "How did you get your license?"
The woman cocked her head slightly, looking at him with a face full of confusion.
For some reason...
Her expression of "What's a license?" gave Fujiwara Reya an inexplicable sense of familiarity, as though he had seen it somewhere before.
It must be just his imagination...
"Never mind, just be careful next time."
"O-Oh... goodbye then."
Fujiwara Reya shrugged, turned around, and ran back towards Asakusa Shrine.
Early in the morning, meeting a foolish woman who nearly drowned herself, he had to rescue her and ended up drinking some river water himself—unlucky, truly unlucky.
But when he thought of the woman having it worse—not only falling into the river but also losing a motorcycle—Fujiwara Reya suddenly felt much better.
Besides...
If he were to think positively, since the silly woman had soaked in the river for so long, the water he drank was essentially bathwater from a beauty, wasn't it? Conversely, she drank some of his bathwater too, right?
This is what you call a mutual romantic journey!
Yes.
That's definitely it.
Fujiwara Reya was naturally an optimistic little monster; even if something bothersome happened early in the morning, it didn't greatly affect his mood. After only a few steps, he began humming a song.
"A little sparrow fell in the water, fell in the water, fell in the water... swept away by the water."
Behind him, Yukino Ritsuko remained curled up sitting at the riverbank, listening to his foreign folk song as she watched him disappear at the end of the street.