Scene after scene flashed before her eyes like a highlight reel from a slice-of-life anime: the principal's office where Egawa Mitsuki had been humiliated that morning, the threat hanging over Sato Ruri to come to his home tomorrow, Yūto Shō teasing Natsuo's wife into the night, and finally freezing on that vivid strawberry mark blooming red against Tachibana Hina's neck.
Then every image dissolved, and the checkout interface popped up like a JRPG menu.
"Today's Scumbag Level: S-Rank."
"Reward: 250 Scum Points."
"Current Remaining Scum Points: 300."
"Comment: A scumbag with some genuine achievements."
Yūto Shō scanned today's gains, fairly satisfied. The system's evaluation of him had leveled up, branding him a somewhat accomplished degenerate now.
What was the catch?
"Beep——"
Still puzzling over it, a system notification chimed.
"As one who walks the path of legendary scoundrels, you have already cleared the early game. Three women have fallen under your influence. Keep grinding. However, to ascend to true scoundrel-king status, you must wield a mighty masculine weapon capable of conquering countless drop-dead goddesses. Go forth and power up your manhood!"
"Beep——"
"New Feature Unlocked: Enhancement. Please review."
Yūto Shō's brows shot up. A new feature dropped out of nowhere—what did enhancement even mean? Could it crank his physical stats sky-high, give him Saitama-tier biology?
Heart drumming with anticipation, he eagerly opened the enhancement interface, only to find a stripped-down menu of four options: [Length], [Durability], [Hardness], and [Diameter].
The moment he saw the categories, the picture clicked. His mood went sideways. Sure, full-body super-soldier upgrades would've hit different—but honestly, this wasn't a downgrade. What guy on planet earth didn't want to be thicker, longer, harder, and tougher?
Curiosity piqued, Yūto Shō tapped into [Length] to read the description.
"Consumes 100 Scum Points; length increases by 1 millimeter."
He ran the math in his head. One full centimeter cost a thousand points—not exactly highway robbery. Assuming he could farm at least 200 Scum Points a day, his pride could grow a centimeter every five days. Reasonable rate of return.
He thumbed through the other categories one by one and found the pricing followed a similar logic.
[Durability] ran ten Scum Points for one extra second of endurance. Stretching it by a whole minute, then, came to 600 points.
[Diameter] cost considerably more—a single millimeter ran 100 points, a full centimeter ringing up at 1,000. Then again, the math made sense to him. Diameter didn't need to balloon into something obscene—too much girth, and there wouldn't be any opening on earth willing to host the main event.
So the price tag, while steep, was tolerable.
Finally, [Hardness]. This one had no physical unit, just percentages. Bumping hardness by 1% cost ten Scum Points; a thousand points would double the stat outright. Yūto Shō decided this one could stay shelved—at his age, his rigging didn't need that kind of patch.
All in all, the new feature scratched an itch he hadn't realized he had. It cranked his motivation to grind Scum Points up another notch—because seriously, what guy wouldn't want his bedroom stats maxed out?
Right now, Yūto Shō had only 300 Scum Points in the bank. Sprinkling them into any one upgrade would barely move the needle, so he decided to hoard for a bigger payoff down the line.
Closing out the enhancement screen, he pulled up the daily exchange to see what the shop had rotated in.
"Lust Marker: Sign your name on a woman's body, and the inked area becomes hypersensitive, leaving the target unable to stop touching it. Each marker holds five signatures, lasts ten days, and can only be erased by a Magic Eraser. Value: 200 Scum Points."
"Magic Eraser: Beyond wiping signatures left by the marker, it also smooths out small bodily imperfections—moles, faint scars, the like. Each Eraser holds five uses. Value: 100 Scum Points."
"Ten Perfect Contraceptive Pills: A drug with zero side effects on the body, 100% effective. Value: 500 Scum Points."
The instant Yūto Shō saw today's lineup, he knew his 300 points weren't surviving the night. Each item set his pulse hammering.
The Lust Marker could massively level up his ability to train girls. Used correctly, it would crank his daily scum rating, which in turn meant a bigger point harvest.
The Magic Eraser pulled double duty—not only wiping marker signatures but also acting like a cheat-code skincare treatment, smoothing minor flaws. Personal use, sure, but also potentially a side hustle. Then again, this kind of effect screamed too good to be true; pulling it out in public called for serious discretion.
The Perfect Contraceptive Pill was the final jackpot. Most pharmaceutical contraceptives in the real world came packaged with side effects and a less-than-perfect success rate. The Perfect Pill bypassed both pitfalls entirely.
Yūto Shō sensed he was inching closer to losing his V-card. Word on the street was that condoms killed the experience, but raw-dogging it without protection was a fast track to disaster. Stocking a few Perfect Pills as backup sounded like the smart play.
Unfortunately, the pills came bundled in packs of ten for a flat 500 points—well outside his budget. He had no choice but to swipe left on that one.
Then Yūto Shō locked in the Lust Marker and the Magic Eraser, instantly wiping his Scum Point balance back to zero.
"Broke! Skip one day of grinding and you can't even afford the shop."
Yūto Shō felt the sting deep in his chest. For the first time, he registered just how broke he was, and at the same time, he caught the system's villain-arc strategy—dangling carrots to push him into committing even darker deeds.
The daily shop rotation and the new enhancement system were like twin gacha machines from hell; to keep feeding them, he'd have to grind harder than ever.
After turning the Magic Eraser over in his palm a moment, hesitating, Yūto Shō tucked it away. No immediate use for it—yet.
...
The next morning, Yūto Shō rolled out of bed and sent his location to Sato Ruri.
After her call the day before, he'd already unblocked the girl.
Once the pin dropped, Yūto Shō fired off another message: "Get here early. Pick up some groceries on the way—my fridge looks like a dungeon boss already cleared it."
He framed it like grocery duty was the most natural thing in the world for her. Meanwhile, Yūto Shō pulled out the Lust Marker he'd nabbed at the crack of dawn, twirling it between his fingers, a faint smirk curling the corner of his mouth.
A shiny new toy had just dropped into his inventory—how could he not field-test it?
On the other side of the city, the girl in question stared at his message, indignation written all over her face.
After stewing for a while, Sato Ruri started picking out today's outfit. Originally, she'd planned on a cute skirt. But there was absolutely no way she was wearing a skirt to Yūto Shō's apartment after what had gone down.
The memory of that excruciating day flickered back, and the girl's ears flushed hot, her thighs prickling with a faint, traitorous itch.
She shook her head hard to scrub the thought away, then grabbed a plain white tee for her top half and a pair of slightly loose jeans for the bottom, leaving virtually nothing exposed except her arms.