[Lifespan: 5 days]
BEEEEEEP—BEEEEEEP—
The train whistle tore through the air, sharp and urgent.
On the electronic signboard, green Japanese text flashed: "This stop: Kita-Senju. Next stop: Kosuge."
A silver, bullet-shaped train slid into the platform with a rush of wind.
A few girls in sailor uniforms held down their skirts with one hand and pointed pink flip phones at Hoshino with the other. Their Pikachu charms bounced wildly.
A chic housewife with a minimalist vibe pressed a finger to her lips, then boldly whipped out her phone, hammering the shutter button.
A salaryman in a navy suit stared at the train, and the metallic glint at the edge of his black briefcase hinted at a hidden camera lens.
For a second, Hoshino wondered if he'd somehow gotten it wrong.
Wait, did I just transmigrate into Kimura Takuya?!
"No way in hell!"
He pushed himself up and brushed the dust off his clothes.
"What are you filming?! Never seen someone come back from the dead before?!"
He waved the crowd off and threw a dirty look at the middle-aged lady who'd tried to slip him tongue under the excuse of "CPR."
With a dramatic flick of his hand, he turned and stormed off.
Stepping out of the station, the air hit him with a wave of nostalgia—like he'd just walked into an old film reel frozen in time.
Too bad the massive screen on the side of the shopping mall blaring "Devil attacks in Shibuya!" kind of ruined the aesthetic.
Hoshino stopped for a moment, then followed the scattered fragments of memory guiding him "home."
There was something important he had to retrieve there.
This was a parallel world—Tokyo, 1997, Adachi Ward, Kita-Senju.
Hoshino—or rather, Futoshi Hoshino, the original owner of this body—had lived around here.
Just thinking of that name gave him a headache.
The guy had to be the most catastrophically unlucky person in history.
Born after Japan's economic bubble burst, part of the burnout generation—
He lived by one rule: If life sucks, die trying.
A year ago, Futoshi confessed to a girl in his class named Asa Mitaka.
She rejected him with, "I'm here to study, not date."
That was the start of his downfall.
From there, he made three contracts with Devils.
The first was a fixed-percentage type:
[Aging (B): 25%]
Price: 70 years of lifespan, 30x aging speed.
Not long after, to fix his prematurely aged appearance, he made another deal.
[Muscle (E): 50%]
Price: From midnight to noon, all pain sensations would be amplified by 50 times.
A day later, he made a third—this time, a usage-based contract with the Pain Devil.
He could transfer pain to another person—but only to humans.
Price: Each use would regress his organs by 0–5 years.
[***]
The System seemed to hate that type of contract—it didn't even bother listing it.
By the end of his "career," Futoshi was an 18-year-old with the body of a 48-year-old… and a true biological age of 88.
Pretty impressive, honestly.
But it got worse.
Standing in front of his home, Hoshino hesitated, key frozen midair.
"Man… life really is just one long humiliation kink, huh?"
Forty-some deaths on his conscience, a crush on his sister-in-law, secretly dumping pain onto his brother until the guy killed himself, then trying to pass the pain onto his niece…
When Yurie Hoshino, his sister-in-law, thought he was trying to hurt her daughter, she slapped him across the face.
The "pure-hearted romantic" snapped and ran away from home.
Then he dumped the pain onto some sickly stranger on the street. It rebounded too fast, sent his heart into overdrive—and killed him on the spot.
Hoshino covered his face.
Even he didn't have the guts to face those two again.
He was only here for one thing: the Postal Savings Card.
It held five million yen—all money Futoshi had stolen.
And that money was extremely important right now.
If he couldn't find a Devil that could extend his lifespan in three days…
He'd blow the last two—and every yen of that five million—in Kabukicho.
Eighteen-year-olds, twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, even forty-somethings—he'd sample every kind of sashimi before he died.
Go out with a bang.
With that thought, Hoshino gritted his teeth and turned the key.
Click.
As the door swung open, the smell of fried saury hit him in the face.
Inside was a ten-square-meter tatami room.
In the middle, a ten-year-old girl—his niece, Chiyo—turned her head at the sound.
Her face went pale, her mouth opened wide, and she screamed,
"Mom! He—waaaaah!"
Footsteps pounded. Yurie Hoshino burst out from the side room, clutching Chiyo tight as she backed up until her spine hit the wall.
Her eyes were full of terror.
The wall beside them still had a huge dent—left from when Futoshi lost it after she'd broken him emotionally.
"…"
Hoshino stayed silent, lips pressed thin, and walked straight past them toward the closet.
The Postal Savings Card was inside the pocket of a baseball jacket behind the sliding door.
Chiyo's crying got louder.
"F-Futoshi, don't come any closer…" Yurie's voice trembled as much as her hands.
"…" Hoshino ignored her.
Twenty seconds. That's all he needed to get the hell out of this shameful place.
If he didn't care about their mental breakdown, he'd have sprinted straight through.
Their terrified eyes burned holes in his back. He quickened his pace.
After a few half-hearted warnings, he finally stopped in front of the closet and exhaled.
Grab the card, then run.
He reached for the handle—
Suddenly, Yurie shoved Chiyo aside and lunged at him.
She grabbed his waistband, sobbing as she cried out,
"I'll do it! I'll do whatever you want! Just please don't hurt Chiyo—she's your niece!"
Hoshino: "¿??"
He froze.
What the hell kind of plot twist is this?
Up close, Yurie was pretty, delicate even—just past thirty.
Not bad, but that wasn't the problem.
He was utterly repulsed by the idea of anything born out of fear.
It wasn't temptation—it was moral punishment.
"Ma'am!"
He yanked her hands off and stumbled back, pulling his pants up properly.
"Next time."
He slid open the closet, snatched the Postal Savings Card from the jacket, turned, and headed for the door while retying his waistband.
Goodbye, prison.
His mood instantly lifted.
Even if he couldn't find a lifespan Devil, this trip was already worth it.
He'd get himself a good meal first—he was starving just thinking about it.
"Wait… what's that smell?"
He sniffed, frowning.
Burnt.
The saury on the stove had been left too long, charred black from the residual heat.
Beside it sat a blue lunchbox.
He recognized it—that was Naosuke Hoshino's lunchbox.
Wait—they don't know he's dead yet?
Naosuke, Futoshi's half-brother, was fifteen years older.
After their parents died, Naosuke had raised him alone.
Normally, someone with strong willpower and painkillers could survive a month under that kind of agony.
Naosuke lasted eight days.
Most likely suicide.
He probably knew he couldn't make it and wanted to leave more money for his wife, daughter, and idiot brother.
"…"
"Tch."
Hoshino sighed, turned toward the two terrified figures, and asked loudly, "Mind if I eat lunch before I go?"
"W-What?" Yurie looked flustered. Anyone could see she didn't want him there.
"I said, can I eat lunch before I go?"
"…"
"…Fine." She bit her lip and nodded.
She stood, trembling, edging along the wall toward the stove.
"It's… burned."
"Yeah, I noticed."
"S-Should I make more?" she stammered, forgetting the "wait."
"What do you think?" He widened his eyes.
"O-Okay, okay! One second!"
She hurried to the freezer for ingredients.
Hoshino considered waiting in the other room, but when he saw Chiyo slowly inching toward her mother, he stepped aside instead and moved to the doorway.
A full-length mirror stood there, with a black umbrella leaning in the corner.
He took off the dorky black-rimmed glasses, pushed his messy bangs aside, and looked.
As expected, a man in his forties stared back—no Devil Powers active.
A sharp jawline, narrow eyes with a beauty mark at the corner, and the kind of deep lines that made him look more sinister than aged.
Still… he must've been handsome once.
When Chiyo finally clung to her mother again, Hoshino went back inside and sat cross-legged at the low table.
There was a stack of sticky notes and a pen nearby.
Bored, he opened the System.
Besides [Personal Info], it listed three [Abilities].
The most sinister one read:
[(3) Forget the Past: Killing Devils, Fiends, or Fixed-type Contractors grants 50% of their Authority (if you already possess that Authority type).
Clearly, the System wanted him to scam and kill.
Who's the real Devil here?
There was even a matching support function:
[Debtor's Status]
[Updates every hour]
Aging Devil: Hell
Pain Devil: Osaka, Nishinari Ward
Muscle Devil: Tokyo, Arakawa Ward — "Finally, time to change toys!"
Distance clearly affected the clarity of the info.
Arakawa was right next to Adachi Ward—close. Hell, obviously, wasn't.
Before long, Yurie came back with food.
"F-Futoshi, lunch is ready," she said softly.
"That fast? Did you actually put effort into it?"
"I did! I still have to bring your brother's lunch soon, so I just—" she began.
"Alright, alright, I'll let it slide."
Like most traditional Japanese homes, they ate kneeling at a low table.
White rice, miso soup, grilled saury, and stir-fried bean sprouts with carrots. Balanced enough.
You could tell Yurie knew how to make a decent meal with almost nothing.
Still…
He glanced at her thin frame, then at Chiyo huddled nearby.
1997—right in the middle of Japan's "Lost Decade."
Everyone was struggling.
Overwork deaths would peak the following year.
Even if Naosuke had chosen suicide early, there wouldn't be much left.
A single mother raising a kid had two options:
Sell blood and organs—
—or sell herself. Maybe take cleaning jobs at love hotels, doubling as part-time company.
Not malicious speculation—just economic reality.
In the decade from 1998 to 2008, Japan's suicide rate would skyrocket—thirty thousand a year.
Single mothers? The first to drown.
If he left, this family wouldn't even make a ripple.
But he had to go.
He had five days left to fix his lifespan—and the longer he stayed, the higher the chance these two would get caught up in Devil business.
"Haah…" Hoshino sighed.
Yurie flinched. "What's wrong? Did I mess something up? I'll redo it!"
He shook his head.
"Sorry."
"Huh?"
The apology came out of nowhere. She froze, then tucked her hair behind her ear.
"I get it," she murmured. "This… all has to do with Devils, doesn't it?"
Before he could answer, she forced a small smile.
"Then it's not Futoshi's fault. It's the Devils' fault."
She lowered her head again.
Hoshino stayed silent.
That wasn't his guilt to carry—it was Futoshi's.
But that "sorry" was for the guy whose body he'd borrowed. His conscience was clear now.
Five days of lifespan—paid in full.
Ding, ding, ding—
The wall clock struck the hour.
"I have to bring your brother's lunch now," Yurie said quietly.
He nodded and glanced at the time.
2 p.m.
Then a thought hit him—the Debtor's Status updated every hour.
Was it on the hour, or from the moment of activation?
Curious, he checked.
[Aging Devil: Hell]
[Pain Devil: Osaka, Nishinari Ward]
Ding-dong. Ding-dong.
The doorbell suddenly rang.
Yurie, tidying up near the counter, paused and turned toward the door.
[Muscle Devil: Tokyo, Adachi Ward — "Haha, so happy," …]
New text appeared.
Ding-dong ding-dong!
The bell grew more frantic.
Hoshino's pupils dilated.
"Wait!!"
"Whatever you do, don't open that door."
He spun around and yelled, "Don't open it!!!"
Yurie blinked, confused, and instinctively turned the knob.
Click—click.
The door swung open.
A blur of movement—then a deafening crash.
"Fu—Futoshi?!" Yurie gasped.
The aluminum door groaned and twisted as Hoshino's body slammed into it.
The impact shattered at least two ribs and mangled his right arm.
Worse, the umbrella by the door—its sharp tip now driven straight through his side—had pinned him in place.
Blood spread across his shirt, soaking everything crimson.
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Hey guys! I'm planning to upload around 15 chapters today. The story's honestly really good, you can totally trust me on this, so make sure to add it to your collection :)