THE NEXT DAY
Today is an important day in my new life. Specifically, today is my first day at school. I would be neck deep in the heart of enemy territory today and every single school day after today, assuming nothing goes wrong.
I forced myself to roll out of bed, my alarm clock had done its job in both waking me up and making me want to shatter it. I managed to roll out of bed and into my new uniform easily enough, and after a bit of personal hygiene maintenance, I got myself a bowl of my cheap cereal.
I didn't encounter any difficulties as I walked to school. Not that I was really expecting any, but I was in an anime world and I have never walked to school before, who knows what could happen? I doubt that I would enjoy the walk when the weather gets warmer, but for now, it was a bit calming. I had to use my phone in order to not get lost though.
By the time that I actually made it to the school itself, I was a good bit early, which was intentional. Hopefully I can convince a staff member or someone to give me a tour of the school before classes started up. I had made mistakes before in my first year of high school by forgetting where my classes were in relation to the building.
I made my way to the office where I introduced myself and asked if there was anyone willing to give me a quick tour around the building and show me where my classes would be before the school day truly starts. After a bit, as one of the faculty members had to finish something up before giving me a short tour. The tour was short and only really consisted of where my classes were, but that is fine with me, I could always figure out where everything is myself later on.
Eventually homeroom rolled around, and the teacher told me to wait outside until I was called in to introduce myself, and I did just that. A couple minutes later I was called in to stand in front of the class and introduce myself. I looked out over the crowd and spotted Issei, the two other perverts, and the supposed female pervert… who was grinning at me. Okay… not sure how to feel about that.
The teacher turned to me. "How about you tell us your name and something about you" I nod at the teacher before going to introduce myself. First impressions are important and with one of the people here being instrumental to saving the world, even more so than normal. I faced the class and smiled at them.
"Hello, my name is Adrien Matthews, or rather Matthews Adrien here. I am from the United States. I enjoy writing stories and making art, I eventually hope to publish a book at some point during my life. It is nice to meet all of you, I hope we can all get along" I looked out at the faces of my new class and found them neutral for the most part. I can work with that, I am not the most social person, but I definitely don't want to be the unpopular kid of the school.
"Alright then, Matthews-san, there is a seat open next to Issei Hyoudou". I thanked the teacher before making my way over to my seat. What is with this cosmic bullshit here? Why the fuck am I sitting next to the protagonist! A known pervert at that! I quickly glanced around the class and found that if possible, there were gaps in the seating chart around where the perverted trio sit and those that did sit around them are seated closer to the edges of their seats so as to not be too close to them. Whelp in that case, at least I ended up with Issei.
As soon as I sit down, Issei immediately launches a question at me, something that I honestly should have expected, but didn't. "So, Matthews-san what is your favorite part of a woman, mine is the boobs!". Yeah, really should have expected that. The question caught me off guard, so I just stared at him for a couple seconds before giving him my answer. "I," I began, drawing some attention from the classmates around me, "I am just going to ignore that".
I swear I heard a couple of people sigh in relief. Issei on the other hand was not convinced and wanted to find out my answer. He made several guesses about what part of the female body I was obsessed with before accusing me of being gay, which I immediately shot down because I do find women attractive, I ended up letting out a sigh and planting my face on my desk as Issei began a great spiel about the glory that is boobs. This eventually transitions into a declaration of wanting to become a harem king.
This was going to be a pain. I shared every single class with him. I know from the anime, and what little of the light novels that I read, that Issei is a surprisingly decent person under all of his perversion, but it is hard to realize that at times with how he acts. The fact that he invited me to go along peeping also bothers me, I was raised on the belief that one should respect another's privacy, especially when it comes to their own body. That didn't mean there were exceptions to that, like asking about how a person got certain injuries, or just generally being concerned for another person, but peeping was definitely something I am against.
I stayed behind o a bit on one of my classes and informed the teacher that Issei had invited me peeping and that even if the school can't stop them, at least try to warn the clubs about what the perverted trio might do. The teacher thanked me and told me that they would put out a warning. I left for my next class after that.
Classes were ultimately very boring and for the most part a review of something I already know. There are of course classes that are more japan centric, like history classes, and language classes, but school is school.
Lunch was probably the most interesting part of the day. I would have thought that Issei would have given up on trying to get some answers out of me, but apparently not. How! Why? By all means, he should dislike me by now for brushing him off! But NOOOO! For some reason I seem to be attracting the plot. I had at that point given up trying to avoid Issei and decided that it might be for the best to answer some of his questions. It wasn't like he is going to get the answers that he is hoping for anyway.
"Fine Hyoudou, I'll answer some of your questions. Just please give me a break from your perversion, not everyone cares about boobs or having a harem nearly as much as you"
For Issei, me answering that way might have been equivalent to another man declaring his love of boobs. Here I was, some somewhat attractive man, lowering himself to the same level as the perverted trio. I wonder if I am going to be able to make any friends outside of Issei now.
"Matthews! I knew you would come around! So, tell me, what is your favorite part of the female body? I bet it is the boobs, how could it be anything else but the glory that they are"
I sighed before answering. "Issei, I don't judge beauty from just one singular aspect of a woman, and while yes, I do like boobs, just as any other man does, they are not vital to my ultimate decision about wanting to date somebody." Issei looked at me as if I was speaking blasphemy. I held up my hand in a gesture asking him to let me finish explaining.
"Issei, I would never consider dating a person who is a horrible person even if they had the most amazing boobs of all of existence. Various factors go towards my decision. I judge appearance based off of several things like not just boobs, but the appearance of their face, state of physical fitness, height, and yes Issei, butts as well. All of those factors just go into determining if someone is physically attractive, and I am willing to date somebody subpar in several of those aspects if their personality is good". Issei looks at me as if he never really considered that I personally assume that he never has due to his focus on boobs.
"For example, Issei, I would prefer to date someone completely average simply because they qualify as a better person in my eyes in comparison to a person who is incredibly attractive but a horrible person. What I judge as a good person also divides into various categories that I won't go into here." I turn to Issei and look him in the eye. "So, there is your answer." He seemed to be processing what I had just said, so I quickly gathered my stuff and made my escape to somewhere more peaceful and away from perverts. I would have preferred to eat alone in the first place, but Issei put an end to that, and if not Issei, then probably someone interested in the new transfer student that is myself. I shot off a quick prayer before beginning to eat. I hope somebody gets a headache from it.
There were a couple whispers here and there for the rest of the day, I don't know who heard how much of whatever I said to Issei, but the whole situation hopefully wouldn't paint me in a bad light. I may be an introvert through and through, but I definitely don't want to be a social outcast. All of my classes continue to be boring to me, so classes ending for the day were great. I stuck around for a bit and checked out the swim club for a bit. I also swear that I could hear Issei and two other guys shouting in pain at some point. I guess that he got caught peeping.
As I walked home, I noticed that Issei and I were taking the same route. Which is a bit concerning to myself, and as things turned out, we are neighbors. Honestly what bullshit is this! Why am I always somewhere close to the protagonist! I sighed and wished Issei a good rest of the day before locking myself in my house. I need to get training and fast. I immediately got to work on the anime magic weights and resistance spells, I wasn't planning on casting them until I fleshed out their spell work for myself.
I like to think that I made some decent progress on creating both of the spells. I had actually managed to create a basic spell for each in under an hour, the problem was that the spells I want had a variable component where you can actively alter the amount of weight or resistance that either of the spells were giving you at any time. This was mostly because I don't feel like recasting them all of the time, but also so I don't have to actively cast magic in the presence of the Devils at school. For now, though, I casted the spells, with the weight being 20 pounds and the resistance modifier being 1.1.
Issei showed up at my door later, much to my surprise, because I was invited over for dinner at his parent's house. Seriously, what is with this bullshit! His family was nice enough, they were over the moon to find that Issei had become friends with somebody who wasn't a degenerate pervert, I honestly didn't have it in me to tell them that we were not friends. It was during the small talk, that Issei swore to himself that he would change me to the path of boobs. I guess my comment about not particularly caring had led him to the decision of trying to enlighten me.
As soon as I got home, I got back to work on the variable component of the two spells, there weren't any examples that I could work off of in my knowledge, much like the situation with mana constructs. It took my several hours, but I eventually made the spell decide the weight and resistances based upon the amount of mana that I put into the spell. While normally that is something that all spells can do, this modification only happens during the casting of the spell, what I did was allow for the spell to actively change by using mana while the spell is still in effect. It was inefficient and felt overly complicated, but once again both would improve with time and knowledge. I only had a very solid understanding of the basics for both spell casting systems that I use. I casted my newly improved spells upon myself and quickly released the others. I would still have to do some actual physical exercise, but these spells are going to be a great boost to any efforts that I make, and eventually a workout in its own right.
I still have a lot on my list of things to do and improve upon, so I look up at my clock. 11:00pm. Good, still plenty of time, I doubt I am going to be getting much sleep in the first place anyway. I stopped by a 24/7 convenience store and grabbed some energy drinks. Completely unhealthy, but the caffeine would help me stay focused and awake while I get stuff done.
I immediately got to work on trying to create, maintain, and strengthen barriers, after about an hour of this, I switched over to trying and making the barriers even slightly moldable. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, so I was taking bits and pieces of my two spellcasting systems and translating what I needed from one into the other. I wasn't making much progress in my opinion, but I was trying to make an actively shifting barrier while maintaining its integrity.
How the hell am I supposed to do that. I began to brainstorm when something came to mind. My light! I can use my light to create physical energy structures like whips, and those whips act like real ones. I think at least that is what my light can do. I took a deep breath and prayed to god that nobody would sense this. My right hand glowed with a golden light before a whip-like construct formed in it. Okay, so I got the shape. I moved it around a bit and saw that it acted like a whip as well. Fuck yeah!
Now all I need to do is figure out how to analyze the structure that my whip is taking and mimic that with mana… which I also have no idea how to do. I sigh. One step forward and one step back. I grit my teeth, back to the drawing board. Why does magic have to be so complicated. How would I even go about analyzing the structure of an energy construct? My knowledge was not providing any answers, and I wasn't like the Devils with their bullshit power of imagination magic system.
I sigh once more before shifting my focus to illusions. While not powerful in direct confrontations, they were useful and hopefully would give me some hints about making my barriers flexible. I was originally only paying attention to them because they would be extremely useful in helping me escape or just distract people. However, the idea just occurred to me that illusions were basically incorporeal mana constructs and could move as they want, barriers were physical mana constructs but couldn't change once formed. Maybe if I combined parts of their spell structures, I might make some progress. I had my goal; I could only hope that I got enough done in the hours before the sun rises.