"Ah—ouch, ouch—be gentle…"
A scream echoed from an apartment on the fifteenth floor of a high-end building.
The scene shifted to what looked like a crime scene.
The bandages on Yazuki's body were violently ripped off and then rewrapped again.
Seeing the chaos around him, his eyes welled up with grief as he collapsed to his knees, weakly pounding the floor. Most of the things he had just bought today were now reduced to rubble, and many of his treasured items were destroyed beyond repair.
In response to his despair, both Shizuka Hiratsuka and Yukino Yukinoshita cast him cold, disdainful looks as if to say, "Serves you right."
"Yazuki, remember this—you must be back at school in exactly one week!"
Shizuka's voice carried an undeniable tone of authority.
"Hah? Look at me, do you think I'll be able to attend class in a week? I need at least a month off, maybe even half—"
Before he could finish, that devilish face had already moved in close, exhaling a sinister breath.
"If you don't show up in a week, I'll personally pick you up every day. Hmm, maybe I should just move in with you while I'm at it!"
At some point, Shizuka had lit a cigarette, exuding the aura of a yakuza boss. She flashed a chilling smile, her seemingly calm tone carrying an unmistakable menace.
Move into his home? No way in hell was Yazuki letting this reckless teacher live with him. That would be a death sentence.
Despite her stunning looks, her personality was like that of an old man, she drank like a fish, never parted with her cigarettes, and would turn his place into a smoky hellhole.
He widened his eyes, glaring in protest.
"—Please grant me just one more day of rest, my beautiful and charming... Hiratsuka-sensei~"
His determined resistance crumbled in an instant, replaced by a bootlicking smile as he spouted sickeningly sweet flattery.
Yukino, who had witnessed this sudden transformation, twitched slightly. She felt a wave of nausea, how could someone change faces that fast? But surely, that kind of flattery wouldn't work on Hiratsuka-sensei, right?
"Uh—"
Yukino was dumbfounded.
She watched as Hiratsuka-sensei fidgeted like a shy little girl, looking embarrassed.
"Well, since you put it that way—"
"Ahem!"
"—Absolutely not!"
Just as she was about to give in, she caught herself, straightened her face, and firmly rejected the plea. However, a faint blush of cherry pink still lingered on her cheeks.
"Tch..."
Yazuki clicked his tongue, then turned to glare at Yukino. That deliberate cough of hers had snapped Hiratsuka back to her senses.
Meeting his sharp gaze, Yukino remained unfazed, responding with an equally cold stare.
Just then, two heavy hands pressed down on Yazuki's shoulders. Hiratsuka's expression was casual, even slightly smiling, but the weight of her aura made it clear she was being dead serious.
"That little joke just now—you're not going to pull that kind of stunt on Yukinoshita, are you? That would be highly inappropriate. Do you understand?"
"Of course not. That was just a momentary lapse of judgment, I just wanted to mess with you a little. After all, I always get beaten up so badly."
Yazuki scratched his head and waved his hand dismissively. Then, as he looked around at the wreckage in his apartment, his expression turned sorrowful again.
Hiratsuka let out a quiet sigh of relief. She understood the deeper meaning behind his words. Though his response seemed offhand, she could tell it was a firm promise, one that assured her the incident wouldn't happen again.
Both of them understood each other well, their silent exchange proving just how deep their mutual understanding ran.
And Yazuki's promise was sincere. His earlier outburst had been caused by the lingering disconnect between his soul and body, which had yet to fully synchronize. That loss of control wouldn't happen again.
—Bam!
The sound of the door closing signaled that Hiratsuka and Yukino had left Yazuki's apartment.
"Haaah—"
Hiratsuka exhaled a puff of smoke, her expression clouded with complexity.
From what she could tell during his check-up, Yazuki's body showed no signs of combat training. And yet, his savage behavior clearly indicated a wealth of battle experience. It didn't add up.
Thinking back to what had just happened, she couldn't shake the suspicion that he had—
Hiratsuka shook her head vigorously, refusing to go down that train of thought. At least for now, he had returned to being the Yazuki she knew.
Someday, she hoped that brat would open his heart to her.
That said… that little punk was really something else, a little pervert. He actually made her embarrass herself in front of Yukinoshita just now, even making her let out such a weird sound.
"Yukinoshita, can I ask you for a favor?"
"Denied."
Yukino rejected her instantly, not even needing to hear what it was.
"That guy is vile, horrible, depraved—"
She went on to ruthlessly tear Yazuki's character apart, making him sound even worse than a vagrant under a bridge.
"Come on, don't say that. He may seem that way, but deep down, he's actually—"
...
After tidying up his apartment a little, his heart bleeding with every broken item he threw away, Yazuki decided to indulge in one of his hobbies to numb the pain.
"Hm? What's this?"
He absentmindedly picked up an old draft. The title on the cover had faded, but the faint characters of "Type-Moon" were still visible.
Inside the box were several other manuscripts, works from different projects.
Without thinking too much about it, he reorganized them and set them aside.
Then, grabbing his laptop from the bedroom, he booted it up, connected to the internet, and opened his personal blog.
—Scrolling through the comments—
[Demon Lord-sama, where's the new artwork?]
[Huff huff (panting emoji), my wallet is ready! Just waiting for your next masterpiece!!!]
[What's coming next? A loli? A mature beauty? …]
[Aaaaahhh—hurry up already! I've got my tissues ready…]
Countless comments flooded the page, mostly from degenerates eagerly awaiting his new illustrations.
Among them, one stood out as particularly unfriendly:
[Scumbag-kun, I seriously have no idea what's going through that filthy mind of yours…]
It painted him as the most depraved and disgusting creature on earth. Clearly, the person who wrote this had a razor-sharp tongue, someone who could rival Yukino Yukinoshita herself.
The username of this mysterious critic?
—Kasumi Utako.
Kasumi Utako's comments were the most numerous, flooding the page and pushing down many others' remarks. Most of them were sharp and biting, definitely the behavior of an online troll.
Look, she even fabricated an event that quite a few people believed—claiming that the blogger had been arrested for some indecent act. Upon seeing this, Yazuki's face darkened.
There were also people throwing down challenges, like this one:
[SummerComic, just wait to be crushed by me!]—from a commenter named Kashiwagi Eri.
[…Huh? What's going on? It's been days without any updates?]
[Scumbag-kun, don't tell me you've gone into heat in real life, turned into a wild beast, and got arrested for assaulting someone?]
[What nonsense are you spouting up there? From the Demon Lord's works, it's clear that he's deeply devoted to the two-dimensional world. There's no way he'd be swayed by real-life women!]
[That Kasumi Utako… who was she again? I remember she had a grudge against the Demon Lord. She's probably the person herself.]
[She's the author of the light novel Love Metronome, right? The Demon Lord once drew a certain NTR doujin of the novel's heroine.]
[Ohhh, I remember that! Back then…]
Then came some older comments from a while ago.
Next, his fingers began tapping on the keyboard, mentioning a few acquaintances.
[You idiots @Satou—]
Backspace. Delete. That would expose their name.
[You idiots @All-Normies-Explode @Huge-Oppai-Enthusiast @Want-a-Girlfriend @..., The Great Demon Lord has returned!!!]