The dismissal bell for fourth period shrieked through the school, a jarring, electronic scream that signaled the merciful end of Tanaka-sensei's post-mortem on their failed exam. Students practically flew from their seats, a collective exodus of the damned fleeing from scholastic hell.
Liza bounced over to Samantha's desk, her face alight with a mixture of awe and vicarious pride.
"A perfect score! On a surprise test from Tanaka-sensei! That's not just legendary, Sam-chan, it's a certifiable urban myth! People are going to be talking about this for years! 'The Miracle of Kisaragi-san'! How on earth did you do it?"
"Lucky guesses, I suppose," Samantha said, a small, weary smile on her face as she packed her bag. The lie felt flimsy even to her.
But as they stepped out of the classroom and into the chaotic river of students flowing through the hallway, the triumph of her perfect score evaporated like morning mist. The thrill of the power, the flawless, diamond-hard clarity of her enhanced memory, had already been re-contextualized in her mind.
It wasn't a tool for academic success.
This is a weapon, she thought, her expression hardening. Her eyes, sharper and more perceptive than ever before, scanned the crowd. She wasn't looking for friends or familiar faces. She was cataloging exits, observing clusters of people, identifying potential threats, searching for any sign of a navy blue blazer that belonged to her brother. Her Eidetic Memory, a tool for acing tests just minutes ago, was now her own personal surveillance system. She was actively hunting for danger, for any anomaly in the mundane pattern of school life that might lead her to the four-star threat that stalked Kisaragi Ren.
The dismissal bell for lunch break shrieked through the school, but for Samantha, it was drowned out by a different, more personal alarm.
A soft, insistent PING! echoed in her mind.
A pair of notifications, bordered in that same hideous, lurid pink from the cafeteria, flashed into her vision, overlaying the sea of student faces. They now featured new, terrifying additions.
[Daily Relationship Mission!]
[Objective A: Give your best friend, Suzuki Liza, a kiss on the cheek.]
[Time Limit: 01:29:59]
[Penalty for Failure: 'Social Sabotage' Debuff – Acute Epidermal Degeneration (Severe Acne) & Pheromonal Collapse (Unpleasant Body Odor) for 24 hours.]
[Objective B: While her attention is elsewhere, touch Suzuki Liza's chest.]
[Time Limit: 01:29:58]
[Penalty for Failure: 'Social Sabotage' Debuff – See Above.]
Samantha's brain came to a screeching halt. The blood froze in her veins. Her scan of the hallway, her grim determination, her entire 'vigilante protector' mindset—it all shattered.
Time limits? And penalties that sounded like they were pulled from a witch's curse?
"What in the actual fresh hell…" she breathed, the words barely audible. She stood frozen in the middle of the hallway, a statue of pure horror, as the river of students flowed around her.
"Sam-chan! You coming or are you planning to take root here?" Liza's voice cut through her panicked stupor. She had stopped a few feet ahead and was now looking back, her brow furrowed in confusion.
Samantha blinked, her mind scrambling to reboot. "Uh, yeah! Just… zoned out for a sec," she replied, forcing a smile that felt like it was cracking her face.
Liza didn't look convinced. She narrowed her eyes, her gaze sharp and probing. But before she could press the issue, she just shrugged. "Well, come on! That parfait special at the cafe isn't going to eat itself! And my stomach is staging a rebellion!"
As they began walking again, Samantha's anxiety spiked. She had to talk to Mochi. Now. She steered Liza towards a slightly less congested stairwell landing, a small eddy in the bustling current of the hallway.
"One sec, I think I dropped an earring," she lied, bending down and pretending to search the floor. It was a flimsy excuse, but it bought her a precious few seconds.
"Mochi," she hissed under her breath, her voice low and furious.
The little ghost zipped into existence near her shoe, its usual cheerful glow looking… subdued. Almost sheepish.
"Yo," Mochi offered weakly.
Samantha straightened up, abandoning her fake search. She pulled Liza slightly further into the alcove of the stairwell, trying to create a flimsy shield of privacy. "Liza, just stand here for a second, I need to check something on my phone."
Then, she directed her full, unrestrained fury at the floating dumpling in a barely-audible whisper. "What the hell is this?! Time limits? And penalties? 'Uglification'? 'Bad odor'? Is the System run by a cabal of petty middle school bullies?!"
Mochi fidgeted, wringing its stubby, spectral hands. "W-Well, you see… the System… it likes to provide… uh… timely incentives for user engagement?"
"'User engagement'?!" Samantha's whisper rose to a near-shriek. Several students passing by gave them a weird look. Liza stared at her, her eyebrow arched so high it was practically in her hairline. "You think threatening me with sudden-onset acne and B.O. is 'user engagement'?! I'm trying to stop my brother from getting murdered, and the System is worried about whether or not I grope my best friend!"
"Lower your voice!" Mochi hissed back, zipping behind Samantha's back as if to hide.
Samantha took a deep, shuddering breath, forcing down the panic and rage. She turned to Liza, plastering a strained smile on her face. "Sorry. My… uh… my virtual pet cat just died. In the game. It's… very sad."
Liza snorted. "You and those weird phone games. You're getting way too invested."
Samantha turned her glare back to Mochi. "Explain," she mouthed, her expression murderous.
Mochi poked its head out from behind her shoulder. "Okay, okay! The System has a… a very strange sense of humor! And it believes that a little pressure makes things more exciting! The algorithm probably flagged you for 'procrastination' on the relationship quests, so it initiated a 'motivational protocol'!"
"Motivational protocol?!" she whispered frantically. "Mochi, if I fail this, I'm going to smell like a dumpster fire and break out like a pepperoni pizza! How is that motivating?!"
"Well, it's motivating you to not fail," Mochi pointed out, with infuriating logic.
Samantha clenched her fists so hard she could feel her short, clean nails digging into her palms. The faint pain was a welcome anchor. "So that's it. I have less than an hour and a half to… to assault my best friend, or face social seppuku?"
"Technically," Mochi chirped, unhelpfully pulling up a visible timer on her screen that only she could see, "you have one hour, twenty-one minutes, and fourteen seconds. And counting."
A vein throbbed in Samantha's temple. "Thank you for the update."
Liza, who had been watching this one-sided, whispered conversation with a look of mounting alarm, finally tugged on her arm. "Earth to Sam-chan? For real, you're starting to scare me. Who are you talking to? You keep making these weird, angry faces at thin air. Is this about that perfect score? Are you cracking under the pressure of being a genius?"
Samantha pasted on her most innocent, non-threatening smile. "No! Of course not! Just… really thinking about lunch! I'm starving, remember?"
"You're acting super, super weird today," Liza said, her voice now laced with genuine concern instead of suspicion. "Are you feeling okay? You're not getting sick again, are you? Your face is all flushed."
"Just hungry!" Samantha insisted, grabbing Liza's arm and pulling her along the corridor, away from the prying eyes of the stairwell. If she was going to have a breakdown, it wasn't going to be here.
"Fine," Liza said, though her tone made it clear she didn't believe a word of it. "But you owe me a full explanation later. And a large order of fries for putting up with your weirdness."
As they walked towards the cafeteria, Samantha's mind was a frantic, chaotic storm. Her internal mission board was a cruel joke. The most important quest—saving Ren—had no time limit and no information. It was a giant, terrifying question mark. Meanwhile, the most ridiculous, mortifying, and impossible quests had a ticking clock and grotesquely specific punishments.
The System wasn't just trying to make her a rom-com protagonist. It was trying to drive her clinically insane.
How was she supposed to do this? How could she possibly focus on protecting her brother when a timer was counting down to her own social and hygienic doom?
She glanced at Liza, who was now chattering excitedly about the different kinds of parfaits. She looked happy, oblivious. A perfect, normal high school girl. And in less than ninety minutes, Samantha was supposed to either kiss her and grope her, or turn into a monster of a different kind right before her eyes.
One problem at a time, she told herself, the thought a desperate mantra. Survive the next eighty minutes. Then save Ren. Then deal with the love quest.
It was a completely insane, utterly impossible plan.
And it was the only one she had.