Chapter 18  : In order to obtain items, it’s time to grind grind grind!

After Seiji returned home, he eagerly opened up his system and checked his new options with great anticipation.

[Play basketball] required him to have teammates and opponents; [sing] and [dance] both required an audience; and [write a diary] and [draw] were the only options which he could select immediately, provided that he had prepared the necessary materials beforehand.

Seiji instantly went out and purchased a notebook.

After returning home with the notebook, he sat in front of his desk and chose the [write a diary] option that was now available for selection.

Suddenly, an urge welled up within him to record everything that had happened to him throughout the day in the notebook, and his memories about everything that had happened today became crystal clear.

He followed his urge and began to write briskly in his notebook.

Since it was his first day as a transfer student, there were numerous things to write about. When Seiji finally finished, thirty minutes had already passed.

*Ding-dong!* Seiji heard a new sound from his system that he was certain he had never heard before.

Seiji immediately checked his system and found that his [action points] for exchanging items had increased to 2.

In the [items] option, the lowest cost for anything was the [physical ability—track and field activation card], but even that required 20 points. Obviously, it wouldn’t be possible to acquire any [items] in the near future.

After using [write a diary], the option was grayed out again; it seemed that he wouldn’t be able to grind for points by constantly repeating the same action.

‘If I want to obtain many action points quickly to trade for items, I can only do different actions…’ Seiji rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

Wasn’t the system basically forcing him to develop himself in a balanced manner?

‘Even though this is obviously a dating sim system, it seems that the more I take advantage of it, the less of an otaku I become!’ Seiji commented to himself.

After reincarnating, he had been spending all his free time on working or exercising with his system. Wouldn’t that make others think that he was a bright, handsome boy that loved to live life to the fullest extent and exercise his body?

What had happened to his original self that was supposed to be an otaku!?

Truthfully, the tedious nature of work combined with the great increase in his physical ability stat, which put him at a level far beyond the average human, caused Seiji consider using his save and load ability to make some money and temporarily stop working and training. This was to just enjoy being an otaku in this world for some time.

But with the new [actions] option appearing, along with the attractive [items] option, this thought was instantly banished from his mind.

"Alright, System—you win! I’ll do it; I’ll work hard!" Seiji said forcefully.

Well, leveling his stats was relatively enjoyable, and with the help of his dating sim system cheat, he could discover the true limits of his growth potential.

Of course, as an otaku, his favorite hobbies remained the same, so he decided to prioritize improving areas related to his hobbies if possible.

Right now, there were relatively few options in the [actions] and [items] menus, but Seiji believed that as long as he fulfilled certain hidden conditions, more options would become available.

Maybe even options like [write a story], [draw a manga], and [create a game] would appear in the future!

Although he didn’t have the ability to reproduce the most successful products from his original world, he could always create his own—with the power of his system, anything was possible!

Rather than reproducing works from his original world, he preferred to create new stories, and it would feel great if they were his own! He almost felt like he could already taste the joy of creating his own story.

Naturally, he had to begin from the basics.

Seiji went out again, and purchased some sketching pencils and an artbook as required by the [draw] option, which also needed an art stat of at least 15 points.

Perhaps due to the poor quality of his drawing, his art stat had only increased by a measly 1 point after Seiji had performed the action.

He learned something else: even with different options, he could obtain a different amount of stats. He theorized that it may have something to do with his base stats, or it may be related to the equipment he used while carrying out the action… Maybe the stat gain depended on the overall quality of his [action].

Then, did that mean if he increased the quality of his [action], he could receive an increased amount of stat points?

Seiji felt like this was possible, but he would need to wait until tomorrow to experiment with those options again.

After using [write a diary] and [draw], the four options still available to him were:

. [Play basketball] (prerequisite of 20 physical ability, 15 communication)

. [Sing] (prerequisite of 15 music, 15 academics)

. [Dance] (prerequisite of 15 music, 20 physical ability, 20 charisma)

. [Work] (prerequisite of 20 communication, 20 physical ability, 20 academics, 20 charisma)

Basketball wasn’t something he’d be able to choose without a team and opponents, and working would require him to go to the store. As for choosing to sing or dance… should he ask Mika to be his audience?

Going over to her place and asking her to watch him dance or listen to him sing—what kind of idiot would do that?

However, it seemed like a great waste to not make use of these options, and unlike basketball, he only needed a minimum of one other person as a spectator.

Seiji kept mulling it over, and as he unintentionally glanced at his high-spec computer, he had a sudden flash of inspiration.

What if it didn’t have to be a person next to him? Could an audience on the internet work?

In Sakura Island, live-streaming was already quite popular, and with this high-spec computer and the internet speed in his apartment, it should be quite easy to become a live-streamer!

Seiji became excited at the prospect of live-streaming, and just as he was about to sit down in front of his computer, his stomach started growling.

Alright, he would begin live-streaming after eating first…

Several minutes later…

Cat-loving Flying Fish was the internet username of a true otaku girl.

She hadn’t been a shut-in for a long time yet, as it was due to a certain recent incident that she stopped interacting with the outside world.

Even though that incident didn’t cause any physical harm to her, and the aggressor was eventually caught and punished, the wounds in her heart made it difficult for her to go outside and interact with other people.

Her older sister and her good friends were all quite worried about her, but none of them forced her to do anything, and her psychiatrist also agreed that she should rest at home for the time being.

Without anything to do, she had fun every day at home by going on the internet, playing games, watching anime, and reading manga…

Ironically, these were all the favorite activities of the person who caused those scars in her heart before!

Just thinking about that made Flying Fish feel disgusted, but she didn’t want to let go of her hobbies. It would be akin to admitting defeat if she gave up her own favorite hobbies just because of that person!

There was nothing wrong with being an otaku or her own hobbies; the only one in the wrong was that person. That was what Flying Fish believed wholeheartedly.

Tonight, she was surfing the web.

She logged on to her favorite streaming site, and after seeing that her favorite streamers weren’t online, she randomly decided to scroll to the bottom of the page and look at the newest streamers.

Rather than following the most popular streamers, she preferred those that weren’t very popular, as long as they had their own unique personality and style.

Of course, there were scarcely any streamers that met her requirements, and the few that she discovered previously gradually became popular streamers themselves.

Maybe she had a talent in discovering popular streamers?

After she realized this, she began to enjoy finding unpopular streamers even more.

She pulled the page to the very end, to the pitiful streamers that only had one or two spectators.

Flying Fish chose the ones that she liked, and once she decided that she didn’t like it, she chose another one, repeating the process endlessly.

Finally, she clicked on a streamer who had a broadcast named "I Only Need One Spectator."

"H… hello!"

Right after entering his stream, she saw a boy nervously greet her while wearing a silver half-mask on his face.

"Cat-loving Flying Fish… thank you so much for coming. If you could spend a few minutes at my stream, it would be a huge help for me." His slightly odd-sounding voice had obviously been modified by the computer to disguise his true voice.

"Haha…" Flying Fish couldn’t help but chuckle lightly.

This was the first time she’d ever seen a streamer like him. He was obviously shy and nervous, which made her feel like he was quite cute, too.

Even though he was wearing a silver half-mask which revealed only the lower half of his face, she could still tell he was rather handsome by the features that were revealed. In addition to this, he had a strong, well-shaped body. His physical appearance was probably much better than most male streamers.

"Oh… I’m going to start singing now, and then I’m going to dance. I hope that you can watch till the end."

And thus, this streamer with the broadcast titled "I Only Need One Spectator" began singing the theme song of "Honey Candy Girl," one of her favorite animes!

Flying Fish smiled as she watched the boy who still appeared to be quite nervous.

In all honesty, his singing ability was mediocre. He was neither terrible nor amazing, nor was he able to inject sufficient emotion into his singing—it was just normal singing at the level of a middle schooler singing karaoke.

The song wasn’t long, so it was over quickly. The boy seemed incredibly happy after performing.

"Thank you for listening to the entire song. Now I shall dance for you, erm… feel free to go ahead and laugh. I can’t see you anyways."

"Haha!" Flying Fish laughed out loud for the second time.

Since the boy had succeeded in making her laugh out loud twice, she decided to follow his stream. She also gave him some "apples," which were a type of online currency used to reward streamers.

"Thank you for the apples, but I don’t need these. All you have to do is finish watching me perform." The masked boy seemed to be surprised at getting rewarded, and he flashed a brilliant smile.

His smile was alluring. Flying Fish couldn’t help thinking to herself that he must be an attractive boy in real life. If only he was willing to take off his mask…

On the stream, the masked boy turned on some music before he begun to dance to the music. Overall, it was a fairly simple anime dance.

At first, his movements seemed stiff, but he gradually relaxed, and sometimes, he even exaggerated his movements on purpose.

After his dance was halfway over, Flying Fish was already covering her mouth, laughing unstoppably.

This boy was just too cute and adorable!

"Why don’t you take off your mask, handsome?" She couldn’t resist typing to him.

"Oh, that’s no good. I’m actually quite shy, generous beautiful girl!" He replied.

Flying Fish almost collapsed onto her desk.

"How do you know that I’m a beautiful girl?"

"Of course it’s my sixth sense!"

"You’re amazing! I really am a beautiful girl; the type that could become an idol."

"Let’s become idols together!" The boy pointed to the sky as he performed a half-split and shook his hips vigorously.

Flying Fish laughed out loud for the third time.

The boy finished dancing and breathed a sigh of relief as he returned in front of his camera.

"Ah, thank you for watching my entire performance. I’m going offline now."

"Eh? You’re not going to stream for a bit longer? I can help you increase your followers!"

"Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. I only need you." The boy smiled sincerely at her.

Even though Flying Fish thought to herself that he was probably just being polite, she still felt her heart skip a beat—his smile was just too charming.

Ahh—why wouldn’t he take off his mask, damn it!

"I hope that you’ll come watch me tomorrow as well. Goodbye." With that, the boy left and the stream turned dark.

‘Did he really leave just like that?’ Flying Fish was confused, but the boy’s distinct personality gave her a deep impression.

‘Tomorrow… let’s come watch him tomorrow again at the same time.’ Flying Fish had a small sliver of expectation in her heart.

…

"Whew! I finally did it successfully." Seiji took off his silver mask and breathed a sigh of relief.

Thanks to that nice person named "Cat-loving Flying Fish," he was able to finish grinding the [sing] and [dance] actions and managed to gain 2 action points.

Even an internet spectator counted as an audience. It seemed that his theory was indeed correct.

However, live-streaming wasn’t consistent—he couldn’t be sure if he would have any spectators tomorrow.

‘A first-rate streamer can make millions, while a nobody gets nothing.’ He commented to himself inwardly. After he had begun his stream, it took almost thirty minutes to get a spectator, and he was on the verge of giving up.

‘I hope… that beautiful girl will come tomorrow to watch me as well.’