Tokyo, but I'm a deceitful scumbag.

It's one thing to come up here and start pointing fingers, but why are you sitting down and eating the bento I bought for myself like a master? Are you some kind of cunning demon?

Seeing such a shameless person made my previous sense of shame vanish completely!

Did she make a mistake by letting this guy in?

Iji Chikiku's lips twitched, but her throat was no longer congested:

"Um, please..."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Ijichi Naruto." Hoshino Hideyuki swallowed the chicken in his mouth and handed over a business card.

"Hey, you also have the surname Ichiji..."

Kikuchi Ichi took the business card, but immediately noticed that the writing on it was crooked and messy—clearly handwritten.

"...This is fake, isn't it?"

"Haha, I got caught. Oh well, we exchanged real names on our first meeting. Things moved too fast. I'm too introverted and socially awkward to do that."

"?"

Do you have any connection to the word "social anxiety"?

Besides, most normal people would use their real names!

"You were just thinking, 'Normal people would use their real names, right?'"

Hoshino Hideyuki smiled, narrowing his eyes: "Then you guessed right, I really am not a normal person."

Strictly speaking, they are not human.

Kiku's head was already buzzing: "Then may I ask who you are...?"

"Like Nobuyuki Kayaba, I am also a con artist."

Hideyuki Hoshino remained calm, as if he were casually remarking that he had eaten facehugger sashimi for breakfast:

"However, my target isn't your money, but rather Kayaba Nobuyuki. So I want to cooperate with you to take him down! I'll take the lion's share afterwards, and you'll get your 1505 million yen back, resulting in a fairytale-like happy ending~"

well.

Now, Ichikiku's mind stopped buzzing.

It exploded cleanly.

Isn't this behavior also a crime?

What do you mean by cooperation? You're clearly trying to make me an accomplice!

Damn it, I shouldn't have let this person in!

When I contacted the police before, although they didn't help much, they did warn me that there might be a leak of information, which would lead to more fraudsters targeting me. This guy is a typical example, isn't he?

Or maybe we should just use this bat to hit a full-on skull home run and kick him out!

"You've become much more energetic right away."

Looking at the beautiful woman raising her baseball bat, Hoshino Hideyuki leisurely picked up another bite of chicken.

"But Miss Ichichi, please think carefully before you act. Besides cooperating with me, do you have any other ways to overcome this predicament?"

"Besides, if you really hit me, I'll immediately roll around on the ground screaming and attract all the neighbors to come and watch, and then I'll extort a lot of money from you for medical expenses."

Kikuri Iji froze in place.

A moment later, she put down her baseball bat and sat down dejectedly across the table.

"No matter what else you want to swindle, I have nothing left. Please leave."

"Your feeling of having nothing is just an illusion. The loan sharks don't think that way. They have plenty of ways to extract value from you, and it will undoubtedly involve your family and friends. As an adult, you've heard of these kinds of things, haven't you?"

"..."

"So, Miss Ijichi, you don't want those terrible things to become a reality, do you?"

"...How can you, a con artist, be any better than them?"

"How will you know if you don't try? My collaboration is actually very simple, and it can be terminated at any time."

Hideyuki Hoshino finally finished his bento.

He put away the lunchbox and chopsticks, and gave Iji Chikiku a kind smile.

"First, let me start by telling you how Nobuyuki Kayaba lied to you~"

Seeing the smile on the handsome young man's face, Kikuchi's heart suddenly started racing for some reason.

Ah, this world is truly absurd, truly a bastard...

do my best!

She turned around, took out another can of wine from the refrigerator, gulped it down in one go, and then, with a loud thud, like a Space Marine dropping into a pod, she sat down forcefully across the table.

"I will tell you everything I know!"

Thank you for your cooperation.

But is it really necessary to drink alcohol to boost courage?

But in any case, the cooperation has finally begun.

Kikuri Iji recounted the entire process of how she was deceived to Hideyuki Hoshino.

I initially attended a free lecture after seeing an advertisement online.

I felt the quality was good for some reason, so I spent a little money to book a short course.

After class, she had dinner with a few young people who had come with her. They had taken more classes and gave her feedback on different courses, suggesting which ones to choose and which ones to avoid.

Following these people's advice, I spent even more money to enroll in more courses and buy more textbooks.

The course included group activities, and I attended a rather high-end gathering with Nobuyuki Kayaba, where I met many people who were supposedly elites in the industry.

Although his initial intention was just to open a small performance hall, his ambition gradually grew, and he wanted to open a record company.

Therefore, I enrolled in more courses, bought more expensive textbooks, and paid for various activity participation fees...

"That's about it... I'm just like that, so inexplicable..."

"It wasn't inexplicable; we fell into a carefully designed trap."

Hideyuki Hoshino crossed his arms in front of his eyes, striking the classic pose of Commander Ikari:

"Most of the young people in the class are shills. When they give you feedback on the course, they say both good and bad things to make you lower your guard."

"High-end group activities are also fake. Nowadays, photography companies are generally struggling to operate. Renting venues and luxury cars doesn't cost much."

"People in the industry are most likely actors. Third-rate agencies have plenty of cheap, unknown people. If you look at the staff introductions on the agency's website, you're sure to recognize some of them."

Is that really the case?

I was so stupid, I didn't even notice these things...

Kikuri Ijichi lowered her head again, filled with remorse and shame.

Hideyuki Hoshino then picked up the stack of textbooks next to the table.

The fox couldn't help but bare its teeth after only a few pages.

The words on it started moving one by one!

Hiragana characters, like wild beasts, wriggle their bodies made of strokes, running wildly across the paper...

Meanwhile, the complex Chinese characters began to hunt them down, with radicals and components transforming into weapons to knock down and tear apart the kana...

The fox blinked, making sure it wasn't seeing things.

really.

Something weird is going on!

Chapter 7 The fox has excellent eyesight.

Hideyuki Hoshino felt like he was watching a text-based version of Animal World.

Larger characters devour smaller kana, then continuously incorporate their strokes into their bodies. If they cannot find smaller kana, they embrace the same number of characters beside them, doing what everyone likes in spring, until the ink blends and the two characters become one.

Gradually, the text on the paper became less and less, and more and more bloated. It went from the initial level of complex traditional characters to a dark blob, with dots, strokes, and lines piled up densely like tentacles.

When only a few words remained on the entire page, they struggled, breaking through the limitations of two dimensions, and twisted their bodies as they lunged toward Hoshino Hideyuki's face.

At the same time, a series of eerie words echoed in his ears:

"These courses are great, I want to buy more!"

"Spending money is no big deal, as long as we succeed in the end, it's worth it even if it means going bankrupt!"

collapse!

In the blink of an eye, Hoshino Hideyuki used his right index finger and thumb to give those clumps of text a friendly flick on the forehead.

With a pia-like sound, they were flicked back onto the paper.

Hilarious! What kind of skill level is this? Trying to brainwash a fox with illusion magic?

Tentacles, huh? Twisted, huh? Cosplaying Cthulhu, huh? Go back to the world of anime.

But there is one thing to say.

This hypnotic technique is quite ingenious; it's something this fox doesn't know—the level 2 "Viewing Flowers in the Mirror" requires face-to-face interaction, and it can't be used remotely.

If that guy did this to every single textbook he sold, that would be quite impressive.

Hideyuki Hoshino buried his head in the pages, inhaling deeply.

With the help of the fox's canine nose, he could barely detect a faint smell of blood.

So that's how it is. The printing ink was mixed with blood, which is why it could draw in spiritual energy...

Let me take another look at the details...

Is there something wrong with this book?

Beside her, Ichikiku watched Hoshino Hideyuki bustling about and finally couldn't help but ask.

"Hmm...you can't see it, can you?"