Vests thousand layers of routines

April, summer.

There were few buildings around, but the trees were lush, casting large patches of shade.

Tsukiyama Asari leaned against his suitcase, stacked with luggage, and panted heavily under the nearest large tree. The sun was so intense that his whole body felt like it was burning. His simple doodle-printed short-sleeve shirt was baked warm by the heat waves, emitting a faint, sun-warmed scent of laundry detergent. The giant letters reading “Metropolitan Police Academy” at the school gate were striking.

That was his destination.

No—correction. It was now Kasugawa Shugo’s destination.

Kasugawa Shugo patted his face to clear his sun-dazed head. In front of his eyes, a virtual screen only he could see appeared. After thinking for a moment, he opened the character panel with his finger. Inside was only a single flipped-open card:

[Kasugawa Shugo]
[Identity: Police Academy Student]
[Attributes: A blank character card named Kasugawa Shugo, ready to be colored in any way.]

Exiting the character screen, Kasugawa Shugo blinked. In the sunlight, his tangerine-colored eyes looked even brighter, dazzling enough to make it hard to look away.

His honey-colored eyes glanced at the top right corner where his gold and diamond amounts were displayed, then he turned to the missions.

The main quest had not yet started — only a side quest was available:

[Side Quest — Clearing the Clouds to See the Sun]
[Note: Would it seem strange if I said there isn’t really any task? But that’s the truth. Enjoy your youthful days with high spirits.]

Strange.

If there really wasn’t a task, why use a name like “Clearing the Clouds to See the Sun”?

After pondering for a long while without figuring it out, he shook out his wrist, sore from the heavy luggage, and sighed deeply.

Time rewound to three days earlier.

On the long yellow sofa by a huge floor-to-ceiling window, Tsukiyama Asari and the system sat on opposite sides, staring silently at each other.

“I thought I retired…” the young man with mid-length black hair muttered after a long silence, squinting against the harsh light pouring through the open window. He looked at the virtual screen displaying a smoking cigarette icon.

[I thought I retired…]

The mechanical-sounding voice echoed inside his head, disbelief leaking through even its flat tone.

[By rights, I should be in the main system world, enjoying retirement, munching on new-flavor data sunflower seeds while watching dramas. Why am I still bound to you?!]

“I should be asking you that! Why didn’t you just stay in the main system? Why follow me here?!”

[If you hadn’t picked literally the only unstable world out of millions, would I have gotten dragged along? Your luck sucks! You’re awful!]

“Me?! If it weren’t for my luck, we’d have died a dozen worlds ago! We got to retire peacefully thanks to my luck!”

[You really think you’re lucky↘?!]

“I—wait, hold on. Where did you learn that Tianjin accent?”

[Oh, that? Remember how in the last world you kept slacking off and sent me to buy breakfast every day? The pancake vendor lady taught me…]

“No no no, wait—how the hell are you speaking Japanese with a Tianjin accent?”

[…]

The system that had been arguing, now silent after unexpectedly busting out a Tianjin-accented Japanese, fell quiet. The air grew heavy again until finally, the system couldn’t bear it anymore and spoke up.

[Well, whatever. You’re stuck here too — think of this as your last job before retirement. Let’s finish the mission together. Then you can live out your old age here, and I’ll go back to my TV shows. Besides, without breaking the system bond, you won’t age. So just think of retirement as delayed by a few years.]

“‘Live out my old age’ makes me sound like a sixty-year-old grandpa.” Tsukiyama Asari rubbed his smooth chin and glanced at his thick, still-lustrous black hair. “I’m still very young.”

[Yeah, sure—]

The system stretched its mechanical voice into a long, lazy drawl, full of sarcasm.

[A spry little young’un who’s been alive for several centuries…]

[Anyway, quit whining and focus. I noticed two new sections got added — looks like the main system got upgraded.]

“Oh~ that.” Tsukiyama Asari had noticed too. Next to the system interface, two new sections had appeared but remained locked. One had a grey-white background and black text reading “Forum,” and the other was pink with the label “Station.”

There was even a countdown timer beneath them.

[Alright, can we start working now?]

Lying sideways on the couch, Tsukiyama Asari pretended not to hear the system’s supervisor-like nagging. The sounds of heavy traffic below drifted in through the half-open window, carried by the stifling wind. The feeling was strange — that a tiny icon of a planet in the system could contain such a real, tangible world.

This world would eventually be his, too. After everything ended, maybe he could finally be free of immortality and age like a normal person, then walk naturally toward death.

Thinking of that, he couldn’t help but curl his lips into a smile. His mood lifted. He casually opened the system’s card pool and swiped open the routine starting ten-draw.

Black-patterned cards stacked and then fanned out, ten drawn at random, spreading across the screen. As soft light glowed over them, the black patterns started shifting into colors.

Five bronze, three silver, two gold — not bad for a start.

Humming happily, he flipped over one of the gold cards. The system’s mechanical voice dutifully read the information aloud:

[First Light of Dawn · Blank Character Card]
[Identity: Police Academy Student]
[Attributes: A blank character card that can be colored in any way.]

[Now, please enter your name＿＿＿＿＿＿＿]

First Light of Dawn… Tsukiyama Asari’s finger twitched slightly.

[Successfully entered: Kasugawa Shugo. Very much your naming style.]

The moment the name was entered, the card displayed a fluffy, chestnut-haired boy with round, cat-like tangerine eyes, giving him a dazzlingly bright smile.

He smiled back and swiped over to the next gold card.

[Money Power — oh~ looks promising. Remember to buy me more data snacks once you’re rich.]

[Attributes: One-time use item. Consuming this will create a source of continuous wealth, but money won’t favor those who refuse to work for it.]

Those who refuse to work?

Looks like even “Money Power” would still need to be properly managed. Tsukiyama Asari flicked open the card. It turned into golden light particles and disappeared.

[Please choose what you want to own:]

Company

Hospital

School

Factory

[There’s a lot more… I’m too lazy to list them. Anyway, my sensors flickered when hovering over ‘Company’ and ‘Financial Group’ — is being a CEO high-risk in this world or something?]

“Hey, can you stop slacking?” Tsukiyama Asari retorted, skimming through the long list.

Since he needed to manage it himself, he’d rather pick something easier. Company, hospital—those sounded like too much trouble. He scrolled quickly to the bottom and lazily flipped upward.

There were plenty of small shops listed. Finally, his gaze landed between a bookstore and a café. Although he liked bookstores, cafés probably made more money.

Too bad there wasn’t a bookstore-café combo — maybe he could just partition a section of the café for books.

Thinking so, he selected the café and placed it in a bustling commercial district. Although he preferred quieter places, for making money, busy foot traffic was the better choice.

Hmm… He touched his chin with some regret. Hopefully, he could earn enough to open more branches and turn it into a chain.

[Congratulations, you have acquired: Café]
[Attributes: Although not yet decorated, the owner is determined — it will be a café.]
[Name your café＿＿＿＿＿＿＿]

“Café name…” Tsukiyama Asari murmured. He had always been bad at naming things, cobbling names together half-heartedly even for character cards. Fortunately, there was an option to pick the default name.

[Selected default name: Poirot.]

Before the text faded, the cheerful default ringtone chimed. Tsukiyama Asari answered the call — it was a middle-aged man’s voice, polite but firm.

Ah… it was about the café.

“Alright, I’ll be troubling you, Mr. Yamashita.”
After finishing the call, Tsukiyama Asari opened the system’s map and designed the café’s interior according to his preferences. He then sent the design by email to Yamashita Taro, the person hired from the system world to manage the café.

Tsk, looks like he would have to first exchange the system’s starting coins for real-world money.
After all, delaying salaries could leave a bad impression, and since Yamashita would be managing the café from now on, maintaining a good relationship was important.

The remaining cards weren’t as crucial. Among the three silver cards, one was **, but it required shooting skills to reach Lv.10 to unlock. The other two simply rewarded common diamonds, each giving him 10 diamonds. The bronze cards were all skill points, with each bronze card only giving 0.5 skill points.

After thinking for a moment, Tsukiyama decided to allocate all the points to Spring River Hiuga’s highest skills.
Rather than spreading the points thinly, it was better to nurture one outstanding specialty.

[You’ve become extremely unbalanced, all physical abilities and nothing else.]

“Calling me a physical-only waste is too much.” Tsukiyama’s mouth twitched as he looked at the character’s stats.
“It’s just normal human levels of stamina… Although, yeah, maybe a bit lacking if thrown into the police academy. I’ll train it up later.”

[Oh right, there’s something else… Asari, once this mission ends, what will you do with those character cards?]

“In the previous worlds, since the missions were over, I had to tear up the cards to leave… but this time—”
He paused, surprised by how seriously the system referred to them.
“Let’s not call them ‘character cards’ anymore. Since they’ve been summoned, they’re real people now.”

[This time after completing the mission, you’re supposed to stay in this world for good. If you don’t tear the cards, you’ll end up juggling all kinds of roles even during retirement, you know?]

“But…”
Tsukiyama hesitated — which was rare for him, since he was usually straightforward with the system.

“If it’s a ‘Perfect Ending System’, shouldn’t the final mission have the best ending possible?
System, is there a way?”

His eyes flashed with shards of light — if it was possible…

[Now you come asking for my help. I forgot to tell you earlier: because of this world’s rules, you’ll need to minimize system usage while using character cards. The card draw feature will also be disabled. Plus, skill points will have reduced effectiveness on character cards — if you want to improve their skills, they’ll have to train manually.]

[As for what you asked… I’ll figure something out.]

“Yay!” Tsukiyama cheered loudly.
“Those conditions are fine — as expected of my dear System, you’re amazing!”

[Tch.]

“Tch what? From your voice you sound pretty happy,” Tsukiyama said, smiling with his eyes crinkling into crescents, his tone rising playfully at the end.

The system’s mood was really easy to read.