I shoved another massive handful of the boiled, mashed Potato of Divine Speed into my mouth, chewing frantically. The sheer volume of food I was inhaling should have made my stomach burst. I was easily on my twelfth tomato, my fifth daikon, and my tenth squash. I felt like Luffy.
Every single bite I swallowed was absolutely delicous and filled the emptiness in my stomach. The fatigue in my arms and legs vanished. The permanent, dull ache in my lower back from carrying around so much excess weight vanished completely. My vision, usually blurry and unclear, suddenly snapped into flawless, terrifying 4K resolution. I could see the individual microscopic veins on the leaves of the crops at the far edge of the garden.
I wiped the juices from my chin with the back of my trembling hand.
"Okay," I whispered, staring down at my hands. They were still thick. Still pudgy. But they felt like they were tougher, almost like steel. "Let's test this."
I turned my head toward the wooden fence enclosing the garden. It was about fifty yards away.
I bent my knees slightly. I didn't even drop into a runner's stance. I just thought about moving to the fence.
BOOM!
The dirt beneath my feet exploded outward in a violent crater.
The wind screamed in my ears, whipping my sweaty hair back. I practically teleported. My body crossed the fifty-yard distance in a second, my chest slamming into the heavy wooden fence. The thick timber groaned loudly under the impact.
I stumbled back, gasping, my eyes wide with absolute disbelief.
"I didn't even try," I muttered, looking back at the crater I had left near the garden. "I just... stepped forward. I moved faster than the human eye can track. I'm... I'm actaully strong now."
A manic grin spread across my face. I looked down at my pudgy stomach, poking the thick rolls of fat. "Take that, genetics. Who cares if I look like a human bowling ball? I'm a bowling ball that can move at super speed and cut a demon wolf in half with zero effort!"
I wanted to keep going. I wanted to grab the Omnisword and practice. I wanted to see how high I could jump. I wanted to test the magic stat.
But the moment my adrenaline started to settle, a massive, crushing wave of exhaustion slammed into the back of my skull.
My body was practically vibrating with what felt like limitless stamina, but my mind was so tired. In the span of a few hours, I had been humiliated at school, starved at home, discovered a multiversal cheat cabin, discovered my sacred gear and slaughtered a Level 300 monster.
My brain simply couldn't take any more for one day.
"Sleep," I groaned, rubbing my temples as a headache began to pound behind my eyes. "I just... I need to sleep. I need to lie down and stay down for at least eight hours."
I turned away from the glowing garden and dragged my feet up the porch steps. I pushed open the heavy front door and walked into the center of the Sage's Cabin. The green bracer on my left wrist hummed faintly.
I looked at the destroyed closet door that served as my entry point. Beyond the splintered wood, I could see the dark, depressing, cramped layout of my shitty apartment above the diner. The contrast was physically nauseating. Behind me was a divine paradise. In front of me was a reminder of my pathetic, debt-ridden life.
"I should just sleep here," I muttered, looking at the plush, perfectly made bed in the corner of the cabin.
But a sudden spike of anxiety hit me. What if my landlord came knocking? What if those loan sharks kicked in the door of the diner while I was sleeping in another dimension? I couldn't just abandon reality completely yet. Not until I figured out how to fully utilize the Asset Conversion to pay off my debts.
"Transfer," I commanded, my voice flat.
I stepped through the splintered closet frame.
The fresh scent of pine and magical flora was instantly replaced by the smell of old cooking oil, dust, and cheap tatami mats. The oppressive, humid summer heat of Kuoh Town immediately plastered my sweat-soaked shirt to my back.
I didn't even bother turning on the lights. I was too tired. I unbuttoned my ruined, filthy school uniform shirt and tossed it onto the floor. I kicked off my pants, standing in the middle of the dark room in just my boxers.
I flopped down onto my cheap, lumpy futon. The springs dug into my back, but I didn't care. I stared up at the cracked plaster of the ceiling, listening to the distant hum of traffic outside.
"I'm level one hundred," I whispered into the dark. "Tomorrow, I swear i'll focus on getting stronger and then I'm going to fix my life."
I closed my eyes. The exhaustion finally catching up and pulling me into the sweet embrance of sleep.
For the first few hours, it was a dreamless, heavy sleep.
And then... PAIN!
It began as a dull, uncomfortable warmth in the center of my stomach. Like I had swallowed a cup of scalding hot coffee. I shifted in my sleep, groaning, kicking the thin blanket off my legs.
But the heat spiked, it grew hotter and started moving throughout my body. It felt as if someone had jammed a white-hot branding iron directly into my intestines.
My eyes snapped open. I gasped, but no air filled my lungs.
The heat exploded outward from my stomach, rushing through my bloodstream like liquid fire. Every single vein, bone, and cell in my body ignited simultaneously.
"Agh—" I choked, my back arching violently off the futon.
The pain was unlike anything I had ever experienced in both lives.
"AHH!" I gasped, clawing desperately at my own chest. My skin was boiling hot to the touch.
CRACK.
A sickening, wet snapping sound echoed through the silent apartment.
"GAAAAAAAH!"
My right femur shattered. I felt the bone splinter into a thousand microscopic pieces, only to immediately fuse back together, harder, denser, and longer.
CRACK. SNAP. CRUNCH.
My spine arched backward at an impossible angle. The spinal cord violently disconnected and slammed back into place, elongating my torso. My ribs flared outward, expanding forcefully for lungs that were suddenly growing in capacity.
"MAKE IT STOP! MAKE IT STOP!" I shrieked into the dark, my voice completely hoarse, tearing my throat raw.
I rolled off the futon, crashing onto the tatami mats. I writhed on the floor like a dying insect, my thick fingers digging into the woven straw, tearing it to shreds.
The fat on my body began to physically burn.
Thick, foul-smelling gray steam erupted from my pores. The sheer, terrifying heat generated by the magical energy was incinerating my tissue, converting the massive, heavy rolls of my stomach, thighs, and neck into pure, escaping gas. The smell of burning sweat and rotting flesh filled the cramped room, choking me.
"I'M DYING! I'M DYING! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
My muscles spasmed violently, tearing themselves completely off the bone. I could feel every individual fiber of my biceps, my chest, my legs ripping apart, only to instantly weave back together. It was a cycle of endless, agonizing destruction and rebirth occurring hundreds of times a second.
My skull throbbed as the bone structure of my face forcefully shifted. My jawline snapped, grinding and sliding into a sharper, wider angle. The severe acne on my cheeks sizzled and popped, the infected skin burning away as a new, flawless skin was rapidly growing beneath it.
PING! PING! PING!
System notifications began flashing aggressively in my blurred, red tear-filled vision, but I couldn't read them.
"HELP! PLEASE! SOMEBODY HELP ME!" I roared, pounding my fists against the floorboards. The wood splintered and caved in under my newly forming strength.
The pain reached a terrifying degree. My heart hammered against my expanded ribcage with the force of a pile driver. My blood was like boiling lava.Every nerve ending in my body was firing an endless, level of indescribably agony directly into my brain.
My vision began to strain. Black. White. Black. White.
I let out one final, ragged, blood-curdling scream—a sound completely stripped of sanity.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
And then, my brain simply shut off.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Chirp. Chirp.
The distant sound of morning birds filtering through the thin glass of my apartment window woke me up.
I didn't open my eyes immediately. I lay completely still, my face pressed against the rough, shredded remains of the tatami mats.
I waited for the pain. I waited for the searing heat in my veins or the phantom ache of my bones snapping.
Nothing.
There was no pain. In fact, there was no discomfort at all. The constant, heavy pressure I used to feel on my joints just from living was completely gone. The tightness in my chest when I breathed was gone.
Slowly, carefully, I peeled my eyes open.
The morning sunlight streamed across the floor.
The first thing that hit me was the smell. My apartment smelled like an open sewer and a put out campfire.
I pushed my hands against the floor and slowly pushed myself up into a seated position.
"Ugh," I groaned, my voice sounding... different. Deeper. Nicer. It didn't have that nasally, strained pitch it usually did. It sounded like it belonged to a voice actor.
I looked down at myself.
"What... the hell?"
I lifted my right hand. The thick, sausage-like fingers were gone. My hands were large, smoother, and the skin was unblemished. I flexed my fingers, and I could feel the terrifying, coiled power shifting beneath the skin.
I scrambled to my feet.
The moment I stood up, I lost my balance entirely and almost fell forward into the wall.
The world was at the wrong angle.
I blinked, looking around the room. The ceiling... it was so much closer. The top of the doorframe, which I used to walk under with plenty of room, was now directly at my eye level. I hadn't just lost weight, I had grown taller. I must have shot up nearly eight inches in height.
I looked down. My boxers, which used to be stretched tightly around my massive waist, were completely loose, barely hanging off a set of sharply defined, narrow hips.
My heart started to pound. Not out of pain, but out of sheer, overwhelming anticipation.
I turned and bolted for the tiny, cramped bathroom attached to the apartment. My new legs carried me across the room so fast I nearly slammed face-first into the sink.
I gripped the edges of the cheap porcelain basin. I took a deep breath, steeling myself.
I reached up with my right hand and grabbed a small towel hanging off the rack. I turned on the faucet, soaked the towel in cold water, and scrubbed my face, it couldn't be real. But the feeling of slight pain from how hard I was scrubbing was real, this was real!
I dropped the towel.
I slowly lifted my head and looked into the cracked bathroom mirror.
I stopped breathing entirely.
"No way."
The person staring back at me wasn't Ard Voldigoad. It wasn't the fat, sweaty, acne-ridden loser who had cowered on the floor of Kuoh Academy yesterday.
The face in the mirror belonged on the cover of a high-fashion magazine.
My jawline was razor-sharp, cutting a perfect, aristocratic angle. The heavy, puffy cheeks were completely gone, replaced by high, aristocratic cheekbones. My skin was utterly flawless—pale, smooth, and completely devoid of a single scar, blemish, or pore. My eyes, which used to be dull and sunken, were now piercing, bright, and predatory, radiating a quiet, intense confidence.
Even my hair had changed. The greasy, unkempt mop had grown out slightly, falling in perfect, effortless, messy waves around my forehead.
I slowly lowered my gaze to my body.
The massive, rolling stomach was gone. In its place was a physique sculpted by a master artist, like a greek god. My chest was broad and hard like armor plating. My abdomen was cut deeply into a flawless eight-pack. Every muscle in my arms, shoulders, and torso was packed with dense, tightly wound muscle fibers that shifted and coiled with lethal grace every time I breathed.
I reached up, my trembling fingers tracing the line of my new jaw. I poked my own chest, feeling the rock-hard muscle beneath the smooth skin.
"I'm... I'm gorgeous," I whispered, the words feeling alien on my tongue.
I took a step back, taking in the full picture. The transformation was so shocking that I still couldn't believe it. The system had completely changed and fixed my entire body. The hours of excruciating, mind-breaking pain had essentially burned away the pathetic human I used to be and forged a completely new person in his place.
I let out a shaky breath, a slow, massive grin spreading across my new face.
PING!
The blue system window snapped into existence in the mirror's reflection.
[Notice: Cellular reconstruction complete.]
[Current Status:] Optimal. All debuffs removed.
I stared at the glowing text, my grin widening until it reached my eyes.
Yesterday, I was the bottom of the food chain in a world overflowing with monsters, devils, and overpowered protagonists. I was a target. Pretty much a joke.
But looking at the reflection in the mirror, feeling the terrifying, power coursing through my veins, I knew one thing.
I'm better than ever, and my story has finally, after all these years just begun!