Cherry blossoms danced on the breeze, their petals catching the golden afternoon light as they spiraled lazily to the ground. Standing at the edge of a quiet street, Kyren stared blankly ahead, lost in thought, his expression adrift.
So... what now?
Ever since he'd left Otonokizaka Academy, the question had been gnawing at him. He hadn't expected this—this peculiar sense of aimlessness. It reminded him all too much of his old routine back home: wake up, commute, work, get off, browse the internet, sleep. Rinse and repeat. A gray loop of predictability.
But this time, the feeling was different.
Now, he wasn't just caught in monotony—he was untethered. No job, no direction, no plan. Just... here.
And, oh yeah. No money.
The only thing he'd brought over when he crossed into this world was his ever-loyal Xiaomi smartphone. Wallet? Gone. Cards? Nope. Pocket change? Not even a coin. And in this society—where money wasn't everything, but without it, nothing moved—Kyren was grounded before he could take a single step.
He clung to Otonokizaka for that very reason. Not out of sentimentality, but out of necessity. A man needs a roof and a meal, and he'd been fresh out of both.
"Guess I'm the only dimensional traveler who has to start job-hunting the minute I land..." he muttered to himself with a dry chuckle.
But the moment of daze passed quickly. Kyren wasn't the type to wallow for long.
He'd lived alone for years, after all. A full-time office worker in his old life, well-versed in the art of quiet perseverance. He hadn't always known what lay ahead, but he'd always kept moving.
And in this new world? Well, if even high school students in Japan could work part-time jobs between classes, then surely he, a seasoned working man, could scrounge something up.
A job meant income. Income meant stability. And without the basics of life, everything else—dreams, goals, the future—was just hot air.
"Alright then," he said, clapping his hands once. "Step one: Get a job. I'm not going to let something this small trip me up."
Still, before that... he owed someone a message.
He slipped out his phone, logged into the group chat, and found what he half-expected—an unread message from Kotori Minami.
Group Owner, where did you go?
The timestamp showed it had been sent not long after her class. She must have looked for him at the infirmary when she couldn't find him.
He paused, then typed his reply:
Don't worry about me, Kotori. If fate allows it, we'll meet again.
A gentle truth. If he wanted to see Kotori again, all he had to do was wait. One day, she and her friends would become school idols. When that time came, their performances would be all over the internet. And if he really wanted, he could just visit the school.
But unlike Kotori and the others, Kyren had no one to rely on in this world. If he wanted to live here, he had to carve out that life with his own hands.
Once he landed a full-time job, his schedule would be packed. Until then, any spare time he had would go straight to studying Japanese. He could speak it fluently—thanks to the system's language gift—but writing it? Reading it? That was a mess.
"What kind of joke is this…" he sighed. "Fluent in Japanese but can't read a menu? Who designs this stuff?"
It had already been nearly half an hour since Kotori's message, and none of the other group members—Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka, or the others—had replied. Probably busy with their own lives.
That got him thinking.
If Kotori was the real Kotori... then what about the others? Miku? Luka?
Could they all be real too?
His mind raced back to something from earlier—when Kotori asked how to become a school idol, it was Luo Tianyi who uploaded a file titled Basic Idol Training Guide.
That might hold some answers.
He navigated to the shared files. Just one item sat there.
Basic Idol Training Guide.
Size: 3.6 GB.
"…That's huge," Kyren muttered, raising an eyebrow.
Opening his phone's storage, he realized something odd. It was almost like the device had been reset to factory settings. Everything he used to have—apps, messages, media—was gone. Even the standard functions like contacts, calling, and texting were completely wiped.
No way a factory reset would delete those. This had the mysterious system's fingerprints all over it.
All his old videos, novels, music—obliterated. Which would've been fine, if the system hadn't turned around and started offering them back as rewards. The same stuff he never cared about before suddenly became valuable now.
"Who's the real idiot here?" Kyren muttered. "Me for needing them... or the system for being so stingy?"
Shrugging off the thought, he turned his attention back to the phone's internet settings. After a bit of poking around, he gave a low whistle.
The system had locked everything down.
The phone could only access the group chat and one single website—something called Idol Academy, which looked like it might become the official site for the future Love Live! events.
The rest of the internet? A dead zone.
"Well, at least it didn't disable the phone entirely…" Kyren mumbled, half-grateful, half-exasperated. "That's... considerate? Maybe?"
At least the memory was empty now. Plenty of room for a 3.6 GB download.
He tapped the file.
And blinked.
"Wait, it's done already?" he gawked at the screen. "That was instant. What kind of god-tier internet does this system use?!"
Curious now, Kyren opened the training guide. It was divided into sections: Idol Etiquette, Idol Diet and Health, How to Navigate the Idol-Fan Relationship... None of which interested him in the slightest.
He scrolled until something caught his eye:
First Live Debut – Performance Recording.
His finger hovered, then tapped.
The screen lit up with a video. A silver-haired girl with emerald eyes appeared, her delicate features framed by a jade hairpin and a traditional Chinese knot around her waist. She stood beneath the stage lights, serene and radiant.
Kyren's breath caught in his throat.
That face—he'd seen it before.
Luo Tianyi.
The voice that came from the speakers confirmed it. It was her. Not a copy. Not a simulation. The real Luo Tianyi.
Which meant... Hatsune Miku, Megurine Luka, Kagamine Rin—they might all be real too.
He closed the video, his expression unreadable.
Outside, the petals kept falling. But inside, his thoughts surged like a stormy tide.
Somehow, he had created a group chat that connected dimensions. And yet, none of them—not even the real-life idol divas—seemed to realize they were part of something so extraordinary.
The mastermind behind it all? That smug, ever-silent system.
Kyren couldn't help but laugh under his breath.
"A system that doles out language fluency as a 'starter pack'… talk about stingy."
Still, he had to hand it to it—the thing was thorough. Way too thorough.
Shaking his head, he tucked his phone into his pocket. Morning still lingered, and the day stretched ahead of him like an open road.
First things first.
Time to find work.
He was flat broke. His only possessions were the clothes on his back and a smartphone with supernatural restrictions. Thankfully, when he'd been pulled into this world, he'd just come back from dinner with coworkers, so at least he looked decently dressed.
If the transition had happened during one of his usual stay-at-home weekends—boxers, white undershirt, and slippers—he'd have lost this isekai race before it even began.
As for the phone? Selling it wasn't an option.
This wasn't just a device—it was his only connection to the system, his only "cheat" in this world. Pawn it off, and not only would he lose that edge, but he might also seriously tick off whatever entity lived inside.
"Right, right. Focus," he told himself, smacking his cheeks lightly. "Get the job. Survive. Then maybe figure out why a bunch of virtual idols are casually chatting with me."
The petals swirled around him, dancing with the wind. Kyren took a deep breath and stepped forward, the city ahead brimming with the unknown.
One thing was certain: This wasn't going to be your average nine-to-five.
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