The week in the room had a fixed routine.

Yuki came in three times a day with food and checked the healing process every morning. If she spoke, it was about non-urgent things like the weather outside, something she had seen on the street, or a question about whether Takeshi had slept well.

Takeshi responded minimally and held on until he accumulated enough points.

After six days he checked his stats.

[Life: 89%]

[Sanity: 35%]

[Points: 19]

Seeing the points surprised him, but he immediately remembered.

’The bonus for surviving a week without dying...’

He used five points for sanity recovery.

He had 14 points left.

’Thanks to Yuki’s healings I can already walk, but I’ll still make sure.’

Takeshi took advantage of the fact that Yuki would be back in two hours to buy a healing drink and take it.

Then he checked his stats once more.

[Life: 99%]

[Sanity: 85%]

[Points: 13]

’Good, I have points to spare in case something happens.’

He left the room and found that the hallway was empty. He went down the stairs carefully.

He reached the exit door of the building and opened it.

The street was narrow and not very busy, with the natural light of midday. Takeshi identified the main street about thirty meters to the right and started walking in that direction.

He got to twenty meters from the corner when a serious voice stopped him.

"You didn’t get very far."

Yuki was behind him.

Takeshi activated quick teleportation.

In an instant he appeared at a different point. He looked back to calculate the distance gained.

Only four meters gained.

’Now I see why it was so cheap.’

There was no time to complain. Yuki was already moving.

What followed was not a confrontation in any sense.

Takeshi had no weapon while Yuki had the daggers, superior speed and strength along with zero sanity.

’I have no choice!’

Takeshi tried to create distance using quick teleportation, but Yuki always ended up getting closer to him.

’How fast is she!?’

Yuki was so fast that she managed to wound Takeshi microseconds before he teleported.

’Damn it, at this rate I’ll run out of points!’

Takeshi started using the elements of the environment—a trash container, a door frame, the space between two parked cars—to break her line of advance, but nothing worked.

In less than two minutes, Takeshi was against the wall of the building with a dagger blocking the only exit he had left.

[Life: 62%]

[Sanity: 75%]

[Points: 2]

Yuki was a meter away with a threatening look.

"You surprised me with that ability. I didn’t know you had knowledge of dissonant magic."

’Dissonant magic? What is she talking about? But more importantly, how do I get out of this?’

Takeshi saw Yuki approaching him with the daggers ready to punish him.

’If I use teleportation again, she’ll reach me anyway... Damn it, if only I had something to defend myself with!’

And then, in the moment Yuki took the last step forward, Takeshi’s right hand closed around a hilt that hadn’t been there an instant before.

’Is this Aoi’s sword?’

At that same instant, a system notification appeared.

[CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE UNLOCKED COMBAT STATS]

’Combat stats?’

Several panels then appeared showing the level of each attribute.

[Strength: 9]

[Speed: 4]

[Magic: 1]

[Endurance: 7]

[Accuracy: 9]

Takeshi was completely confused.

The weapon was heavy and Takeshi had no training to hold it steadily, but he still lifted it with both hands and blocked Yuki’s advance by pure reflex.

The impact of the daggers against the blade pushed him backward, but it didn’t knock him down.

Yuki stopped, unable to believe what she was seeing.

"It’s the first time I’ve seen anyone other than Aoi holding Eclipse."

’Eclipse, so that’s what this sword is called?’

Takeshi advanced with Eclipse raised, with no real technique, just weight and direction.

Yuki dodged to the left effortlessly and came in through the open flank.

"Even if you have Eclipse, that won’t give you the skills to use it correctly."

Said Yuki, to which Takeshi responded.

"You think so?"

Takeshi grabbed Yuki’s arm tightly with one hand, the one with the dagger embedded in it, and with the hand holding Eclipse he raised it and then brought it down with all its weight on Yuki.

Before it could hit Yuki, Takeshi felt that he couldn’t breathe and only realized what had happened after everything went black and the panel appeared.

[LOADING SAVE POINT]

The classroom was the same as always.

Artificial light, desks in rows, the noise of students settling in before class started. Takeshi was sitting in his seat wearing his uniform with his backpack on the floor.

The chat reacted.

[No way, you were so close]

[She killed him without him even noticing]

[Look on the bright side, at least you’re no longer in captivity]

The system had returned to the start of the last class he had taken, exactly as the deity had explained at the beginning.

Takeshi looked up at the ceiling and spoke in a low voice.

"I need to talk to you."

The deity appeared sitting at the desk next to him, arms crossed and with the usual expression.

"That ending was interesting."

"Explain the weapon to me."

The deity looked at him for a second and then remembered the rules of his own system.

"The system you have allows two things when a heroine’s trust reaches 100%: summon her weapon and obtain 10% of her attributes."

He paused.

"When a heroine dies, her stats remain fixed at the value they had at the moment of death. If the trust was at 100% when she died, it will stay at 100%. The access doesn’t disappear."

Takeshi processed that.

"So, as long as I have Aoi’s trust at 100% I’ll be able to summon her weapon?"

"Correct."

"And the combat stats I unlocked?"

"They’re extra stats that you can level up as you develop them."

"Can I buy levels with points?"

"No, though you can temporarily raise the levels with store items."

"Are the levels I currently have thanks to the 10% from Aoi?"

"Yes."

Takeshi looked at the desk in front of him.

The system had a logic that he now understood better. Trust wasn’t just a decorative number: it was the condition for access to the heroines’ abilities.

’This changes everything.’

The deity observed him without saying anything.

"One more question."

Said Takeshi.

"Go ahead."

"What’s the highest number I can reach in each attribute?"

"Level 100 is the maximum you can reach."

The deity also pointed out something else.

"Now you can also see the attributes of each heroine with whom you have 100% trust."

The teacher entered and started the class.

The deity disappeared without transition.

Takeshi opened his notebook and looked at the blank page.

The central problem remained the same. Yuki was faster, more precise, and more experienced. Ten percent of Aoi’s abilities closed part of that gap, but not all of it.

’I have to improve my attributes, but first I have to prevent Yuki from kidnapping me.’

He had to build a plan that didn’t depend on facing Yuki head-on with what he had now.