Heroine-Saving System: Reborn In A Third-Rate Manga As The Protagonist-Chapter 42: Room 1

Ichinose blinked and looked around cautiously.

She was still standing there, paralyzed from the lingering fear of seeing the massive Iron-class monster up close but nobody was supposed to be able to see her when she had activated Phantom Presence and turned invisible.

「Why can he see her?!」

「Does he have detection skills?」

「Phantom Presence got countered」

「This guy is built different」

「Yui’s ability is useless against him lol」

To test if he could actually see her movements clearly, she placed both hands against her breasts and squeezed them deliberately. His face twitched visibly.

"You enjoy touching yourself while you’re invisible...?" he asked with a flat, unimpressed tone. Her face turned to complete alarm as she immediately deactivated Phantom Presence and materialized.

"No! You’re seeing it wrong! Entirely wrong!" she yelped out, waving her hands frantically in front of him with a deeply embarrassed expression.

Her face was completely red.

"Okay..." Kōya said simply, clearly not believing her then he stood up from the ground, unknowingly flexing his defined six-pack abs that were quite visible since he was shirtless. "Is this your first time in the Outer Zone? That little dagger can’t protect you unless you’re well-versed in close combat."

She looked down at the dagger that had clattered to the ground earlier.

"Hmph! I’d have you know that this dagger cost 10,000 crowns and even has its own special functions!" she said defensively while picking it up with a huff.

There were so many stream comments flowing in that she could barely focus on reading any single one.

Her viewer count had hit 400,000 now which was a new personal record.

"Might I ask you a question, Kōya-kun?" Kōya looked at her properly for the first time, and she felt herself blushing involuntarily.

His face was quite handsome up close with sharp features and intense eyes. It made her lose her breath slightly.

’So what if I’m a sucker for hot guys that are six feet tall?’ she thought defensively.

It was called having a type.

"Ask away, though make it quick," he said while gesturing ahead. "I have to deal with that..."

He pointed up the street, and she hadn’t even noticed what was there until now. At the end of the road, hanging halfway up the side of a large building with a clock tower at the top... the clock permanently stuck at 12 was a massive hive-like structure made from metal plates, organic material, and debris.

"I’m trying to destroy the hive before the Queen gets back."

"Huh...? Why would you do that?" she asked with genuine confusion.

He began walking forward purposefully, and she followed behind him somewhat meekly.

"It’s a mission on the KCAC mission board," he explained. "It’s quite tough handling all the Twigspires and the Praetorians, but since it’s a relatively small nest, I didn’t have much to worry about."

’Small nest, huh?’ Ichinose thought skeptically. All the dozens of Broodminder corpses she had seen littering the ground were supposedly from this "small" nest.

That was in absolutely no way small by any reasonable definition.

"Is that the question you wanted to ask?" Kōya asked as they approached the base of the building. A certain acrid smell was emanating from the hive structure above. He stopped walking and his storage ring glowed with blue light.

"Uh... what’s your name exactly?"

"Amagi Kōya," he replied simply.

A grenade-like explosive device appeared in his hand from the ring. He took a calculated step backward and threw it through the opening of the nest with perfect accuracy.

It disappeared inside. Another grenade materialized in his hand immediately, and he repeated the process.

"What’s yours?"

"Me?..." Her cheeks reddened as he casually chucked the third explosive into the hive with practiced ease. "I’m Ichinose Yui, and I’m a pretty popular streamer actually."

"Oh, that’s pretty nice. I stream as we— Fuck." He caught himself mid-sentence, his expression tightened as well.

His streaming account in this world was completely faceless, unlike back on Earth and besides, he hadn’t thought about creating any content recently... it was extremely tough balancing both Academy life and a streaming career simultaneously.

「Ask for his channel!!」

「Yui get his info」

「We need to know」

「TELL US THE CHANNEL」

「Don’t let him get away」

"You actually stream too? Can I get your channel name?" she asked, genuinely surprised and interested. What kind of content would someone like him even create?

"That would be a secret," he replied cryptically as he threw the fifth and final explosive into the nest.

He dusted his hands off with finality. Those were powerful military-grade explosives that could be purchased on the second floor of KCAC Building No. 5.

They had been specifically recommended by an old shopkeeper who’d said that one would be enough to destroy a nest. Five was just straight overkill, but Kōya didn’t believe in taking chances.

"Hmph..." Ichinose puffed out her cheeks with disappointment. Kōya knew she was a minor character from the original manga.

She had appeared exactly once in the early Chapters and then disappeared completely, as if the authors had literally forgotten about her existence.

「You have been given a new mission」

「Remind Heroine: Ichinose Yui that she received an invitation to ALI Academy」

「Reward: 100 FP」

’Eh? She’s classified as a heroine?’ Kōya thought with disbelief.

She had absolutely no significant feats in the manga apart from appearing once and mildly simping over the main character. Did random side characters just automatically become heroines in this world?

「Ichinose Yui was originally conceived as a Heroine by the God of Novelty, however he subsequently forgot about her character entirely. The readers forgot as well」

Now this was just straight-up bullshit... even the actual author of the source material had completely forgotten about her.

Though he had to admit maybe she deserved it, if he didn’t have his Sensory skill active, he probably wouldn’t have been able to detect her presence at all. When she used Phantom Presence, it was genuinely as if she didn’t exist.

"Ichinose..." he said carefully.

She blushed immediately since he’d called her by her first name so casually.

"Aren’t you forgetting something important?"

"Forgetting... what exactly?" she asked while tapping a finger thoughtfully under her chin. "I don’t think so... I had several brand deals scheduled that I plan to advertise later this week... I already fed my cat this morning... I even paid my rent..."

She blinked suddenly, her eyes widening.

"What the fuck..."

「What’s wrong??」

「Yui-chan what happened」

「Did she remember something」

「??? confused」

「LMAO she forgot something major」

"Kōya-kun... are you a student at ALI Academy?" she asked with a trembling, dawning realization in her voice.

"Yes, I am," he confirmed, genuinely not believing that this girl had completely forgotten to attend her own entrance ceremony.

She was technically enrolled as a student but had never actually shown up.

"When was the orientation ceremony...?" she asked slowly, dreading the answer.

"That would be yesterday." he said matter-of-factly.

She yelped out loud.

"I forgot! I completely forgot!" she cried out while grabbing at her messy hair in distress. "I totally forgot about attending the orientation for ALI! I’m supposed to be a STUDENT?!"

「LMAOOOOO」

「Of course she did」

「Most Yui thing ever」

「How do you forget you enrolled in school」

「💀💀💀💀💀」 𝐟𝕣𝕖𝐞𝐰𝕖𝚋𝐧𝗼𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝗰𝐨𝐦

「This is peak content」

「CLIP THIS IMMEDIATELY」

"Thanks so much for reminding me, Kōya-kun," she said earnestly while pressing both hands together in a grateful gesture. "Though how did you know I was supposed to be a student?"

He placed a finger against his lips in a shushing gesture.

"It’s a secret..." he said mysteriously.

Her face reddened even more as she looked up at him then without warning, he suddenly picked her up effortlessly in his arms in a princess carry.

"Wha—"

Kōya channeled mana into his feet and jumped powerfully. They landed smoothly near the corpses of the four Praetorian Broodminders he’d killed earlier.

He set her down gently, and a remote detonator switch appeared in his hand from his storage ring.

He pressed the red button without hesitation and beeping sounds immediately filled the air from inside the hive then what followed was a brilliant chain of explosions... the whole nest interior turned bright red before bursting outward in a brutal, devastating explosion that violently shook the air.

The shockwave rattled nearby windows.

The entire hive structure crashed down onto the street below, still burning intensely along with a significant portion of the building’s side.

It was quite a spectacular sight to witness.

Ichinose turned her gaze to Kōya, who was now calmly placing the bodies of the Praetorian Broodminder guards into his storage ring one by one.

He looked at the long lines of corpses that still filled multiple streets and lifted up his other hand.

Every single finger had a different storage ring on it which made it about five rings in total.

’Thank God I bought these extras...’ he thought pragmatically. He absolutely couldn’t waste these valuable corpses. Mangled or not, they would fetch him excellent prices at the KCAC.

Added together with the substantial reward payment for successfully eliminating an entire nest, he was confident he’d have enough money to not only bolster his regular account significantly but also send a generous amount to Nami just to be safe.

"Anyway, since you’re apparently coming to the Academy... we can meet there properly, right?" he said while beginning to absorb corpses. She nodded a bit, still processing everything.

"I’ll try my best to actually show up tomorrow," she said sincerely. If there were more hot guys like him at the Academy, it was totally worth attending.

"Great, see you then."

With that casual dismissal, he walked off toward the remaining corpses and started systematically absorbing them into the first ring on his left hand.

"Kōya-kun!" she called out suddenly. He looked back at her over his shoulder.

The flames continued burning dramatically behind him, highlighting his face and muscular torso.

According to his earlier words, if the Queen Broodminder wasn’t currently here, she would definitely need to run away immediately... and he probably should too. The Queens of the hives were always Silver-rank threats at minimum.

"Don’t you think it’s inappropriate to walk around shirtless in public like that?"

’I should be the only one meant to see these muscles,’ she thought possessively while puffing out her cheeks. He glanced down at himself, noticing for the first time.

"Oh, I completely forgot about it."

His Academy uniform suddenly materialized from his storage ring, covering his torso. Now he looked more like a proper scholar instead of a shirtless combat monster.

"Thanks for the reminder, Ichinose."

He continued efficiently absorbing corpses into his various storage rings. Within just a minute or two, he had collected everything valuable and left the area entirely.

She stood there alone watching him disappear.

"Yeah, I think that’s enough excitement for today, Chat." she said with a somewhat tired smile. "I’ll end the stream now. Thanks so much for watching, everyone!"

「Stream Ended」

「Final Viewers: 500,000」

「Total Donations: 100,000 crowns」

「New Subscribers: +36,000 ↑」

"Look at these fucking stats..." she muttered with genuine awe as she activated Phantom Presence once more.

Her form turned translucent and then invisible and the camera drone continued hovering faithfully behind her, following as she started moving.

"I absolutely need to do another collaboration stream with Kōya-kun soon."

...

Kōya walked through the dormitory side of the Academy campus. He could immediately see what Renji had been talking about earlier.

There were five separate large buildings, and while the Class 1, Class 2, and Class 3 dorms looked quite luxurious with modern architecture, the Class 4 and Class 5 buildings were pretty standard and utilitarian.

Each had their class designation printed along the front like some kind of brand label. He walked up to the Class 5 building specifically.

It was a gated facility with security... There was an armed guard stationed at the entrance while other students were lounging around casually, either outside the building or near the entrance doors.

He took a deep breath and approached the guard directly.

"I’d like to go to my assigned dorm room. It’s my first time here, though," he explained. The guard immediately handed him a keycard without any questions.

"That’s your room card... You’ve been assigned Room 1, which is located at the very top of the whole complex," the guard explained. "Press that card against the scanner at the door to gain access."

He opened the security gate, and Kōya walked through. Since he had been assigned Room 1 specifically, he wondered who his roommate would be.

It took quite a bit of time to actually reach the top floor especially since there were many female students along the way who stopped him.

People kept asking him questions about whether he was really the one hunting in the Outer Zone, and if he was actually that strong, and could they get his number. It was a lot of dumb questions.

He finally stood at the door labeled "Room 1" after what felt like forever.

’Talking to so many people is genuinely draining...’ he thought with an exhausted sigh. He pressed the keycard against the electronic scanner, and it glowed green with a pleasant beep.

「Student: Amagi Kōya. Welcome to your dorm room」

The automated voice announced and the door unlocked and swung open.

Someone was standing right there at the entrance.

It was Misora, and she was wearing a cute cooking apron with a visible smudge of flour on her face.

She looked adorable... so cute that he almost forgot this woman wanted to essentially turn him into her personal Knight slave.

"Kōya-kun... so you’re going to be my roommate," she said with a pleased smile while holding the door open. "What an interesting and pleasant surprise. Please come in."

He entered cautiously and took off his shoes at the entrance as was customary and she closed and locked the door behind him.

"Kōya-kun... let me help you take off your uniform jacket," she said softly.

Kōya let her remove it, and she hung it carefully on the coat rack mounted on the side wall.

"You can put the rest of your clothes in the laundry basket over there... I’ll wash them for you properly," she continued in a gentle, domestic tone. "I also prepared hot water in the bathtub for you... it’s pretty hot, but if you prefer it hotter or cooler, please tell me and I’ll adjust it. When you’re done freshening up, I’ll have dinner ready."

’E-eh...’ Kōya thought with slight alarm. Misora was acting exactly like a devoted housewife and he couldn’t lie when he said he didn’t like it.

"Okay... thanks for everything, Class Rep," he said somewhat awkwardly as he walked into the spacious living room area.

Misora placed a hand delicately under her chin and smiled with satisfaction. Sure, he had plenty of other girls constantly around him now but who really cared about that?

Men fundamentally liked women who took proper care of them and she would take care of him as if she was already his wife.

She would even deal with his sexual needs personally if he wanted that.

After watching his incredible combat abilities on Ichinose’s live stream earlier, she couldn’t doubt it anymore. Her instincts had been absolutely correct from the beginning.

’Amagi Kōya belongs to me,’ she thought with absolute certainty and nothing in the world would ever change that fact.