章 4: Dinner with the Family

"Issei, come downstairs! It's time for dinner!"

His mother's voice snapped him out of concentration.

Issei slowly opened his eyes. He took a moment to marvel at his current cultivation level. Four hours had passed since he first started and already, he was halfway through the second stage of Qi Condensation.

He was making truly remarkable progress. The speed of his growth would be considered freakish, even to those peerless geniuses in the Immortal World.

Issei stood to his feet with a kick in his step. He stretched out his stiff limbs and shook away some of the sludge that had crusted all over his skin.

In the time since his cultivation, his bedroom had undergone a qualitative change. It was now worse than a pigsty.

His bed was completely stained in black sludge. It looked almost as if someone had dropped a galloon of ink onto his mattress. The sludge had even spilled onto the floor, where it began to puddle. Suffice to say, his carpet was completely ruined.

There was also the smell. Oh god, the smell.

Issei quickly opened the window, hoping to get rid of the foul odor. He also removed his bedsheets and used them to try and wipe away the sludge on the floor. To be honest, it didn't really do a whole lot of help.

The transmigrator breathed out an exasperated sigh. "Why do none of the novels ever mention the after-effects of purifying one's body? It would have saved me a major headache had I known in advance."

At the very least, he would need a new mattress. Explaining to his parents why his bedroom currently looked like it had been dipped in an oil refinery was not a conversation he was looking forward to having.

Well, he could worry about all that later. For now, he had a dinner to attend.

Issei tossed the ruined bedsheets into a corner of the room. He then took a quick shower and put on a fresh set of clothes. He quickly made his way downstairs towards the dining room.

There, he caught sight of his parents. His mother was busy setting the table, while his father waited patiently nearby.

The older Hyoudou male sat at the head of the table, still dressed in a wrinkled business suit. The man worked as a salesman for a small tech company. He was busy most days but always made time for his family. His head was currently buried deep in a copy of this morning's newspaper.

The sight of his father elicited a familiar stirring in his chest. Fortunately, Issei was able to better control his emotions this time around. His stride barely even paused as he took a seat by the table.

"Hey dad," he greeted, making careful sure to keep his expression casual.

Gorou Hyoudou looked up from his paper. "Issei, my boy! How was your day?"

Issei shrugged. "It was fine, nothing really happened."

Gorou raised a doubtful brow. "Is that so? That's not what I heard from your mother."

"It was nothing, really." The youth urged. He even waved his hand dismissively for emphasis.

"It was NOT nothing, Issei." His mother, Miki Hyoudou retorted as she placed down the last dish onto the table and took the seat opposite of him. "Public indecency is a very serious crime!"

"I was inside the house!" Issei indignantly replied. "If anything, they should be the ones arrested for voyeurism!"

"No matter how you twist it, you're the one at fault for flashing an open window!"

"Lay off the boy, dear." His father suddenly defended him. "He's just living life. A few mistakes are to be expected during one's springtime of youth!"

"Gorou, don't encourage him!"

"Now, now." The poor man attempted to placate his angry wife. "Come on, dear. You and I weren't so different when we were his age."

"The last I checked, I don't remember flashing an entire neighborhood!"

"But we did get up to some pretty naughty things, didn't we~?" Gorou wiggled his brows suggestively. "Why I remember that summer during our first year of high school, we—"

"Okay, that's enough!" Miki Hyoudou's cheeks flushed red as she moved to stop her husband. She sent the man an impotent glare, to which he replied with a small smirk. "Geez, can you not do that in front of Issei!"

The older Hyoudou male merely responded with a hearty chuckle.

"Okay, ew." Issei's face contorted in disgust. "Way too much information."

'At least I now know where Issei gets his personality from.' Ddraig commented to himself from inside the Boosted Gear.

"Oh, lighten up Issei." His father stated. "You'll learn of these things soon enough."

"I already know plenty, thank you very much." He commented with a shake of his head.

"Oh, that reminds me," Miki Hyoudou suddenly spoke up, her gaze turning to him. "Issei, there's a weird smell upstairs. I think it's coming from your room. Do you know anything about it?"

Issei froze. "Uh… nope, don't know what you're talking about. You smell something? I don't really smell anything. It must be your imagination."

"Right…"

Both parents stared at the flustered boy with deadpanned expressions. Issei had always been terrible at lying. It looks like not even graduating from middle school could fix this particular issue.

From inside Issei's Boosted Gear, Ddraig couldn't help but agree with their hidden sentiment. Even after three hundred years, Issei was still terrible at lying. If anything, the boy was honest to a fault.

"You're not cooking meth in there, are you?" His father asked worriedly.

"Of course not!" Issei guffawed at the accusation. Where would he even get the ingredients to cook meth?

"Well, good." Gorou breathed out a sigh of relief. "As long as it's nothing illegal, then it should be fine." The man nodded to himself, seemingly satisfied with that simple explanation.

Issei shook his head in exasperation. He was thankful that his father was such a simple man.

'Still, how am I going to explain the fact that I need a new mattress?' he paused for a moment. 'And probably a new carpet as well….'

*****

Dinner proceeded normally for a while.

Casual conversation flowed freely between his parents. Issei chipped in every now and then, but he was content to just sit in the back and bask in the moment. Even though it was just a simple dinner, he was having fun.

He felt safe here. This was a place where he could truly let his guard down. He didn't have to worry about getting ambushed, he didn't have to worry about people lying to his face, he didn't have to worry about whether or not someone poisoned his food. In here, he was happy and in the company of genuinely good people.

For the first time, Issei realized that he was willing to do anything in order to protect this feeling.

As Issei bit into a particularly juicy piece of pork cutlet, his father suddenly asked him a question. "Have you decided what school you want to go to?"

Issei paused for a moment. He lowered his chopsticks and tilted his head in thought. He tried to recall what little he could remember about his situation prior to transmigrating.

He had just recently graduated middle school. It was currently summer vacation, two weeks after his graduation. He had taken a few of the entrance exams for some of the nearby high schools, but he had yet to truly decide on what school to attend.

Of course, his first choice was…

"Are you still planning to go to Kuoh Academy?" His mother asked.

Kuoh Academy. It was without a doubt the most famous school in the entire city. It was an upper-tier school that served as an escalator school for Kuoh Private University. One notable detail about the school was that it used to be an all-girls private school. The school was recently changed to a co-ed school just this year.

This was Issei's first choice. After all, a school that was once an all-girls school was the ideal setting for someone with his particular ambition. It used to be his first choice, but after the events of his transmigration and with the creation of his checklist, he was having second thoughts.

He couldn't quite explain how he knew, but he was just certain that Kuoh Academy was going to be a magnet for trouble.

It was really just a hunch, but Issei had learned a long time ago to trust his instincts.

"Are you really sure you want to go to that school, Issei?" His mother once again questioned.

Issei frowned. "What do you mean, mom?"

"Well, it's just you barely passed the entrance exams. While I am proud of you, I worry that you won't be able to keep up with the curriculum." In truth, she knew full well Issei's real reason for choosing that school. She was unsure if it would be enough to motivate him to keep his grades up.

Miki Hyoudou knew her son well.

Issei was someone who could do amazing things with his life. The only trouble was his motivation. If he was unmotivated, then he'd fail at nearly everything, but given the right motivation, Issei was sure to shine. That's why she considered it somewhat regretful that his current motivation was centered solely on girls.

"Let him be, dear." His father responded. "The boy has his heart set. As a man, it's only natural to follow your dreams."

"No, mom's right." Issei suddenly interrupted, his voice somewhat stilted. "I… I'm thinking about not going to Kuoh Academy."

His words genuinely surprised both of his parents. They turned towards him.

The expression on Issei's face was that of extreme reluctance. They could hear the bitterness in his words, yet he seemed unwavering in his decision.

"R-really?" Miki Hyoudou hesitantly asked, curious as to the sudden change in her son's mind.

He nodded his head in response. The action was rough and rigid, almost as if he was fighting his natural instinct to say no.

"I-I'm sure, Mom. Kuoh's just not the right place for me, you know?"

"Then, where do you want to go?" This time, Mr. Hyoudou questioned.

"Well, I was thinking about… online classes."

"You want to take online classes?"

Both of his parents looked at him weirdly. It wasn't often that a teenage boy actively volunteered for online classes. It was so out of leftfield that it had them worried.

"You're not being bullied are you, Issei?" His mother asked. "It's okay if you are. You can tell your mom."

"Of course not!" Issei indignantly responded. The last person who bullied him learned well enough to never again try. He had stuffed that bastard full of aphrodisiacs and kicked his ass into a pit full of trolls. Of course, he did all that after stealing the schmuck's spatial ring.

"Then, why online classes? You realize how weird of a request that is, right?"

"Well…" Issei was not quite sure how to respond. What was he even supposed to say? That he wanted to stay inside his bedroom all day so he could power-level his cultivation? Even to him, that sounded like a stupid excuse.

Instead, he went with: "I've found something I want to do with my life. Online classes will help with that."

Gorou met his son's gaze with his own. He could see in the boy's eyes a level of conviction that he never thought possible. He didn't quite know how online classes would help with the boy's ambition, but… he certainly looked determined enough.

"Alright." His father nodded his head. "If you want to do online classes, then go."

"Dear?" Miki Hyoudou looked at her husband with confusion. "Are you sure?"

"It should be fine," he dismissively waved his hand, before turning back over to his son. "But since it is online classes, I expect you to get at least a B for all your subjects. No exceptions!"

"Sure, no problem." Issei easily agreed to his father's conditions. Truth be told, studying wasn't really that big of a concern for him. His mental capacity would only increase the deeper his cultivation became. An online high-school course wasn't even worth talking about.

Dinner proceeded normally after that.

****

After dinner, Issei quickly returned to his bedroom. It was then that his expression dropped.

"Regretting your decision, Partner?" Ddraig asked.

"Somewhat." Issei nodded his head. "It's just that… I feel as if I just bypassed a major event in the storyline. Who knows how many encounters I'm going to miss with this decision of mine?"

"Again, your weird lingo is as incomprehensible as always." The old dragon shook its head from inside the Boosted Gear.

Not going to Kuoh Academy was a huge sacrifice. At the same time, he felt that it was necessary. Still, the regret in his heart was stubborn and clingy. Maybe he should…

"No, I can't think like that!" Issei shook his head. "I need to sacrifice a little bit now in order to reap the rewards later."

Issei was on a time crunch. He did not know what sort of adversity lurked in the future. That's why it was imperative that he raise his current cultivation as fast as possible. After all, he knew full well the consequences of being unprepared.

Back in the Immortal World, he had been put constantly on the back foot. As a result, he was forced to flee time and time again, avoiding death by the narrowest of margins. He often had to frantically cultivate just to play catch-up with his enemies.

He definitely did not want a repeat of that.

While the decision to not go to Kuoh would always leave a bitter sting in his heart, he knew well that it was the right decision.

There might be girls in Kuoh Academy, but there were also girls in other places too. In Issei's mind, it was better to pursue these girls after he was certain of his own personal strength.

Besides, what are the chances that the love of his life would be attending Kuoh Academy?

*****

Somewhere in the distance, a certain busty redhead just sneezed.