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Chapter 24: Mob life & Baby seeking Mom
🕑 Added 2025-09-23 14:57:03 +0000 UTCOnce the simulation began, Toru kept pondering a single question.
How exactly does one become an ordinary person?
On the surface, being plain and unremarkable sounds easy, but in practice, for him, it was anything but simple.
It was hell difficulty.
So.
[Your current weekly plan is as follows: 1. Study. 2. Study. 3. Club activities. 4. Study. 5. Study. 6. Sleep. 7. Go shopping.]
The reason he planned it this way was simple: ordinary people are too lazy to study every day. They usually swing between bursts of motivation and long stretches of slacking off.
Most people only stay passionate about something for three minutes at best.
Wow, the protagonist of Bakuman is so fired up, I'm going to draw manga too… Then they buy paints and pens, buy a tablet, struggle through a month of scribbles, and finally declare their retirement from the art world.
Later, they watch K-On! and go, wow, Yui's guitar is so cool, I'm going to learn guitar… Then after a month, their fingers ache like hell, and they quit the rock scene for good.
Given Toru's level of self-discipline, making him into an ordinary person was far too difficult.
So he quickly decided on his new life's goal: slacking off.
Slacking off is an attitude, a rhythm of relaxation and restraint, a way of being calm and unhurried. When insulted, to rush into retaliation is the way of a brute. Slacking off teaches us to yield a little, to persuade with reason. When humiliated by setbacks, to despair is the way of a fool. Slacking off teaches us to find another path, to win with wisdom.
And while slacking off, he would still pick up a little skill here and there.
In the game, the main reason Toru chose to transfer schools was because he was interested in Shimokitazawa High School's brass band. He wanted to prepare for the future.
After some investigation, he learned that the brass band only accepted first and second-year students. Third-years, busy with exams, had to step aside unless they were the absolute star player.
In the hallway.
Toru explained to Ijichi Nijika.
"Ijichi-san, since I can't join the brass band, I was thinking of starting a light music club here in high school and performing at the school festival."
If he wanted to be an ordinary person, then forming a band in high school only to break it up before graduation was perfect. It was the quintessential drama plot.
Who hasn't had a dream that died young?
Ordinary people become ordinary because they cannot achieve their dreams.
Many think, ah… I'll make my debut in high school and become a star. But in reality, far more get smashed to pieces by the waves of life, their bodies washed up on the shore. That's just how cruel it is.
Without talent, mediocrity is what makes one ordinary.
And that was exactly the kind of person Toru wanted to become, someone who loved but could not attain.
In his previous life, if the simulator hadn't triggered the Extreme Pressure Method, with his bass skills alone he never would have reached divine-tier. No, forget divine-tier, even reaching master-tier would have been questionable. Of course, that was before his talent had leveled up.
The talent [Peerless Prodigy] carried plenty of weight.
He had tested it. When he practiced basic guitar exercises at the start, he gained ten experience points at once. What did that mean? It meant he was progressing twice as fast as when he first learned bass.
In the hallway, Nijika suddenly whispered, a little awkwardly.
"Kitahara-kun, will you be my child?"
"Ijichi-san, what did you say?" Toru pretended not to hear, though in truth he had.
What was wrong with all the members of this band?
One asked him to be her sugar daddy, one was crippled by social anxiety, and now this one wanted to be his mother?
"N-no, nothing." Nijika's face flushed red as she waved her hands, mortified enough to want to crawl into a hole. "I was joking, copying a line from a manga… you know, from Whitebeard in One Piece."
Ugh, this was all the simulator's fault!
[Binding failed! Please try again, Master! Once you have a husband or child, your Happiness Points will increase dramatically.]
So the Ultimate Mom Simulator really did require binding to a child in order to earn large amounts of Happiness Points.
But who in the world would willingly become her child?
At her current age, she couldn't go to an orphanage to adopt.
As for her peers?
Everyone was in their teens, nearly twenty. Calling someone "Mom" at that age would be unbearably embarrassing. No one would do it.
Did that mean she had to switch gears and look for a husband instead?
Even though it was just a simulator, Nijika still couldn't accept that.
[Please note: the stronger the talent of the bound husband or child, the higher the Happiness Points gained!]
That was why Angel Nijika had blurted out such a sudden question.
[Kitahara Toru]
[Current Affection: 65]
[Acquired Skills: Divine-tier Photography, Divine-tier Bass Playing, Professional-level Piano Playing, Acting LV.5, Guitar Playing LV.3]
[Gene Pool: Learning Ability (3 stars), Self-discipline (5 stars), Musical Genius (4 stars), Good Looks (2 stars), Indifference to Fame and Wealth (Limited Factor), Transcendence of Life and Death (Limited Factor), Endurance (4 stars), Superhuman Physique (Limited)]
[Talent: Peerless Prodigy] (From lowest to highest: Useless, Very Common, One in a Hundred, Once in a Thousand Years, Admired by All, Peerless Prodigy…)
These stats were terrifying.
From what Nijika had learned through the simulator, an ordinary person's gene pool would usually only contain a few one-star factors. Just look as "Good Looks" was rated two stars, which already showed how absurdly high the simulator's standards were.
And in this situation, with Toru carrying around a bundle of four- and five-star genes, plus several limited factors, Angel Nijika couldn't help but feel like she had stumbled across a treasure vault packed with rare genetic gold.
The problem was, the method of extracting those genes was a little hard to say out loud.
[All you need to do is raise a child together with your husband. Once he or she grows up, at settlement the Master will randomly receive one factor from the child's gene pool as a reward!!]
That was basically the core function of the Ultimate Mom Simulator. Aside from a shop where you could trade points for items, it also had a settlement system that allowed you to acquire new talents.
Sounded pretty powerful.
But asking little Nijika, who hadn't even experienced her first love, to go date a man (much less have a child) she knew she didn't stand a chance.
The difficulty was way too high!!
"Ijichi-san, would you be willing?"
Willing for what? To marry him? No, no, that wasn't it... he was asking her to join the band.
Ijichi Nijika snapped back to reality and answered, "A club? I can join, but I only know how to play the drums. Is that okay?"
"No problem. You and Ryo-san can handle the rhythm section, and I'll take care of guitar." Toru nodded, visibly pleased.
Forming a band that was wonderfully plain and ordinary.
In order to truly achieve his goal of becoming an ordinary person, Toru had even considered controlling his grades, keeping his scores right at the average. In the end, though, he gave up.
Because the only reason Shimokitazawa High School had allowed him to transfer and skip a grade in the first place was due to his national first-place academic score. He was essentially their golden signboard.
Pretending to be weak just didn't fit.
And the reason he skipped to third year was simple: to finish high school as quickly as possible, then move on to an ordinary life. Take an ordinary exam, enter the University of Tokyo as just another student, step into society, be berated by his boss, drown his sorrows in alcohol, get married and have children, one day stop breathing while surrounded by them, then be buried alongside his wife.
Perfect. Truly the perfect plan.
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