In October, in Tokyo, the sky was clear and bright, with not a cloud in the sky.

  At this moment, Shuichi Chiba was standing on the rooftop of a uy teag building, gazing at the distant sery and enjoying the feeling of not being near-sighted.Being able to enjoy nature without gsses is a boon, whiowadays many people don't get.

  The pleasure of taking in the expansive view and the vividly clear world never seemed to wear off.

  Although he had been in this parallel world for just over a month and had barely mao uand the current situation after receiving the inal owner's memories, he still felt a bit dazed and occasionally experienced lingeris from his past life.

  "I worked so hard, stayed up te every night doing side jobs, and finally scraped together a down payment at the age of thirty. I mao buy a house in the suburbs of a big city, and I haven't even lived in it for a single day, before I died."

  Shuichi Chiba couldn't help but voice his pints, but the ive emotions quickly faded, and a rexed smile reappeared on his face.

  It seemed like heave it had wronged him and provided pensation. Not only could he once again experience a young body free of various ailments, but he could also enjoy...

  "Chiba-san, I've been looking for you for a long time. So you were here."

  A cold, clear voiterrupted Shuichi Chiba's thoughts.

  Shuichi Chiba turned his head and saw a girl with a ponytail, her face expressionless, looking at him with slight breathlessness.

  Her features were delicate and her appearariking. Due to her wearing short socks, her smooth, fair calves were exposed, looking especially eye-catg.

  "Akiyama-san? Is there something you need?" Shuichi Chiba g her in surprise. The inal owner of this body was a bit of a loner in the css, so it was unusual for ao seek him out.

  An Akiyama took a deep breath, trying to calm her rapid breathing from climbing the stairs, her face slightly flushed. "I came to tell you…"

  "fess your feelings?" Shuichi Chiba gnced around at the se, and the strong sense of déjà vu made him blurt it out without thinking.

  "Eh?" An Akiyama's words were abruptly cut off, leaviunned.

  "Ah, it seems that's not it. What a pity. So, what is it?"

  Shuichi Chiba was quite rexed about his slip of the tongue and smoothly redirected the versation.

  Seeing An Akiyama blink in fusion, her usually cold expression momentarily giving way to something a bit endearingly clueless, Shuichi Chiba suddenly found her somewhat adorably naive.

  "Oh, I see. The issue is with the career path survey you submitted. It probably won't pass if you hand it in to the teacher like this."

  An Akiyama quickly posed herself, reverting to her usual demeanor. She pulled a printed sheet from the folder in her arms.

  Shuichi Chiba took the sheet, g it, and looked up. "What's the problem?"

  An Akiyama almost lost her pain, her finely etched lips twitg slightly as she said, "Chiba-san, are you serious? For your post-graduation career iions, your first choice is iing a fortune from a wealthy distaive of yours, your sed choice is colleg rent, and your third choice is doing nothing?"

  Shuichi Chiba nodded early. "Yes, that's right. What's wrong with that?"

  An Akiyama took a deep breath, lightly patting her chest with her small hands to maintain her posure. Despite her efforts, she couldn't help but puff out her cheeks slightly as she remarked, "Isn't there something fually wrong with this?"

  "I don't see the problem. Just submit it as is." Shuichi Chiba said, handing the printed sheet back to her.

  An Akiyama instinctively took it, about to say something further, when she heard the sound of a phone vibrating. She immediately fumbled to find her phone.

  But then she saw Shuichi Chiba pull out his phone, and realized that the sound wasn't ing from hers.

  "Who's calling? Yes, this is me. Uh-huh, that's ve. Please feel free to e." Shuichi Chiba answered a couple of questions, ehe call, and then looked at An Akiyama.

  "I have some matters to attend to. Thank you for ing all the way here, Akiyama-san. I'll be going now." Shuichi Chiba said with a nod and walked off.

  An Akiyama opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but hesitated. Holding the folder, she watched him leave and couldn't help but puff out her cheeks in frustration.

  "Holy, it was clearly filled out incorrectly. So, like my sister said, am I being uimated? I followed her instrus exactly, so how could I be 'bullied' like this..."

  The girl furrowed her brow in frustration, then suddenly recalled the earlier versation. "By the way, what did he mean by fessing? What regret?"

  Tilting her head and p for a moment with no clear answer, she shrugged it off. "Never mind, I'll ask my sister when I get back."

  ...

  Meanwhile, after Shuichi Chiba left the building, he promptly left the uy and headed to a shopping street in the neighb Taito Ward.

  He wasn't pnning to buy anything on the way. Instead, he was going to mahe iance he was going to take over in future.

  That's right—the entire shopping street was his iance.

  On the surface, the iance appeared to e from a distant, ued retive, but Shuichi Chiba k was just a cover story made by the system in his mind, which he got after ing to this world.

  This system, called the "Shopping Street Ma," had been feeling increasingly odd to Shuichi Chiba over the past few days.

  For instance, when it came to renting out stores, he had no trol over the rental prices and could only follow the prices set by the system.

  What was even stranger was that st month, when Shuichi Chiba met several potential tenants, the system assigned eae a different price based entirely on the individual.

  If the system had some kind of advaeology to gauge the tenants and fidently set the right prices, that would be ohing. But the issue was that several deals had fallen through because of the prid when some found that others were offered different prices from them for the same size of shop.

  This was quite frustrating.

  Moreover, this massive iance wasn't accessible right away. The system had additional requirements, g that the shopping street o be handed over to suitable hands. Therefore, Shuichi Chiba had to achieve certais a specific standards before he could actually take trol.

  But the specific standards for meeting the requirements were not crified.

  However, Shuichi Chiba didn't pin about this. sidering the size of the iahese minor demands seemed trivial pared to the effort he put into scraping together a down payment in his past life.

  Lost ihoughts, Shuichi Chiba soon arrived in the northern part of Taito Ward—a mainly residential area.

  Navigating through the narrow, old alleys, making several turns, he finally reached his own shopping street.

  The street featured cross-street awnings, remi of the shopping streets in Tamako Market, and at the entrance hung an old sign—"Chikase Shopping Street."

  Shuichi Chiba paused to g the sign, thinking about repg it with a new one sihe current one was almost unreadable.

  Without dwelling on it further, he quied his pace, ehe shopping street, and made his way to his residend the ma office, located in the middle of the street.

  The office door en, and he could see the back of a visitor seated in a chair. Notig Shuichi Chiba, the visitor immediately stood up and turned around.

  "You, you must be Chiba…" Fumika Ogawa started to say, hesitating mid-sentence.

  She paused because the boy in front of her seemed too young and was even carrying a backpack, which didn't quite match the typical appearance of someone w at a ma office.

  Shuichi Chiba was also examining the visitor, and his gaze iently fell on an impolite spot or to be exact at her boobs.

  It couldn't be helped; she was simply too striking.