I Will Be Your Worst Rival

I was twenty-one the first time I touched this game, and ten minutes was all it took to swallow me whole.

On the surface it was just another academy story, but it ran all the way into a second part and pulled in a real following. What people couldn't stop talking about wasn't the thirsty confessions, the fanservice scenes, or the heroines. The real fire was the absurd difficulty.

The player, charged with protecting the world as the Hero, had to grow. Fail to kill the Demon King, and the world ended. Pour everything into growth, though, and the heroines who were supposed to march on the Demon King beside you wouldn't be left standing—bad ending. Keep the hypnotist in check and manage the main heroines instead, and growth lagged so badly you never reached an ending at all. Catching both meant clutching your head until it hurt.

"You fucking piece of shit, Leon!"

I had clung to this one game for half a year and still never once seen a happy ending.

"Heh heh heh. Why are you looking at me like that, Kyle? Don't tell me you thought these bitches would wait around until you became a hero?"

Bronze skin, a mouth with no manners, a solid build, and hypnosis—the perfect ability for NTR. A true villain who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠always stole the heroines, the polar opposite of everything I was. To someone who hated NTR, Leon was the character I despised most: the most provocative, vicious bastard among every villain I had ever met in an adult game.

He was also the character I had possessed.

I was back.

I had told myself it was only a fantasy.

"Ha."

Hypnosis came undone on its own, and with it came the fact that the Hero had lost—and every humiliation I had suffered along the way. Memories I had forgotten. No. Memories I had erased myself so I could forget them. They stirred up one by one and made a wreck of me.

Why did I make that choice?

My hands shook. Looking back, maybe I had only wanted to change how the story went. A happy ending I had never once seen in reality. To chase it, I had done something unbelievably stupid. Because I hated that plot and that story more than anything, I tried to dodge the NTR and dreamed of being the hero who saved the world. To get into the Hero's Party, I gave the Hero whatever he wanted, no questions asked. I wore a mask to hide my face. I hypnotized myself to kill my lust. I even erased the fact that I was a possessor.

I sacrificed myself so I could return to my original world and see a happy ending. And this was what I got.

The regret sat thick, and the past felt like nothing but idiocy—but that wasn't what mattered right now.

From here on, I need to think about how I'm going to live.

For level 1, the stats weren't bad. Worst Rival had probably corrected them. The proof was right there: Vigor had dropped to a pathetic number. Mana being high made sense. Hypnosis itself belonged to the magic line.

So the protagonist bastard's Vigor is only 1?

A miserable stat for an adult-game protagonist, but he didn't have sex scenes anyway, so it hardly mattered.

I opened the window, let the warm sunlight fall over me, and sorted my thoughts. If my memory was right, I had to head for the academy and attend the entrance ceremony.

I won't be coming home for a while.

In the original, the story began with a sad, longing departure. I didn't feel a shred of that. If anything, picturing the future ahead made me want to sprint for the academy that instant—but I decided to hold back. I couldn't just kill the Hero brat because revenge had blinded me. He had to feel, down in the bone, the same humiliation, the same pain, the same wretchedness I had felt. For that, I would slip in beside him very slowly and lay a plan to take everything he had.

Grrrgle.

I looked down at my stomach, which had chosen this exact moment to complain without a shred of tact.

"Right. Food matters."

There was time to spare. I could deal with the hunger and pack a lunch while I was at it. The distance wasn't far enough to make me late, and even if I was, it wouldn't be a problem. More than that, this was a medieval fantasy, and the food wasn't merely not to my taste. It was horrific.

"The academy cafeteria, especially... ugh."

The story mentioned a few times that the cafeteria food tasted bad, but once I had actually eaten there, I understood completely. It was so awful that deciding I had to join the Hero's Party had started right there.

It was the entrance ceremony of Avalon Academy, the greatest academy on the continent, and still the student body was small. It was considered the finest, so only a fixed number were admitted, and only after fair screening, evaluation, and procedure.

Someone might wonder how a protagonist whose every stat sat below average had gotten in at all. The reason was simpler than expected. This world had a Male Quota. At twenty came the Awakening, and the rate among men was extremely low, so the Empire officially encouraged academy admission and, at the same time, passed a law requiring every academy to accept at least a set number of men.

"Fuck. To think I'd end up back here."

"Huh? Is something wrong?"

A deep sigh was all it took for a man nearby to come over. There was no malice in it. Men were so scarce that he approached out of simple kinship. Silver hair, a passably ordinary face, a slender build—the typical face of a growth-type Hero.

Yes. This game's protagonist. The Hero Kyle, who received every benefit and every bit of support and still couldn't kill the Demon King.

For a moment I nearly lost my grip and raised a hand. With this body, I could kill even the Hero several times over. The large frame, muscle settled in the right places, blond hair, and a height of 185 centimeters. I stood more than a head taller than the worthless protagonist.

"Get lost while I'm still being nice."

"Eek!"

Kyle let out a noise with none of a protagonist's dignity and ran. I wanted to tear him apart and it still wouldn't have been enough, but in the end I held back. Beating him a few times wouldn't cool this rage at all.

You'll feel at least ten times the shame and the unfairness I felt.

I let a thought Kyle would never know rise in my head and smiled, thin and pleased.

The moment I was fully inside the Gymnasium, the eyes of countless girls found me.

"Oh my, do you see that guy?"

"Whoa. He looks stupid hot."

"Look at those solid muscles. That's a man, and he looks insanely fuckable."

"Of every guy I've seen this year, he's the one I most want to get raped by."

A few of the comments were a little off, but the girls couldn't casually look away. Natural enough. In this world, the ones who awakened were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mostly women, so men almost never enrolled—and for the same reason, men almost never built muscle or trained their bodies. The ratio sat at one to nine, and even those were mostly guys who couldn't have gotten in without the Male Quota. Strip away the rule that one slot had to be filled by obligation, and most of them never would have made it.

Anyway, Kyle and I were fated for the same class, so I walked over to where he stood.

"I was out of line earlier. Getting into the academy had my heart pounding so hard I couldn't control ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠myself. Let's get along, man to man."

"Ah, that can happen. I feel the same. Meeting like this must be fate, so let's keep things friendly."

The indecision and stupidity unique to adult games. Now that I wasn't planning to crawl under him but to use him, that stupidity suited me just fine.

"We're the same age, so I'll drop the formality."

"Ah, yeah. That'd be better."

Kyle grinned as if something had delighted him, and even the row of teeth that entered my view was a lost cause. With those shitty teeth, Vivian... I considered quietly getting them fixed for him, then shook his hand instead.

"Yeah. Let's get along."

"Yeah."

Kyle took the handshake with a smile, and the moment he agreed I squeezed.

"Ugh... that really hurts."

"Ah, sorry. Guess I'm stronger than I thought."

Tearing up as if it truly hurt, Kyle glared at me for gripping so hard. I turned my head and faced forward. All he could see of me then was a shoulder too high to reach.

"All right, then. Let us begin the academy entrance ceremony."

A predictable introduction, and then it ended by calling up Vivian, Avalon Academy's top entrant, and a second-place student I had never seen, to take the entrance oath.

"...And with that, the entrance ceremony is concluded. Please proceed to your assigned classes."

On the way to class, Kyle came up grinning, not even realizing that what I had done was bullying.

"It's nothing but girls. I don't know where to put my eyes."

He was a real pain, but getting close to him would make the work easier, so I decided to answer for now.

"That so?"

"Feels like they're all looking at me. Can't be helped when you're the only guy, right? Ah, who should I date."

Were they really looking at Kyle? Curious, I turned my head, and the girls whose eyes met mine flushed and looked away. Didn't look like they were looking at him. No need to tell him that just yet.

We reached the classroom and opened the door. Inside, a delinquent was sitting in a back corner. She hadn't done anything yet, and I still filed her as a delinquent because she hadn't shown up to the entrance ceremony. Her name was Arian. Black hair, beautiful blue eyes. An extremely attractive face, but her real weapon wasn't her face. It was a ruinous bust—a full G-cup. A chest so violent that any man who saw it once couldn't look away.

"Whoa..."

Kyle, the protagonist and a premature ejaculator on top of it, couldn't tear his eyes off Arian and that insane chest. If this were reality, out of 14,000,605 possibilities there would be no worldline where Kyle and Arian ended up together. But this was an adult game, and Kyle was the protagonist. If I didn't step in, he would be dating her a mere two days after they met.

As I remembered the plot, Arian would trip, the protagonist would catch her, and they would grow dramatically close and start dating. Too obvious, too centered on the protagonist—but that was an adult game, and in an academy where the number of men was an extreme nine, it was entirely possible. They would date all through the first semester. She would offer up her virginity and devote herself to supporting him ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠as he grew stronger. Then, right around when Kyle's skill reached its peak, she would be driven off as a concubine who only cooked and cleaned. Even that would be taken from her by the first semester of the second year. In the second year he was fated to date Priya, and every other woman besides.

Of course, that was only in a world where I didn't intervene.

"Whoa, did you see the girl sitting over there just now? The black hair?"

The moment we sat, Kyle started dumping talk about Arian without any filter.

"So that's your type."

"Obviously. Her face is stupid pretty, and her tits are the size of fucking watermelons. How do you not like that?"

"Well. Fair enough."

Kyle couldn't look away until the professor came in.

Then I'll have to take her from the first year.

A lush chest, a narrow waist, a lush ass—and a virgin, despite the delinquent act. Unexpectedly kind, with a good heart. Plenty of use in her. And she was someone Kyle had fallen for at a single glance.

Right. I'll be your greatest enemy—and your rival at the same time.