The Reincarnation of a Commoner Couple - Episode 9

“The other thing we’re worried about is our appearance.”

“Yeah, I was thinking about that too.”

What’s going to happen?
If my looks change completely, that’d be a problem.
Well, more like suspicious. I mean, my face changing suddenly? Obviously.

“We’ll proceed carefully with this. We’ll increase it by one point per day. Let’s both pay attention and check each other, okay? If it seems dangerous, we can stop immediately.”

“For now, that’s the only way.”

Alright, so thinking ahead to the next horse race where we’ll make more money, I’ll keep 3.5 million yen for a week’s worth…

“So we have 7.5 million left? Should we dump another 10 into Intelligence?”

“That’s an option. But don’t we also want to check out our Skills? That’s why we came to karaoke, right?”

Ah, right. Our Singing skill is indeed Level 2.
We fully understand the benefits from Horse Racing and Cooking, but singing’s effects are way more obvious.

“Then let’s sing something first.”

I tapped away at the touch panel to pick a song.

“Old school.”

“Yeah, ancient.”

Oh right, we’ve come back to the past.
No wonder searching for future singers doesn’t work.
So I picked a popular song I thought I could sing from the charts.

“So many nostalgic songs, it’s hard to choose.”

“Ah, the golden age of GReeeeN and EXILE.”

Well then, here goes nothing.
Turned on the scoring function too.

“♪ ~~~~ ♪ ~~~~~ ♪ ~~~~ ♪“

Whoa. Was my voice always like this?
Well, it’s not completely different from my normal voice, but the resonance is insane.
I almost felt like I’d become a professional singer.

“This is insane!”

“Totally insane!”

And this is just Level 2? I could probably become a singer now. I mean, I was always decent at singing for an amateur, but never this good. Hitting high notes effortlessly, perfect vibrato? No problem.

“I’ll try singing too!”

And Azusa was the same.
Her voice was incredibly beautiful. I was genuinely moved.
She sang a song by Nishino Kana. Right in the sweet spot for our generation.
She was as good as the original artist.
Well, maybe that’s disrespectful to the original.

We kept singing, doing duets, just enjoying karaoke normally. We decided to hold off on leveling up the skill for now. It’s more than enough for a hobby as it is.
It was already 6:30 PM.
I hadn’t told anyone I’d be late, so I should head back soon or Mom would worry.

So we left the karaoke place and walked our bikes home.
On the way, we talked about the future.

“What are we gonna do from here?”

“What do you mean?”

I’d been thinking about this ever since we came back. Using our future knowledge to do whatever we want sounds great.
If we can make a ton of money, Mom and Dad won’t have to work so hard. They won’t die from overwork like before.
We came all the way back; we absolutely have to make that happen. Azusa agreed with me on that.

“But hey, remember what we used to say before we came back? Stuff like wanting 5 million YouTube subscribers, wishing we’d started streaming earlier, wanting to be popular? I think we can make all that happen now.”

“Yeah…”

“We’ve got this cheat code called the Status Board, right? As long as we have money, we can learn new skills and improve them. That’d be insanely helpful for being streamers.”

“……”

“Don’t you want to be a streamer and get adored?”

“I do.”

“Don’t you want to be rich?”

“I do.”

“Then the answer is clear! Let’s become streamers!”

“Yeah!!”

That’s more like it! After all these years with me, Azusa knows how to get hyped!

“But then, shouldn’t we consider entering the entertainment industry? With our looks, I bet we’d get scouted just walking down the street?”

Classic Azusa. She has absolute confidence in her appearance. Even though it’s 50. Well, average. Oh, we just raised it, so 51? Doesn’t feel different. Must not change instantly like Intelligence.
We took pictures beforehand.
We’ll take one every day to track the changes.

“Nah, forget the entertainment industry. Contracts and all that are a hassle. Besides, Twitter and Instagram will blow up soon, and scandals will spread like wildfire. We don’t want to get caught up in that mess.”

Within less than ten years, the entertainment world will be drowning in scandals, plastered all over the news. Even giants like Johnny’s or Takarazuka will get torn apart.
With our future knowledge, we know exactly what will cause a firestorm.
We want to be clean streamers – no getting cocky, no scandals whatsoever.

“Gambling and smoking as middle schoolers would be a pretty big scandal, don’t you think?”

“As long as we don’t get caught, it’s fine!”

Now that she mentioned it… I was doing some pretty risky stuff.

“Well, as long as we don’t get carried away and post anything online, we should be fine… But be careful not to get secretly filmed, okay? Keita, you’re actually handsome now. It could happen. If something like that got leaked later when we debuted, it’d be a disaster.”

“Ughhhhh. You’re absolutely right.”

“Eh, there probably aren’t many people secretly filming at the racetrack. It’s full of gambling addicts. But just in case, wear a light disguise next time, okay?”

“Roger that!”