The Legend of Masayuki the Betrayed
In the year 1247 of the Imperial Calendar, a hero emerged from another world.
His name was Masayuki Tanaka, and he was everything the Empire could have hoped for—powerful, charismatic, and foolishly idealistic. He wielded magic the likes of which the world had never seen, commanded respect from warriors and mages alike, and most importantly, he had defeated the Demon Lord.
The Empire celebrated. Parades were held. Statues were erected. Masayuki was declared the Greatest Hero of the Age.
And then they framed him for treason.
The details were murky—a conspiracy involving the Imperial Court, jealous nobles, and a demon sword that conveniently appeared in his possession. But the sentence was clear: execution by beheading at dawn.
Masayuki, ever the idealist, had expected justice. Instead, he got betrayal.
So he did what any reasonable hero with overwhelming power and eighty women who loved him would do.
He started a rebellion.
His harem was legendary. Eighty women of different races—humans, elves, beast-folk, even a dragon princess—all united in their devotion to him and their hatred of the Empire that had wronged him. Together, they waged war.
And they were winning.
City after city fell. The Imperial Army couldn't stand against Masayuki's power combined with the tactical brilliance of his various wives and concubines. Within three years, the Empire was on its knees, the Emperor hiding behind his palace walls.
Victory was within reach.
And then, one night, celebrating a major battle victory, Masayuki died.
Not in glorious combat.
Not fighting overwhelming odds.
He died in bed. Surrounded by all eighty members of his harem. Simultaneously.
The official cause of death was listed as "cardiac arrest due to extreme physical exertion."
The unofficial cause was widely understood to be: he had sex with eighty women in one night and his heart gave out.
His harem mourned. His enemies celebrated. And the rebellion, without its charismatic leader, eventually crumbled.
Masayuki was buried in a modest grave on the outskirts of the capital city—not in the grand imperial cemetery he might have earned, but in a common graveyard, his legend slowly fading into rumor and crude jokes.
Until tonight.
Present Day - The Graveyard
Three figures in dark robes stood in a circle around a weathered gravestone, their hands raised, chanting in a language that predated the Empire itself.
"Spiritus mortuorum, exaudi nos..."
The air crackled with dark energy. The ground beneath them trembled. Nearby graves began to frost over as the temperature plummeted.
"Is it working?" one of them hissed.
"Quiet! The ritual requires concentration!"
"But the Empire's inquisitors are getting closer! If we don't summon him soon—"
"Then FOCUS!"
The lead cultist—a gaunt man with hollow eyes—threw a handful of grave dirt into the ritual circle. It ignited with purple flame.
"Per tenebras et sanguinem, revoca heroem!"
The gravestone they stood around bore a simple inscription:
MASAYUKI TANAKAHERO, REBEL, LEGEND"HE DIED AS HE LIVED - SURROUNDED BY BEAUTIFUL WOMEN"
"Great Masayuki!" the lead cultist called out. "We summon you! The Empire still stands! Your revenge is incomplete! Return to us as an undead warrior, and we shall—"
"Excuse me."
All three cultists turned.
A girl with white hair and a torn white kimono stood at the edge of their ritual circle, looking exhausted and annoyed.
"Hi," Hitomi said, raising a hand weakly. "Don't mind me. Just looking for a place to meditate. Continue with your... evil ritual thing. I'll just be over there."
She pointed to a grave about twenty feet away and started walking toward it.
The cultists stared.
"Is she—is she serious?" one whispered.
"She's walking through a SUMMONING CIRCLE!" another hissed.
"GET HER!"
The lead cultist thrust his hand toward Hitomi. "Mortuos excita!"
The ground erupted.
Skeletal hands burst from graves all around the graveyard. Zombies clawed their way to the surface. Ghosts materialized from tombstones, their ethereal forms wailing.
Hitomi stopped and looked at the undead slowly surrounding her.
"Really?" she said tiredly. "I just want to sit down."
"KILL THE INTRUDER!" the lead cultist commanded.
The undead charged.
Hitomi sighed.
Then she moved.
She wasn't fast—her depleted stamina made sure of that. But she was efficient.
The first zombie lunged at her. She sidestepped, grabbed its arm, and—
—pulled.
Not physically. Spiritually.
The Yōki that animated the corpse—the stolen spiritual energy binding the dead flesh—flowed into her like water down a drain. The blue-white mist that had been swirling around the zombie's form was sucked directly into her palm.
The zombie collapsed into an inanimate corpse instantly.
[System: Yōki absorbed! +15 Yōki!]
[System: Current Yōki: 18/200]
Oh. OH.
This feels AMAZING.
A skeleton rushed at her from behind. She spun and grabbed its skull. The Yōki drained out of it in seconds. The bones clattered to the ground, lifeless.
[System: +12 Yōki!]
[System: Current Yōki: 30/200]
"What is she DOING?!" one of the cultists screamed.
"She's absorbing their energy!"
"That's IMPOSSIBLE! She's not using mana incantations!"
Hitomi moved through the undead horde like she was collecting coins. Each touch drained them. Each drain made her feel stronger, more alive, more herself.
A ghost swooped at her. She grabbed it—her spiritual awareness allowing her to touch the incorporeal—and drained it too.
[System: +20 Yōki!]
Six undead fell in as many seconds.
[System: Current Yōki: 95/200]
Almost halfway. Not enough.
She turned to the cultists.
They were backing away, hands raised, preparing defensive spells.
"Wait—we can negotiate—"
Hitomi didn't want to negotiate. She wanted to sleep. And these idiots were keeping her from meditating.
She crossed the distance between them in three steps.
"SHIELD—"
Too slow.
Her first punch caught the lead cultist in the chest. Concussive Strike activated automatically, channeling her recovered Yōki into a devastating impact.
CRACK.
He flew backward, hit a mausoleum wall, and crumpled. He didn't get up. Blood trickled from his mouth.
Oops.
The second cultist tried to run. She grabbed the back of his robe and punched him in the side.
CRACK.
He went down, clutching his ribs, wheezing once before going still.
Oops again.
The third cultist was already fleeing, but her hand shot out, grabbed his ankle—
CRACK.
He face-planted into a gravestone and didn't move.
[System: Three hostiles eliminated!]
[System: Calculating karma adjustment...]
Oh no. Here it comes. Three people dead. That's going to be massive negative karma. All that charity wasted—
[System: +5,000 Karma!]
[System: +5,000 Karma!]
[System: +5,000 Karma!]
[System: Total: +15,000 Karma gained!]
Hitomi stared at the notification.
"What."
[System: Congratulations! You eliminated three dangerous criminals!]
"But I KILLED them!"
[System: Would you like to see their crime records?]
"...Yes?"
A scroll of text appeared.
CULTIST #1 - MARK THE DIDDLER
Murder (13 counts)
Kidnapping (8 counts)
Illegal necromancy (47 counts)
Desecration of graves (203 counts)
Human sacrifice (3 counts)
Theft of sacred artifacts (12 counts)
Pedophilia (1203 counts)
Conspiracy to overthrow legitimate government (1 count)
Total Karmic Debt: -127,000
CULTIST #2 - VIKTHOR THE BLIGHTED
Murder (9 counts)
Illegal necromancy (52 counts)
Grave robbery (89 counts)
Possession of forbidden texts (6 counts)
Human trafficking (245 counts)
Total Karmic Debt: -98,000
CULTIST #3 - GREGOR THE PALE
Murder (7 counts)
Illegal necromancy (34 counts)
Desecration of holy sites (5 counts)
Kidnapping (46 counts)
Total Karmic Debt: -76,000
[System: By eliminating these individuals, you prevented future crimes and removed significant negative karma from the world! The universe rewards this! ♪]
"I... I accidentally did a good thing?"
[System: You VERY accidentally did a good thing! Multiple good things! You're on a roll!]
[System: Current Karma: -9,999,999,999,999,999,963,063]
Hitomi looked at the three bodies. Then at her hands.
"Huh."
Well. That works.
She stepped over the corpses and found a nice flat gravestone to sit on. The inscription read something about "---Women" but she was too tired to read the rest.
She sat cross-legged and closed her eyes.
Finally. Peace and quiet.
The Yōki in the graveyard was abundant—thick in the air like morning fog. She could feel it now, see it with her spiritual awareness. Blue-white mist drifted between graves, concentrated around old tombstones, swirling in eddies around mausoleums.
She breathed in slowly, pulling the ambient spiritual energy toward herself.
It came willingly, flowing into her like water finding a drain. Her Yōki reserves began to fill.
[System: Meditation in progress...]
[System: Yōki: 110/200...]
[System: Yōki: 145/200...]
[System: Yōki: 178/200...]
Yes. This is what I needed. Just a few more minutes and—
The gravestone beneath her exploded.
Hitomi yelped and rolled backward as a massive plume of spiritual energy erupted from the grave like a geyser.
And from that plume emerged a figure.
A man—or the ghost of a man—tall, handsome in a roguish way, with spiky black hair and wearing what looked like adventurer's gear from several decades ago. His form was more solid than the perverts back at the tavern, glowing with intense spiritual energy.
He threw his head back and inhaled.
"I SMELL WOMAN!!!" he bellowed.
Then his eyes locked onto Hitomi.
"A BEAUTIFUL WOMAN! IN A KIMONO! A JAPANESE KIMONO!" He floated toward her excitedly. "ARE YOU JAPANESE?!"
Hitomi stared at the ghost. At the grave he'd emerged from. At the nameplate that read "MASAYUKI TANAKA."
Oh crap.
"I—yes? More or less?"
"FINALLY! ANOTHER PERSON FROM JAPAN!" He floated around her in circles, examining her from every angle. "Oh man, how long has it been? You have no idea how much I've missed Japanese food! And Japanese women! Not that women from other countries aren't great—I loved all eighty of my wives equally—but there's something about—"
"Wait. Eighty wives?"
"Long story. Anyway! What's your name? How did you get here? Were you reincarnated or summoned too? When did you arrive? Have you joined a harem yet? You should definitely start building a harem, it's very fulfilling—"
"I am NOT starting a harem."
"Aw, why not? It's great! You just need to—"
Hitomi raised her hand and grabbed his face.
"Wait, you can touch me?! That means you have spiritual—HEY WHAT ARE YOU—"
She pulled.
The Yōki that formed Masayuki's spiritual body—centuries of accumulated energy, the lingering power of a legendary hero—flowed into her like a raging river.
"WAIT WAIT WAIT I JUST WANTED TO TALK—"
DRAIN.
His form began to dissolve, wisps of blue-white energy streaming from his body into Hitomi's palm.
"THIS IS SO RUDE! I HAVEN'T EVEN TOLD YOU ABOUT MY ADVENTURES—"
DRAIN.
"AT LEAST LET ME FINISH MY INTRO—"
DRAIN.
"YOU'RE JUST LIKE MY THIRD WIFE! SHE NEVER LET ME FINISH EITHER—"
With a final burst of light, Masayuki's ghost was completely absorbed.
Silence fell over the graveyard.
[System: MASSIVE YŌKI ABSORPTION DETECTED!]
[System: Legendary-class spiritual entity absorbed!]
[System: Yōki capacity increased!]
[System: New Maximum Yōki: 500!]
[System: Current Yōki: 500/500!]
[System: You feel AMAZING! ♪]
Hitomi stood there, power thrumming through her body.
She felt incredible. Energized. Alive. For the first time since arriving in this world, she felt almost like her old self.
Not fully restored—not even close. But better. So much better.
[System: Power Level increased to 4.2!]
[System: Physical strength improved!]
[System: Spiritual awareness enhanced!]
[System: You can now interact with ghosts and spirits without difficulty!]
She looked at her hands. They were glowing faintly with blue-white energy.
I can work with this.
The three ghost perverts back at the tavern wouldn't be a problem anymore. She could just... grab them and absorb them too.
Finally. A solution.
She took a deep breath and looked around the graveyard. The ambient Yōki had thinned considerably—she'd absorbed quite a bit. But it was still present, slowly regenerating from the natural concentration of death and memory in the area.
I'll need to come back here regularly. Build up my reserves. Get stronger.
She started walking toward the graveyard exit.
Behind her, the three cultist bodies lay where they'd fallen. The undead they'd summoned had collapsed back into inanimate corpses. And Masayuki's grave was now just an empty hole.
Not how I planned to spend my day off. But I'll take it.
[System: Day off productivity - 10/10! ♪]
[System: You killed criminals, gained massive karma, absorbed powerful spirits, and increased your power! Very efficient!]
"I wasn't trying to be efficient. I was trying to meditate."
[System: And look how well that turned out! ♪]
She couldn't argue with that.
As Hitomi left the graveyard, the first hints of dawn were touching the sky. She'd been there all night.
She needed to get back to the tavern before Agatha started asking questions.
But first, she had three perverted ghosts to deal with.
And now? Now she could actually do something about them.
She smiled.
This is going to be satisfying.
[System: Revenge time! ♪]
Revenge time.
She picked up her pace, energy flooding her limbs, making each step feel effortless.
For the first time in days, Hitomi felt like she might actually survive this world.
Baby steps.
But steps nonetheless.