"You have a new message."
A notification rang in his ear.
Even though he was the one who told others to report their names, Toru Asakusa wasn't in any hurry to check the message.
Whoever it was didn't really matter.
He had already said it—anyone could send one, so there was no need to worry about the sender's identity.
Ever since yesterday's diary evaluation…
No—more accurately, the feeling had appeared much earlier.
He had only realized it yesterday.
That sense of being restrained had been creeping up on him for a long time.
Every time he wrote a passionate, explosive diary entry, what followed was always a long stretch of extremely low evaluation periods.
He couldn't strike again immediately.
He couldn't keep beating a drowning dog after insulting someone once.
He had to wait for the damned index value to rise before he could confidently use the "materials" he had accumulated.
…From the perspective of efficiency and maximizing benefits, this strategy made perfect sense.
Weigh the options.
Make calculated decisions.
Carefully write after thorough consideration.
But it completely ignored emotion.
The feeling of freedom he had when he first received the diary—the sense of throwing away all worries—had quietly disappeared.
So after a night of painful self-reflection during his post-clarity "sage mode," Asakusa made a decision.
Stop looking at the index.
He couldn't understand the diary's evaluation system anyway.
Even yesterday's entry—something he thought wasn't great—still got an A rating matching the index.
Which meant that no matter how casually he wrote, the rewards probably wouldn't be too different.
[Today's entry complete.
Evaluation: B]
[Reward being drawn…]
[Reward obtained: Item "Personal Terminal"][
Just as expected.
A middling rating appeared.
With a thought, a device identical to the school-issued terminal appeared in his hand.
Information about the item followed immediately.
Name: Personal Terminal
Category: Item
Effect: You may freely fill in information. The terminal will automatically generate a brand-new student identity.
Note: "I think I'm a freshman."
…He didn't quite understand why he had written about MyGO yesterday but received a Advanced Nurturing High School terminal as a reward.
But he could interpret it this way—
Maybe the diary was supporting his decision.
Because the moment he received this reward, Asakusa suddenly realized something he had overlooked while writing yesterday's diary.
Communication.
Even if he made declarations and knew the identities of the diary copy holders, actually helping them would require feedback.
He could write strategies in the diary.
But he couldn't see the real-world execution or the resulting changes.
Because he couldn't easily leave campus.
If the message system allowed unlimited communication, that wouldn't be a problem.
But judging by the patterns of messages sent so far, even though the messages sent to him had no word limit, it was obvious that the others couldn't send them freely whenever they wanted.
So what if he didn't use the diary's message board at all?
What if he simply posted on an anonymous internet forum, like Kushida had done before, and communicated through keyword searches?
That was possible.
But the internet left traces.
Asakusa didn't want to expose his location over something trivial.
Even if he pretended to be another diary holder who found the forum through the diary, that would still narrow down the search range for others.
And honestly—
He enjoyed hiding behind the diary, secretly (scratch that) openly roasting people.
He had no intention of revealing himself too early.
So originally, communicating through the internet wasn't part of his plan.
But now—
Things were different.
The diary had given him a terminal.
A terminal capable of creating a custom identity.
If it were just an ordinary terminal, it wouldn't be anything special.
At most it would be a small tool for playing around inside the school.
You could probably even buy something similar with personal points.
But this terminal came from the diary.
Which meant it obviously had more functions than what was written on the surface.
For example—
The demonstration animation now playing in front of him showed several options:
Anonymous Browsing
Force Access
Risk Warning
"Anonymous Browsing" worked exactly as the name suggested.
"Force Access" allowed entry to restricted websites.
"Risk Warning" displayed traceable sources if anonymous mode wasn't activated.
In other words—
All of his previous concerns disappeared.
No one could trace his activity.
Because his browsing left no record at all.
This terminal could completely erase his digital footprint.
Which left only one problem.
What kind of identity should he create for himself?
"…."
He thought about it.
At Advanced Nurturing High School, a terminal contained a moderate amount of information:
Name
Class affiliation
Student ID
Club membership
Birthdate
Maybe also the student profile created during admission.
Such as:
Interviewer evaluations
Homeroom teacher notes
And eventually the school's infamous OAA system
If he remembered correctly, the attributes were:
Academic Ability
Intelligence
Judgment
Physical Ability
Cooperation
He pressed the power button.
The screen lit up.
The default lock screen showed the current time…
And infinite battery.
Well, since it was produced by the diary, never needing to charge it made sense.
He swiped the screen open.
The first thing that appeared was the identity setup window.
The layout was mostly the same as the terminals he remembered.
But there was one extra option.
"Set permissions for viewing this profile."
Asakusa raised an eyebrow.
He tapped it.
A new window appeared.
Because the screen was too small, the full list of names had to load separately.
It seemed that with a simple tap beside each name, he could set their permission level:
Allow viewing
Deny viewing
Allow partial viewing
And if he selected Deny—
Even someone like Sakayanagi Arisu's father wouldn't be able to access the file.
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