Committing fraud in broad daylight

After seeing his brother off, he got comfortable on a small sofa and opened the System—specifically, his coin account.

A coin account was basically a bank account, but in the system, used to store your coins. Currently, Tamashi was stupidly rich, since he had been the only one with access to the system for the past year. Sadly, since he would lose that account in about an hour, all those coins would be taken from him. Unless you were a thief like Tamashi, that is.

For the past year, he had found and reported many bugs in the System, but not all of them. Some he kept secret, planning to use for himself in the future. And now, he was about to perform his first act of embezzlement. He wanted to transfer all the money he currently had into a new coin account, bypassing the removal of his test subject status.

In the real world, with real money, when one accidentally sent money to a non-existent account by mistake, the transaction would simply be canceled. However, that was not how it worked with the System.

When you transferred coins into a coin account that didn’t exist, instead of canceling the transaction, the money would actually disappear from your account, wanting to be sent to the new coin account, but being unable to, it simply stayed stuck somewhere in between.

That was until a coin account with the exact same information was created.

Therefore, all Tamashi had to do was sent the coins to a non-existent coin account and then create that account after the system became available to everyone. Or at least he hoped so, since he had no idea what would happen when the system went online and he lost his beta tester privilege.

“Let’s do this,” he declared, sending all of his money to an account that was yet to be created, suddenly becoming flat broke.

“Ah, I really hope this works...”

If this strategy ended up being a waste, Tamashi would lose a lot. It wasn’t like he didn’t have any backup plans on how to earn coins quickly and effectively, but it would still hurt to lose over fifty-seven million coins—about four hundred and thirteen million yen.

Sadly, things like weapons, magic scrolls, or artifacts could not be transferred in the same way—you had to have physical contact with the person you were trading with, and since there wasn’t anyone to whom Tamashi could give his arsenal, he had to give up there, as he hadn’t managed to find another loophole.

While waiting for Kengo to get back, he went over his notes on the System and his plans for the future.

After going over everything a few times, he grew bored, so he decided to take out his phone and scroll through social media. Not even a minute passed before he randomly stumbled upon a video that made his jaw drop. Tamashi stared at the screen in disbelief, his eyes wide, his eyebrows twitching, and his whole body going numb.

“No...”

Tamashi barely squeezed the words out of his throat.

“This can’t be happening. Please tell me this isn’t real.”

Quickly opening the official news channels online, his worst fears came true.

The article read: “Breaking news! Today at approximately 5:18 a.m., a large explosion of unknown cause happened at the Fuchū prison in Japan. Several people, guards and inmates alike, were either killed or seriously injured in the incident, and it was said that more than sixty percent of the prisoners managed to escape. We urge citizens to remain cautious, and if you see any suspicious activity, do not approach yourself and immediately call the police, who are currently handling the issue.”

Tamashi couldn’t tear his eyes off the screen, despite holding back the urge to vomit on the spot.

“Why? Why now?!” shouted Tamashi while standing up so fast that he made his chair fall to the ground.

Forcing himself to calm down, he picked up his phone and texted Kengo that if he wasn’t home when he returned, to just wait for him.

Activating the System, he used a spell to make himself invisible and his presence unnoticeable, then teleported near the Tokyo police headquarters. Heading inside without hesitation, he created a sound barrier around one of their computers and started sifting through the files. It didn’t take him long to find what he was looking for—the list of the inmates that escaped from Fuchū Prison. After a while of scrolling through the names, he stopped, an ugly grimace showing on his expression—he had to hold himself back from punching a hole in the monitor.

“...Why?” Tamashi whispered, but then his voice rose.

“Why? Why?! WHY?!”

Thanks to the sound barrier he had set up, nobody could hear his screams, unless they walked into its range, that is, so Tamashi couldn’t risk staying any longer.

Not even being able to punch a table or something to let out his frustration—with the System, the table would shatter into splinters—Tamashi just walked out onto the street, and still invisible, went into an empty alley.

“Shit!” he cursed, smashing his fist into a wall, causing it to tremble and leave a large crater.

Despite such an impact, his knuckles were only slightly scratched, but he applied a low-level healing paste anyway, not wanting his siblings to worry or question him about how he got injured.

This is bad, thought Tamashi, pulling at his hair in frustration.

This is really, seriously bad! What do I even do? It’s already been too long for him to remain near the prison. He could be anywhere in Tokyo now.

Tamashi paced back and forth, racking his brain for ideas, but nothing came to him.

The entire beginning of my plans basically just got thrown out the window...

There was, of course, a reason why Tamashi was far more distressed than other people about the prison escapees—and a valid one.

Dispelling his invisibility, he pulled out his phone from his jacket and called his brother, who answered rather quickly.

“Hey, bro, what’s up? I just picked up Mika, and we’re getting into the car. You want to say hi?”

His brother’s voice calmed Tamashi down a bit. He sighed inwardly, then responded with his usual kind-hearted and cheerful tone: “Yeah, thanks, put her on.”

“Okay, hold on a sec. Mika, do you want to talk to big brother? Ah—”

Right after the last word left Kengo’s lips, his phone was suddenly snatched away, and Tamashi heard a different voice.

“BIG BROTHER! Is that you?”

The voice was so loud Tamashi had to distance the phone from his ear a bit, but a bright and genuine smile lit up his face nonetheless.

“Hi, Mika! Have you missed your favorite person in the whooole world?”

It was his younger sister, Mika Ume. She was probably the dearest and most important person in his life, while he was the same for her.

“Yes! I missed you so much, big brother!” Mika replied with her jolly voice before she started pouting—Tamashi could already imagine her puffed-up cheeks, widening his smile even more.

“But why did you have to go away for so long? I was super lonely.”

“I’m terribly sorry about that, Mika. But don’t worry, we’ll be together much more often from now on.”

Mika gasped with joy.

“Really? Do you promise?”

“Yes,” Tamashi nodded, even though they currently couldn’t see each other. “I promise. Anyway, could you give the phone back to your brother? Don’t worry, we’ll have plenty of time to catch up.”

“Okay, see you soon, big brother!” said Mika with satisfaction, handing the phone back to Kengo.

“Hey, it’s me again.”

“Kengo, I’ve got really bad news,” stated Tamashi without wasting any time.

“Huh? What happened?”

“If you haven’t heard, there was an explosion this morning in the Fuchū prison, and over sixty percent of the inmates are currently on the run.”

Tamashi paused, took a deep breath, and continued with a heavy tone.

“That man is among those who managed to escape and still hasn’t been found.”

There was silence on the call for almost a minute before Tamashi finally spoke up again.

“Drive slowly so as to not get pulled over, and I’ll pack your stuff before you get here. No more than five minutes after you arrive, we’re leaving, understood?”

After a few seconds, he could hear his brother’s strained voice from the phone.

“Got it.”

Without any goodbyes, Tamashi ended the call and looked up at the clear sky with clenched fists, his previous smile replaced by a deep frown. He then closed his beautiful azure eyes and, a second later, his figure vanished without a trace.