“LEMME SEE!!!”

I’d thrown that line around as a joke online and in real life countless times over the past couple of years. It was a classic meme, a staple of internet culture. I never thought it would one day be used on me, and with such terrifying sincerity.

Truly, what goes around comes around. The great wheel of karma spares no one.

The most unexpected part was that the words were being yelled at me by several beautiful girls—or at least, things that looked like beautiful girls on the outside. This was a scene straight out of a questionable doujinshi, and I was the unfortunate protagonist.

Big Bro, now the blonde Saber, threw off her blanket and vaulted from the top bunk onto the ladder in one fluid, shockingly graceful motion. After living together for so long, we all knew each other’s habits. Big Bro was a notorious advocate for sleeping in the nude. The moment the blanket came off…

For the first time, a truly scientific question occurred to me. It turns out that for blonde beauties, it’s not just the hair on their head that’s golden…

It was… beautiful. A majestic sight, really.

The agile Saber moved like a beautiful girl who had devolved into a feral beast. Her long, golden hair fanned out like a waterfall, catching the morning light in a brilliant, almost holy flare. She didn’t even touch the ground, launching herself from her ladder to mine in a parkour-like leap that defied physics, invading my personal safety zone. She looked exactly like the ‘historical’ King Arthur hearing the dinner bell, and I was the fully-cooked lamb on the table, complete with an apple in my mouth.

Exusiai, whose bunk was on the same side as mine, had the home-field advantage. She was Number Four, the tough guy who could miraculously balance eight different relationships at once, a true master of time management. Her sleeping habits were like most guys’: she didn’t like wearing a shirt, just a pair of boxers.

She showed off her slender, beautiful… assets without a care in the world, stepping over the low metal barrier between our beds like the Colossal Titan breaching Wall Maria. Her handsome face, half-hidden by her fiery red hair, was twisted into a crazed, predatory expression. I got the feeling she didn’t just want to see, she wanted to take a bite out of my…

This is what they mean by “scarcity breeds conflict.” When everyone had one, nobody cared. It was a common-rarity item. Now that I was the only one left with the limited-edition drop, they weren’t happy about it.

These animals!

Yukinoshita Yukino, whose bed was diagonal to mine, was a step behind. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt, a habit from before her transformation. The hem fluttered, partially obscuring her snow-white thighs, making it look like she was wearing nothing but the shirt—the ultimate “boyfriend shirt” look. A pair of long, intoxicatingly beautiful legs stepped into a pair of slippers with a soft pat, pat.

By the time the long-haired Yukino reached my bed, my last line of defense—my trusty blanket—had already been confiscated by Saber and Exusiai. I had become a trap, living in a Garden of Eden suddenly invaded by ravenous wolves.

I flailed my slender, white arms, but two fists were no match for four hands. I was firmly pinned down by the two beautiful girls. They held my wrists, which now felt as fragile as flower stems, and stared with their gorgeous ruby-red and emerald-green eyes. They stared, unblinking, at… it.

Their handsome and heroic faces were so close I could feel their hot breath on my skin.

This might sound a little crude, but I… got hard.

Inevitably… this further enraged my three now-empty roommates. Besides Saber and Exusiai, who were pinning me to my bed, Miss Yukinoshita stood before me, casting a long shadow, and said softly in her gentle voice:

“Cut it off.”

Her voice was as gentle as a winter gale blowing in from Siberia, promising a slow, freezing death.

“NOOOO!”

I screamed, noticing that my own voice had changed into Kiriko’s androgynous tone—pure, soft, and easily mistaken for a girl’s, which only made the situation more horrifyingly surreal.

In this life-or-death moment, my mind was overclocking, working faster than ever before. Ideas leaped from my brain like carp attempting to jump the Dragon Gate, transforming into countless brilliant plans to save me from this predicament. I mentally grabbed the most reliable-looking one and shouted according to its instructions: “You’ve all turned into girls now! In the future… when you need it… I can help you out, free of charge! If you cut me off, who are you going to ask for help then?! Think of me as a free-to-play support character!”

The moment the words left my mouth, the dorm fell silent for a full three seconds. A pin-drop silence filled with murderous intent.

Yukinoshita’s dark eyes widened, filled with a chilling disbelief.

She questioned me in her still-gentle voice, “We thought of you as a brother, but you wanted to… do that… to us??”

I’m screwed. This plan wasn’t reliable at all! It was a critical failure! If this was the most reliable one, then the others must have been express tickets to the castration station, no questions asked!

“Where’s my razor?!” Yukino, formerly the sensitive artist, roared in an indignant voice that shattered her ice-queen persona. She turned, about to march off on her long, white legs to grab it.

Oh my god, you’re going to use a shaving razor on me? How many swipes is that going to take? That’s not an execution, that’s death by a thousand cuts!

You might as well just torture me to death!

Just as I was about to be plunged into the cruel hell of being… ‘executed’ slice by slice, a little girl’s delicate, synthesized voice suddenly echoed in my mind.

【Ya-hey! Looks like you’ve all adjusted to your new identities!】

Yukino’s long, white legs froze mid-stride. Exusiai and Saber, who were still holding me down, also stiffened. From this, I deduced that they had all heard the loli voice too. It was a party-wide broadcast.

This voice was a hand from God, a deus ex machina pulling me back from a bloody hell. To distract my roommates—who were cute on the outside but devils on the inside—I quickly asked in Kiriko’s soft, summer-flower voice:

“Are… are you the one who turned us into this?”

【That’s right!】 the loli voice chirped happily in all four of our minds. 【You can call me System! But I’m a girl, so maybe call me System-Hime! Tee-hee!】

Yukino let out a cold laugh. “System-Hime… how disgustingly cute.”

“You have time for lame jokes right now?!” Big Bro, with her classic Takeuchi-drawn face, was stunned. She let go of my arms and squatted on my bed in a rather unladylike pose, legs apart, and asked the System-Hime: “Why did you turn us into these anime and game girls? And why can’t we remember our original names?!”

【Why, for the sake of…】 System-Hime’s loli voice swelled with a “look-how-awesome-I-am” pride that was almost tangible. 【…bringing fear to this world, of course!!】

Nani?!

All of us—three beautiful girls and one trap—were completely shocked. Not because of her ridiculously chuunibyou objective, but because of how utterly disconnected her methods were from her goal.

Could you please explain what causal relationship exists between turning us into beautiful girls and bringing fear to the world?!

Oh, let me correct that. Turning the three of them into beautiful girls, and turning me, the odd one out, into a trap.

“Could it be…” A terrifying guess surfaced in my mind, a conspiracy theory of cosmic proportions. “Are you trying to show the world that even people like us can become beautiful girls, thereby making everyone lose faith in their one spiritual pillar—2D girls—and plunging them into the fear of a collapsed reality?!”

【Who would ever think of a method that sounds that messed up?!!】