Your Girlfriend Calls Me Daddy Chapter 45 | I Try To Study The Meta But There Is A Devil In

I pushed the Thai food containers around on the counter. The plastic spoons that ca with the order looked cheap, so I grabbed actual silverware from the drawer. Plates too. Nobody looks at a person who puts takeout on real plates and says, "This guy doesn’t have his shit together."

ra’s singing echoed from the bathroom, so pop song I didn’t recognize. Her voice wasn’t bad. A little pitchy on the high notes, but confident. Like she didn’t care who heard.

"YOU SAID YOU LOVED BUT YOU LIED..."

I smiled despite myself. Twenty-four hours ago I was panicking about a death tir.

Now I had a red-skinned devil girl in my shower washing my cum off her thighs while she belted Taylor Swift.

I opened my phone and pulled up the hero rankings. If I was going to replace Nolan as protagonist, I needed to understand what that actually ant beyond "getting the girl."

The novel was called My Pure Love Hero Diary, not My Pure Love Gets Laid Diary. The hero part mattered.

The AP Top 100 loaded on the screen. Arica’s Professional Hero Rankings, updated monthly based on so insane algorithm that factored in villain capture rates, civilian rescue trics, property damage mitigation, and public approval polling. The rankings determined agency placent, sponsorship deals, dia appearances, and patrol territories.

Numbers mattered in this world. Everything was quantified.

Number one: Supernova. Five-star hero specializing in light manipulation, heat generation, and solar energy absorption. Could supposedly convert his entire body into pure light for short periods, though most of the footage I found showed him using controlled energy blasts instead. Blonde, classically handso, six-three, with a red and white costu that looked like what Captain Arica would wear if he moonlighted as a lifeguard. Currently attached to Daybreak Agency in New York.

Number two: Phantom. Five-star stealth hero capable of complete invisibility, intangibility, and so form of short-range teleportation. Dark purple and black costu that covered her entirely except for her eyes, which glowed bright blue when her Essentia activated. One of the few five-stars operating independently without agency affiliation. Specialized in infiltration, extraction, and high-value target acquisition.

Number three: Mammoth. Five-star tank hero with permanent Root-Type modifications that left him nine feet tall with reinforced skeletal structure, enhanced musculature, and thick armored skin plates across his chest, back, and shoulders. Had the proportions of a normal human but scaled up, with a head that looked too small for his massive fra. Wore minimal clothing—basically armored shorts and shoulder pads—to show off the biological armor. Vanguard Agency, Los Angeles branch.

Four and five were Atlas and Valkyrie, a husband-wife duo operating under the sa agency in Chicago. Both were flight-capable with secondary abilities—his was gravity control, hers was weather manipulation. They wore matching blue and silver costus with wing motifs and did a ton of joint appearances, charity work, and couples photoshoots for lifestyle magazines.

All five-stars. All looking like they stepped out of comic book covers. All making more money per year than most small countries.

The shower turned off. ra was still singing, but softer now.

I kept scrolling, scanning through the rest of the top twenty. Most were four-stars with one or two abilities at exceptional levels rather than the multi-ability packages the top five showed. There was a clear power scaling throughout the rankings, with the gap between a low five-star and a high four-star being much smaller than the gap between number one and number five.

"Whatcha dooooing?"

ra appeared in the kitchen doorway wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around her torso. Her red skin glistened with water droplets, and her black hair hung wet and heavy down her back. Her tail swished behind her, still slightly damp.

"Research." I set my phone down. "Food’s here."

"I can see that." She walked over and peered at the containers. "Why’s it on plates?"

"Because we’re civilized people."

"Speak for yourself." She stole a piece of chicken with her fingers and popped it into her mouth. "Mmm. Still hot."

"Unlike your shower manners."

"You complaining about seeing naked?"

"Not even a little bit."

She grinned. "That’s what I thought. So what are you researching?"

"Heroes. Rankings. The whole system."

ra hopped onto the counter, the towel riding dangerously high on her thighs. "Trying to figure out how to climb the ladder?"

"Sothing like that."

She stole another piece of chicken. "So what’s the plan? You gonna be number one?"

I handed her a plate of pad thai. "Eventually."

"Ambitious."

I loaded my own plate with curry and rice. "If this works the way I think it does, I can keep absorbing abilities. Keep getting stronger."

"While sleeping with half the hero course."

"Only the ones with good powers."

She kicked my shin lightly. "Ass."

"You asked."

ra twirled noodles around her fork. "You know there’s more to being a top hero than just power, right? It’s politics, public image, agency connections."

"I know."

"Angelo Corp helps with the connections part. But you’re still the rich playboy everyone thinks is coasting on daddy’s na."

I winced. "That obvious?"

"I did research before talking to you." She shrugged. "Everyone did."

"And yet here you are. In my kitchen. In a towel."

"I’m a good judge of character." Her yellow eyes fixed on mine. "The Ro everyone thinks you are wouldn’t have stopped when I asked. Wouldn’t have cared what I wanted. Wouldn’t be putting takeout on plates to make it fancy."

Sothing warm and uncomfortable settled in my chest. "Maybe I’m just playing the long ga."

"Maybe." She didn’t sound convinced. "Or maybe you’re better than you want people to think you are."

I focused on my curry. "So tell about Titan."

"Smooth topic change."

"Thank you."

She rolled her eyes but went along with it. "What do you want to know?"

"I t her this morning. During the villain thing. She gave her card."

"I heard. The whole school heard."

"She’s with Vanguard, right? Sa as Mammoth."

ra nodded. "Vanguard’s got five of the top twenty, plus a bunch of up-and-cors. Biggest agency on the west coast, maybe in the country. Super selective about recruitnt."

"And Titan’s interested in ."

"Of course she is. She saw a hot rich guy who didn’t panic during a villain attack. That’s like hero catnip."

"Think I could get in?"

ra set her fork down. "To Vanguard? With your current rank? Not a chance in hell."

"What about after the Sports Festival?"

"Maybe. If you place top five. And even then, they’d want to see your Vitae Scan results first."

That was a problem. The system had given a cover story about being a "Passive Null," whatever that ant. But I’d been openly using stolen abilities all day. The whole "not registered" thing might fly for a few days, but eventually I’d need docuntation. A plausible explanation.

"So I need to win the festival."

"That’s your takeaway? Not ’I need to figure out my cover story’ or ’I need to stop using powers in public until I’m registered’?"

"Those too."

ra sighed. "You’re impossible."

"So I’ve been told."

She finished her pad thai and set the plate aside. "If you want to win the festival, you’ll need to start training. Like, actual training. Not just draining girls and stealing their powers."

"Why not both?"

"Because one is sustainable and the other is going to get you arrested."