Shuichi meets the bear formerly known as Erosuke and collects new missions

As uncomfortable as the shower had started, it was just what Shuichi needed to get his head straight. When he emerged, grabbed his towel, and began to dry down his hair with vigorous, hard scrubbing. The boy stared at his own face in the mirror as if to remind himself who he was...

... Then spun around in shock, clutching the counter with the fingers of both hands hooked underneath it and his penis unfortunately exposed to the room's other occupant. The yellow bear, Erosuke, had appeared, lurking in the background. As Shuichi scrambled to cover himself with a towel, the bear wagged one paw up and down dismissively. "Hey, hey, hey. I don't care about your dick," he spoke dryly, then pushed his glasses up upon his snout. "I'm here to give you your missions. Where's your Monopad?"

"You mean Eropad, right?" Shuichi questioned, tying up his towel around his waist so that he could finish the rest of his routine while he chatted.

"No, father changed it all back this morning. Monokuma. Monopad. Monokubs. The only thing that's still Ero is the points. He said we were damaging our branding or something and got pissed off about it," the two-tone bear complained, crossing his arms and shaking his head. "I don't care what you call it! I'm asking where you put it!"

"It's in the other room-"

"Dammit!" Monosuke shouted, looking both ways suspiciously before wiping at his sweating forehead with a handtowel. "Okay, you stay here... I'll run grab it." The bear peeked his head out through the door, then ran to grab the pad with springing steps. Once he'd swiped it, he ran back in and placed it atop the sink, precariously close to the slope that could theoretically cause it to slip into the bowl where water collected.

Shuichi noticed with interest that the pad did indeed read "Monopad" up one side... But he couldn't remember if it had ever been changed to Eropad there. "Why the secrecy?" he questioned, raising one eyebrow.

"Today, I've appointed myself as your assistant, Shuichi. I'm going to make sure that you make the most of your missions and get everything completed!"

"... This is because Monokid was killed yesterday, isn't it? You figure you've got to do the opposite of what he was doing in order to save yourself," Shuichi reasoned out, regarding the half-yellow bear with a bit of sympathy. "I don't blame you for feeling that way, but you know that the only way out of Monokuma's game is to turn the tables on him, right? Neither you nor I are going to get out of this otherwise. I'm willing to work together if you are."

"If I wanted your help I'd ask for it, dummy! You're so full of yourself just because you survived one killing game! Unless you see 'Give Monosuke life advice' on the tablet here, just keep it under your hat," Monosuke snapped back, patting the pad a few more times to encourage him to get on with it.

With a sigh, holding one hand to his towel, Shuichi used the other to browse through the updates on his tablet. Besides the information on students and Triggers that the pad had collected, there were a few new notifications. He decided to focus on those.

Notifications

Earned 10 Ero Points for a valid use of Level 1 Daily Wardrobe Change!

Earned 10 Ero Points for a valid use of Level 1 Anytime Totally Soaked!

Level 1 Daily Wardrobe Change has leveled up to Level 2 Daily Wardrobe Change! You can now designate two targets per day.

(5) New Monokub Missions are now available!

Monokub Missions

Monokuma's Black-And-White Mission: Release your semen down a target's throat. Reward: Anytime Boner Emergency!

Monosuke's Yellow Mission: Use an Active Trigger in a room with three or more people inside. Reward: Anytime Monokub Cloaking

Monodam's Green Mission: SEE-A-TARGET-DO-A-SEXY-DANCE. Reward: Anytime Shake it, Baby

Monophanie's Pink Mission: Receive a compliment about your manliness. Reward: Passive Desire Multiplier

Monotaro's Red Mission: Take off three pieces of a girl's clothing using your own hands. A pair of socks, shoes, or gloves counts as one item. Reward: Anytime Take That (Off)

Shuichi had been afraid to see what Monokuma's mission would entail and it seemed his fears were justified. There was no decent, respectable way to "release semen down a target's throat." That mission was as good as dead... Luckily, he'd already made 20 points today, although he wasn't exactly happy with how he did it. That would remove the need to do Monokuma's Black-And-White Mission.

"You were thinking just now that you don't have to worry about father's mission, right?" Monosuke questioned, then smirked as he noticed Shuichi's frightened reaction. The bear pulled out an abacus from somewhere behind his back and began to push the beads back and forth. "How long do you think you can keep doing that, anyway? You know as well as I do that father's going to eventually start enforcing that repetitive clause, if you do use the same triggers on the same targets. His rules don't just say you won't get points, but actually, you'll be docked points. If we Monokubs keep dying, are you really going to have enough harmless triggers to use to sustain that kind of playstyle?"

"I can't... What he's listed there just isn't something I can do-"

The bear laughed, then set aside the abacus. He pulled out from that same unseen space behind his back a stack of dollar bills with Monokuma's face on them-- these were his other signature item. "Shuichi, don't you know that cash is king? People in this place may not be interested in money, but here, information is power! You saw that in the original killing game, right? You know everybody's secrets; you have the leg up! Run a little **** operation and you can make somebody do anything!"

"The only thing worse than forcing someone to do... that... would be blackmailing them into doing it."

"Whatever, kid. We're wasting time talking about it. Make your strategy on how you want to tackle these missions and get to it already," Monosuke groaned, impatient as always.

Despite his complaints about the Monokuma Black-And-White Mission, the other colors weren't much better. Monosuke's required him to use a trigger, and in his experience so far, they were all a little... over-stimulating. Monodam's was basically impossible without actually engineering a situation where he'd see such a thing. Monophanie's was... well... that wasn't so unlikely, was it? He frowned to himself as he stared at his shrimpy body in the mirror, wondering if he was being a little too generous with the opinions others held about him as a man. If nothing else, he could probably get someone like Kaito to compliment his manliness if he engaged in a fistfight, though that could be physically painful instead of mentally for a change. Finally, Monotaro's was predictably pervy and also extremely dangerous. He tried to think of which girl had enough accessories to take off without making a total perv of himself... If only Kirumi was still her usual Ultimate Maid, he might be able to ask her to let him do it in a roundabout way, but the way she was now, she hardly had three pieces of clothing one could take off without making her unidentifiable as a maid. It also specified girls rather than boys, eliminating about half the candidates he could ask.

"I know where I'd start if I were you, Shuichi," Monosuke offered, grinning greedily as he fanned himself with the stack of dollars. "One of those rewards sounds like it could really help you collect the others, right? Follow the money-- that's what I always say!"

Ignoring the bear, Shuichi moved to his walk-in closet to change his clothes with a little privacy. As he got dressed, he pondered the missions. The bear did have a point... in some ways, these seemed designed to be tackled in a certain order.

"Hey, just a reminder: there's a whole new building you need to check out. Might wanna get that done before you think ahead too far," Monosuke offered, waddling from the bathroom with the Monopad in-hand. "I'm going to be right here in your room today with cloaking on. I'll appear if you finish my mission of course, but otherwise, come see me if you have any other dumb questions."

Shuichi nodded, then placed his cap back upon his head as he headed for the doorway. It was weird, having Monosuke watching over him, but it was a nice change of pace from being alone with nobody to talk to about his current situation... or, at the very least, it was better than having all six bears tormenting him. "I know you're only trying to save your own skin, but... Thanks, regardless," he muttered awkwardly, tipping the brim of his cap down.

"Don't get used to it, kid. Once I figure out how to beat this whole chronological order of destruction thing, I'm kicking you back to the curb," the grumpy bear growled, shooing Shuichi off by flapping his wad of cash.

Acknowledging that his attempt at gratitude had gone over about how he thought it would, the Ultimate Detective left his room to get started.