Chapter 1: 1: A Strange Figurine and an Annoying Maid

"Hey! Listen!"

I groaned and rolled over on the couch as I tried to ignore the sound of my… alarm?

"Come oooon! You can't just ignore me forever!"

I groggily opened my eyes and looked around, trying to identify the source of the noise. The voice definitely didn't belong to my stepmother or either of my stepsisters, so I was at a complete loss as to what was going on.

"Hey hey! Over here!"

Following the sound of the voice, I turned to look at the coffee table, only to see a small figure standing on top of it. 

She looked like a doll, standing at about six inches high with peachy skin and light blue hair falling down her back and to her butt. Her face was small and round with big gray eyes and a button nose sitting over a pair of heart shaped lips, and she wore an almost skin tight catsuit that would likely have heavily emphasized her cleavage if she were slightly better endowed. 

She gave me a strange sense of familiarity, as if she was an old friend of mine I'd just seen yesterday. I don't have any friends, though. 

If pushed to make a guess, I would have guessed she was an anime figurine from a show I watched ages ago. The problem was that this figurine was currently jumping up and down, waving her hands at me while I stared at her dumbfounded.

"Finally! I thought you were going to sleep forever! It's already after one you know?"

I didn't have to check a clock to know that was true. Why would a NEET need to be up before noon?

Wait no. More importantly there's a talking figurine on my table.

Despite the sense that I definitely knew her, I could not for the life of me remember who or what she was. All I could do was ask.

"Uh? Who are you exactly?"

The figurine girl stopped waving her arms around and seemed to immediately enter deep thought for a moment before smiling brightly and replying.

"I'm your power!"

Ah, my power, of course. 

Okay Conor, let's think for a moment. An anime figurine is standing on your table making wild gestures and talking to you. She claims to be your "power". What are your options here?

One. She's a hallucination, in which case I finally snapped and am either insane or dying. Nothing I can do if that's the case, so let's see two.

Two. She's some sort of Kyubey mascot creature looking to steal my soul or something if I become a magical… man? 

Well… what about three?

Three… actually I can't really think of a third thing.

Thinking through the first two options I carefully considered what to do before coming up with my reply.

"I don't want to sell my soul, but thank you."

With that I stood up from the couch and quickly made my way to the bathroom behind me.

"What? Why would I need your soul?"

As I reached for the bathroom doorknob, the figurine girl seemed to phase through the door in front of me, her face now directly in front of mine and sporting a look of confusion.

Turning around I confirmed that she was no longer on the coffee table. 

Reaching out, I pushed her face with my finger. Despite having apparently phased directly through the door, I was able to touch her no problem. Her face felt soft and hot, like an actual tiny person rather than a figurine.

Figuring that going to the bathroom would just result in this girl following me in and bothering me, and not being thick skinned enough to ignore her watching me do my business, I let out a sigh and returned to the couch. She floated behind me and landed back on the coffee table, looking up at me with a mixture of confusion and annoyance. 

"Hey! Come on! You're not going back to sleep, right?"

"I'm not… look, what's going on?"

"I already told you, I'm your power!"

That doesn't mean anything to me at all.

"Yeah, but what does that mean?"

"Well, last night your mana crystallized and you awakened me, right?"

Ah. So my mana crystallized. 

What? No no no.

"Okay, hold on, what does that mean? This isn't a game, I don't have mana."

Despite saying something totally reasonable and grounded in common sense, the figurine girl looked up at me like I was the biggest idiot in the world.

"Everything has mana! Even rocks have mana, why wouldn't you?"

She looked like she was explaining addition to a toddler, which kind of pissed me off, but I did my best to keep calm.

"You say that, but I've never seen or heard of mana before. Can you show me some proof?"

"I'm standing right in front of you! How isn't that proof?"

"... what?"

"I'm literally made of your mana. I wouldn't be here if mana wasn't real, you know?"

No no no. That's not proof. I'd have to take her word that she's made of mana and… you know what, that's besides the point.

"Okay, okay. So last night my mana crystallized, and then?"

The figurine girl looked up at me smugly, as if she'd just won something. It was a look I chose to ignore.

"So once your mana crystallized you awakened an inherent skill, right?"

Sigh.

"Sure, and then?"

"And then that's me!"

Uh huh.

"So you're saying I have magic now."

"Obviously."

Your mom is obviously!

"Okay, so you're my inherent skill?"

"That's right!"

You are reading story Inherent Skill of Corruption at novel35.com

"And what can you do?"

"Just think about checking your inherent skill and you can see the description whenever you want."

Well, even if it's nonsense, at least it's convenient nonsense.

Okay, let's see. In an isekai this would be where the main character thinks "Status" really hard and-

Oh, it actually popped up.

Let's see.

『Conor Pitur

Age: 25

Sex: Male

Inherent skill: Corruption.』

Corruption?

Okay, I'll bite. Let's see the description.

『Corruption: An inherent skill which allows the user to warp the mind and of the target. When successfully used, the target will fall into a trance in which the user can easily influence their feelings, beliefs, or common sense depending on the level of the skill, the mental defense of the target, and their level of Corruption. It can be used once per day per person and is difficult to detect, trace, or analyze. MP usage is variable, with more MP making a stronger mental attack.』

Wait no. This sounds like something out of a doujin I just read a couple of nights ago. It's "that" right? The mind control porn skill?

"Corruption?"

"Yep, that's me!"

Right.

New theory: I spent too long jerking off to hypno porn last night and now I'm having a fever dream over it. Yep. Seems reasonable.

*Ding Dong*

As I pondered whether I needed to wake up or go to the hospital, the doorbell rang. 

Let's see. What's today? Wednesday? Yeah it's Wednesday.

Darn it. 

On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, my stepmom has a maid come by and clean up most of the house. 

Why don't I, who has no job or responsibilities, clean up during the day?

Because. That's why.

Grudgingly, I made my way over to the door, leaving "my power" sitting on the coffee table.

I opened the door to the familiar face of my step sister's friend slash part time maid: Luce. I would call her face familiar and beautiful if she weren't always sneering at me. 

She was short, at just over five feet tall, with red hair cut off at her shoulders and a beautiful pair of big green eyes that were currently glaring at me. Her face had a line of light brown freckles running across the entire thing, giving an extra layer of cuteness to her angry face. 

As for our maid's all important maid outfit… she wasn't wearing a maid outfit. She was wearing a dark blue uniform that kind of looked like scrubs and had no sex appeal whatsoever. I could tell she had decently sized breasts through her clothes, probably at least a D cup, but the frumpy outfit was baggy enough to make it hard to tell exactly.

Okay. Let's get this over with. 

"Hey Luce, ho-"

"That's Ms. Ohm." She said, as she does every single time.

"But you're younger than me…" 

"But I actually have a job. Look, just get out of my way so I can get to work."

As always she was looking down on me despite being three or four years younger. I know I don't have a job, I don't need you reminding me every other day.

Thinking back on it, the first few times we met, she was completely different. Not to brag, but I'm not a bad looking guy. I'm above average height, I'm still fit from working out back in college, people say I've got a handsome face and a great smile. I'm not balding or anything, I shower often enough, and I'm not deformed or fat or anything.

When we were first introduced, she blushed and stuttered as she introduced herself, she smiled whenever I talked to her and… sigh.

So, why does she treat me like this now?

Even I knew the answer to that clearly: I'm a loser. I have no job, I dropped out of college, I haven't done much socializing since before I turned twenty, and so on. 

To use Luce's owm words from a few years ago: I "just reek of failure."

"Well, are you going to let me do my job or not?"

Luce snapped me back to reality with her usual patented technique of "being an asshole".

Despite my annoyance, I moved out of the way and let her into the house. I wouldn't get anything from getting into another fight with her, after all.

She harumphed as she stormed past me and up the stairs to where my step mom and sisters' rooms were.

"Ooh! It's the maid."

From beside me I heard the small voice of the figurine girl call out. I quickly looked up and saw that Luce was still going up the stairs as if she hadn't heard anything.

I quickly walked over to the living room and whispered at the girl.

"Just what are you doing? What if she hears you?"

She paused for a second with a look of confusion before bursting out into loud laughter.

"Hahaha! How would she hear me? I'm your inherent skill, you know?"

"...what?"

"I'm literally made of your mana. Basically nobody can see me unless you want them to."

Well… that's convenient and another check in the "possible hallucination" column.

"Anyway. Hey Conor!"

"Huh?"

"Let's fuck the maid!"

…

"...huh?"

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