Chapter 7: 7: Antiprivacy Policy

"Hey Conor! Wakey wakey!"

For the second day in a row, I woke up to a small voice shouting at me from a few inches away.

As I slowly opened my eyes, I saw Fig floating half a foot in front of me, completely naked once again, with one hand on her hip and one hand waving back and forth. 

At some point I felt like it was just better not to bother about it.

Seeing her, clothed or not, reassured me that what had happened yesterday hadn't been a dream, and that my inherent skill, Corruption, was part of my new reality.

I sat up and stretched a bit before pulling my phone from my pocket, where it had apparently stayed all night, and checking the time.

9:25 am.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd been up so early. Sometimes I would wake up to the sound of the garage door, or to Noitte shouting something at someone as she got herself ready, but I would always fall right back asleep. 

Today, though, I felt wide awake first thing in the morning. I felt strangely good about it for some reason. 

Now I guess I can…

My thought process stopped as I looked at one of the icons on my phone.

Demoness Conquest. It was a strategy game with an in-depth combat system full of complex affinities, styles of combat, anime titties, team development, and deep lore.

I had been playing the game for almost four years now, and had made sure to play every night for over fourteen hundred consecutive nights. 

I tapped the icon and waited impatiently as the loading screen entered my view. The progress bar moved painfully slowly.

After a few moments that felt like an eternity, the home screen came up, showing my avatar, main team, and other stuff. After a moment, a screen popped up with the daily login bonus.

「Day 1409: +1400 diamonds +1409 Fame points

Time remaining: 2h 24m」

It didn't reset!

I tapped the bright green box that said "OK", then began pressing through various screens as I set about doing the daily missions.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Fig float over. I ignored her as I quickly tapped through screens and set up teams for today's missions with the practiced hand of a true pro.

"Yay! It didn't reset!" 

"Yeah!"

"Ooh! Use Beelzebub for the escort mission!"

"Obviously!"

"Don't say 'obviously' when you haven't added her!"

"I was just-"

I suddenly realized who I was talking to and what she was saying. My face started to heat up and my train of thought screeched to a halt.

"Huh?"

Fig looked at me in confusion as my hands stopped moving mid setup.

"Hey Fig?"

"Hmm?"

"Could you maybe not look over my shoulder while I'm… uh, playing?"

"But I like this game too!"

"Er… I mean, sure, but it's kind of embarrassing to have you looking over my shoulder while I have… well, this, on my screen. You know?"

"Why is that embarrassing? I watched you jerk off yesterday and you came all over me! Isn't this a way lower bar?"

I couldn't help but avert my eyes as she said that, the memory of watching her finger herself replaying vividly in my mind. She's not wrong, but…

"Th-That's different!"

"The only way it's different is that seeing someone's porn is way less intimate than jacking off with them."

"...it's a strategy game…" 

"A strategy game where the characters fight topless, use dildos as weapons, and get paid in magic semen?" 

"...yes?" 

Nice job, me. Very convincing. 

"... anyway, Conor! It's not worth getting embarrassed around me; I'm just your skill, not a person!"

"But it still feels like someone else is seeing my private stuff! It's always going going be embarrassing when something like that happens!"

"I mean you can't really compare this to something like the time Sena caught you playing Cock Maidens at school."

I was stunned for a moment as Fig dug up an old and painful memory. 

My senior year of high school I'd been hiding in the back of the computer lab during my break period, playing a not-so-respectable visual novel on my laptop. I'd been so… engrossed in the pillory scene that I hadn't noticed one of my classmates come in until I'd heard a confused "Conor?" from next to me.

I'd quickly slammed my laptop shut and ran out, but the way she'd looked at me the rest of the year had changed. She was embarrassed just to look at me, and I'd occasionally catch her sneaking looks at my computer, likely trying to make sure I wasn't doing anything inappropriate again.

Every day I saw her for the rest of the year was pure torture, and having that memory dredged up was just plain painful.

But it also reminded me of another question I needed to ask.

"Hey, Fig, just how many of my memories do you have!?"

"Um? All of them?"

"All of them!?"

"Yep! And when I'm resting inside you I can also hear all of your thoughts and feelings!"

She said it with a smile, but…

"... I don't like that."

"Huh!? Why!?"

"It's embarrassing!"

"Again with embarrassing! Why would it be embarrassing!? I'm literally part of you!"

"But you're also a beautiful girl!"

"So wha… Hehehe~ beautiful, huh?"

Fig stopped for a moment, seemingly caught off guard by the sudden compliment. She brushed back her long blue hair and grinned a bit, pushing her chest forward just a little before she seemed to remember that she was saying something.

"I mean- So what if I'm super sexy? That doesn't really change anything about what I am!"

No no no, thats not what I said.

"...it matters because having a girl looking over my shoulder while I play an H game is too much for me. Let alone having one who has all the memories of everything I've ever done, thought, or looked at!"

"Ugh! Well, you just have to get used to it! I can't change being your skill or how my memory works!"

"That's… fair, but still! I need some privacy sometimes too!"

"You have privacy! I'm your skill, not your girlfriend!"

The word "girlfriend" brought to mind yesterday's performance, and caused my face to redden again. Seeing that, Fig grinned lewdly as she continued. 

"Even that was basically just masturbation, you know?"

"Stop reading my mind!"

"Hehehe! I don't need to read your mind to guess what you're thinking about, Conor!"

Somehow, her cheerful voice and smug face pissed me off…

We continued going back and forth for a few minutes before I finally gave up and resolved myself to just deal with it for now. 

"Just… Forget it. Just do whatever you want, Fig."

"Okay!"

And with that, I went back to finishing my daily missions while trying to ignore Fig as she stared over my shoulder and occasionally chimed in.

Despite my hesitation and arguing, after about twenty minutes I felt like I had calmed down a bit and adjusted to having Fig there.

"Come on, Conor! Leviathan's debuff is totally enough to power through the boss!"

"Even if it might be, I only have two rounds' worth of energy left!"

"You can just use diamonds to get an energy potion!"

"That's such a waste!"

"You still have almost a million diamonds! Spending twenty won't kill you!" 

"I can just wait a little bit and keep the diamonds for something else!"

"You always tell yourself that, but you never do! You're just cheap!"

Before I knew it, I was having fun arguing with Fig as I continued to play for a while.

Finally, I ran out of combat energy and couldn't do anything else in the game, leading Fig and I to both sigh as I closed the app and set my phone back down.

"Aww! You should have just used the diamonds!"

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"Yeah yeah."

"Oh well! So what now, Conor?"

"Eh, my eyes kind of hurt from playing the game, so I'll probably just take a break for a while."

My life had fundamentally changed yesterday thanks to Fig popping up, but in a lot of ways things were still the same. 

Corruption was an amazing skill to get out of nowhere, but it still needed a target to be used on. Right now nobody was home since it was the middle of the day, and even Luce only came back every other day. Without a target, Corruption can't be used, so other than playing games I still didn't really have much to do during the day. Fortunately, I had one reliable option that would take a few hours out of my day when I wasn't feeling like playing video games or jerking off.

I laid back on my couch and prepared to take a nap, like usual.

"Hey! Hey! Conor!"

Fig floated excitedly in front of me as soon as I laid down.

"What's up?

"Instead of sleeping, we should go out and look around!"

"Look around what?"

"Just like, places where people are and stuff!"

"I'm good, thanks."

I turned around and closed my eyes as I adjusted my arm under the pillow.

"Hey! At least hear me out!"

Sigh.

"Okay, Fig, why would I want to go out and deal with people right now?"

Fig smiled brightly at my reply.

"Okay! So you know how you can only use me twice a day right now?"

"Okay?"

"Well part of that is because your mana only just reached the point of crystallization, and part of that is because I was just born so I'm really weak!"

She used a term I'd heard her use yesterday but had been too caught up to ask about. Now that I had calmed down, being completely clueless was no good, so I interrupted her before she could continue.

"Hold on, Fig. You said that yesterday too, what does 'mana crystallization' mean?"

"Oh! Basically just that the mana flowing through you has become strong enough to start taking on a set form."

"...huh?"

"So, remember how I said everything has mana?"

"Yeah?"

"Well usually your mana just kind of floats around in your body like an mist or something."

"Okay?"

"But once it reaches a certain level it kind of like, compresses itself into a physical form: your mana core."

"And my mana core is…?"

"So like, you know how your heart pumps blood?"

"Yeeaaah?"

"Well your mana core is like your heart but for mana."

"Okay then…"

"And you can make your mana core stronger by exercising it!"

So not quite like a heart, huh.

"And I take it I exercise it by using my inherent skill?"

"Yep! Er… well any skill, but right now you only have me!"

"Okay, and how do I get new skills?"

"Aww! I'm gonna get jealous, you know!"

Fig folded her arms under her chest and seemed to try to emphasize her still naked breasts as she spoke with an exaggerated look of hurt. It lost some points due to her small breasts not being pushed up very far, but I got what she was going for.

Even so.

"Come on Fig, seriously."

"Yeah yeah, I'm just joking."

"Then?"

"Well, I know you need to strengthen your mana and apply it in different ways?"

"Okay, what else?"

"Well, it's easier to get skills related to your inherent skill."

"That makes sense, but it's still… pretty vague?"

"Well... I don't know anything else!"

"...seriously Fig?"

"Seriously!"

"Shouldn't you know since you're a skill?"

"Do you know everything about how humans are born!?"

"Well… yeah, kind of?"

"You know about the fun stuff at the beginning, and you know some of the ways they develop, but I bet you couldn't tell me how the cells differentiate or what organs develop at what time or anything else!"

That's… a surprisingly good argument coming from a naked figurine.

"Okay, point taken. That's my bad. So, what should we do then?"

"Well, as I was saying before, you can only use one skill, and only twice a day at that, so we should go out and look around for a bit!"

"Because?"

"Because you can interact with more people, meaning different flows of mana and more chances to use me in different ways!"

"Wait, flow of mana?"

"Yeah! Let's see. As a skill I can sort of tell how mana is flowing through things, you know?"

"Okay? And it's different for different people?"

"Exactly! Like your stepmom has mana that feels like 'woooo uuooo' and Season has mana that feels like 'crickickickickick' and-"

"Okay! I got it! What does that mean, though?"

"Hmmm. Well I don't know exactly how to say it, but I feel like the more I interact with other people's mana, the stronger I get and the more skills you might be able to unlock?"

"Wait, really?"

"Yeah! Like when you used me on your stepmom yesterday it felt like if you use me on her again once or twice something good might happen!"

"... how does that work?"

"No clue!"

"Of course."

"Anyway! If you go out and look around you might find some good new opportunities to make us stronger!"

Well, when it was put it that way, I couldn't really think of any more justification to sit at home and do nothing, other than just "I don't wanna", so I stood up and started to get ready to go out, my original plan half forgotten and half ignored as I quickly showered and changed my clothes for the first time in a kind of embarrassing amount of time.

By about eleven o'clock I made my way out the front door. I'd never got my driver's license and we didn't have an extra car anyway, so I was stuck walking to the bus stop and then using that to get downtown.

Fortunately for me, most decent people have work at eleven on a Thursday, so the bus stop and the bus itself tended to have very few people around. Just few enough that I could awkwardly nod at them before looking away and it wouldn't bother me too much. If it were a time when the bus stop was busy, I would have just stayed home, honestly.

As I arrived at the bus stop, I felt relieved to see that only one person was standing there. A middle aged man I saw from time to time sat there staring at the clouds as I arrived, only looking down to give me a polite nod and grunt of acknowledgement before turning his attention back to the sky.

"Hmm? His mana is all cloudy and weird. I don't think you could get anything useful from him."

Fig gave her assessment as she floated next to me, still naked from earlier. I wanted to say something back to her, but couldn't find a way to say anything without risking the man hearing me. As a result, I simply stood there in silence as Fig floated in circles, completely shameless as she exposed her body in the middle of the day.

After a few slightly stressful minutes, the bus arrived in front of me. Before I entered, Fig called out to me.

"Ooh! You should use me on the bus driver!"

Unable to resist asking, I hoped that the sound of the bus' engine and the hissing as it settled would cover for me as I whispered back.

"Why?"

"... free bus fare?"

"No."

"Aww!"

With that, I stepped onto the bus, paid five dollars like a normal person, and picked an empty place to sit as we drove downtown.

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