Chapter 31: Chapter 31 – Natalie: No more Velma?

Hugh sent me a quest to pose for the new set of pictures, of course, but this time the system judged the act only worth a measly 10 XP. I mean, I got why. There was no real difference in having three each of the same photos taken than there was two. If anything, I was fortunate that I got any experience points at all.

Though I still hadn't gotten used to standing in my living room butt naked in front of him and a camera lens, it being the third time having this same set of pictures taken, I felt like an old pro. Hugh didn't even have to say a word. I just turned after each click, and, after the last one, he handed me my glasses back. It was a relief to be able to see again.

I was more than a little hoping that, now that we'd finished that oh so important task, he'd realize how keyed up I was, that he had a girlfriend who was fully hot to trot, and offer me a little of that special kind of attention that I craved. Or more than a little.

Nope. He completely ignored me to focus on uploading my photos to the laptop, concerned only with his analysis.

Ugh.

So, not sure what to do with myself, I just kind of stood there awkwardly as he typed and clicked away. Bored, I pulled up my character sheet again.

"Hugh?"

"Yeah?"

"You leveled up as well, right?"

"Yeah."

"What are you going to do with your free attribute point?" I asked, feeling a little guilty that he was still only Level 4 while I'd reached 6.

"Strength. I'm going to hit the gym again in the morning to test it."

"Cool," I said as I considered what to do next. "That leaves one of us putting a point into everything except constitution, and we don't really have a good way to test that, right? Any objections to me just taking the plunge with one point?"

"Not that I can think of. Go ahead."

I could tell he was only halfway paying attention, but the reasoning was sound. I made the choice.

My eyes went out of focus, sending a spike of pain shooting through my head. "What the crap?" I had to close them.

"What's wrong?"

I tentatively tried opening them again, but the problem persisted. I couldn't. "Something's wrong with my eyes."

I started breathing heavily, feeling the onset of a panic attack. Had I just screwed up my vision permanently? I knew I shouldn't have been so trusting of the system.

And then Hugh was there with his arms around me. "It's okay. You're going to be okay."

"But..."

"Let's think this, through," he said. "Your eyesight is really bad, right? Those glasses are quite thick."

"Yeah. So?"

"Take off the glasses."

I was beginning to think he didn't like them after all, but I had bigger concerns at the moment.

"Open your eyes," he said.

I did. I could focus. It didn't hurt. "Okay. That helps."

"Is everything blurry?"

Of course it was. I wasn't wearing my glasses. But that was the thing; the room was blurry but not that blurry.

"It improved my eyesight!" I exclaimed.

"Any way to quantify it?" he asked.

"Not without visiting an eye doctor, but it's significant."

"That isn't good," he said.

It took me a moment to understand his concern. "Eyes don't normally just get better on their own. Crap. When I go to the doctor..."

"Yep. It'll be tough to explain since it will be obvious to them that you haven’t had corrective surgery." He shook his head. "I can only think of one solution unfortunately - use your remaining point."

"Okay. Yeah. That might heal it to an extent that I don't even need glasses. I can tell people I got contacts. Unless they look closely at my eyes, they won't know."

"You could even get those colored ones that aren't corrective."

I nodded. "Okay."

Instead of doing it, though, I hesitated. I'd just regretted a choice that I'd made on impulse, and there I was about to do it again. I expressed that to Hugh.

"It's never a bad idea to sleep on a major decision, and, if you need me to take you to the eye doctor in the morning, I will." He grinned. "I might even let you get dressed first."

I slugged him in the arm, and we both laughed.

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"Wait," I said replaying our conversation. "Why did you say you could unfortunately think of only one solution?"

"Because I'll miss the glasses, obviously. You’ll still be my sexy girlfriend, but you will no longer be my sexy Velma."

Aww. He did like them.

"I'll put clear lenses in them and wear them whenever you want."

He wiggled his eyelids suggestively. "Just the glasses."

"No!" I exclaimed, but then, more quietly, I said, "Probably."

He laughed again. "Did you get a new skill choice?"

I pulled up the box.

I read the selections to him. "Not gonna lie; upping the level on body modification is looking really attractive, pardon the pun."

"Natalie, your body is already amazing. I really wish you'd gotten a skill to see yourself like I see you."

Okay. That actually made me feel bad. I was getting carried away.

I sighed. "You're probably right. It's not a good idea to make major changes all at once, anyway, right?"

Nightmare scenarios of classmates noticing changes that couldn't possibly have been made even by modern science filled my head, the proverbial evil government scientists capturing me to perform experiments on me, ones a lot less fun and kinky than Hugh's.

"Probably not," he agreed.

"What's regeneration?" The "lesser" in the title wasn't exactly a selling point.

"Most likely increased healing rate."

"I thought that was what raising constitution did in the first place."

"I'm not exactly sure because it healed your eyes instantly, but my guess is that increasing CON makes you healthier, like making it easier to fight off disease or infection. Or making it harder to hurt you in the first place like strengthening your bones. That kind of thing. Regeneration means, like, if you got a cut, it would stop bleeding quicker and your skin would heal faster." He shrugged. "Who knows, increase it high enough and it might even let you regrow an arm or stop aging or something equally as life altering, but we just don't have enough information right now. I will say that, if the system ever offers that as a choice of a skill to take for me, I'm confirming it without a second thought."

I must have still looked unsure because he quickly continued.

“There’s also the issue that your skill choices seem to be directly related to things you really want, right?”

I nodded.

“Does regeneration address a want of yours?”

“Not that I can think of,” I said.

“So what if the system is giving you this skill because you need it? Maybe there’s something going on in your body that it will help?” He paused. “I wouldn’t get worried or anything. It might just be that there were no other skills related to constitution that you particularly wanted, and regeneration is a default choice or something.”

That was a good point, not to mention that my gamer boyfriend - and how I loved saying and thinking that last word - exclaiming that he'd jump at the chance to choose a particular skill was a good indication that it was a no-brainer. Still, following my new mantra to think things through, I decided to wait until morning.

I lapsed back into boredom for a short while he finished playing with the pictures.

"Take a look at this!" he said.

My eyes had improved a lot, but I still couldn't see details unless I got really close to the screen. I used that as a convenient excuse not to be forced to look at naked pictures of myself on my computer. "Can't see it. Sorry. Why don't you just tell me what you're seeing?"

It occurred to me that he was literally studying the details of my nude body. In great detail. Zooming in. He'd soon be eligible for a PhD in the subject if the university offered one.

Wouldn't that be a thing, a course on my body? Students studying me. Maybe I'd be called in for a live demonstration. It would be so mortifying, so exciting. Hugh could attend. He'd insert his fingers-

Wait. What the crap was I thinking?

Ugh. I'd leveled up Reluctant Exhibitionist two times recently. I was positive it was having an impact. Otherwise, I never would have even considered that fantasy I'd almost lapsed into.

"Well, I didn't see any changes to your body at all from the first set to the second, but the ones from the second to the third are obvious. I'm assuming you know exactly what changed there."

I looked away sheepishly.

"More interesting were the changes to your face and hair after the charisma upgrade. All of them were tiny. Like, the only reason I could tell at all was by overlaying the two images, but noting all the places that stayed the same size made it apparent that your eyes grew bigger and brighter, shifting from brown toward hazel. Your nose shrunk and rounded a tiny bit at the tip. Your lips plumped up. And your hair ... it's hard to describe. It's like it's richer in tone? Deeper. Shinier. And it's hard to tell, but I think the right side of your face was like fractions of a millimeter shifted downward on your left side compared to your right and it lifted a bit? Maybe."

"So you're saying if I keep it up, I can become a movie star?"

He laughed. "You can be my porn star. In fact..."

A blue box popped up.

Welp. It was time to pay the piper.

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