Chapter 79: Chapter 79 – Hugh: The fate of the world

I stood there open mouthed as I got the notification.

Oh crap. Even with the appraisal telling me that Amy was highly likely to be receptive, I never anticipated that someone would just accept the system immediately like that.

Another box popped up immediately after.

Okay. Adding Amy fulfilled the terms of that quest, so hashtag asexpected.

When I dismissed that message, though, a new one popped up.

My eyes boggled at all those rewards. Inventory? Starter equipment? Sign me up.

I also couldn’t help but draw inferences for the designation of Combat XP. That implied that the subclass leveling was completely separate from the classes granted from the ENF System, and, if the combat subclasses worked on the same XP progression, that 50 XP would level all of us up.

To get those rewards, all I needed to do was get Amy to Level 5 before distributing the subclasses. Should be easy, right?

I needed to focus on the girl who had just become my new system user.

“I wish you hadn’t done that,” I said.

Amy looked happy but confused. “Why not? You’re the one who sent the invitation, right?”

“Because there are downsides. I wanted to lay everything out for you so that you could make an informed decision.”

“Hugh, do you know how many times I’ve wished I had access to a system? How many times I saw a falling star and said that silly rhyme and hoped with all my heart to be transmigrated? Yes, I get that it means that there will be combat. There will be a risk of death. I’m okay with that. I’ll party with you and promise to be a good teammate. There is absolutely nothing that you can tell me that will make me regret this decision.”

“We get experience points for taking our clothes off for Hugh,” Julia said a little too quickly.

Amy’s mouth gaped open and closed a few times. I glared at Julia and noticed that Nat gave her an even harsher look.

“There is a weird sexual component to the system,” I said. “That’s one of the things I’d hoped to break to you gently.”

Amy looked stunned, near tears. “You’re joking, right?”

“Hey,” Nat said. “It’s okay. Really. I was nervous at first, too. You’ll be fine. I promise.”

“I’m not pretty like you. Nobody wants to see this body without clothes. Nobody.” Amy shook her head. “I can’t believe it. My dream finally comes true, and it leads to this.”

Nat clearly wanted to help but didn’t know what to say. She couldn’t even approach the girl since she was behind the counter. I honestly thought that Nat and Julia’s presence were making things worse at this point, though. They were just too pretty.

I needed to send them away, and I opened my mouth to tell them to wait in the car. Before I could speak, though, I had a thought. Nat only needed a few more points to level, so sending her on a quick quest was a more efficient way to get them out of the store.

An obvious idea from a quest struck me, but I noticed the black domes in the ceiling.

“Uh, Amy, are those camera’s monitored? I’d like to have Nat and Julia do a quest for me, but I don’t want just anyone having digital footage of them.”

“Nah,” she said. “There’s a recorder in a room in the back, and it’s only stored for a day or so as the company’s too cheap to buy a larger hard drive. The only way anyone would ever see it is if the place got robbed or something.”

That wasn’t ideal, but I guess it should be okay. I generated the quest and sent it. 150 XP each. Not bad. Nat looked at me with wide eyes, and I handed her my car keys and my wallet.

“Please?” I asked.

She looked at Julia, who shrugged.

Amy’s eyes boggled as Nat and Julia both removed their dresses and handed them to me, leaving them naked save for their boots. A moment later, I was cursing my impulsiveness as the two got in my car and drove it out to the gas pump. Having Nat fuel up my car naked while in full view of the road was one of my favorite fantasies, but, instead of being out there with her, I was inside watching through the glass storefront.

Ugh.

“When Nat started all this, she didn’t think she was pretty enough for any guy to want to see her naked, either.” I said.

“Yeah. Right.”

“Really. She was shy and wore glasses and was very insecure about the size of her breasts, thinking they way too small.”

“They seem pretty large to me,” Amy said.

“That’s because, for all the hardships that the system causes, it does give benefits, too. Increasing charisma isn’t just a number on a screen. It produces a real world benefit. Nat has done that twice, and she literally grew prettier each time. And she got a skill called Body Modification that let her make herself curvier. Even with all that, though, she still thinks she’s not pretty enough.”

“What about the blonde? You can’t tell me that she lacks confidence.”

“Up until earlier today, she was dying of cancer, had less than a year to live.”

Amy’s jaw dropped. Literally.

“Yeah,” I said, “Nat and I hadn’t planned on adding any other system users. That was back when we didn’t know about the combat. We just thought it was kinky fun sexy times, you know? Then we added Julia, and she put a bunch of points into constitution, putting her on the road to recovery. Then we found out that we’re going to have to be in combat.”

I looked her directly in the eyes, my expression hard. “I don’t know the stakes. Maybe it’s just our lives, but, for all I know, it could be that the world could literally end if we fail. Nat knows nothing about combat. I’ve never been in a fight in my life. My only training was literally those two sessions with Larry. Julia is apparently a gifted athlete, but that doesn’t make her a soldier.”

Amy winced.

“We need you, Amy.”

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“I have to take my clothes off?”

“That kind of depends. You should be able to get points just from flashing your bra. We just need to get you enough points to reach Level 5.”

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“No. I do. I’ve still never taken my shirt off in front of the girls even though they prance around me in their birthday suits all the time. I get it.”

“I don’t want to do that. I really, really don’t.”

“I know. But if you want to gain levels, you have to,” I said. “The question isn’t what you want to do, it’s what can you do and what will you do.”

I got a notification saying that I’d gained a hundred XP because Nat had leveled. “They should be heading back in soon. I can step outside so that I don’t see. You can flash just the girls if that’s easier for you.”

Amy shook her head, her eyes panicked.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Girls like that?” She shuddered. “Too many locker rooms. Too many cutting remarks. No. I just can’t.”

“They’re not like that. I swear.”

Well, honestly, Julia might have been like that a little bit. I couldn’t help but remember how focused she was on picking out a cute girl. Nat, though, wasn’t like that at all.

“I’m sorry. If I have to do this, it’s got to be for you and only you.” Amy shuddered. “I cannot believe that I’m even considering this.”

“Why don’t you take a moment to gather your thoughts? I’ll go bring the girls their dresses and ask them to wait in the car.”

She nodded.

Nat, still naked of course, had driven the car back up next to the store.

“Three cars passed, Hugh,” she said as I handed her the sundress. “Three. You owe me again when we get back to the apartment.”

I glanced at Julia. She smirked.

That wasn’t ideal because I was sure it would be a repeat of what had happened earlier this evening, and I really didn’t like the sensation of losing control like that. And I really didn’t like how it felt to be staring at Julia as I was having sex with Nat.

Once again, though, relationships, as far as I could tell, meant sometimes doing things that you didn’t want to do.

“Yeah. Okay,” I said as I handed over their dresses. “Listen, though, you two being around is making Amy nervous. Do you mind waiting in the car while I give her some quests?”

“That’s a big change from the original plan,” Nat said.

“I know, and I’m not exactly a fan of it, either. But she’s like ten times more shy than you were, if you can imagine.”

Nat and Julia didn’t understand how flashing a guy could possibly be better in that case, and I was forced to tell her that she seemed to have been bullied by girls before. Nat’s face fell, clearly sympathetic. Julia, on the other hand, looked stricken. I couldn’t help but think that she might have been on the other side of some of that bullying at some point in her life.

“So, are you okay with this?” I asked Nat.

“Yeah. Do it.”

As I turned to walk away, though, she called me back.

“Oh, I hit Level 10, by the way,” Nat said. “Two things you need to know. One, the XP to get to 11 is 850, not 800.”

I’d halfway been expecting the jump based on past increases, and it could have been a lot worse, staying at a flat fifty instead of doubling. “Understood. Thanks.”

“The second thing is that I got a bonus.”

Now that got my attention.

“Plus one to each of my attributes,” Nat said. “The way it was worded make me think all of us would get it, too.”

“Whoa. Nice!”

As much as I wanted to stand around considering system nuances, I had something more important that I needed to deal with. Getting Amy through enough quests to reach Level 5 without completely traumatizing her for the rest of her life was going to be tricky. My instinct was telling me that I should complement her as much as possible, telling her how sexy her body was and how desirable she was.

I recoiled at that strategy, though. For one thing, it just seemed like I’d come off as creepy. Sure, Nat liked it when I acted that way toward her, but she, for some reason I did not understand, found me sexually desirable. Every experience I had as a man told me that the way a woman took any suggestive compliments depended mostly on how she felt about the guy. My experience also told me that Nat was an extreme outlier when it came to how she saw me and that Amy absolutely wasn’t likely to feel the same way.

The other problem with the strategy was that, just like with Julia, showing interest in another girl would feel too much like cheating on Nat.

No, my best bet with Amy was to be as clinical and matter of fact as possible. I’d try to make it feel like she was at a doctor’s office or something.

Yeah. That would work.

I went back inside the store feeling like the fate of the world rested on what happened next.

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