Chapter 8: Chapter 8 – Hugh: Gamer vs. Human

"I think I'm ready," Natalie told me.

"For?"

"The last quest." Her voice trembled a bit.

"You sure? We can take a longer break."

As soon as I said that, a blue box popped up.

Now that was interesting.

I pulled up my status screen.

I'd gotten 20 XP when Natalie had leveled, making me guess that the formula for my gain was 10 x Level. But I had no real path to getting points besides whatever she did. I had to treat each and every quest like a precious gift.

The problem was that I had no idea how she would react if I told her to flash in public. She'd struggled just to show me her bra. And, okay, I totally related to that. It was difficult for her; it would be for me, too. Completely understandable. I felt bad for even asking it of her.

I saw a path, though, one that would be oh so easy to take.

I was a virgin who had never dated and rarely even spoke to girls. To the best of my knowledge, Natalie was in a similar situation. There was one big difference between us, though. I was completely okay with my lot in life. Maybe one day I'd be in relationships and have sex and fall in love and all that stuff. Maybe I wouldn't. I truly saw positives and negatives for each, so, either way, it was okay with me.

It was rapidly becoming apparent to me that Natalie was desperate for attention. I didn't even think she found me attractive at all, but she was still willing to put herself out there for me just because I found her flashing to be sexy.

The smart thing to do from a gamer perspective - and, really, from the perspective that getting stronger might lead to saving the entire planet, right? - would be to - not to put too fine of a point on it - manipulate her into flashing in public.

Yeesh. I didn't even think it would be all that difficult, even as inexperienced and awkward as I was with girls. We still needed to go out tonight to find me a batting cage for my agility increase. It would be easy to make that seem very date-like. A few comments on how nice she looked. Issue a quest. Tell her how sexy it would be, how much it would drive me crazy.

I was positive she'd end up doing it, and I wouldn't even have to lie at all.

It would, however, make me feel like the worst person on the planet. Actually, I was pretty sure that it would make me one of the worst people on the planet. I felt disgusted with myself for even considering it.

"What's going on?" she asked. "You've been staring off into space for a while now."

It was decision time. Should I do the right thing as a litrpg protagonist or as a human being?

"I just received a quest," I said, "and it's a little concerning."

Gamer me died a little death as I told her about it.

"Public place!" she exclaimed.

"I know. That's elevating things to a whole 'nother level."

"I just thought that it'd be you and me in the apartment doing ... you know."

"I totally get it."

"But?"

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"No but," I said. "I get it. I really do."

"There's totally an implied 'but' there. Just spit it out."

I huffed. "Fine. Let me just try a quick experiment. I'm going to try to give you a quest to flash your bra."

As expected, an error message popped up when I tried to enter the quest exactly as before.

I tried again but reworded the title and terms. The same message popped up.

"That's pretty definitive proof that we can't repeat quests," I said, "which means that, eventually we're going to run out of things to do. I mean, it'll take quite some time to get there, but, at some point, there will be a limit to how much you can level up involving just me."

I hated to admit it, but lower parts of me twitched at the thought of all the things the two of us could do. As best as I was able, I tried to put those thoughts out of my mind.

"And?" she asked.

She was right. There was definitely an implied "and." I really didn't want to tell her, though. If we hadn't had that big conversation earlier about being open with each other, I totally would have lied my butt off instead.

"And, speaking from a totally selfish point of view, I want to level up," I said. "The faster you level and the more quests I complete, the faster I level. But, and I'm being completely honest here, I would rather not level up at all ever again than push you to do something that you truly don't want to do."

She grimaced.

Being open and honest in a relationship was so difficult. I felt like I had a huge sword hanging over my head that was about to chop me in half after every revelation I made. How did people do this?

"Should I not have been honest there?" I asked. "I'm kind of feeling that it was a mistake to tell you that first part."

"No. I'd rather know, and just the fact that it's obvious that you told me that despite looking like you were sucking on lemons the entire time makes me able to trust you more. Not liking what you told me is infinitely preferable to lying sleepless in bed all night wondering if you were really being straight with me."

Silence stretched between us for several moments.

"So," I said finally, "I guess I shouldn't send you another quest?"

"I honestly don't know. I want to help you. I really, really want to help you. It's just that doing something where others could see me is so far out of my comfort zone. But flashing my bra was pretty far outside, too, and that actually turned out pretty okay."

"Makes complete sense. Let's punt, then."

"What?"

"Punt the decision until later," I said. "We'll go out to the batting cage, maybe grab a bite to eat after. Maybe you wear a skirt or dress? If an opportunity presents itself and you want to go for it, great. If not, it's fine. Really."

"You're sure?"

"Absolutely."

I mean, there was no proof that the world would end if we didn't do this, right?

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