Chapter 446: One Man, Too Many Problems

Late afternoon, in the small living room on the main floor of the mansion, Dahlia spread the All-Star Weekend sponsor list across the low table.

"I’ll summarize," Dahlia said. "There are several sponsors, and some of them are from the Upperworld and also sponsors of rival teams. I think you know the song: in the Underground, when an Upperworld sponsor gets involved, they’re ready to do anything to see their team win. And anything means anything. A simple All-Star Week match becomes an excuse to see the most dangerous opponents leave injured."

"I’m starting to see where the problem is," Nash said.

"Yes. There’s a good chance they’ll try something, especially after you beat the best. You’re not the reigning champions, but for everyone, the big favorite is you. But that’s not the most delicate part. The most delicate part is Apex."

Victoria crossed her legs.

"Apex is among the names on the list," she said. "They’re one sponsor among many, but they’re regaining visibility. Hector is sidelined and Lorenzo has taken back the reins, and I don’t like them acting so freely."

"You’re worried about an Apex resurrection?" Nash raised an eyebrow.

"I was too lenient with them," Victoria continued. "I never believed they’d hand me the keys so easily. In fact, everything was fine until that corpse Lorenzo resurfaced. He’s not Hector, Nash. I don’t like the idea of him making decisions I can no longer anticipate. I want to kill him, and the other Apex leaders, before they create some spectacular plan to overthrow me."

Yeah, that sounded like a good idea, but it was precisely because she herself had detailed the entire pyramid Apex sat on that Nash had decided to postpone their execution.

"You already weigh more than Apex in the Underground," Nash answered. "Thanks to the Jade Gardens, you have leverage, and we have the politicians we’re blackmailing. They can’t do anything against your image as the people’s queen."

And of course, he also had the System, and he knew that asset would allow him to recover if something went wrong against Lorenzo.

"I still agree we should deal with Lorenzo now," he continued. "He wants to see you at the head of Apex, and I also think it’s too easy. Thinking about it, maybe it’s really your popularity. The Underground likes you enough to overlook Apex’s secrets."

"Exactly," Victoria said. "That rat is capable of leaking everything after I’ve reached the head of Apex. It’s possible that’ll dampen the wave they should have taken."

Dahlia set her pen down.

"So, that means we’re in agreement?" she said. "We do it? We leak everything about Apex?"

Nash thought about it for a moment. Yes, it sounded like a good idea, like what they should have done from the start. But... Too many things posed a problem.

How would they explain that they had waited so long to react? How could they be sure it would stop there? And above all, the real reason: were they really going to abandon everything now?

The power, the wealth, everything they had built on Apex’s fall. They had politicians chained, they had people ready to replace those politicians who would defend Victoria’s colors—aka, Nash’s will.

They had the keys to a perfect world, perfect for them, but much better than anything they had known until now.

And all of that rested today on this: the top of the pyramid, the head of Apex.

"No, not now." Nash crossed his arms. "Not now, or rather, not right away. We’re going to do it, but only after Victoria takes Apex on paper... and we kill Lorenzo and the others before it’s made public."

Around 8 PM at the manor, Nia stepped out of the shower. She wrapped a towel around her tits and sat down at her vanity. Nash was outside training on the court, and she was itching to get to him. He owed her big time for making her wait around after his promise, and she’d decided that "private training" was the only way he could pay her back.

Alicia was lounging on the bed, sprawled out on her stomach with her ass up in the air, watching Nia with a smug little smile on her face.

Nia started with her skin. She rubbed a thick cream over her shoulders, letting it slide down her arms, and then used oil on her legs. She put one foot on the stool and slid her palm from her ankle to her knee, and then from the knee right up into her thigh, stopping exactly where her caramel skin started to glow under the lamp.

She did the same on the other side, making sure she was slick. She didn’t miss a single spot, clavicles, the dip of her neck, her flat stomach. By the time she was done, she was glistening from her toes to her neck, smelling like an expensive bitch.

She grabbed a fine brush and carefully drew a line on her left eye, always the left first, with her tongue poking out between her teeth in concentration.

After two tries, it was perfect.

She pulled her hair into a high ponytail, leaving two strands to frame her face, and smeared some gloss on her lips with her finger. Finally, she spritzed her perfume behind her ears, on her wrists, and right in the cleavage between her breasts.

Then, she let the towel drop. First came the red lace underwear, then a tight black Blacklist bra and a pair of shorts so short they barely covered her cheeks. She checked herself out in the mirror, turning side to side, pulling the shorts up an inch, then pushing them back down.

She looked hot as hell and she knew it.

"You know we don’t usually dress up just to sweat, right?" Alicia joked, leaning on her elbow.

Nia burst out laughing.

"Depends on how you’re sweating, babe."

"I could come along," Alicia added, acting all innocent while biting her lip. "You know, to hold the lamp for you."

Nia laughed again, shaking her head.

"Nice try, but not this time. Threesome is wholesome, but there’s something special about having all that pile-driving energy focused only on you. Today isn’t just for fun... I’m not stopping until I feel his soldiers hitting my ovaries."

Alicia choked on a laugh.

"Wow... girl... chill."

Nia grabbed her phone and opened her chat with Nash. She had him saved as "Big Idiot 69" ever since the game against the Colossus, but she figured that name might change if tonight went the way she planned.

[You ready?] she texted.

The reply came back in less than a minute.

[Born ready. You taking forever or what?]

[Obviously not. I’m coming down now.]

[Cool. Bring dinner.]

Nia smiled at the screen. She took a quick mirror selfie, cropping her head out of the frame to show off the outfit and the curves, and sent it without a word.

[You’re gonna pay for this,] she wrote.

[Careful, I’ve been fasting for days,] he replied.

[Damn, getting wet just typing lol,] Nia replied, tapping her feets on the bed.

She squeezed the phone against her chest and let out a little squeal of excitement. Seeing this, Alicia let out a pleasant sigh.

"Yeah, he really brain-fucked you with his little speeches," she teased.

"I know! I’ve never been this impatient in my life!"

Nia grabbed her water bottle and bag, humming to herself as she practically ran down the hallway. Alicia watched her disappear, hugging a pillow tightly to her stomach.

Yeah, fuck that. Tomorrow is my turn, Alicia thought. If she comes back sounding like that, tomorrow is definitely my night.

Out on the manor’s Breakball court, Nash read Nia’s last message. He tossed the phone onto a bench and spun the ball on his finger, his mind drifting.

He had left the living room an hour ago, still thinking about the conversation regarding Apex. Whenever his thoughts started looping like that, he did the one thing that always cleared his head: he came out here to shoot. At this hour, everyone was inside, it was the perfect time to think, at least until duty’s time.

He checked his system and sighed. Almost everything that actually mattered was already maxed out. The daily quests dropped every morning, he finished them every night, and the System paid him in points every single time. Basically, he didn’t need to grind anymore. He was already happy with how he looked and performed, but the pile of PP, SP, and BP had been growing for weeks without him spending a single point. It was starting to annoy him.

He took a long shot, watching the ball swish through the net without even touching the rim. He walked over to retrieve it.

Before, every single point felt like a game-changer. One more point in speed, and he could feel the difference in the very first match. Now? He could dump ten points into a stat and barely notice a change. The problem wasn’t a lack of points. The problem was that raw stats were only part of the equation, and not the biggest part.

According to Nash’s High school of science’s calculations, base stats only accounted for about 30% of the player he had become. Skills were another 20%. The rest, the real power, came from passives: his aura, the ability to convert pain into strength, team synergy, etc. These were the things the numbers didn’t show. They weren’t active skills; they were things that worked in the background at all times.

He had realized this at the worst possible moment: during the game against the Colossus.

Seth had played the entire match. Forty-eight minutes, not a single break to breathe, and he had the same dead look in his eyes at the end as he did at the start. Nash, on the other hand, felt every single minute in his legs by the end. He was cooked. On paper, Nash was superior to Seth. On the court, Seth had shown him exactly what happens when you don’t have a reserve tank.

It wasn’t about the numbers. He already had plenty of stamina; no amount of stat-dumping was going to fix that.

He jogged a lap around the court, took a three-pointer, missed, and let the ball bounce toward the sideline.

Endurance. That was the project. He was going to dedicate the next few weeks of training to that, before anything else, before shooting, before passing.

What he really wanted, though, was a new passive. Something that reached further than what he could force through hard work. He’d hope the System would give him one several times in his head, but the only thing he got was "energy regeneration through fucking," which was useless during a Breakball game. He needed a real passive that worked while he played.

Of course, passives aren’t just handed out on request. They come with quests. Since the match, no such quest had appeared. No alerts, no lines. Just the morning routines and the evening points. His new special quest didn’t give any hints about this passive either.

So, there was only one option: the old-school way. Legs and lungs. No System help.

Nash stepped toward the baseline and rested the ball against the pole. He tightened his shoes, took a deep breath, and looked across the court, 28 meters under the bright floodlights.

He started his first set of sprints.

He was on his fourth set when the court gate opened. Nia walked in. High ponytail, black sports bra, and those ultra-short shorts that left no doubt to her intensions. Her skin was glowing under the lights, a water bottle in one hand and a towel on her shoulder.

She stopped at the line and watched him finish his sprint, a smile on her face that clearly said: it’s time to be naughty.