Chapter 39: GIFT

"That... that was a gift!" she stammered, her voice pitching up defensive and sharp. "A friend bought it for me! It doesn’t mean I have rent money, Chance! Why are you interrogating me? Are you really going to sit there and count my pennies while your own sister is about to be homeless?"

"Right. A gift." I let out a dry, humorless laugh. "Funny how your ’friends’ buy you luxury items, but you never have enough for basic bills. And didn’t you just brag last week about getting a fat cash payout from your rich ex?"

"That... that was different! That got tied up in expenses!" Jodi shrieked, the panic melting away instantly and exposing the furious, entitled grifter underneath. "You’re unbelievable! You’ve always been a selfish, unhelpful prick! Just send the damn transfer code already!"

"Yeah, hard pass," I said, rubbing the back of my neck. "I’m not funding your next shopping spree. Figure it out yourself."

"Chance, don’t you dare!"

I hung up without even listening for another second, wasting my precious time. I had a plan to make, I couldn’t let her stupid problems distract me.

"Focus..." I muttered to myself, sliding the phone into my pocket. "Hmm..."

My phone buzzed rapidly in my pocket. Right on cue.

I pulled it out and stared at the screen as a relentless stream of messages lit it up. I hate you. You’re a selfish prick. You’re a bastard. You should’ve been aborted. And so on.

Classic Jodi, when the grift fails, the tantrums begin.

"Ah, fuck off," I muttered, shaking my head and shoving the phone back into my pocket. "As if I don’t have enough problems."

❤︎‬‪‪❤︎‬‪‪❤︎

Hubert was home. That left me with only two options. A, Go upstairs and try to squeeze in a quick conversation before he noticed. B, Text Sarah and try to trigger the Happiness state from a distance.

Option B was the smarter choice. Hubert was still pissed about the lasagna. Walking up there right now would be asking for trouble.

I sat on the couch and pulled out my phone.

"Okay," I exhaled. "Here goes nothing. Now... what should I send? Hmm..."

I typed: ’Hey. Busy?’ Then sent it.

I didn’t want to sit there staring at the screen like some lovesick teenager, so I got up and went to the kitchen. The half-eaten sandwich from this morning was still on the counter. It would have to do for dinner. I grabbed the plate and sat back down.

My phone buzzed almost immediately.

’No. Just washing the dishes.’ She sent with a smiling face.

’Right. I just wanted to apologize for earlier. I think I put you in a bad spot.’ I typed back.

’For what?’

’For bringing the dinner. Hubert seemed really angry.’

’Don’t mind him. I ate it. It was delicious.’

’Glad you enjoyed it. Just don’t come knocking on my door if you grow a second head or something.’

She sent two laughing-crying emojis. Still no quest completion. Not enough.

I needed to push a little further. ’Well, my real goal was to...’

I paused, then sent it incomplete on purpose.

’Goal was to...?’ she replied, waiting.

’Kinda... see you?’

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QUEST COMPLETE

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Objective Met:

[HAPPINESS] Triggered.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

REWARD: 150 EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Fuck yeah. Good, very good.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 8 [400/485]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 20

> END: 10

> PER: 20

> LCK: 3

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 170/170

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1230

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Nice. I was close to leveling up. Her Dependence hadn’t moved, though. You win some, you lose some. This was enough for now. I still had a long way to go before fully breaking this Stockholm Syndrome married bitch.

’Sorry if I made you uncomfortable,’ I sent.

’No, no. It... well, it made me happy.’

’Oh yeah... so, see you tomorrow?’

’Y-yes. Goodnight, Chance.’

Yeah.

Good fucking night, Sarah.

Before I could even take the first bite of my sandwich, the noises started up from across the hall.

That fucking horny idiot again. He had another woman over. With these paper thin walls it was impossible to ignore, I could even hear the wet slap of skin on skin. What a shitty place this was.

Maybe with this system I could finally earn enough to get out of here. My old apartment had been heaven compared to this box. But thanks to my idiotic sister, I couldn’t make rent and got stuck in this shithole.

"God damn it."

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

NEW QUEST

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[!] MISSION:

Bad Neighbour

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> OBJECTIVE:

Knock on his door and

Interrupt the sexual encounter.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> REWARD:

+90 EXP

+90 Sin Points

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Just knock on the door? Fine. If only the other quests would be this easy. I’d level up in no time, I swear. This one also gave me some Sin Points, huh? I guess I caught a lucky one.

I took a big bite of the sandwich, grabbed my keys, and stepped out into the hallway. I walked the few steps across and knocked hard on his door. Nothing. The moans kept going.

"Hey, jackass!"

I knocked again, louder this time. The sounds stopped. Footsteps approached, then the lock clicked.

Karim opened the door completely naked.

He was a lean, dark-skinned guy in his mid-twenties with short curly hair, a cocky grin, and a half-hard cock hanging between his legs. I immediately regretted looking down.

"What’s up, bro?" he asked, like nothing was wrong.

"You’re too loud. Keep it down."

"Have you heard MY voice?" he asked, crossing his arms. His dick twitched for some reason.

"No. But the girl—"

"Exactly. That means I’m doing a good job rearranging her guts." He grinned proudly. "Deal with it. Bye."

"You—"

He shut the door in my face.

It didn’t matter. The quest complete window appeared almost immediately. And with that EXP... I finally leveled up. I just wished I hadn’t had to see his dick in the process.

I walked back into my apartment and closed the door behind me.

"Now..." I muttered, opening the system. "Let’s see..."

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

LEVEL UP ! [8➔9]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> LUST REFILLED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[!] UNSPENT POINTS: 5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> [CHA] : 20 [+]

> [END] : 10 [+]

> [PER] : 20 [+]

> [LCK] : 3 [+]

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

I had five points to spend. Tough choice.

I really wanted to test Luck and see what it actually did. Perception was useful too, it helped the system pick up on subtle cues during conversations that I’d normally miss. Charisma made me look sharper and more presentable. Endurance... could wait for now.

I put two points into PER, two into CHA, and the last one into LCK, then confirmed.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 9 [5/505]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 22

> END: 10

> PER: 22

> LCK: 4

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 170/170

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1320

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

"Looking good."

Across the hall, the noises continued. The woman Karim had over was still moaning, practically screaming at this point. It was strange that Hubert, of all people, never complained about him. But the quiet guy next door? That was apparently a problem.

"Whatever. Guess I’m sleeping through it..."

❤︎‪‪❤︎‪‪❤︎

I pushed one more time... just one more...

Then my arms gave out and I collapsed flat on my back, staring at the ceiling. Twenty push-ups without stopping had completely wrecked me. I used to be active, jogging, lifting weights. Now I was this out of shape.

"Man... I’m... fucked."

Still, I completed the Daily Quest. The reward was a free point in Endurance. Glad I hadn’t dumped points into it yesterday. If I kept the streak going, the rewards might get better.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 9 [5/505]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 22

> END: 11

> PER: 22

> LCK: 4

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 180/180

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1320

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

I pushed myself up and walked to the bathroom, stripping off my clothes. I needed a shower, and real food. That sandwich last night hadn’t done shit. Even though I wasn’t bleeding money to my sister anymore, I was still barely scraping by.

After a quick shower I got dressed and checked the fridge. Empty. Nothing edible. I had to go shopping. No more sad sandwiches.

"Wish I’d done the shopping before the push-ups," I groaned, shutting the fridge. "Ugh..."

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

NEW QUEST

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[!] MISSION:

More the Merrier

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> OBJECTIVE:

Shop with Sarah.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> REWARD:

+100 EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Shop with Sarah? Hmm... sure?

On paper it sounded perfect. Maybe also a chance to chip away at that stubborn Dependence of hers. But Hubert was home today, and Sarah was already at work. There was no realistic way to make it happen without forcing something unnatural.

I declined the quest without hesitation and refreshed the list. The next one that appeared was almost insultingly simple.

Enter their apartment. That was it. Just step inside. Reward: 100 EXP. I stared at the glowing text for a few seconds.

"Should be easy," I muttered.

I grabbed my keys, left my flat, and climbed the narrow stairs. The hallway smelled faintly of old carpet and someone’s cheap air freshener. When I reached their door I knocked twice, firm, but not aggressive.

Footsteps approached. The lock clicked.