Chapter 73: QUIET AGREEMENT

By the time I got home I was drained, but the timer on Early Bird had still been ticking. I locked the door behind me and checked the results.

Quest complete. Extra reward secured.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 14 [623/1240]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 30 [Min. 2 | 0.5 cost]

> END: 12

> PER: 30

> LCK: 4

> IBE: 31

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 200/200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1609

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

EXP, Sin Points, and a clean +1 to Endurance. Lust stayed capped at 200, apparently that was the ceiling for now.

I dropped my keys on the table and exhaled. Raised voices filtered down from upstairs almost immediately.

Hubert and Sarah. Again.

This time I wanted the details. I stepped out into the hallway and moved closer to the stairs.

"He offered it!" Sarah’s voice came through the ceiling, muffled but sharp. "You have to do something about that man!"

"Then why the hell were you touching yourself like a fucking whore?!" Hubert shot back. "That’s what men do when they... they... they see or hear something like that! Suck it up!"

So they were still on the Karim incident.

I took a step back, a little of the tension leaving my shoulders. At least he hadn’t shown Hubert the photo yet. I slipped back inside and closed the door.

A system window updated on its own.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

TARGET: Sarah Angi

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> CORRUPTED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 81% [?]

> Threat: None

> The Lover: +25% EXP

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

x6 Sexual Encounter EXP

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> GRIEVANCE LOG

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

I didn’t even have to lift a finger. Hubert was doing all the work for me. It was like watching two companies compete where one of them simply existed while the other actively set fire to its own offices and then acted surprised when the building burned down.

I scrolled through more quests while the argument continued overhead. Then a Critical one appeared.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

CRITICAL QUEST

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[!] MISSION:

Spotless

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> OBJECTIVE:

Knock on their door while

they fight.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> REWARD:

+400 EXP

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Critical quests carried penalties for failure. All I had to do was knock while they were mid-argument. On paper it was simple. In practice, Hubert was volatile enough to come out swinging, and I didn’t want Sarah caught in the middle of whatever followed.

But four hundred EXP was four hundred EXP.

"Fuck it."

I grabbed my keys again, went upstairs, and knocked.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 14 [1023/1240]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 30 [Min. 2 | 0.5 cost]

> END: 12

> PER: 30

> LCK: 4

> IBE: 31

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 200/200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1609

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

The door flew open. Hubert’s face was already twisted with rage.

"WHAT, YOU FUCKING RETARD?!" he bellowed. "GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE! GET OUT!"

"Hey, calm down a little. Your voice is..."

"SHUT UP! FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU! YOU FUCKING CRACKER!"

I blinked. "Huh?"

Cracker? Why call me a slur? And why fucking yell, for knocking? The man lost his mind over a sneeze if it came from my apartment, but this was a new low.

Behind him Sarah appeared in the hallway, eyes red, makeup smeared from crying. Hubert didn’t even look at her. He just slammed the door in my face hard enough to rattle the frame.

The argument picked up again immediately on the other side.

"Don’t talk to Karim and we’re fine, Sarah!"

"You’re such a hypocrite! Why do you never say a word when Karim is loud enough to shake the walls, but the second Chance does anything..."

"DON’T YOU PUT HIS DIRTY NAME IN MY HOUSE! SHUT UP!"

Another update flickered across my vision.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

TARGET: Sarah Angi

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ RELATIONSHIP ]

> Partner: [Hubert]

> CORRUPTED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ SYSTEM SYNC ]

> Favor: 84% [?]

> Threat: None

> The Lover: +25% EXP

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

x6 Sexual Encounter EXP

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> GRIEVANCE LOG

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

They were really going at it. Fine by me. The more damage Hubert did to himself, the better. I just hoped they burned most of the energy before evening, I still had work in the morning and actually needed sleep.

I turned and headed back down the stairs.

"Deja vu," I muttered under my breath.

Some things never changed.

????????????

The next morning the Endurance quest nearly broke me.

By the time I finished the final stretch my legs felt like lead and my lungs burned with every breath. The system had been quietly ramping up the difficulty, and today it had stopped being subtle about it. I made it anyway. Barely.

Reward? 350 EXP.

I dropped onto the nearest bench, elbows on my knees, and wiped the sweat off my forehead with the back of my wrist. For a minute I just sat there breathing, water bottle dangling from one hand. The quests were getting ridiculous. Even with the points I’d already sunk into Endurance, each new day left a deeper mark.

I opened the interface.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MAIN MENU

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

NAME: Chance Brooks

LVL: 15 [133/1490]

RANK: Homewrecker

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ CORE STATS ]

> CHA: 30 [Min. 2 | 0.5 cost]

> END: 12

> PER: 30

> LCK: 4

> IBE: 31

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ ENERGY ]

> LUST: 200/200

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[ACTIVE PERKS: Expand]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

SIN POINTS: 1609

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Level fifteen. Finally.

I took a long drink from the bottle, still catching my breath, and pulled up the level-up window.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

LEVEL UP ! [14?15]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> LUST REFILLED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[!] UNSPENT POINTS: 5

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

> [CHA] : 30 [+]

> [END] : 12 [+]

> [PER] : 30 [+]

> [LCK] : 4 [+]

> [IBE] : 31 [+]

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

Five points.

Because of the Charisma milestone I’d taken earlier, every point I put into CHA only cost 0.5. That meant five ability points translated into ten effective Charisma. I didn’t even hesitate. IBE was still important long-term, but the discounted CHA was too efficient to ignore.

I dumped all five into Charisma.

The number jumped from 30 to 40.

Another milestone window appeared immediately.

╭━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╮

MILESTONE REACHED

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Attribute: CHA [40]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Choose your Evolution:

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[A] THE MAKING

> You can now recognize

women who prioritize

physical beauty above all else.

(+10% CHA for those targets)

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

[B] THE SILVER WHISPERER

> Your voice now carries a

subliminal frequency.

When speaking to a Target

with < 30% Loyalty, your

suggestions are 25% more

likely to be accepted

as their own thoughts.

╰━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╯

I read both options twice.

Silver Whisperer was strong, especially against targets who already had low loyalty. But THE MAKING felt more immediately useful. Being able to identify women who valued looks above everything else, and getting a flat Charisma bonus against them, would open doors I didn’t even know existed yet. Star. Jennifer. Anyone in that category.

I selected A.

The confirmation hit, and a sharp, stinging pressure bloomed across my face, not unbearable, but strong enough that I flinched and pressed my fingers against my cheekbones. It felt like something under the skin was shifting, tightening, refining. The sensation lasted only a few seconds before fading completely.

I groaned under my breath and shook my head until the last of the sting disappeared.

Then I pulled out my phone, switched on the front camera, and looked.

The difference was subtle but real. Cleaner lines. Sharper jaw. Eyes that held attention a fraction longer. I still looked like myself... just the version of myself that people would remember after a conversation. Charisma made flesh.

"Damn," I muttered.

The camera view disappeared as an incoming call took over the screen.

Sarah.

I answered on the second ring, still slightly out of breath.

"Hey."

"Chance..." Her voice was already wrong. Tight. Thin. Like she was holding herself together by force. "Can you talk?"

"Yeah. What’s going on?"

A shaky breath came through the line. For a second I thought she might start crying again. Instead her words came out flat and exhausted.

"Karim came by this morning. After Hubert left for work."

My grip on the phone tightened.

"What did he want?"

"He... he showed me a photo. He took our photo, Chance. You and me at the table." Her voice dropped even lower. "He said if I don’t sleep with him, he’ll send it to Hubert. And to Hubert’s work. And to anyone else he can think of."

The bench suddenly felt colder.

"He gave me two days," she continued. "Two days to decide. After that he says he’ll do it anyway."

I closed my eyes and pinched the bridge of my nose hard enough to hurt.

"Sarah. Listen to me. You are not sleeping with that bastard."

"I don’t know what else to do." The words cracked on the way out. "If Hubert sees that picture... after everything that’s already happened... he’ll lose his mind. He might actually hurt someone. Or throw me out. Or both. And Karim knows it. He was so calm about the whole thing, Chance. Like he’d already won."

"He’s bluffing," I said, even though I wasn’t sure. "Or he’s trying to panic you into making a stupid decision."

"It didn’t sound like a bluff." She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was smaller. "I’ve been sitting here trying to convince myself there’s another way. There isn’t. Not one that doesn’t end with Hubert seeing that photo."

"There is another way," I said firmly. "You just haven’t seen it yet. But spreading your legs for Karim is not on the list. Do you understand me?"

A fragile, almost broken sound came through the speaker, not quite a sob, not quite agreement.