It was the next day.
The weekend had finally started, which meant I didn't have to deal with lectures at the academy for a while. No professors rambling endlessly, no classmates staring at me like I was some criminal documentary brought to life, and no awkward moments in hallways. Honestly, it already sounded peaceful.
At that moment, all I really wanted to do was lie in bed and stare at the ceiling like my soul had left my body.
My hips still strangely carried traces of pleasure from the intense fucking I had with Verra yesterday. Every small movement reminded me of it. I felt sore in places I didn't even know could feel sore.
And somehow, after our second round together, I still wanted more.
That was the worst part.
My brain had basically shut down at that point. I was completely running on instinct like some starving animal that had just discovered heaven.
So naturally, I asked her if we could continue.
Unfortunately for me, reality came crashing down immediately.
"Sorry, but we still have work to do," she said while fixing her clothes and smoothing her skirt down with both hands. "We can't exactly leave the cashier unattended for that long."
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Your COMMUNICATION is not high enough to convince Verra to continue.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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Yeah.
That system message felt like it was mocking me directly.
Apparently, my LUCK had decided to take a vacation right when I needed it most.
Honestly, seeing the system reject me like that hurt a little. Not emotionally. Spiritually.
After that, we both started putting our clothes back on properly, trying to make ourselves look normal again. But somewhere during that process, the atmosphere changed completely.
Things got awkward.
Not in a romantic way either. It was the kind of silence where both people wanted to say something but didn't know what to say without sounding stupid.
At least, that's how it felt for me.
I had expected the atmosphere to stay hot afterward, maybe playful or flirty or something. Instead, it suddenly felt weirdly formal between us, like we had both remembered we still had jobs and responsibilities.
I wanted to break the silence somehow, but every sentence I thought of sounded terrible in my head.
So neither of us really said anything.
We just quietly finished the shift together.
Then I went home and immediately crashed on my bed the moment I got there.
By the time I woke up again, it was already afternoon.
The moment I opened my eyes, my status screen appeared right in front of me like some clingy game mechanic that refused to let me live normally.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Leon:
STATUS:
STRENGTH: 115
STAMINA: 135
AGILITY: 60
INTELLIGENCE: 130
LOOKS: 75
S-SKILL: 65
CHARISMA: 15
COMMUNICATION: 100
LUCK: 75
REPUTATION: 6
INFAMY: 88
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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Looking at my stats now honestly felt surreal.
Compared to before, they had increased by an insane amount.
It still didn't feel real sometimes.
Like seriously, this wasn't even fair anymore. It genuinely felt like I had unlocked some kind of cheat code for life. A ridiculously overpowered one too.
Not that I was complaining.
Only an idiot would complain after suddenly becoming stronger, smarter, luckier, and somehow better at sex all at once.
Still, it was hard not to think about how absurd everything had become.
A while ago, I was just some guy barely getting through life. Now I had a mysterious system showing me quests, stats, affection levels, and somehow helping me fuck my manager in the middle of work hours.
Life really takes weird turns sometimes.
At this point, questioning it felt pointless anyway.
After resting for a while longer, I finally got up and headed toward the internet café to check the progress before going to the convenience store again.
Honestly, things with Clara had been going pretty smoothly recently. There wasn't as much tension between us anymore.
But my relationship with Verra was definitely becoming more complicated.
I wanted to take things further with her.
A lot further.
The problem was that it looked like it would take time before that happened again. The atmosphere between us after yesterday had changed enough for me to notice it.
And the system wasn't helping either.
Honestly, it felt like the system enjoyed appearing at the worst possible times and disappearing the moment I actually needed guidance. Like some lazy manager supervising my life.
For now, all I could really do was hope things somehow worked out.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Two days passed.
During those two days, I stayed busy handling marketing for the internet café.
I spent most of my time posting photos online, managing social media pages, and putting up posters around different areas so more people would notice the place.
Honestly, it was way more tiring than I expected.
People always made business sound cool until you were the one carrying stacks of posters around while sweating under the sun like an underpaid delivery guy.
At the same time, I had also started transforming the internet café into something more relaxed.
I didn't want it to just be a place full of computers and gamers screaming at each other through headsets.
I wanted it to feel comfortable.
Somewhere people could relax, drink coffee, read comics, and just spend time peacefully even if they weren't gaming.
Basically, I was trying to turn it into a pseudo-café alongside the internet café setup.
The problem was staffing.
Right now, the only person helping me was Denise.
And while Denise was reliable, there was absolutely no way she could handle everything alone forever.
Which meant I needed to hire more people.
Unfortunately, hiring people turned out to be way harder than I expected.
I thought the process would be simple.
Someone comes in.
I interview them.
I hire them.
Easy.
Apparently not.
Because every single time I tried hiring someone, this happened.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Your CHARISMA is not high enough.
You failed to hire them because you do not have the required CHARISMA.
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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The hell?
So CHARISMA actually mattered this much?
Honestly, I really didn't want to spend ♥︎ points increasing CHARISMA. It felt like such a waste compared to everything else.
But if I didn't increase it, I risked failing to hire literally anyone.
Which was obviously a huge problem.
Thankfully, after a while, someone else came in.
The girl looked like the type who would rather stare at her phone than acknowledge the existence of another human being.
"Uh… hello?"
"Hello," she replied flatly. "I'm here for the job."
"Uh… okay? Wait, you're seriously just here to take the job? Without even wanting an interview first?"
She looked up from her phone briefly.
"Considering I'm the last person here, and everyone else leaving looked frustrated, I'm assuming you've already failed to hire everyone else. Basically, I'm your last option."
"Uh… okay…"
Well.
She was definitely weird.
Honestly, she came off kind of snobbish too.
But annoyingly enough, she wasn't wrong.
At this point, my terrible CHARISMA stat had basically turned hiring employees into a boss battle.
Still, for some reason, I could actually hire her despite all that.
"So?" she asked while casually glancing at her phone again. "Are you hiring me or not?"
As I sat there debating it internally, a quest suddenly appeared in front of me.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
NEW QUEST!
Charlotte wants to work for your business.
Hire her
Reward: 5♥︎ Affection
Don't
Reward: -5♥︎ Affection
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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This looked like one of those quests where the choice mattered more than it seemed.
Honestly though, my first impression of her wasn't exactly amazing.
She seriously looked like the type of employee who would spend an entire shift scrolling through social media while pretending to work whenever customers walked by.
Keeping her around might end up becoming a headache.
But at the same time, immediately rejecting her because of assumptions felt unfair too.
It felt stereotypical.
Like I had already decided what kind of person she was without even giving her a proper chance first.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Charlotte
Affection: 0♥︎
Mood: 40♥︎
Lust: 30♥︎
Status: Stranger
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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"Well, I could just go for it anyway."
At this point, it honestly felt like I had nothing to lose. The whole thing was kind of weird if I really thought about it. She came in here bustling around like she was about to arrest somebody, yet she didn't even ask any actual questions first. No "How much is the pay?" No "What exactly am I doing?" Nothing. She just walked in and got straight to business like she already decided everything in her head beforehand.
I was pretty sure she didn't even know how much she was going to get paid yet. Which, honestly, was either confidence or stupidity. Maybe both. Probably both.
"Well, I guess you're hired," I said.
"Okay~... When do I start?"
"Starting tomorrow, if that's okay with you," I told her.
"Cool."
That was it.
No dramatic reaction. No excited cheering. No suspiciously long contract reading like people did in movies for some reason. Just "cool."
Honestly, she seemed capable enough, I guessed. At the very least, she didn't look like someone who would accidentally burn the entire building down trying to plug in a monitor. That already put her above some people I knew.
Nothing weird was going to happen, right?
Hopefully.
Of course, she wasn't the only person I planned on hiring. If I only hired one employee for the entire place, then I might as well start digging my own grave already.
I still needed at least one more person to help manage the internet cafe itself, plus another two people to handle the behind-the-scenes work since I wanted the place to function as a cafe too. That meant drinks, food, supplies, all that annoying stuff people somehow expected when they heard the word "cafe."
I needed someone who could make decent coffee, and another person who could handle simple food that didn't take forever to prepare. Nothing too fancy. I wasn't trying to open some five-star restaurant where they served microscopic food on giant plates while pretending it was art.
Honestly, I should've been able to find people for those jobs pretty easily.
But well... just like I thought, trying to hire people efficiently with my CHARISMA this low felt almost impossible. I seriously needed to increase it somehow, didn't I?
Right now, I had 45♥︎ available.
Should I actually use them for CHARISMA?
I mean... should I really?
At first, CHARISMA sounded like one of those completely useless stats that only existed to make conversations slightly less awkward. But the more I thought about it, the more I started realizing it probably had way more value than I originally gave it credit for.
Actually, scratch that.
All the stats the system showed me were probably useful in some way. None of them felt pointless anymore. They all clearly affected something behind the scenes, even if I couldn't fully tell what yet.
And if I seriously wanted to enjoy this game called life as much as possible while drowning in money and living however the hell I wanted, then I had to take risks eventually.
So without hesitating any further, I dumped 20♥︎ straight into CHARISMA.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Leon:
STATUS:
STRENGTH: 115
STAMINA: 135
AGILITY: 60
INTELLIGENCE: 130
LOOKS: 75
S-SKILL: 65
CHARISMA: 35
COMMUNICATION: 100
LUCK: 75
REPUTATION: 6
INFAMY: 88
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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My CHARISMA increased, but honestly... was that even enough?
I didn't really feel anything after increasing it.
Then again, I never really felt anything whenever I increased the other stats either.
So maybe that was normal.
Still, would this actually help me at all?
"Um..."
A quiet voice suddenly came from the doorway where I was interviewing people.
I looked over and saw a girl standing there.
She looked like the shy type. Most of her face was hidden behind her messy hair, while the rest of her body was practically swallowed by her oversized hoodie. The hood itself was pulled over her head so much that she almost looked suspicious. Like the kind of person who either desperately avoided social interaction or was secretly trying to shoplift instant noodles from a convenience store.
Maybe both.
"Oh? Are you here to apply for the job?" I asked.
"If you would permit me, then I would like to..." she replied softly.
While I was talking to her, the system suddenly appeared in front of me again.
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⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
Cassie
Affection: 0♥︎
Mood: 70♥︎
Lust: 80♥︎
Status: Stranger
⋆⁺₊⋆ ━━━━⊱༒︎ • ༒︎⊰━━━━ ⋆⁺₊⋆
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I blinked for a second.
Her LUST was insanely high.
Like... suspiciously high.
Actually, forget suspicious. That shit was straight-up concerning.
What the hell was even going on there?
Still, I decided not to think too deeply about it. Sure, it was weird, but it wasn't like I was about to ask her why her horny meter looked like it was fighting for its life.
That would probably get me arrested.
Either way, she seemed willing to work, and apparently she was available for the day shift too.
Oddly enough, after increasing my CHARISMA, I felt a little more confident while talking to her. Maybe it really was doing something after all.
Well, with her included, all the shifts were finally filled.
Now I just needed to organize everyone's schedules.
Since they were probably around the same age as me, there was a good chance most of them were still in college and just trying to support themselves somehow. So after taking into account the work hours and schedules they personally wanted, I figured things would probably work out fine.
At least, hopefully they would.
The only thing left now was finding the crew who could handle preparing the food.