Common Sense Altering System

Ray didn’t move.

His hands stayed in the dirt. His back stayed under her. For a second the woods were just bugs and his own breathing.

"...Karl," he said again, smaller.

"Yes."

Ray’s mouth twisted. He wasn’t loud. He was sulking, and it made him look worse.

"That’s nasty." He stared at the ground like it had insulted him. "You’re telling me I went in after my own boy."

Milady shifted on his back, still holding his hair. "That’s what I said."

"Sonya." Ray let out a short, ugly breath. "I been looking at her like she was... I don’t know. Warm. Clean. Like she was different." His jaw flexed. "And her pussy’s already leftover from Karl. That’s humiliating as hell."

Milady tugged his hair a little. "Don’t get cute."

"I ain’t being cute." He swallowed. Still on all fours. Still pissed in that quiet, jealous way. "That’s my friend. He sat next to me. Ate with me. And he already had her. Then I come along looking stupid, falling for her, thinking that thing was mine."

He laughed once, no humor in it.

"Feels cheap. Like I borrowed it."

Milady leaned down near his ear. "You wanted the truth. That’s the truth."

"Yeah." Ray’s fingers dug into the dirt. "I wanted it. Now I got it. And I feel like an idiot."

He didn’t get up.

He just stayed there under her, cheeks hot, voice low and bitter.

"Karl. Of all people. Sonya’s pussy being my best friend’s sloppy seconds. That’s a disgusting thought to sit with."

Milady let go of his hair and stood up. The weight left Ray’s back all at once.

"Get up," she said. "Do your daily mission first."

Ray stayed on his hands and knees a second longer, still sulking about Sonya, then pushed himself up and wiped dirt off his palms.

"Fine."

He opened the system. The panel lit in front of him. Milady couldn’t see it. She just watched his face.

"Pick Easy."

Ray frowned. "Easy? That only gives me ten points. It don’t even go up. I’m gonna sit on that number forever."

Milady stared at him like he’d grown another head.

"You’re so stupid. We’re in the woods. You pick Medium out here, you’re going to suffer."

Ray opened his mouth. Closed it. Looked at the trees. Then at the panel again.

"...Yeah. Okay. That’s fair."

The mission was simple. Ugly simple.

Change the way people queue.

Ray exhaled, still bitter, and opened Global Alter. The input field sat there waiting.

He typed it out.

[The proper way to queue is to stand with your back facing the place you are lining up for.]

He hovered over it for a second, thumb dirty, mouth twisted.

"There," he muttered. "Done."

They started walking again.

Ten minutes in, the panel popped in front of Ray’s face.

Mission Complete.

+10 EXP

+10 Alter Points

Ray stared at it while his feet kept moving.

"You serious." He sucked his teeth. "I spend ten, I get ten back. That’s not profit. That’s just me washing my own money."

Milady didn’t look back. "Walk."

They kept going. The trees got tighter. The light died off the path.

Ray finally said it.

"We seriously just gonna keep walking? It’s dark."

"Relax," Milady said, still ahead of him. "There’s a cabin in the middle of the woods. Don’t get dramatic. We rest there. Tomorrow too."

"That’s it? That’s the whole plan."

"Yes. Shut up and move."

The air turned cold. Milady’s clothes were still damp. Ray could see it from behind — the wet patch, her shoulders tightening, a shake she tried to hide. She didn’t stop. Didn’t ask for his jacket. Just kept putting one foot in front of the other like freezing was a personality trait.

Ray watched her back and didn’t say the soft thing sitting in his mouth.

Hours later the cabin showed up between the trees. Dark wood. Quiet. Hers.

Inside, they dropped.

Ray changed first. Milady pulled spare clothes from a drawer like she’d always planned to come back here filthy. No thank you. No smile. She just changed and tossed the wet stuff aside.

Ray sat down hard on the nearest chair, legs gone.

He looked at her while she tied her hair back.

Why don’t I ever see her do a mission? Maybe she already finished it before she found me?

He didn’t keep it in his head.

"How come you never look like you do daily missions."

Milady laughed. Short. Mean.

"Because I don’t have to, idiot. Level fifty. Daily missions fell off. I pick what I want now. Whenever I want. Any tier."

Ray leaned back in the chair and stared at the ceiling.

Level fifty.

He was sixteen. Climbing toward seventeen.

"Damn," he muttered. "That’s disgusting."

Milady glanced at him, already walking past.

"Jealousy doesn’t make you stronger. Sleep. You look pathetic."

----

The cabin lights stayed normal. Generator humming in the back like nothing outside existed.

Outside did exist. The woods were pitch black and loud with the wrong kind of quiet — branches, something moving, a cry that might’ve been an animal and might not. Ray sat on the edge of the bed in the extra room and stared at the floor.

He couldn’t sleep.

Milady was already out in her own room. Door shut. No conversation. No extra softness. Just gone.

Ray dragged both hands down his face.

This life had flipped too hard, too fast, and it was starting to make him sick.

He’d finally pulled real money from streaming. Then he got doxxed. City screaming his name. People hunting his location like it was content.

He’d finally gotten a girl he actually liked. Sonya. Warm. Thick. Motherly in that way that made his brain go stupid. Then it turned out she liked abortion, and her pussy wasn’t even new. Karl had been in it first.

The thought sat in his stomach like spoiled food.

Had she been pregnant with Karl’s kid.

Had she scraped that out too.

Ray leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and felt the thing he had for Sonya collapse. Not clean. Not tragic. Just ugly. Disgust first. Then irritation on top of it. He’d been walking around half in love with a woman his best friend had already used.

He felt like a cuck.

That was the word and he hated it, but it fit.

And Karl. That part made him hotter than the rest.

Karl used to be the cringe one. The funny one. The guy who said dumb shit and laughed too loud and sat next to him like a brother. Ray could still see that version of him. Then that same Karl went and fucked Sonya first and let Ray walk in after like an idiot.

Why would he let that happen.

Why wouldn’t he say something.

Ray stared at the closed door down the hall and listened to the generator and the woods and his own pulse.

Big money. Doxxed. A girl. Already ruined. A best friend who got there first.

He lay back on the bed and didn’t close his eyes.

Sleep wasn’t coming. Not in a cabin in the middle of the woods. Not with Sonya’s name sitting in his head like something he wanted to spit out.

Ray stared at the ceiling and then actually said it out loud, low, like the cabin might answer him.

"For real?" His mouth twisted. "This is all your life is? Being a loser again?"

He sat up halfway.

"Fuck."

The generator kept humming. The woods kept making that ugly noise outside the window. Milady was still asleep down the hall.

Ray dragged a hand through his hair and let the next thought hit.

Karl didn’t just get Sonya first.

Karl had a Business System now.

Ray let out a short, bitter breath and talked to the empty room again.

"Of course he does. I get hunted. I get the leftovers. He gets the girl and a system that prints money."

He dropped back onto the mattress and stared at the dark wood above him.

Ray went quiet after that.

The anger was still there, but it had nowhere left to stand. Money gone dirty. Name burned. Sonya ruined in his head. Karl already ahead with her body and a Business System. City looking for him. Sleeping in somebody else’s cabin in the woods.

He let out a long breath and talked to the ceiling one last time.

"Yeah." His voice was flat now. Almost calm. "I got nothing to lose."

Saying it out loud made it real. No girl to impress. No reputation to protect. No clean version of himself waiting at home. Just a level sixteen idiot in a borrowed bed.

The generator hummed. The woods kept making noise. His eyes got heavy anyway.

"Nothing to lose," he muttered again, smaller.

Then the thought stopped fighting him. His mouth went slack. The cabin lights stayed on behind his eyelids, and Ray finally passed out with that sentence still sitting in his chest.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!