SMASH or PASS

Chapter 63: Chapter Sixty-Three: Vesper

She was short. Petite, really, like someone had designed her to be picked up and thrown around. Dark hair cut sharp at the jaw, She was dressed like she was a high-end brothel slut.

A leather corset, laced so tight it made her waist look tiny and pushed her tits up into two pale, generous handfuls that threatened to spill over the top with every breath. The neckline plunged deep, showing a hint of dark nipple pasties. A silk skirt, slit up to her hip on both sides, showed off most of her long, toned legs, ending in thigh-high boots with spiked heels.

One of her eyes was violet, a deep, unnatural demonic purple that seemed to drink the torchlight. The other was plain human brown.

’Heterochromatic?’

A servant stood behind her.

Behind her stood a maid.

’Damn’, she was almost baked. Tall, stacked, with waves of auburn hair tied back loosely, spilling over her shoulders. She wore a maid uniform that was more suggestion than clothing: a frilly black apron over a white dress that was cut so low her cleavage was basically a greeting, and so short that if she bent over, you’d see everything. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, drowsy, like she was halfway through a pleasant dream of sorts.

’Why does she look like she’s fucking high?’

Whatever...

"That’s my father’s cargo," the short one said, her voice a lazy, condescending purr. She hadn’t said hello. Nor introduced herself. "You’re delivering it to the fucking wrong address."

"The delivery address is on the contract."

"The contract is between my father’s business partner and the guild. My father’s business partner is an idiot who doesn’t understand supply chains. The cargo goes to MY warehouse." She gestured at the alley behind her. "Not his."

’Family dispute?’

Internal merchant politics. I was caught in a business disagreement between a father’s partner and his daughter.

The system fired on her.

[SMASH / PASS]

[Target: Vesper]

[Tier: Rare]

[Species: Demonic/Half-Demonkin]

[Rank: 2nd (Late)]

[SP Cost: 90]

Rare. 90 SP. I had approximately 700 banked. I could afford her easily. But the SP wasn’t the issue.

She flickered. One second she was five feet away. The next, she was right in front of me, close enough that I could smell her perfume something sweet and expensive. Her tits practically brushed my chest.

’Blink? Short-range teleportation?’ I was surprised.

"Hm~?" she hummed, her lips curling. "I moved. You didn’t even flinch. Cold-blooded, are we? Or just stupid?"

Shadow daggers materialized at her belt. Dark energy condensing into solid blades.

"The cargo goes to the address on the contract," I repeated, my voice flat.

"How boring." She rolled her eyes. With a flick of her wrist, a shadow dagger appeared in her hand. She twirled it lazily. "I could just take it. Or..." she smirked, her gaze dipping down briefly, "...I could’ve cut your dick off the moment I arrived and kept it as a masturbation toy. Would’ve been more fun than you are right now."

"You could try."

She looked at Fenra. Fenra was in full combat posture.

Vesper laughed then dismissed the dagger.

"A wolfkin? she’s Second Rank. Cute." She looked back at me. "Fine. Deliver the fucking cargo. But tell my father’s idiot partner that the next shipment goes through ME. Or he’ll find his favorite brothel suddenly... unavailable." She turned to leave.

"Hey."

She stopped. Didn’t turn around.

"What’s with the maid?" I nodded toward the tall woman, who blinked slowly, a faint, drowsy smile on her lips.

Vesper glanced back, a wicked grin spreading.

"She’s mine. I broke her in. She does what I want now." She said it the way someone describes training a dog. "Would you like to fuck one? I have extras. And breeders are always welcome at my mansion."

"No thank you."

"Suit yourself~" she sang, walking off without another look.

The maid trailed behind her, moving with a languid, hypnotic grace, her eyes half-closed, her skirt swaying with each step. She glanced back once at me with a strange smile then kept walking.

◇◇◇

Grellen was standing beside the handcart, forgotten by everyone, shaking.

"Um, is she... is she gone? The woman with the daggers. Can we finish the delivery? I really, really want to finish the delivery, go home, lock the door, and never take on night work again."

I delivered the cargo. Collected the 3 gold. Then walked home.

◇◇◇

Pixia, in her tiny, seven-centimeter form, flitted around the room with a miniature broom made of a twig and some leaves. "Let’s clean up the apartment!"

She said that but with her size I think it would most likely take years... Whatever.

Every so often, she’d pause, press a tiny hand to her lower back, and let out a barely audible, squeaky "Oof...".

I ignored her. My mind was elsewhere, wrapped in a memory of fire and disdain.

Vesper.

Half-demon. Daughter of some rich merchant house.

’That’s not the first time I’ve seen her....’

I don’t know if she was an academy student or not, but I’d seen her once in the alchemy quarter, buying reagents that cost more than my entire semester’s tuition. Hair like spilled ink, unmatched eyes of purple and brown. A face so perfectly, coldly beautiful it looked carved from marble.

And the attitude... fuck. She walked like the ground itself owed her a favor. Talked to even the male guard like he was something she’d scraped off her heel back then...

She was wearing a modest academy outfit back then rather than the slutty outfit I saw today.

She was hot in both. Both were good.

I wanted her.

No. That was too clean. I craved her. I wanted to see that perfect composure crack. I wanted to smear that rich, haughty makeup with tears and sweat. I wanted to bend her over one of her own fucking expensive alchemy tables, hike up that silken academy skirt, and fuck her until she forgot her own name. I wanted to hear those aristocratic lips, shaped for cutting insults, beg for my cock. I wanted to fill her demonic womb with my commoner seed and watch the horror and pleasure war on her face.

The bloodlust wasn’t violent. It was carnal. A deep, possessive hunger that sat in my gut like a hot stone.

’This is bad...’

I’m not usually like this. I don’t really lust after women like this.

Maybe because she was a demon? I don’t know...

No. Ever since I woke up today I felt something different in me. Like I was slowly changing in a certain fashion...

My eyes flicked to Pixia, who was now trying to lift one of Fenra shirts that was ten times her size. "Pixia."

She dropped the shirt with a tiny "Eep!" and zipped over, hovering in front of my face. "What, Noel? I was just checking this for... scientific matters! yes!" Her tiny voice was a little hoarse, and she rubbed her lower back again.

"Why were you scanning my spiritual alignment while I was sleeping last night?" I DID NOT forget what she said earlier today.

She froze. Her minuscule wings stopped humming for a full second. The playful glint in her eyes hardened into something sharper, older. "I... was monitoring your stability, Noel. The encounters with the human women, the pheromonal imbalances... it creates flux in your soul-nexus. I care for your wellbeing." Her words were precise, rehearsed.

Bullshit.

"Right. Well, thanks, I guess. Don’t worry about me. I’m built sturdy."

She gave me a long look, her tiny face unreadable. "Of course, Noel." She zipped away, resuming her hopeless cleaning with renewed, almost frantic vigor.

She’s hiding something.

This wasn’t news to me in any fashion but...

There was absolutely nothing I could do about it. She was a being of higher order, acted on motives I barely understood.

Pushing would get me nowhere. So I let it go. The hunger for Vesper was a more immediate, more pleasurable problem to chew on. I leaned back on my ruined pillows.

What the fuck is really happening to me?... Whatever.

She was only 90 SP. I can afford her. I just needed a chance to get her.

’It’s around time for dinner...’

◇◇◇

I was halfway through a bread roll when the prompt fired.

Blue text filled the center of my vision in a color I’d never seen the system use before.

[ACHIEVEMENT: GETTING CLOSER TO THE OLD SELF]

[NEW FEATURE UNLOCKED: STAT ALLOCATION]

[1 SP = 1 STAT POINT. CONVERSION IS PERMANENT.]

"The fuck is this?"

I focused on the prompt and a screen opened. Six bars with six numbers, and every single one of them was my body translated into data.

[INT: 180]

[STR: 60]

[END: 90]

[DUR: 70]

[AGI: 110]

[MANA: 40]

[SP AVAILABLE: 694]

[Note: The average adult human has the maximum of a 50 in all stats]

MANA at 40. I stared at that number for a long time because I already knew what it meant. Bottom of First Rank. Measured twice by guild staff who looked at me like I was defective. And here it was, sitting in blue text, confirming what every professor and academy student already suspected about me.

INT at 180 was the only thing above average, many years of a previous life crammed into one bar that the system scored higher than everything else combined.

STR at 60 meant I was barely above average. DUR at 70 meant one clean hit from anything serious would finish me. AGI at 110 was the only physical stat worth a shit, and that was just because I walked everywhere and Fenra made me keep up.

And I had 694 points to spend on any of them. Every point I put into MANA was a point that didn’t buy me a woman. Every point I put into STR was a point that didn’t go into the stat that actually kept me alive. Every SMASH I’d been saving for was now competing against the difference between "one hit kills me" and "maybe I survive two."

Pixia kicked her legs on my collar. "Did the shiny thing do something? I can tell because your face went stupid."

"It gave me stats... well, it explained it as numbers to measure my powers. I can raise them by paying SP points."

She tilted her head. "It can do that?"

"Apperantly so."

I sighed. "I have 694 points and six stats that are all shit."

"So spend them."

"On what? If I dump everything into MANA the needle actually works but I’m still made of paper. If I spread it out I’m mediocre at everything. And every point I burn here is a Rare-tier card I can’t afford later."

"Welcome to resource management." She dimmed to gold. "The thing gave you a new toy and the toy costs exactly what you were already spending. You just didn’t know you had two stores until now."

I put the bread roll down and stared at six bars and 694 points and the worst shopping decision of two lifetimes.

Okay. MANA first. Obviously. MANA is at 40 and that’s why every professor looks at me like I’m broken. 200 into MANA.

MANA: 40 → 240. SP left: 494.

I can feel it. A pressure in my chest that wasn’t there before. Like my lungs got bigger.

What next. END is at 90 and that’s shit. I get tired walking up stairs with Fenra. 150 into END.

END: 90 → 240. SP left: 344.

AGI. AGI is the reason I’m not dead yet because I dodge instead of tank. 100 into AGI.

AGI: 110 → 210. SP left: 244.

I stopped there.

STR is at 60. Do I need STR? I don’t punch things. I shoot needles. Skip.

DUR is at 70. Do I need DUR? If something hits me I’m fucked anyway. Seventy or a hundred and seventy, a Third Rank kills me either way. Skip.

INT is at 180. It’s already my highest stat and I didn’t spend a single point on it. That’s just the old brain doing work. Leave it.

So: 244 left in the bank. That’s enough for one Rare-tier SMASH if someone walks past me tomorrow. Not enough for two. And every point I just burned is a woman I can’t buy.

The screen updated.

[LEVEL UP]

[LEVEL 1 → LEVEL 2]

"Did your rank just go up?" Pixia tilted her head at me.

"I guess."

"How does it feel?"

I opened and closed my hand. Same hand. Same fingers. But the thing behind the fingers is running different. My chest is wider on the inside. My legs want to move. I feel like I slept twelve hours after only sleeping six.

"It feels like I wasted three months at 40 MANA when I could’ve been at 240 the whole time."

"The thing unlocks features when it wants to. Not when you want it to." She kicked her legs. "Be mad at the thing, not at me."

Fenra sniffed my arm, held it a second, then sneezed and put her head back down.

The new numbers smelled fine, apparently.

Now, back into hunting Vesper...

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