CHAPTER 78: IT WORKS?!

For someone coming from the modern world of earth, the concept of soul was strictly a religious matter.

Whether one believed in its existence or not was everyone’s personal matter, often decided by which religion they picked - and even more commonly, by which religion they were born into.

While somewhat religious myself, I did my absolute best to avoid the topic of it while in this world.

After all, what religion would ever claim for its God to reign supreme over worlds where common sense didn’t apply?

Still, putting the topic of religion aside, what I felt right now?

Was it a soul?

I couldn’t really tell. I simply found that word to be the most fitting. It could also be the very core of Selia’s essence, her thoughts, her personality and even an echo of her body, all reflected in this weird, supposed nothingness of my dream-realm.

"Can I claim to actually know anything, given how this realm of supposed nothingness now turned into the best augmented reality I’ve ever witnessed?"

My eyebrow moved up.

This place?

The super advanced uber-duper virtual reality of earth had nothing on it!

But was it even a virtual reality, when it appeared to be a reflection of a waking world imprinted upon a realm of dreams?

"I really know nothing, do I?" I muttered under my nose, the plight of those words somehow allowing me to detach myself from the sight before my eyes... and the feeling all over my head.

Which was quite the achievement, given just how nice it felt to have my head so lovingly cradled at Selia’s bosom, while having my ears covered and the entire upper area of my body massaged.

Still, as great as it felt to have some peace and quiet to self-reflect a bit without worry of Saintess’ ever-present stare latching onto every tiniest shift of my facial expression - once again, this wasn’t what I was in this realm for.

And before the sight before my eyes could seduce my thoughts once more, I tried my absolute best to focus.

’First, let’s figure out what I need as a reward.’

With the framework of how my corpse of a system worked, I at least had some guide to follow when trying to establish quests.

First, find a way to have the system accept the reward I sought.

Then, bargain more and more until it would be willing to accept the price of said reward.

Finally, watch how it becomes a part of my system, only waiting for me to have fun fulfilling the quest only to end up with another, overpowered ability.

I took in a deep breath, closing my eyes and clearing my mind from all the distractions. And by the time I opened up my eyes again, the foresight into the waking world had vanished, bringing me back to the familiar darkness of just the empty nothingness.

"There we go," I muttered as I breathed out.

This breathing technique continued to prove its mettle over and over again. And with my mind now cleared, I could finally put the excitement of Selia’s ever-growing intimacy behind me and focus on the task at hand.

Once again, I closed my eyes. Then, I opened them up again while raising my hand, just in time to see my fingers leave behind a trail of light that cut out from the dark nothingness of the space.

First, I drew a huge rectangle, giving myself all the room to write that I could ever need.

Then, after taking a moment to think over the best possible way to phrase the reward I sought, I started to write.

"Quest:..." for the time being, I left this part blank.

It’s been a long while since I’ve realized that starting with the quest made it pretty damn hard to get the best deal out of it. If the ask was too little for the reward I wanted, I would have to decrease the potency of the reward. But if this corpse of a system valued the ask much higher than it did the reward... then I would be on the losing end.

No, it was only by reversing the order in which I wrote those quests that I could get the best possible deal. And even just being in the position I was in, with the ability to orchestrate my own quests and their rewards, was much better than what a normal system could offer...

It was greedy, to ask for even more than I already had.

But who would be there to tell me it was bad to be greedy? On the other hand, I could imagine the looks I would get if I ever told people I had the opportunity to easily get more out of my circumstances and simply decided not to... because I would feel bad about doing so?

"Hah..." I shook my head as a single chuckle escaped from my mouth. "How did that quote go?" I thought, going back with my thoughts to that one, over-the-top movie based on a relatively popular, historical topic. "Give them nothing and take from them everything?"

With one more shake of my head to rid my mind of the needless thoughts, I focused right back on the task at hand. And before long, I’ve managed to phrase the reward for the unspecified quest in a way nice enough for the system to allow it.

"Quest: ... Reward: Host can now enforce a singular evolutionary path for the stuff he sows himself or the seeds born out of the stuff he sown. The selected evolutionary path enforces the use of mana to support the plant’s natural growth while counteracting any forms of possible deviations."

After finishing up the part, I took a step back and waited.

The system didn’t wipe out the reward right away... but that didn’t really mean much. Which is why I took my time and waited, only resting easy once enough time had passed for me to confirm this reward wasn’t too much.

"Now, for the hard part," I muttered as I raised my hand once again... And froze.

What was I supposed to offer in exchange?

’Let’s start with stuff that wasn’t done through a quest, but that we did already.’

I closed my eyes and ran through every memory I made with Selia.

How she accompanied me. How she made me rest my head on her lap. How she kissed me, only to receive a kiss on the forehead from me later, how I touched her shoulder, how she exposed nearly all of her skin...

"Let’s not go overboard," I lectured myself as I raised my finger.

And before long...

"Quest: Hold Saintess’ Hand."

I pulled back and waited. And yet, despite the massive meme culture built around the act of holding hands... my skeleton of a system didn’t appear to subscribe to it, given how the light of this text started to quickly vanish, leaving behind just its very first part.

"Not good enough, huh?"

While hardly a surprise, I still couldn’t help but feel a little salty about it.

’Asking for it to work would be a bit too much, wouldn’t it?’

I breathed out a small sigh and shook my head before getting right back to work.

"Quest: Hold Saintess’ hand and pull her into a hug."

Once again, a moment of wait and then a wave of slight disappointment when I saw the light of my words vanish.

This time, however, the text persisted for just a little longer.

’Hmm?’

I raised my eyebrow before breathing out and trying again.

"Quest: Hold Saintess’ hand and pull her into a tight hug."

Failure.

I gritted my teeth.

"Quest: Hold Saintess’ hand, pull her into a tight hug and run a hand down her back."

This time, the light persisted... only to fade away right when I thought I’d finally nailed it.

’It’s not only about getting the quest to work. It’s also about checking whether I can do the stuff that happened without the system’s intervention...’

I raised my hand again.

"Quest: Hold Saintess’ hand, pull her into a tight hug and then kiss her forehead."

If this would work... it would be perfect.

Every single part of the ask was something that already happened before without the help of the system.

The light remained... but for yet another time, it then flickered into nothingness, as if to spite all my efforts to game the system.

"It’s still not enough, huh?" I muttered to myself.

Then, I squinted my eyes as I realized a certain mistake I’d been unknowingly making.

"Thinking about it, when did I actually hug her?" I asked myself, rolling my eyes before breathing out a disappointed sigh over my own inability to do something as simple as properly follow my own directions.

Then, slightly agitated by the constant failures, I tried again.

"Quest: Remain on Saintess’ lap even after waking up, grab and hold her hand and then pull her down for the sake of planting a kiss upon her forehead."

The light shone up... And this time, rather than just vanishing as it happened several times before, it flickered with a slightly more intense light for a moment before settling into the frame only for the whole thing to dim down a tiny little bit, as if to imply I could no longer interact with it.

"It worked?" I muttered, half relieved and half surprised.

The lap-pillow, holding her hand and even the kiss on the forehead - I’d done it all already, without my system prompting me to do so. And yet, here it was, a fully-fledged quest that would reward me with something I’d desperately needed.

"So it works..." I repeated after myself, feeling all the anxiety wash away from my mind as I finally managed to breathe out a sigh of relief.

But while I’d already achieved two of my goals, I was nowhere near done with this place.

Not yet.

And especially not when I could feel Selia’s anticipation over just what I would make her do once I woke up.

"It’s quite the convenient way for us to get closer while using the system as a pretext, isn’t it?" I jokingly commented before shaking my head... and, prompted by just my gut feeling, raised my hand to write the next few words.

"Quest: Give Saintess a proper, lengthy and deep kiss. Reward: Status window."