Eric forced himself to his feet, every muscle protesting the movement. His legs shook. His arms felt like lead. The adrenaline that had carried him through the fight was draining away, leaving nothing but exhaustion and disbelief.
The woman still pressed against the wall, trembling violently. Her golden-brown eyes darted between Eric and the unconscious brute, wide with shock and residual terror. She clutched the torn remains of her shirt, trying desperately to maintain some modesty.
"Come on," Eric said, his voice hoarse. He reached out a hand. "We need to go. Now. Before he wakes up or his friends show up."
The woman stared at his hand like she didn't quite understand what it was. Then, slowly, she reached out and took it.
Her hand was ice cold despite the mild evening air. She trembled as Eric pulled her to her feet, stumbling slightly before finding her balance.
"Can you walk?" Eric asked.
She nodded mutely.
"Good. Let's get out of here."
They moved quickly through the alley, Eric supporting the woman when her legs threatened to give out. Behind them, the brute remained motionless, a dark shape against darker pavement.
'Please don't wake up,' Eric thought desperately. 'Please just stay unconscious until we're far away.'
They emerged from the alley onto the main street where the Paradise Inn blazed with neon. The contrast was jarring, going from dark violence to bright crowds in seconds. People milled around, laughing, talking, living their Sunday evening with no idea what had just happened twenty feet away.
Eric guided the woman through the crowd, keeping his head down, trying to look casual despite his racing heart and shaking hands. The woman kept her face turned away, one arm wrapped around herself protectively.
They made it two blocks before Eric spotted a cab dropping off passengers. He flagged it down before anyone else could claim it.
"Get in," Eric told the woman gently.
She looked at him, seeming to really see him for the first time. "You saved me," she whispered.
"Just get home safe," Eric said. "Go somewhere with people. Lock your doors. And maybe consider a different line of work."
She nodded, tears starting to stream down her face. "Thank you. Thank you so much. I thought he was going to—"
"Don't," Eric interrupted. He didn't want to hear what could have happened. "Just go. Please."
The woman climbed into the cab, still clutching her torn shirt. She gave Eric one last look through the window, something between gratitude and awe, before the cab pulled away into traffic.
Eric stood on the sidewalk, watching it disappear, his mind still racing.
'What the hell did I just do?' he thought. 'What the actual hell?'
His hands were shaking. Now that the immediate danger was past, the reality of what had happened was crashing down on him. He'd just fought a member of Obsidian Fang. Had beaten him. Had left him unconscious in an alley.
'He's going to wake up,' Eric realized with growing horror. 'And when he does, he's going to tell his gang that someone beat him. And they're going to come looking.'
Panic clawed at his throat. Obsidian Fang didn't forgive. They didn't forget. Cross them and you ended up in a hospital if you were lucky. In the river if you weren't.
'I need to move,' Eric thought. 'Get out of this area. Get home. Stay away from here for a long time.'
He started walking, quickly but not running, trying not to draw attention. His body protested every step, muscles screaming, exhaustion dragging at him like a physical weight.
But his mind wouldn't shut up.
'I shouldn't have won,' Eric thought, replaying the fight over and over. 'That guy was bigger, stronger, more experienced. He should have destroyed me in seconds.'
But he hadn't. Because Eric had been faster. Had seen every punch coming. Had moved with precision his untrained body shouldn't have possessed.
'The stats,' Eric realized. 'It's the stat increases. I've been treating them like numbers in a game, but they're real. Actually, physically real. They changed my body, my reflexes, my speed.'
His strength was at nine now. His stamina at nine. Both had increased from the morning's quest and the mystery box reward.
'Nine out of what?' Eric wondered. 'Ten? A hundred? What's the upper limit? What can I become if I keep increasing them?'
The possibilities were staggering and terrifying in equal measure.
But one thing was clear: he couldn't treat the system as mundane anymore. Couldn't dismiss it as some weird hallucination or trick of his mind. It was real, it was powerful, and it was changing him in fundamental ways.
'I need to take this seriously,' Eric decided. 'Really seriously. Not just the quests but everything. Understanding what this system wants, what it's building me into.'
His apartment building came into view, and Eric felt a rush of relief. Home. Safety. Walls between him and the chaos outside.
He climbed the stairs on autopilot, unlocked his door, and collapsed inside.
'I made an enemy tonight,' he thought grimly. 'A serious enemy. I'm going to have to avoid that entire area for the foreseeable future. Maybe forever.'
The thought was unsettling but necessary. He'd saved someone tonight, done the right thing, but the price might be higher than he'd anticipated.
Eric forced himself to move to the kitchen. His body demanded food, fuel to recover from everything he'd put it through today. He put water on to boil, dumped ramen into a pot, and ate mechanically while staring at nothing.
His phone buzzed.
Eric picked it up, expecting maybe another message from a potential client or Isabelle following up again.
Instead, he had two messages.
The first was from the client who'd inquired that morning. A time and location for tomorrow evening. Eric noted it absently, his professional brain cataloguing the details.
The second message made him freeze.
Sarah: "I like you... Eric"
Eric stared at the screen, rereading the message three times to make sure he wasn't hallucinating from exhaustion.
'What the fuck,' he thought. 'What the actual fuck.'
Just like that. No preamble, no explanation. Just a confession dropped like a bomb into his text messages.
"Can this day get any crazier?" Eric muttered. "Seriously, what the hell is happening? I fight a gang member, nearly die, and now Sarah's confessing feelings? What's next, the sky opens up and God tells me I'm chosen?"
His phone buzzed again. Another message from Sarah.
Sarah: "I'm sorry. That was weird. Please ignore that. I'm deleting it."
Sarah: "Okay I can't delete it. But pretend I did."
Sarah: "Eric please say something"
Sarah: "I'm an idiot. Forget I said anything."
Eric ran both hands through his copper-orange hair, groaning. 'I should have replied to her earlier messages. This is what happens when you ignore someone for a day. They spiral and send confession texts.'
But he'd been avoiding her deliberately. Had decided that was the smart move, the safe move.
'So much for that plan,' Eric thought bitterly.
His phone started ringing. Sarah calling.
Eric stared at it for several seconds, torn between answering and throwing the phone across the room.
'You can't keep avoiding her,' he told himself. 'That's just making it worse. And after everything that happened today, what's one more impossible conversation?'
He answered.
"Hello?"
Crying. Immediate, unmistakable crying on the other end.
Eric's heart clenched. He'd heard women cry before, plenty of times. Professional tears, manipulative tears, genuine tears. But hearing Sarah cry was different. Wrong. Like the universe had tilted sideways.
"Sarah—" he started.
"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't have sent that. I don't know what I was thinking. You probably think I'm pathetic now and I just ruined everything—"
"Sarah, stop," Eric interrupted. "Stop crying. Please."
"I can't help it! I've been holding it in all day and then I just sent that stupid message and you didn't respond and I thought you hated me and—"
"I don't hate you," Eric said firmly. "I could never hate you."
The crying quieted slightly. "Really?"
"Really." Eric closed his eyes, exhaustion and emotion warring inside him. "Look, I'm sorry I didn't respond earlier. I've been... dealing with a lot today. But I should have said something."
"It's okay," Sarah said, but her voice was still thick with tears. "You don't owe me anything. I shouldn't have put that on you."
'This is where I should let her down gently,' Eric thought. 'Tell her I value our friendship but don't feel the same way. Keep it simple, clean, final.'
But the words wouldn't come. Because they'd be lies.
He'd enjoyed yesterday. The amusement park, the movie, seeing Sarah happy and relaxed instead of judgmental and sharp. The kiss had been unexpected but not unwelcome, despite his attempts to rationalize it away.
And the system had identified her as his first partner. Had given him a quest specifically about her. That meant something, even if Eric didn't fully understand what.
'Plus,' a traitorous part of his brain added, 'she's Rafe's sister. This is complicated no matter what you do. Might as well be honest.'
"I have an appointment tomorrow," Eric said, the words coming out before he could stop them. "With a client. In the evening."
Silence on the other end.
"But after," Eric continued, "after I'm done, let's have dinner. Just the two of us. And we can talk about... everything."
More silence. Then, in a very small voice: "Really?"
"Really."
"Like a date?" Sarah's voice had shifted, the tears stopping, replaced by something cautiously hopeful.
"Let's call it dinner and see where it goes from there," Eric hedged.
"Okay." Sarah's voice was brighter now, almost giddy. "Okay, yes. Dinner. After your appointment. I can do that."
"Good. I'll text you when I'm done tomorrow."
"Okay. And Eric?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you. For answering. For not just ignoring me."
"I wouldn't do that to you," Eric said, meaning it.
They said goodnight and Eric hung up, immediately wondering what fresh hell he'd just committed himself to.
'You just agreed to a date with Sarah Sterling,' he thought. 'Rafe's sister. Your friend. Someone who knows exactly what you do for a living and judges you for it. What are you thinking?'
He wasn't thinking. That was the problem. He was reacting, making decisions based on emotions he usually kept locked down, letting the chaos of the day override his better judgment.
'The system did this,' Eric realized. 'That first quest, making me spend time with her, forcing a connection. It's manipulating me into relationships I wouldn't normally pursue.'
The thought should have made him angry. Instead, he just felt tired.
Eric finished his ramen, cleaned up mechanically, and collapsed into bed. His body was done, completely spent from the running, the fighting, the emotional roller coaster.
Sleep took him almost instantly.
He woke to his phone alarm at 5:45 AM, his body protesting every movement. Soreness had settled in deep overnight, muscles he didn't know he had making themselves known.
Eric groaned, rolled out of bed, and checked his phone.
The system notification appeared without prompting.
‐‐‐
[New Quest Available]
Quest: Physical Foundation II
Objective: Walk, jog, or run a total of 5 kilometers
Rewards:
+10 DP
+30 EXP
+1 strength
+1 stamina
Failure Penalty:
Loss of Debauchery System
Time Limit: 24 hours
Accept Quest?
[Yes] [No]
‐‐‐
'Same quest as yesterday,' Eric noted. 'But with the same rewards. More stat points.'
His body did not want to run. Every muscle screamed at the very idea. But the penalty for failure remained catastrophic, and the rewards were too good to pass up.
'If I keep doing these physical quests, I'll keep getting stronger,' Eric reasoned. 'Which means better chances of surviving if I run into more trouble.'
The memory of the Obsidian Fang brute flashed through his mind, making his decision easy.
Eric accepted the quest, changed into his running clothes, and headed out into the early morning.
The run was harder than yesterday. His body was still recovering, muscles stiff and sore. But he pushed through, maintaining a steady pace, focusing on the distance tracker in his vision as it climbed.
1 kilometer. 2 kilometers. 3 kilometers.
No sign of Zara this morning. Eric felt a pang of disappointment but pushed it aside. She probably didn't run every day, or maybe she'd changed her route.
4 kilometers. 5 kilometers.
‐‐‐
[Quest Complete: Physical Foundation II]
Progress: 5/5 km
Objective: Complete ✓
Rewards Earned:
+10 DP
+30 EXP
+1 strength
+1 stamina
‐‐‐
The stat increases hit immediately, that now-familiar sensation of power flooding through tired muscles. The soreness didn't disappear but became manageable, pushed to the background by enhanced capability.
Eric checked his stats mentally.
‐‐‐
[Status]
strength: 10
intelligence: 10
charm: 8
stamina: 10
‐‐‐
'All my stats except charm are at ten now,' Eric realized. 'Whatever that means in terms of human capability.'
He felt different. Stronger, more capable, like his body had been upgraded twice in two days. The exhaustion from the run faded quickly, replaced by steady energy.
Eric jogged back to his apartment, showered, and dressed carefully. He had a client appointment this evening, which meant looking his best. Dark jeans, a fitted shirt that showed off his now even more impressive physique, cologne that cost too much but always worked.
Professional Eric. The version of himself that clients paid for.
He checked the address the client had sent. An apartment building in the nice part of town, not quite Riverside Heights but close. Respectable, clean, the kind of place where his presence wouldn't raise too many eyebrows.
The appointment was set for 6 PM. Eric had the whole day to kill, but his mind was already focused on what came after.
Dinner with Sarah. A conversation that would determine a lot about his immediate future.
'One thing at a time,' Eric told himself. 'Client first. Then deal with Sarah.'
He grabbed his keys, his phone, and headed out.
The drive to the client's location took twenty minutes through Monday afternoon traffic. Eric pulled up to a modern apartment complex, all clean lines and professional landscaping. The kind of place that charged premium rent for premium amenities.
He checked his reflection in the car mirror. Copper-orange hair artfully messy, crystalline blue eyes sharp and alert, everything in place.
'Showtime,' Eric thought, and headed for the building entrance.
The lobby was tastefully decorated, with a doorman who barely glanced at him. Eric took the elevator to the fourth floor, found the right door, and knocked.
Time to work.