[Nightmare]
Chapter 29 [**(?) An Unwelcome Cliche]

[A/N: ** Means no sex, but sexually driven.]

Shock overwhelmed the room.

"Wait… you leveled up?" Marie asked with bewilderment.

"No way…." Charlotte replied.

"I… don't know what that means…." Emelia said in concerned confusion.

"It means he got stronger as a result of this." Riley explained.

"I knew it!" Charlotte exclaimed while doing a fist pump.

"I knew my kiss would make him stronger than yours!

So much so that he leveled up!"

Marie panicked.

"That's not true… I held back!" Marie stuttered.

"Ex~cuses. Ex~cu~see~ahss." Charlotte replied while flicking her hair pompously.

"I'm being serious!" Marie snapped.

"I'm glad you held back, Marie." Helix announced with a chuckle.

The girls looked at Helix with confusion.

"Wait, what?" Marie asked in surprise.

Charlotte shifted her gaze back and forth between Marie and Helix in panic.

"I'm not sure if I leveled up because of Marie's kiss because I also leveled up by defeating Phillip." He explained.

"I don't know how many stats I got either."

Charlotte's enthusiasm faded.

"Oh…. I get it. This is that cliche where the strongest character would make another person explode if they transfer their energy." She said with a wry smile.

Helix chuckled and gave Charlotte a defeated smile.

"Not exactly…." He replied tactfully.

"There's no reason to console me." She chuckled.

Helix shook his head.

"As an AoE mage, Marie's Nightmare [Shatter] needs a high capacity for spirit particles to shake the ground over a large space." Helix reasoned.

"She also chose the Staff of Justice, which boosted her spirit particle capacity by 50%.

I'd estimate her SP is over 2000 right now." He guessed with a mysterious smile.

"How…." Marie asked with wide eyes.

The other women looked at her with shock.

"My apologies. I know we all agreed from the beginning not to share our stats.

However, I didn't want this to change our relationship." Helix said.

Marie shook her head.

"I trust everyone here, so I'm not worried about that.

I'm just surprised you could guess that." She explained.

"Woah. You must read… a lot." Charlotte commented.

"I feel like you know… everything sometimes."

Helix laughed.

"I've read about all of the topics the Knights need to know.

It's how I compensate for your protection." He said with a warm smile.

"Anyway, after what I just experienced, I can tell you that it wouldn't have been pretty if Marie didn't hold back.

It has nothing to do with her strength. Her SP is just that strong.

The only thing this tells us is that you're both broken cheat characters that can cause death with your breath." Helix chuckled.

"If I didn't level up before her transfusion, I'd be just as toast as I'd be if she hadn't saved my life."

Helix looked at both of the women with a warm gaze.

Marie was about to feel anxiety about nearly killing him, but Charlotte's excitement snapped her back to reality.

"Go us! We're so strong that a person's body needs to desperately expand the size of its SP reserve to survive!" Charlotte exclaimed.

All of the women allowed themselves to fall victim to her contagious excitement.

"Why did your stats increase, though?" Riley asked.

Helix gave her a gentle smile.

"While one's spirit particle reserve doesn't affect one's stats, you need SP to use your stats

All passive stats are the work of spirit particles affecting the world, not our real bodies.

Strength lightens the gravity of an object if you pick it up, for example, and accelerates things you punch." Helix explained.

"Long story short, you need SP to grow.

So I think this is my body's way of unlocking my natural stats." He explained with a slight smile.

"Unlocking…. Are you saying that your Nightmare restricted your stats?" Marie asked with a pondering expression.

Helix gave Marie a wry smile.

He didn't mean to disclose information about his situation and was slightly bitter that Marie was present when it happened.

Helix sighed.

"I'm impressed you harvested information from such a simple statement." He chuckled in bitter amazement.

Marie looked at him in panic, trying to figure out if she had done something wrong.

The other two women were trying to figure out what had happened.

"Considering that you helped me level up, and you're my most trusted companions, I'll let you in on something classified." Helix announced with a gentle smile.

All of them gave Helix their undivided attention with maxed-out mental focus.

"When I first unlocked my system…."

—

Helix touched his blood-red sun tattoo.

[Skills]

[Stats]

[Myriad Library]

"Let's get this over with." Helix sighed.

After a moment's hesitation, he pressed the stats window.

[Name: Helix Hellsworth Margrave]

[Age: 18]

[Level: 0]

[Defense: 0]

[Strength: 0]

[Stamina: 0]

[Agility: 0]

[SP: 25]

[Warning: you have angered the evil god of Myriad and received no blessing or protection from spirit particles.

While your physical capacity hasn't been downgraded, you are in the weakest 0.01% of the human race.

The SP reserve you have is the same available to humans at birth.

Your growth is not restricted, but your stats are temporarily suppressed due to natural limitations.

Good luck!]

—

"I learned that every stat I had was 0, including my level.

My SP was 25 because that's what every human is born with." Helix chuckled bitterly.

"I wasn't just the weakest among you.

I was the weakest healthy person in all of Myriad.

My theory is that my Nightmare locked all of my stats until I gained more SP." He explained with a self-deprecating smile.

"W-What!?" Marie cried.

Riley's eyes widened in shock, which was extremely uncharacteristic.

Emelia had a hurricane of unidentifiable emotions in her.

As for Charlotte—

"Helix, you're a boss!" Charlotte cried with sparkling eyes.

The women looked at her with surprise and confusion in their eyes.

"Why…." Helix asked suspiciously.

"Do you not understand how much of a badass you are!?" She asked excitedly.

"No one here does?"

Charlotte looked around her with wide eyes.

"What's wrong with you women!?" She laughed in amazement.

"You realize that this guy risked being iced by forty-nine immature, overpowered super-otakus to improve the life of the servants, right?"

Charlotte asked with reverence in her eyes.

A wave of realization washed over the other women.

Emelia was dumbfounded and red as an apple.

"He admitted to me he knew what he was doing and the consequences on the second night!

He even worked it into his survival strategy.

Now that you've survived, I need to say this.

You're a fucking legend!" Charlotte cried.

Riley stood up with wide eyes.

"Helix." She said with a serious expression.

"Ummm… what is it, Riley?" He asked hesitantly.

While he was expecting a brutal lecture from her, she had a strange glint in her eyes.

"Can I kiss you?" She asked bluntly.

Helix blushed lightly, and everyone looked at the quiet young woman in amazement.

"Uh… I mean… yeah, sure." He stuttered in shock.

Riley walked over to the bed and climbed on top of it.

"May I?" Riley asked Charlotte with a murderous gaze.

Charlotte looked down and realized she was still laying on top of Helix.

The panic broke up the minute their kiss happened, and she had been holding up her body with her arms ever since.

She never noticed because her level 600 strength stat made it nearly impossible to get worn out from such a pose.

"Y-Yes. Give me a moment!" Charlotte replied in embarrassment.

Charlotte pushed herself up into a sitting position.

She couldn't even process she was straddling him before Riley's mouth unceremoniously pressed down on Helix's.

Helix's body melted when he felt the woman's breasts on his chest and soft lips pressing against his.

Before he could initiate a makeout session, her lips parted.

Riley gave Helix a serious expression.

"I think you're the stupidest person I've ever met.

But you're also the smartest and strongest in my eyes.

You're bewilderingly good to us women." She confessed.

"Since you might not want more transfusions, I seized upon the mood to have my first kiss with you.

It wasn't for the culture.

So thank you for accepting my selfish request."

After saying those words, Riley sat up on her knees with a grateful and satisfied expression.

"So bold…." Marie whispered in amazement.

"Wait! My transfusion didn't count because you weren't awake.

Can I share my first kiss with you as well?" Marie cried out.

Helix looked at her with wide eyes as she crawled onto the bed to Riley's right.

"Yeah…. I was looking forward to—"

Marie threw her body on Helix and pressed her lips against his.

The second their lips collided, Helix felt a supernova of ecstasy wash over him.

Of all of the women in Myriad, Marie was the person he found most attractive.

Everyone did.

While she couldn't hold a candle to the artificial goddesses, everyone felt like she was.

To the Eye of Beauty choosers, she was a hellish nightmare.

They quickly found out that the students found her beauty overpoweringly charming because it was [natural].

Every imperfection somehow made her seem more perfect, and those who saw her on the first day were still captivated by her.

Moreover, no one visualized a otaku curmudgeon stuffed into an artificial suit.

Her personality was more attractive in his eyes.

While she was a one-dimensional harem applicant in his presence, she was bold, intelligent, and kind to everyone else.

However, when a group bullied someone, she was a queen of destruction and struck fear into the hearts of everyone involved.

She was a demon to the strong and a goddess to the weak.

Those that begged for their life quickly continued admiring her the next day.

She was a leader.

Helix had a crush on Marie for two weeks after she started protecting him.

Her interest in Helix alone was worth a few assassination attempts in his eyes.

Helix pressed his tongue into her mouth, and the two engaged in a long, passionate makeout session.

He felt her C-cup breasts and cotton-padded bra pressing against his chest.

'What is happ—never mind.' He thought as he wrapped his left hand behind her back.

'I wish that she wasn't at such an awkward angl—never mind.'

Every time Helix tried to think, he was overcome with the passion of the kiss again.

"Hmmm. What do we have here?" Charlotte called out with an evil grin.

Marie pulled her tongue away from Helix's.

After matching his charming gaze with a heated expression, she pushed herself onto her knees to see Charlotte.

Helix groaned inwardly when he saw what Charlotte was pointing out.

"I tried to give you two more space.

However, once I stopped straddling him, I realized what I was sitting on this whole time." Charlotte presented with a casual expression.

Every face in the room was a certain degree of redness.

"Is… this sight surprising to anyone?" Helix asked after a sigh.

He chuckled bitterly when Marie's shocked and embarrassed expression.

He felt like truck-kun had stolen his crush before his eyes.

"You're all ridiculously attractive, and it's unsurprisingly been there since the beginning." He confessed.

"Hooooooh?" Charlotte announced with an evil grin.

"I didn't know you were so sexually attracted to spirit transfusions."

"Of course I am. At least when it involves the four of you." He confessed after a sigh.

"Especially when you're all shirtless.

The sight has honestly stripped me of my free will."

Charlotte looked around the room.

"If this is all it takes…." Charlotte announced while pushing herself to her feet.

She was standing on the bed in front of everyone.

To everyone's shock and amazement, she unbuckled her white denim short shorts and unzipped them.

Matching purple lace panties peered out of the area.

"How would Hellie react if he saw more?" She asked with a finger pressed against her lips.

"I'd be shamelessly grateful and at your mercy." Helix replied without hesitation.

"Hellie at my mercy? Hmmm. Worth it." She declared.

Charlotte slowly pulled off her short shorts in a seductive way.

"I see it worked." Charlotte commented while looking at Helix's lower half with a wicked grin.

"Helix…. Do you want to see mine too?" Marie asked hurriedly.

Helix looked at her with wide eyes.

"I'd burn the sight into my memory and never forget it." He replied with a charming smile.

"Is that a—"

"Good thing?" Helix chuckled.

"It couldn't be more positive."

Marie's face flushed bright red.

She stood up and unzipped the side of her white, medium-length skirt.

"Ooooooou la la. You have Hellie wrapped around your finger." Charlotte remarked while watching his trance-like expression.

"Helix. Would you like to see mine too?" Riley asked.

Helix blinked twice to gain control of his mind as he watched Marie slowly drop her skirt on the bed.

She wore light pink panties with a small bow.

"Please, Riley. It's not only for the culture but also for my unbridled happiness."

Riley stood up eagerly and started to unbuckle her belt.

She was wearing leather utility pants she was given in Myriad.

However, Helix's gaze was still fixed on Marie's slender white legs and attractive hips.

"W-What do you think?" Marie asked bashfully.

She had her hand pressed against her mouth and the other on her stomach.

Marie was embarrassed, but she wasn't hiding her body.

"I…. where do I begin? First, I can't believe you're showing me your body.

It's surreal, and I shamelessly love it." He chuckled in a trance.

"Second, I feel like the Eye of Beauty couldn't make you more attractive."

Marie quickly hid her bright red face behind her face.

"Lastly, I feel like it's incredibly cliche to know that the most powerful woman in Myriad loves cute things.

I officially love that cliche."

Charlotte burst into laughter, and Riley and Emelia giggled.

"I… uh…." Marie stuttered.

"Hey, don't deny it. Lover boy's obviously about it." Charlotte declared with a wicked grin.

Helix looked away in embarrassment but found himself staring at Riley's simple white panties.

Riley had already taken off her pants and was sitting on her feet.

She had slightly angled her knees so he could see them directly.

Most importantly, they were face-level and only a thigh's length away from him.

Helix blushed at the sight.

After turning to the left, things got more embarrassing.

Emelia was to his left and wasn't on the bed.

Therefore, her panties were face-level with him and even closer.

He was practically touching them.

Charlotte had got back onto the bed and was straddling him.

And Marie was on her knees, shamelessly crawling back on top of him.

As a result, if he looked at her, he would be looking at her cleavage.

Just when he was about to accept this heaven-sent fate, the door shot open loudly.

"Helix! Your vitals are off the charts!

Can you hear me!?" Elsa cried out as she ran into the room.

Helix smiled wryly at her.

'This… this is the most cliche thing I've experienced in Myriad….' He thought with a battered expression.

'I hate my life.'

—

[A/N: This is life. FML.]

Disclaimer: Power stones, grammatical mistakes, and minor inconsistencies = more content.

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