Chapter 26: Dragon Claw
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The phone sat propped against the window frame, its glow cutting through the steam as David worked the soap across his skin — methodical, unhurried, like a man trying to scrub off something that had nothing to do with dirt. He went over the same spots twice. Three times. Until eventually the water ran clear and there was nothing left to wash, and he had no choice but to get out.
He dried off slowly, towel dragging across his shoulders, and crossed the small bathroom toward the mirror.
He stopped.
His reflection stared back at him through the dissipating fog — jaw set, eyes carrying the particular flatness of someone who had just processed something they couldn’t un-process. He looked at himself the way a man looks at evidence.
’Holly.’
Not the name itself. The problem attached to it. Because the system hadn’t just handed him a notification — it had reached back through every interaction he’d ever had with her and recontextualized all of it, and now he couldn’t figure out which version of events was real. Had he always noticed her the way he noticed her now? Had the system manufactured that, or simply named something that was already there?
And then the other thing. The thing that made even less sense.
Her temptation level had gone up.
He had run that back in his head three times since the notification fired and he still couldn’t make it add up. He hadn’t done anything. He’d barely spoken to her. Whatever metric the system was using to measure that number, it wasn’t operating on any logic he had access to — which meant either the system knew something about Holly that he didn’t, or it was running some angle he hadn’t figured out yet. Neither option was particularly comforting.
He exhaled through his nose. Looked away from the mirror.
He still hadn’t put his clothes on. He didn’t particularly want to.
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He scooped the phone off the window ledge on his way out, the screen still lit, and by the time he crossed into the living room he looked — objectively — decent. Clean, at least. Hair still damp. Whatever had happened in the last hour had not, physically speaking, left a mark.
He dropped onto the couch like a building collapsing, all at once, no attempt to soften the landing. His legs came up and crossed at the ankle on the coffee table. The phone landed beside him against the cushion, screen-side up, throwing a pale rectangle of light across the ceiling.
He stared at it.
Everything with Holly was going to be weird now. That was just the math of the situation. No system notification was going to rewrite how he had groped her ass cheeks.
He didn’t know what felt worse, the fact the system had put him to the test and made him commit such a breach. Or the fact that he actually kind of enjoyed it.
He hadn’t asked for this.
The phone light pulsed once against the cushion. He didn’t look at it.
He was still staring at the ceiling, still turning Holly’s number over in his head, when the notification cut through the noise like a blade through fog.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[The Monarch of Sin system exists to strengthen your resolve. Emotional volatility is expected. Do not let it impede growth.]
David blinked. ’Oh, now you have something to say.’
[You have 300 unused points. Would you like to view the Point Exchange?]
He sat up a little straighter, the couch cushion shifting under him. Points. He hadn’t even registered that he’d been accumulating anything besides a slow-building sense of dread.
"...Sure," he said out loud, to an empty apartment, because apparently that was just his life now. "Show me."
[Points may be used as currency within the System Shop. Displaying available inventory.]
A shop. Of course there was a shop. Because why would a system that had already rearranged his entire social life stop at just doing that — it had to have a storefront too.
The menu unfurled in front of him, translucent and clinical, items sorted low to high.
The cheapest thing on the list sat at 250 points — a card simply labeled Random Skill Spin. Everything past that started at 500 and climbed steadily toward numbers with four zeroes trailing behind them.
’So I can afford exactly one thing.’
He almost laughed. Of course. Not stingy enough to give him nothing, not generous enough to give him options. Just enough rope to make a single decision matter.
Still — he turned the thought over, feeling for the resentment and finding, underneath it, something almost like relief. No trip to a store. No card getting declined. No real-world currency changing hands for whatever this was about to be. Just points, and a system that clearly wasn’t interested in hiding its hand.
He sat with it for a moment, weighing the two paths in his head — bank it, wait for something better to show up, some higher-tier item worth saving for — or just take the spin now and see what he was working with.
’Three hundred points isn’t going to get me anything else on this list anyway.’
That settled it.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let’s see what you’ve got."
[Confirm purchase: Random Skill Spin — 250 points?]
"Confirm."
[Ching!]
[Purchase successful. Player will receive one (1) random skill.]
[Use now?]
He didn’t hesitate. "Use it."
The card materialized in front of him, spinning — faster, then slower, light bleeding off its edges in a blur of gold and static. David leaned back, already bracing himself.
He’d played enough of these systems in games to know how this went. First roll was almost always trash. Something like Minor Cantrip or Basic Insight — filler dressed up as a reward.
The card slowed. Stopped. Split open.
[Player has received: D-Rank Skill — Dragon Claw]
His eyes went wide.
"...Huh."
He sat forward, reading the description twice like it might change the second time.
[Dragon Claw (Level 1) — A bladed extension summoned from the wielder’s mana, used primarily for finishing blows. The blade’s length is adjustable at will. The claw exists in a state of passive tether to the player and may be recalled or redirected through command alone, independent of physical proximity.]
David read it a third time.
’Wait. It just — comes when I call it? And I can just... steer it? From anywhere?’
He sat with that for a second, feeling the shape of what he’d just been handed settle into place.
’...Okay. That’s actually kind of broken.’
