Chapter 4: The Countdown Begins
A new chime rang out in the dark, sharper than before, urgent enough that David’s eyes snapped straight to it.
[New Mission Acquired: The Monarch of Sin]
[The host of the Harem Conqueror should not be a pathetic lowlife who spends his days watching movies and masturbating. He deserves to stand at the pinnacle of life, as any Monarch should.]
David’s mouth actually fell open. "Excuse me?"
He kept reading anyway, half out of disbelief and half because some petty, wounded part of him needed to see how much worse it got.
[The first step toward becoming the Harem Conqueror is the acquisition of wealth and followers. This quest exists to strengthen the player toward that end.]
"Oh, okay," he muttered, dragging a hand down his face. "Sure. Great. Love that for me. Insulted by my own inventory screen."
[Quest Window: 14 days.
Player must raise Stamina, Strength, and Endurance to a minimum of 40 each within this period.]
He stared at that line a long moment, something in his chest tightening — not quite pride, not quite dread, some uncomfortable cousin of both.
"Forty," he repeated out loud, mostly to hear how absurd it sounded next to the number 10 sitting in his stats screen like a joke. "Forty in everything. In fourteen days. Buddy, I get winded opening a jar of pickles."
[Reward upon completion: five hundred dollars.]
His jaw dropped so hard he actually heard his own teeth click. "FIVE HUNDRED—" He caught himself, glancing instinctively toward the wall like a neighbor might actually be listening at this hour, and dropped his voice to an urgent hiss instead.
"Five hundred dollars? For push-ups? System, I would run a marathon on my hands for five hundred dollars, are you kidding me right now—"
He stopped himself, blinking, some slower thought catching up to the excitement. ’Wait.’ He frowned at the glowing window.
’Didn’t it say quests don’t necessary involve monsters? That they’re the ones that happen in the real world?’
"Hold on," he said, sitting forward, ramen bowl sliding forgotten off his knee. "Is this — is this a harem quest? Like, an actual, specifically-a-harem-thing quest?"
There was a pause before the reply came, and David could’ve sworn — even though the system had no face, no voice, nothing but text — that the pause itself felt smug.
[Query outside current information threshold. Recommend proceeding with assigned objective.]
"That’s not a no," David said flatly, pointing at the window like it could see him.
"That is one hundred percent not a no."
His eyes caught the last line just as his excitement started to curdle into something more cautious.
[Penalty: If player rejects Quest, or is unable to complete Quest, player’s family jewels will take a castotrophic 70% reduction in size and productivity.]
David went quiet for a second, reading it twice to make sure he wasn’t misreading the punctuation into something worse than it was.
’The fuck? If I lose I lose my jewels?’ He let out a breath through his nose, some of the tension in his shoulders easing back down.
[Precisely.]
"70%??!!!! Honestly...that’s a bit harsh. You could have picked my life span, instead you wanna leave my having little peanuts with my peak system?" he muttered.
[The purpose of this mission is to raise player’s statistics in preparation for future missions. It exists to encourage the player toward growth. However, should the player fail, I am programmed to duly punish him.]
He leaned back, turning it over properly now instead of just panicking at the number. Fourteen days. Forty in Stamina, Strength, penile strength and Endurance.
’That’s not nothing. That’s genuinely a lot, if I’m being honest with myself. I can’t just casually train that up on the side — I’d have to actually make this the whole focus. No half-measures.’
And then, almost as an afterthought, a second realization landed on top of the first, and his eyebrows shot up.
’ School’s on summer break right now, which means there’s no reason I can’t pour every waking hour into regime.’
"Hmm..." he said out loud, sitting up a little straighter.
"Okay. Okay, that actually — that could work. Depends on if I still have time today..."
He pushed himself up, wincing faintly at the ache still lingering in his head from earlier, and shuffled through his coffee table as he searched for his phone.
He grunted, pushing himself off the couch again and dropping to his knees in front of the coffee table, sifting through the mess scattered across it.
Old porn magazines, dog-eared and curling at the corners, sat stacked haphazardly next to a graveyard of ramen cups and empty drink bottles, and he shoved the whole pile aside with the back of his hand, hunting for the one thing that actually mattered right now.
"Where the hell," he muttered, patting down the cushions next, "is my phone."
Nothing on the table. Nothing under it either, as far as he could tell in the dimness of the room.
He sat back on his heels, frustration mounting, and then his eyes landed on the couch itself — foam peeking through a worn seam, cushions slightly askew from where he’d been sitting.
He shoved his hand into the gap between the cushion and the armrest, fingers brushing something hard and rectangular, and pulled.
"There you are, you bastard."
The phone came free, screen webbed with cracks that caught what little light the system window threw off.
The cracks fanned out across the screen in a way that almost looked deliberate, like some marketing intern had decided the phone needed a tie-in ad for the next Spider-Man movie.
David’s thumb finally finding the power button and pressing down.
The screen flickered, stuttered once like it wasn’t sure it wanted to cooperate, and then blinked fully to life, casting a pale glow across his face. He squinted at it.
5:52 PM.
’Few minutes to 6...Plenty of day left,’ he thought, feeling something steady settle into his chest for the first time since the notifications had started.
’I could start right now if I wanted to. Fourteen days. No school. Five hundred dollars and my only skill on the line.’
"Who would say no to that?" he said, mostly to himself, mostly rhetorical.
He walked back out to the living room, dropped onto the couch, and said it plainly, no more hedging left in his voice.
"I accept."
[Quest accepted. Countdown initiated.]
[14 : 00 : 00 : 00]
***
Hey guys, I want to thank you for your support and due to that, I thought of a friendly challenge for both of us.
For every 200 powerstones I’ll release 10+ bonus Chapters...so, if you find it worth while, you can make your decision. Thank you.🫠
