Rémy collapsed onto the bathroom stool, still wrapped in the towel with water dripping heavily onto the floor, while the interface expanded in front of his eyes. If fate was forcing him to face supernatural horrors, at least he needed to understand the accounting of his own misery.
If he already had five hundred credits and a store to blow them on, he reasoned there had to be a method to feed that cash flow. As expected, the window he was looking for appeared at the bottom of the menu.
The Asset Methodology section unfolded before him with a metallic golden glow, a shimmer that didn't shy away from displaying the decadent luxury of an underground casino. There, under a virtual neon light that seemed to vibrate with an electric hum, the rules of that twisted game he'd been forced into were detailed.
—FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT SYSTEM: CREDITS & REWARDS—
Operator, this isn't a charity. If you want funds, you have to put something on the table. Here we don't reward effort, we reward spectacle and risk. ¿Want to play?
ARBITRATION PROTOCOL: THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS
Notice: By remaining in this plane, the User accepts that their existence is an open bet. The house is not responsible for limb loss.
—TABLE COLLECTION (DIRECT EXORCISM)—
Grade 4 (Pocket Change): 50 – 500 Credits.
Like winning on airport slot machines. Small, but it keeps the addiction going. Ideal for those afraid to bet big.
Grade 3 (High Rollers): 600 – 1,500 Credits.
This is where the house starts sweating a little. Risk goes up, but at least you can afford more than a bag of Cheesy Poofs.
Grade 2 (The Roulette Pit): 3,000 – 8,000 Credits.
We're entering professional territory. If you manage to cash this chip, you might start considering yourself a serious player. Or just someone with a lot of luck before dying.
Grade 1 (The VIP Suite): 15,000 – 50,000 Credits.
Only for those willing to put their soul on the table without blinking. Cashing one of these usually means you barely stay alive to spend the prize.
Special Grade (Apocalypse Jackpot): 100,000+ Credits.
¿Seriously? If you're facing one of these, the House is already preparing your obituary. It's the big prize everyone chases to the grave but no one wins.
House Rule:If the target escapes, it's considered a "Lost Bet." The system will charge you a penalty fee for wasted time. We don't like people wasting our time with mediocre shows.
-----------------------------------
—CURSED PAWNSHOP (RECYCLING)—
¿Found a cursed object? Don't try to use it, it's too much for you. Bring it to my window.
Action: Asset liquidation. The system will absorb the object and grant you a miserable fraction of its value in credits.
It's a rip-off, but it's the only open window in this neighborhood.
-----------------------------------
—ADRENALINE JACKPOT (TRAUMA DIVIDENDS) —
From now on, the system monitors your heart rate and cortisol levels. Fear is the best lubricant for data processing.
Effect: Surviving situations where death odds exceeded 90% generates an Entertainment Bonus. The more pathetic and desperate your survival attempt, the greater the "courtesy" from the house.
Note:Corpses don't collect dividends. Try to keep breathing so the function continues.
-----------------------------------
—DOUBLE OR NOTHING EVENT (ACTIVE CHANCE)—
Upon completing an encounter, there is a 2% chance to trigger the Misfortune Roulette.
Option: You may attempt to double the loot obtained.
Risk: If you lose, the credits vanish and the curse or slain enemy manifests again with an increased rank and renewed grudge toward you.
-----------------------------------
—BROADCAST RIGHTS ROYALTIES (CULTURAL COLLISION)—
The chaos your "guests" cause by clashing with this world's reality is what feeds the masses. If your Summons break the aesthetic, rules, or patience of this universe's inhabitants, the House cashes in.
Effect: You generate passive credits based on the Disruption Index.
Scale Factor:
Minor Infringement: Confusing a professional sorcerer, breaking veil stealth, or causing an absurd public scene. (Reward: A tip for the "comic gag").
Major Infringement: Altering the course of a canonical event, insulting a Special Grade Sorcerer, or introducing cartoon logic/technology where it shouldn't exist. (Reward: "Prime Time" level credits).
House Note: It doesn't matter if the world hates you, as long as they keep watching. Make sure your Summons are as loud and impertinent as possible. Subtlety doesn't sell tickets.
-----------------------------------
With a trembling finger and a restless eyebrow, Rémy closed all the floating windows, dissipating that golden glow that seemed to dirty the bathroom air. He headed to his bed, ignoring the wet trail he left behind, and collapsed onto the mattress still wearing the towel.
The room's silence was a false relief. Though the interface had vanished, the words remained seared into his mind. Royalties, Events, Viewer Bonus. He wasn't a potential hero; he was a distraction with legs in the hands of an entity that found his panic entertaining. Everything was specifically designed to turn him into a monkey in a clown suit, destined to be the toy of forces completely beyond his comprehension.
He stared at the ceiling, where the night shadows seemed to take grotesque, throbbing shapes thanks to his new and unwanted perception. He was exhausted—too exhausted—and his back ached from spending the entire night outdoors with only the cold asphalt as company. The mattress, once a refuge, now felt like a betting table where he was the only idiot squandering money like a wretch while the mafia boss controlling everything from the shadows watched him, pointing a gun straight at his head.
He lay there, suspended between physical collapse and paranoia, trying to close his eyes for a well-deserved rest. Tomorrow he would continue investigating the unexplored functions, claim the initial reward he received after using the chip for the first time in the casino, and hope life would, for once, be less unfair.
-----------------------------------
—BROADCAST RIGHTS ROYALTIES—
Status: Reward received.
Detail: Your summon ERIC CARTMAN has stolen 13 wallets and is now on a self-discovery journey headed to Mexico.
"First-class catering and federal bribes don't pay themselves."
Sorcerers/curses tormented: 0
Elderly women assaulted: 13
Credits obtained: 9
-----------------------------------
Just as the weight of sleep began dragging him toward unconsciousness, a sharp, festive beep—like a winning slot machine—exploded inside his eardrum.
His eyes shot wide open, injected with a web of broken capillaries that gave his gaze a frantic look.
Rémy punched the air, striking the holographic interface. His breathing was erratic, a heavy gasp that made his chest rise and fall with fury. He felt like his head was going to explode. The humiliation of being treated like a clown by a system that valued assaulting thirteen old ladies in less time than it took to buy a bandage at the store was driving him insane.
With his gaze burning crimson and his fingers digging into the sheets until they nearly tore them, Rémy stared into the darkness of the room with murderous rage. He wasn't just angry. He was experiencing internal combustion. With bloodshot eyes and vision blurred by a red haze of pure hatred, he lunged at the interface with the ferocity of a wounded animal. His numb, rage-cold fingers slammed the holographic menus with such violence the air vibrated.
He found the Asset Management icon and pressed it so hard his white knuckles seemed to pierce the golden light. The system, imperturbable, unfolded a world map where a small point with Cartman's face blinked over the Gulf of Mexico, moving away at enviable cruising speed.
Rémy selected the "Forced Return" option and began hammering it repeatedly.
-----------------------------------
—LINKED RETURN CORE ACTIVATED—
Action: Return of asset in transit.
Flight cancellation cost: 50 Credits.
Penalty for "Ruining the Climax": 20 Credits.
Status: Processing dimensional pull.
-----------------------------------
—¡I don't give a fuck about the cost! ¡Pay it with the damn wallets! —Rémy shouted, a vein pulsing dangerously on his forehead.
With one last desperate slam on the "Confirm" command, a crack of blue light opened in the middle of his room, sucking in the air with a violent whistle.
There was a sonic boom, the smell of ozone, and from nowhere a heavy lump shot out of the portal, crashing straight into the wall opposite Rémy's bed.
Cartman stayed there for a second, blinking heavily, while the trace of dimensional pressure still made his ears spark. He looked at the bag of peanuts, the backpack he casually found on some unsuspecting kid's back, then the blanket, and finally his eyes scanned the room until they landed on the same freak from yesterday, now standing, trembling with rage and covered only by a bath towel.
—¿You? — Cartman asked, looking around, dazed by the sudden change of location.
Rémy, eyes still red and shaking with fury, stood up slowly, ignoring that the towel was slipping.
—¡Ah! — Cartman screamed. — ¡A nudist hobo has kidnapped me! ¡Help! ¡Police! ¡There's a scrawny exhibitionist trying to rape me!
Instinctively, he covered his ass with both hands while clumsily backing away, tripping over the Aeroméxico blanket. His small, shiny eyes darted from Rémy's naked, scrawny body to the golden interface floating in the air, beeping with approval.
-----------------------------------
—DISRUPTION EVENT DETECTED—
Title: "The Nudist and the Con Artist".
Rating Status: THROUGH THE ROOF! The audience is throwing coins at the stage.
Reward for "Realistic Child Panic": 15 Credits.
-----------------------------------
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—I hope you've learned your lesson.
—Yes… —Cartman replied in an unusually small voice, huddled in one corner of the room. His wool cap was slightly crooked and his face red, not just from the effort of screaming, but from the weight of a humiliation he hadn't felt in a long time.
«Good, because my knuckles were starting to hurt», Rémy sentenced in his mind.
Now fully dressed, though his clothes barely contained the tremor in his hands, he rubbed his swollen and slightly bloody knuckles, feeling the dull throb of physical pain mixed with a moral void that burned his chest. A treacherous tear stained his cheek, but he managed to turn his face quickly, preventing Cartman from seeing that trace of weakness.
Rémy wasn't a violent man, or at least he didn't believe he was, but this world was skinning him alive. He had been forced to beat a child from another dimension to regain a shred of control over his own existence.
Curiously, doing so didn't weigh on his conscience as much as he would have thought. Maybe because Cartman didn't feel like a child, but like a malevolent and selfish force of nature incarnated in fat and red wool. Or maybe Rémy simply considered him something of his "property." People don't feel guilty for accidentally breaking a cheap toy.
That realization sent a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the room's cold.
—¡You're sick! — Cartman continued shrieking, now cornered against the closet. —¡I knew you were a hippie, but this is witchcraft!
A vein throbbed hard on Rémy's forehead. It was difficult, but he managed to calm the rage burning in his chest. He had to be a little more empathetic with Cartman's situation. He might be a racist son of a bitch, a white supremacist, biblical-level trash, and the most selfish being to ever walk the earth, but at the end of the day, he was still a kid who had been kidnapped—albeit accidentally and completely uncontrollably—from his reality by a guy whose first action upon meeting him was throwing him into the jaws of a curse.
Rémy watched him with a mix of pity and disgust. There he was. A perfect sphere of childish malice wrapped in a too-tight red jacket, with that shrill voice seemingly designed to pierce the eardrums of any rational being. Cartman was a grotesque caricature, a cluster of prejudices and narcissism condensed into a chubby body that barely reached Rémy's waist.
Rémy sighed, letting himself fall onto the bed. The initial hatred had transformed into a fatigue that threatened to irreversibly affect his mental health. The weight of guilt, rage, and the absurdity of his situation settled on his shoulders like a concrete slab.
He cleared his throat and, watching Cartman with exhaustion, motioned for him to sit in the chair in front of his desk. The boy, quite reluctantly and dragging his feet with exaggerated drama, complied. He plopped down on the seat, which creaked under his weight, while in his mind he was already formulating countless revenge plans against the idiot who had hit him. His small dark eyes shone with cold malice, calculating how much it would cost to hire a hitman.
—We need to talk, buddy.
Rémy knew explaining the metaphysics of cursed energy and the nature of an interdimensional casino to an entity whose thoughts stayed in elementary-school nonsense was a titanic task. Mostly because he himself still hadn't begun to understand what any of it meant. Lacking energy for complex discussions, he pulled out some paper sheets, some colored markers he had lying around, and using his computer, created an improvised PowerPoint while illustrating some slides with suspiciously cute drawings.
-----------------------------------
Cartman watched the screen with a mix of suspicion and boredom, scratching his belly under the red jacket. His small eyes narrowed at the drawing on the final slide.
—Okay, let me see if I got this, hippie — Cartman said, pointing at the screen with a chubby finger. —¿So you're telling me this place is like some super weird Japanese computer game where there's no KFC and giant snot monsters want to eat my ass? ¿And that my life depends on a guy like you?"
—¿Did you even listen to anything I said? — Rémy asked, rubbing his temples.
—I heard you perfectly. 'Blah blah blah, negative vibes, blah blah, mucus ghosts, blah blah, we're slaves to a casino.'— Cartman waved a hand dismissively. —¿What does that have to do with me?
This was going to be harder than he initially thought. Rémy stared at him, mouth slightly open. Cartman's ability to filter out important information was, in a way, more terrifying than any Special Grade curse he'd heard of. The empathy he'd tried to feel moments ago was evaporating at record speed.
But thinking about it, Cartman had already traveled through dimensions. Like in that special where he ended up in a universe where everyone he knew was replaced by "socially acceptable" women. Strangeness and illogic were daily bread in his universe, from drug-addicted towels to Satan himself in a toxic relationship. Being dragged through a magic portal didn't sound that far-fetched to him; it was just another Tuesday in his history of bizarre events.
—¿You know what? You're right — Rémy said, giving up. — Forget the drawings and come look at this.
Rémy turned toward the golden interface floating between them. The metallic glow intensified as his fingers brushed the chest icon, which pulsed with an energy Cartman watched with the face of a confused old man. He hadn't paid attention to that floating box earlier due to the imminent threat of a naked exhibitionist, but now that he was out of danger he could afford to take a look.
His small eyes narrowed, trying to process the symbols dancing in the air. To Cartman, this wasn't mysticism. It was cutting-edge technology or some kind of high-level pyramid scam.
«So you can see it too», Rémy thought.
As a system summon, it made sense that Cartman could visually interact with the interface. Whether that was good or bad news remained to be seen.
—¡Wait a second! — Cartman exclaimed, extending a chubby hand to try to touch the edges of the hologram. —¿You're telling me this magic iPad has been here the whole time? ¿And what does it do? If there's a 'Send Home' option and you haven't used it, I swear to God I'm gonna kill you.
Rémy ignored the comment and pressed the center of the icon. A mechanical sound, like the gears of a safe opening, filled the room. From a golden path that materialized straight from Rémy's closet, an ornate chest advanced floating to the center of the room.
The chest burst into fragments of white light that illuminated Cartman's chubby, expectant face and Rémy's exhausted expression.
-----------------------------------
—INITIAL CASINO REWARD—
You have—
-----------------------------------
Rémy pressed the icon before it finished loading completely. In the next instant, the surroundings were enveloped in a dark mist that swallowed the furniture and the rest of the room. The floor beneath their feet stopped feeling solid and both fell into the void.
Not long after, they landed abruptly on the casino's red carpet.
The impact knocked the air out of Rémy, who lay there for a second, feeling the cold, velvety pattern against his cheek. Beside him, a heavy red lump bounced with a dull sound, followed by a groan of pure indignation.
Rémy slowly got up, ignoring Cartman's screams. He was back in the casino, only the place now had a different design. The slot machines were no longer simple golden totems but noisy arcade cabinets with plastic levers and cathode-ray screens emitting a constant buzz. On the walls, neon posters advertised magic shows and boxing matches that seemed taken from an 80s spy movie.
Cartman approached one of the video poker machines, fascinated by the flickering pixels. Rémy, on the other hand, felt the place suffocating him. He walked toward the center of the room, where the reward chest rested on a black glass table with chrome legs. The chest itself had changed; now it was a polished metal box with flashing LED lights spelling "PLAYER 1" in digital green. He stopped in front of the table. The chest vibrated to the rhythm of the synthwave music, waiting for someone to claim what was inside.
Rémy was about to touch it, but pulled his hand back just before his fingers brushed the cold metal. Considering the system's fetish for spectacle, and that no one in any dimension understood the concept of protagonism and showmanship better than the child beside him, he preferred to test Cartman's degree of interaction with the system.
If Cartman was an asset, could he claim rewards himself? Or would the system treat him like a simple decorative object with a sewer mouth? Rémy needed to know how far his future summons' autonomy went before one of them decided it was a better idea to bet his soul on a dice table.
Not because he was afraid.
—Hey — Rémy called, stepping back a couple of paces to give the kid space.
Cartman, who was trying to see if he could pry one of the chrome levers off a nearby slot machine, stopped dead. He slowly turned his head, his small eyes gleaming under the pink neon glow.
—That chest says 'Player 1.' According to the rules of this place, that belongs to you.
He lied with astonishing naturalness. If the chest exploded or contained a curse, he preferred the first hit to take the guy who was indestructible.
Cartman narrowed his eyes, suspicious of the sudden generosity, but the word "gift" triggered a Pavlovian reflex in his brain. He waddled toward the table with arrogant swagger, shoving Rémy aside with his shoulder.
Cartman extended his hands and, with blind confidence, slammed the flashing "START" button on the chest lid. The synthwave music surged dramatically, the room's neon lights turned a frantic red, and a synthesized robotic voice boomed throughout the casino.
—INITIAL PACKAGE—
Status: Received
RESULT: INVOCABLE OBJECTS
RANK: C
STATUS: LOCKED UNTIL MANIFESTATION
AVAILABLE OBJECTS: 3
"Sometimes the people who bring disaster are the luckiest ones."
200 credits added as a gift for redeeming the initial reward.
-----------------------------------
The chest finished disintegrating in a shower of 80s static. The sound of an ascending synthesizer announced the arrival of the three objects obtained from the roulette. Rémy's jaw dropped so low it almost hit the floor as he watched three silver light spheres land heavily on the black glass table.
—I… Impossible — Rémy lamented.
He, the legitimate owner and apparent operator of this system, had gotten two E-rank objects in a row on his own spin. ¿And then this rude kid shows up and gets something of such quality on his first try?
¡So unfair!
The casino's logic seemed to reward chaos and lack of scruples over effort and decency.
Despite the indignation weighing on his chest, the reality of obtaining a C rank was too important to ignore over a fit of pride.
And on top of that, three objects instead of just one like last time!
The third game's improvements had been B rank and also came in threes. Did that mean the number of things you could obtain per spin depended entirely on the rank? If so, it was likely to get three or more characters if you hit the jackpot with a C rank or higher. The mere idea filled him with hope and a chill that nearly stopped his heart.
—Now that I think about it... — Rémy stroked his chin, trying to remember amid all the chaos. — ¿Where did I leave that book I got?
Just a while ago the system had given him a novel from one of the many Warhammer 40k ones, but between the curse threat and the interdimensional kidnapping of a Colorado kid, his mind had erased the object's whereabouts. Dismissing it for the moment, he patted Cartman's back amicably, nearly sending the boy face-first into the glass table.
The cycle repeated and a black hole swallowed them both along with the entire casino. The portal opened in the ceiling of Rémy's room, spat them out with disdain, and everything returned to normal. Rémy landed on his back on the bed, bouncing against the old mattress, while Cartman fell like a sack of potatoes onto the carpet, letting out a dull groan.
However, the three silver light spheres floated on Rémy's desk, illuminating the wall posters with rhythmic glow.
—¡Stop doing that! — Cartman shouted, getting up with a red face and crooked blue cap.
Rémy completely ignored him and headed for the spheres, practically salivating over the rewards waiting for him. If they were C rank, they definitely had to be something capable of protecting him.
His mind raced at a thousand miles per hour imagining the possibilities. ¿What would it be? ¿A Green Lantern ring? ¿A Death Note? ¿Or maybe Doctor Who's Sonic Screwdriver? With this casino's logic, any pop culture relic was a tangible possibility.
—Hey, that's mine — Cartman interrupted, planting himself beside him and trying to reach the edge of the desk.
—No, the chest was yours. Its contents are mine.
Cartman was stunned. His eyes blinked a couple of times, processing the audacity of the "hippie." It was the first time someone had applied such blatant contract logic to him with so little time knowing each other.
Rémy was already touching the first silver sphere.
Upon contact with his fingers, the light shattered into thousands of multicolored neon flashes—electric purples, radioactive greens, and synthetic pinks—began spinning in a frantic vortex. The air filled with the smell of ozone and hairspray, while an ascending synthesizer arpeggio made the windowpanes vibrate.
The flashes condensed with the force of a hadron collider, crashing into each other to forge a solid structure. Sparks of static electricity jumped from the desk to the tips of Rémy's fingers as he watched hypnotized how the colors intertwined like digital DNA strands until they solidified into an object.
And in the end, a briefcase came out.
….
It was a brown synthetic leather briefcase, rigid, with reinforced chrome corners and two combination locks emitting a faint red glow. There were no magic runes, no embedded jewels, no sacred fire. Just an office object that looked like it had been stolen from the set of an 1986 spy movie.
Rémy froze, hand still extended in the air.
—…¿A briefcase? — Cartman broke the silence with a voice loaded with devastating judgment. —¡¿All that light show for a encyclopedia salesman briefcase?! ¡You're a failure!
Rémy held it between his trembling arms, disappointment raw on his skin. The weight was considerable, but the aesthetic was so mundane it hurt. He had expected a lightsaber, an ancient grimoire, or even a tech suit, but what he had in his hands looked like an extra's accessory in a Wall Street office.
—What a—
However, just as he was about to throw it to the floor in frustration, a small screen lit up with a flicker.
-----------------------------------
—REWARD 1/3 (RANK C)—
TYPE: DIMENSIONAL HABITAT / ASSET STORAGE NAME: "NEWT'S SUITCASE (FUNCTIONAL REPLICA)"
DESCRIPTION: A worn leather suitcase that belonged to a famous magizoologist. Though it looks small, its interior ignores Euclidean space laws.
EFFECT: When the "Muggles" switch on the lock is activated, it becomes an ordinary suitcase. When deactivated, the user can descend into a 5-hectare inner sanctuary capable of housing multiple magical creatures and various supplies.
NOTE:"Lucky little bitch."
-----------------------------------
—¡What a marvel!
It definitely wasn't an ordinary briefcase.
The system hadn't betrayed him! The Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them saga had always held a special place in his memory. Though he never finished all the movies, the concept of owning an entire ecosystem contained in such a small object had fascinated him from the first moment. In his spare time, he used to lose himself in fantasies where he owned one of those suitcases. He didn't imagine it for rescuing mystical creatures, but as the ultimate refuge. A corner to escape the noise of the world and ensure no one, absolutely no one, could bother him.
Rémy hugged the worn leather against his chest as if it were a lost son. Five hectares. An interdimensional private space where he could hide, store supplies, and most importantly, hide from any danger that didn't consider a suitcase worth paying attention to.
Rémy placed the briefcase in the center of his worn carpet and, with a solemn movement, activated the bronze clasps. The metallic click echoed in the room followed by a sigh of air that smelled of wild nature. When he lifted the lid, he didn't find the fabric bottom of the object, but the beginning of a wooden structure.
He descended carefully, feeling how the temperature of his room disappeared to be replaced by a cool environment charged with millennial vegetal humidity. When he reached the bottom of the steps, he found himself standing in a rustic wooden shed, a sort of underground laboratory serving as command center.
The place was flooded with warm, diffuse light. The wooden walls were covered with shelves full of glass jars containing strange ingredients, glowing powders, and rolled parchments. On a central table were sketches of creatures, leather tools, and what looked like rudimentary veterinary medical equipment. A long coat hung from a nail on the wall, swaying gently with a breeze blowing from outside.
But the most impressive thing wasn't the shed, but what lay beyond its open doors.
Peering out, Rémy saw the shed was situated in the middle of an impossible transition of climates. A few meters to the right, the ground turned into golden sand shining under a desert sun contained by an invisible dome. To the other side, a thick, vibrant tropical jungle. In the distance, an infinite grassland zone stretched to an artificial horizon, bathed in perpetual sunset light.
—¿What the hell is this? — Cartman's voice boomed from above, filtering through the briefcase opening.
Rémy looked up toward the ceiling, where the briefcase entrance looked like a distant rectangle of light showing the ceiling of his real room. He felt powerful.
Rémy stood silent for a few seconds, savoring the small victory of having a place where, finally, the outside world's rules couldn't easily reach him. However, the silver static from the other two spheres on his desk began to intensify, reminding him that Cartman's luck still had more to offer.
He climbed back up immediately and returned to the desk, leaving the briefcase open on the floor like a hatch to another world. He approached the second sphere, which vibrated with an aqueous glow and a mist smelling of bamboo and millennial humidity.
When he brushed it, the sphere didn't burst into pixels. Instead, it instantly liquefied, turning into a mass of crystalline water that hung suspended in the air for a microsecond before collapsing with the force of a miniature waterfall over Rémy's head.
—¡Wah…! — he managed to shout before getting soaked from head to toe.
Cartman burst into scandalous laughter at seeing the boy completely drenched.
—¡Ha! HAHAHAHA! — Cartman's laugh exploded behind him, so loud the kid had to grab his knees to keep from falling.
—One more word and I swear—
Something was completely and absolutely wrong. His voice, though never particularly manly to begin with, was now… softer. It wasn't just that the pitch had risen an octave; it was a velvety softness, a cadence completely lacking its usual roughness. Rémy felt strange, too strange, with a feverish heaviness running down his spine. That intuitive premonition that your body is about to collapse under devastating flu, but multiplied by a thousand.
His shoulders shrank, becoming narrower and more delicate in seconds. The movement was so sudden that his old cotton T-shirt, already loose, slid dangerously to one side, exposing a pale shoulder and a much more defined, finer collarbone than before. The world seemed to grow around him; the desk now reached higher than his chest and his feet felt like they were swimming inside his own sneakers.
Rémy experienced a sudden and strange sensation of emptiness in his lower part. That constant weight, something that had accompanied him in both lives, dictating his center of gravity and way of walking, had vanished into thin air.
—No… please, no.
-----------------------------------
—REWARD 2/3 (RANK C)—
TYPE: TRANSFORMATION CURSE / BIOLOGICAL ALTERATION
NAME: "JUSENKYO ESSENCE: SPRING OF DROWNED GIRL"
DESCRIPTION: Water collected from one of China's cursed springs. Fifteen hundred years ago, a young girl drowned in this spring, and since then, anyone who falls into it suffers her fate.
EFFECT: Permanent biological bond. The user will change their physical form to that of a young woman upon contact with cold water. The effect reverses only with hot water.
NOTE:The system considers espionage and infiltration easier when you can change gender at will. Don't complain—the clothes will be cheaper for you.
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¿What's up?
This chapter was especially fun to write, but... ¿is it a bad idea to add so many system explanations? Personally, I feel like it's necessary, at least for the first few chapters. Either way, I'll cut back on the amount if they start getting annoying.
Don't forget to leave a good review to help this humble muffin 🧁