Kai stood frozen at the pool, staring at the powerful and entirely naked woman pressing herself against him, and a very random realisation crossed his overwhelmed mind.
He really didn't miss his old life on Earth at all.
Why would he ever miss a place that treated him like absolute garbage right from the very beginning?
He grew up in a heavily neglected foster home managed by a group of incredibly corrupt women who called themselves nuns but operated the place more like a profitable prison camp.
Those terrible women constantly looted the welfare money the government explicitly allotted for the children's care, pocketing the cash to fund their own comfortable lifestyles while feeding the growing kids a single, pitifully small meal of plain rice once a day.
It was a miserable and starving existence, so Kai ran out of that terrible house the exact second he finished his basic schooling, swearing to himself that he would never look back or rely on anyone else ever again.
After finally escaping that nightmare, he started staying in cheap twenty-four-hour game cafes just to have a safe roof over his head, working endless part-time jobs behind the counter, wiping down greasy keyboards and serving instant noodles to angry customers.
Spending all those quiet late nights staring at monitors and playing every title he could get his hands on is exactly what led to him developing a deep, genuine interest in creating a video game of his own.
Unlike the highly inspirational success stories you might have heard somewhere online, getting into a decent college without any family support or financial backing is hard and soul-crushing.
Trying to survive while working two separate minimum-wage jobs just to pay the massive tuition fees, all while actually attending long lectures and studying for exams, was a special kind of physical torture that left him permanently exhausted.
But somehow, through stubbornness and living off cheap energy drinks, he actually did it and secured his degree.
Because he lived in the real messy world and worked constantly around all different types of people, he definitely wasn't a virgin, totally breaking the tired prejudice of hardcore gamers always being socially awkward loners who never spoke to women.
He had his fair share of serious relationships over the years, and he had slept with plenty of attractive girls during his college days when he actually had a few free hours to spare.
That extensive real-world experience is exactly why his current state of being completely flustered and trembling in a hot spring wasn't making any logical sense to his practical brain.
He fully agreed that Sheila was easily the most beautiful woman he had ever seen in his entire life, possessing flawless skin and a body that practically begged to be worshipped, but this overwhelming physical panic tearing through his chest had to be the fault of the fuckass game mechanics messing with his biological responses.
The system was clearly manipulating his heart rate and hormone levels to make everything feel ten times more intense than reality, forcing him to react like a nervous teenager instead of a grown man.
He didn't have much time to complain internally about the unfair system because Sheila leaned in even closer, letting her soft breasts press right up against his bare chest while her hands slowly moved down his waist under the freezing water.
The crazy contrast between the icy pool surrounding his legs and the burning magical heat radiating off her wet skin was driving his gamer senses completely crazy.
"Are you excited?" Sheila whispered again, her eyes dropping down to look at his dick beneath the clear water with a strong desire.
"Are you hard yet?"
'Yes, I am very, very hard,' Kai shouted frantically in his own mind, his thoughts racing a mile a minute as he tried to figure out a survival strategy.
But he also knew with absolute certainty that if he acted recklessly on his escalating desires right now and let the system overwhelm his low-level stats, it was probably goodbye to his dick.
If he passed out again in the middle of a private bath with a dangerous and easily offended Ice Witch, she might actually take his sudden blackout as a personal insult and freeze his entire lower half until it shattered into useless pieces.
"I really don't like people who start things and then fail to finish what they started," Sheila murmured, her husky voice vibrating directly against his collarbone.
Her words sounded like a very genuine and terrifying threat, but the warning went completely over Kai's head because her wet breasts were pressing right into him, and she smelled absolutely amazing, like expensive sweet soap and fresh winter air.
The scent alone was enough to make him want to throw caution completely out the window.
She reached a pale hand up, threading her slender fingers through his wet hair and gently forcing his head down toward her chest.
"Suck it," Sheila ordered softly, her commanding tone leaving absolutely no room for argument, hesitation, or delay.
Kai stared at the reward presented right in front of his face, calculating his odds like a desperate player holding a terrible hand in a high-stakes tournament.
This was easily a one in a hundred chance to secure a massive advantage in this incredibly dangerous apocalypse world.
If he could just handle the overwhelming sensory input for a few agonising minutes without losing consciousness, then his Greed Feast skill would definitely activate automatically.
Drawing energy directly from a magical boss of her calibre would let him copy her broken ice skills and completely change his chances of surviving the coming battles.
He just had to endure the system pressure and push through the pain.
Kai took a deep breath, steeling his nerves for the incoming shock, and leaned his face forward to do exactly what the beautiful witch commanded him to do.
But the very second his lips brushed against the hot nipples of her chest, a wall of red text exploded across his entire vision, completely blocking out the beautiful sight in front of him.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[WARNING: CRITICAL OVERLOAD]
[TARGET AURA EXCEEDS HOST CAPACITY. IMMEDIATE SHUTDOWN IMMINENT.]
'Fuck man, fuck off with this bullshit,' Kai cursed viciously in his own mind, his frustration completely boiling over as the familiar wave of dizziness threatened to pull him under the water.
The game developers were absolute sadists for building a progression system that actively punished the player for successfully wooing the main female leads.
He completely refused to be blocked by a floating red screen again, and he definitely refused to wake up with another humiliating headache while a maid served him pitiful coffee and judged his stamina.
If the broken system was going to overload his brain the second he put his mouth on her chest, then he just had to find a completely different path to get his required intimacy and trigger the skill.
Kai didn't go for her breasts as he was ordered, stopping his face just an inch away from her soft skin as he fought through the system-induced dizziness.
Instead, he took the right hand he had been keeping safely flat on his knee and shot it straight across the water.
He slid his fingers right between her pale thighs under the freezing water, instantly finding her most sensitive private part and pressing firmly upward with confident, practised precision.
"Hnng," Sheila let out a totally unguarded and completely surprised moan, her eyes going wide as her back arched slightly against the carved stone wall of the tub.
The sudden and intense pleasure from his unexpected touch below the water completely shattered her composed boss persona for a glorious second, leaving her breathless and clinging to his shoulders for support.
Kai watched the powerful witch shiver beautifully from his touch, feeling a surge of triumph wash away his previous panic as the red warning screens in his vision flickered and paused, clearly confused by his sudden change in tactics.
[Target surprised.]
[Arousal spike detected.]
[Mana +10]
'I will do it my way,' Kai thought with a wicked smirk, fully prepared to exploit every single loophole this stupid game had to offer until he got exactly what he wanted.