203 Dating Sim?
203 Dating Sim?
I parked the bike behind Urbanite General Hospital and cut the engine. There was no back entrance to speak of, no convenient service door or loading bay to slip through. Instead, an iron mesh fence separated the massive hospital complex from a parking lot that bled directly into a sprawling mall next door. I removed my helm and set it carefully on the bike, then walked the perimeter until I reached the front entrance.
An ambulance screamed in just ahead of me, tires squealing as it stopped. Paramedics rushed an injured man inside, his cries blending seamlessly with the shouts of civilians crowding the doors. NPCs talked over one another in flat, looping dialogue about yet another accident, their concern sounding rehearsed rather than felt.
I followed the flow inside.
The hospital interior was bright and sterile. I approached the nearest nurse’s station and asked for directions.
“Excuse me,” I said calmly. “I’m looking for Dr. Emmerson.”
The nurse didn’t even look at me. Her eyes remained fixed on a clipboard as she continued repeating the same lines to passing NPCs, voice rising and falling with manufactured urgency. I tried again, changing my phrasing, my tone, even my posture. Nothing. Complete disregard, as if I were an object occupying space rather than a person.
Annoyance crept in, slow and sharp. It also made me curious. How exactly were quests supposed to function like this, when NPCs refused to acknowledge anyone outside proper parameters. Perry had said they’d be robbing a bank, which implied dialogue trees, triggers, and escalation. Whatever filter the pill gave me, it clearly wasn’t enough here.
I reached outward with my psychic senses, attempting to read minds, skim surface thoughts, anything that might give me direction. I got nothing. Maybe, I should kidnap a player and threaten them into helping me find what I’ve been looking for.
That was when I noticed him.
A doctor walked past me at a brisk pace, tall, well-built, with a face that looked sculpted rather than born. He carried himself with authority, white coat pristine, expression serious in a way that felt convincing enough to fool anyone not looking too closely.
I hadn’t planned on using my more esoteric abilities here. The rest of my team was busy elsewhere, and time mattered. I made a decision.
I reached out and possessed him.
The transition was smooth. There was no resistance at all. I slipped in like my consciousness was pouring into an empty vessel. When I tried to access his memories, there was nothing there. No past, no training, no personal history. Just a framework of motion and function, a body waiting for instructions.
A meat puppet.
I blinked, and the chaotic haze of the system interface snapped into focus as if someone had finished compiling broken code.
[Name: Johnny Sins]
[Class: NPC]
[Trait: Hearththrob]
[Tier: Gold]
I paused, momentarily caught off guard. That was new. Whatever the system was, it had finally decided to recognize the body I was wearing, even if it refused to treat me as a proper player. I couldn’t access memories, but there were scripts layered beneath the surface, directives quietly feeding me information. One of them stood out immediately, insisting I had a scheduled check-up appointment.
That would have to do.
I intercepted a blonde nurse walking past, turning toward her with the doctor’s body still under my control. “Excuse me,” I said evenly. “Could you direct me to Dr. Emmerson’s office.”
She stopped mid-step.
Then she looked at me.
Not just glanced, but really looked, eyes widening slightly as her expression softened in a way that felt rehearsed yet intense. Her posture shifted, shoulders rolling back, and I noticed her hand press lightly against her own chest as she leaned closer, the neckline of her uniform dipping just enough to feel deliberate.
“How have you been lately?” she asked, voice warmer than necessary.
I frowned internally. Small talk? Before I could respond, she stepped closer and slipped her hand around my bicep, fingers kneading lightly as if testing firmness. “You’ve been so busy,” she added. “Have you been avoiding me?”
That was when I noticed it properly. The hallway was full of women, nurses and staff passing by, and their uniforms weren’t what I’d expect from a hospital. They were stylized, fitted, more sensual than practical, like costumes designed to sell an idea rather than serve a function.
I forced the conversation back on track. “I’ve been extremely busy,” I said smoothly. “And I need to speak with Dr. Emmerson right now.”
She pouted, lips pushing forward. “You’re always looking at other women,” she said, tone sharp with artificial jealousy.
Enough.
I straightened and let irritation bleed into my voice. “That’s inappropriate,” I said. “If you continue this behavior, I’ll have no choice but to report you for misconduct. You’re making me uncomfortable.”
Her reaction was immediate. She flinched, hand dropping away as if burned, eyes lowering.
[-100 Affection Points]
I almost laughed.
“I—I’m sorry,” she stammered, stepping back and pointing down the corridor. “Take the elevator to the top floor. You should find Dr. Emmerson there.”
She retreated quickly, shoulders hunched, leaving me alone in the hallway with the system prompt fading from view.
I headed for the elevator, letting my steps fall into the rhythm of the hospital as I replayed the mission in my head. I was here to steal a cancer cure, or at least what Foresthome believed to be one. According to Perry, it wasn’t a miracle drug in the traditional sense, but a piece of technology held by someone named Dr. Emmerson. Whether he was a person, a construct, or a living quest marker remained to be seen.
The elevator doors were just sliding open when hurried footsteps echoed behind me. Two players rushed in at the last second, their presence unmistakable. I didn’t need my senses to tell. The system helpfully tagged them for me.
One of them was wearing a bondage-themed outfit that looked aggressively out of place even by Urbanite’s standards. The other wore casual clothes and a hoodie pulled low over his face, his irritation obvious.
“Seriously,” Hoodie muttered as the doors closed. “That skin ruins immersion. This is a hospital arc.”
Bondage shrugged, unapologetic. “It’s a dating sim hybrid,” he said. “I can wear whatever I want.”
I sighed quietly, the pieces clicking together at last. The nurse’s behavior. The exaggerated uniforms. The constant flirtation scripted into every interaction. This wasn’t just a hospital. It was layered with a genre filter, one that leaned heavily toward indulgence.
Hoodie glanced at me, surprised. “Huh. I’ve never heard him sigh before.”
Bondage’s eyes lit up as he looked me over. “Wait,” he said slowly. “I know this NPC.”
My stomach tightened.
“That’s the guy,” Bondage continued, pointing openly. “The one who teaches that skill. You know, the one that boosts… confidence stats.”
Hoodie’s face broke into a grin. “No way. The legendary one.” He turned to me eagerly. “Dude, we have to buy the skill.”
Bondage nodded enthusiastically. “People say he’s got a passive that maxes affection points for female NPCs in this zone. All the chicks dig him for some reason.”
The system nudged me gently, a prompt forming without my input, guiding the interaction forward. I followed it, because fighting the script here would only draw attention.
They initiated the transaction.
[Skill Acquired: Big D’s Coming]
Points ticked upward in the corner of my vision, a steady increase that made me pause. I had no immediate sense of scale, no intuitive grasp of what the currency was worth, but the number rising told me enough. Whatever else Urbanite was, it rewarded compliance generously.
The elevator chimed as it reached the upper floor.
As the doors opened, I stepped out, leaving the two players behind in animated discussion about builds and synergies. I filed the experience away, equal parts disturbed and intrigued. If nothing else, I’d learned something valuable.
NPCs came and went in waves, their movements looping with subtle variations that only made the repetition more disturbing. At some point, the two players left, laughing and comparing numbers as if they’d just left a shop instead of a hospital floor. The silence they left behind didn’t last long.
A few NPCs approached me afterward, their smiles practiced and eyes glassy. They asked for my number, one after another, voices overlapping slightly as if the script hadn’t fully sorted out turn-taking. I tried to ignore them, stepping aside, pretending to look busy, but the system didn’t like that.
A translucent warning slid into my vision, sharp and accusatory.
[Behavioral Deviation Detected. NPC Acting Out of Character.]
[Bug Report Initiated.]
My jaw tightened. I reached out with my psychic abilities and pressed down on the process, not gently, but decisively. The script resisted, like pushing against a living thing with rules instead of flesh, but it relented. Not completely. Just enough to keep me from being flagged.
I was forced back into the rails.
The hospital only grew stranger after that. At one point, I saw a player openly having sex with an NPC in the middle of the hallway, right in front of the elevator. No one reacted. Other NPCs walked past as if nothing was happening, their pathing flawless. The bald player locked eyes with me mid-act and shouted, ecstatic.
“Holy shit, you’re that gold NPC!”
He bought several skills from me on the spot, transactions chiming cheerfully while his body continued moving. I stood there, frozen in disbelief, until the elevator doors slid shut between us and carried me upward.
When the doors opened again, I stepped out into a different world.
The top floor was silent.
No NPCs. No players. No ambient chatter. Just a single, long hallway stretching forward, its lights dimmer than the floors below. The genre shift was immediate and violent, like the hospital had shed its skin. My instincts flared, every sense tightening as I walked forward.
Dating sim had curdled into something else.
I stopped in front of a lone door and knocked.
It opened.
A brunette doctor stood there, wearing nothing but a lab coat that barely clung to her frame. Her eyes were unfocused, her smile too wide. She spread her legs without hesitation, voice dripping with desire.
“Mommy wants that d.”
The words hadn’t even finished echoing when her head exploded.
Blood and gore splattered across the walls and ceiling in a wet, concussive burst. Bone fragments and gray matter painted the hallway as her body crumpled forward, collapsing in a heap at my feet.The script inside my borrowed body went completely feral.
Warnings and compulsions flooded my vision, overlapping in garish layers, demanding actions that no longer made sense. It urged me to pull down my pants, to ravish Dr. Emmerson, to complete a scene that had already been violently aborted. The corpse at my feet was still warm, headless and leaking across pristine tiles, yet the system refused to acknowledge reality.
Finally, I noticed her.
She sat casually on a chair near the wall, boots propped up on the edge of the desk as if this were a break room instead of a slaughterhouse. Her hair was dark at the roots, fading into pink at the tips, and her clothes were loud in a way that felt deliberate, a clash of colors beneath a worn leather jacket. Punk, maybe, or something Urbanite thought passed for it. A cigarette hung loosely from her lips, smoke curling lazily toward the ceiling.
The script flickered again, helpfully labeling her.
[Object: Non-Interactable.]
I almost laughed.
That was when it clicked. To the system, to the NPCs, to whatever logic governed this place, ‘outsiders’ weren’t people at all. We were props, environmental clutter, furniture that happened to move. That explained the blank stares, the ignored questions, and the way reality bent around us instead of responding. My team and I had slipped in sideways, and the world hadn’t decided what to do with us yet.
As for this woman? I have an idea who she might be.
The woman clicked her tongue and exhaled smoke. She sounded annoyed.
“Tch. Leaving me to clean up NPC bullshit again,” she muttered, glancing at Dr. Emmerson’s corpse without much interest.
She stood and walked toward me, eyes raking over my borrowed body with open appraisal. Her hand shot out, grabbing the bulge between my legs with a grip that was more mocking than aroused.
“Damn,” she said, smirking. “You’re a horny little bastard, aren’t you.”
The script screamed in approval. I ignored it.
She leaned in closer, breath smelling faintly of smoke and something sweet. “You’re cute, though,” she added. “Shame you gotta go.”
The sound came before the pain ever could.
A high-pitched whine vibrated through the air, pressure building rapidly inside my skull. My vision blurred at the edges as I recognized the sensation instantly. Acoustokinesis. Focused. Precise. She wasn’t trying to stun me or knock me out. Most likely, she was trying to pop my head like a grape the same way she did Dr. Emmerson.
Unfortunately for her, this body was disposable.
Johnny Sins’ head detonated in a wet, anticlimactic burst, spraying blood across her jacket and the nearby wall. The pressure vanished just as abruptly, the feedback dissipating into nothing. My consciousness slipped free in the same instant, phasing forward through space and flesh alike.
I didn’t slow down.
I slid into her body as easily as stepping through an open door, possession taking hold before she could even register surprise. Her cigarette fell from her lips, clattering to the floor, and her limbs stiffened mid-motion.
Now, we were going to have a conversation.