My Succubus Harem System In The Reverse World

I stared at the second notification for a long time.

Holy shit.

This was surprising. Not the single-point stat improvements. The fact that I had somehow pulled a fragment of another person’s ability into myself.

"Is this possible?"

I asked the empty room.

[It is. Host has subconsciously absorbed too much of the target’s mana from her core under critical conditions. A residual echo of her ability transferred.]

"But it wasn’t even that long. It was just a kiss. Ten seconds at most."

[Duration is secondary. Force and emotional intensity determined the transfer.]

Okay.

So now I had a one-time self-healing technique and nothing more. A single-use emergency button that would disappear the moment I activated it. Useful, but not the kind of permanent tool I needed.

I really needed more skills than variations of a kiss. I pulled up the still-active quest window.

[Private Tutor]

[Objective: Raise Gianna’s Favorability from 28 to 60 within the remaining time limit.]

[Current Favorability: 38 / 100]

[Time Remaining: 9 days]

[Reward: 1x Silver Roulette Ticket, +500 Exp, 200 Succubus Points]

[Penalty for Failure: Target will distance herself, locking out dual cultivation opportunities for one month.]

Nine days left. My date with Gianna and the rest of our training were still pending. The quest hadn’t forgotten, even if everything else had tried to distract me.

As I sat there pondering, a phone in the apartment rang.

I blinked at it.

Thinking about this, I still didn’t have a personal phone.

Asking Jenna for one felt embarrassing, but it wasn’t like I could buy one on my own. I was effectively jobless, useful mainly for sex in exchange for protection and resources.

Wait a minute.

Putting it like that made me sound like a prostitute.

[You are.]

"Fuck you," I muttered. "Why are you so talkative today?"

I picked up the receiver.

"Everheart household."

"You’re back?"

Gianna’s voice. Direct. A little tense.

"Ah, Gianna. Yes, I’m back. Waiting for you. Come quick."

"I have work."

"Oh, so you called because you were worried?" I let a small smile into my voice.

"Don’t be. I aced it. Came second."

The line went silent for a second.

Then it clicked off.

Eh?

Was she angry? Surprised? No.

Thinking about it, she was probably just embarrassed.

The evening stretched on.

I trained with the chains inside the apartment, forming and dismissing them, practicing the focus required to keep the links stable without burning unnecessary mana.

The new Blood-Forge Restoration sat quietly in the back of my system like an unused emergency switch.

I didn’t touch it.

At eight, someone knocked.

I opened the door and found Gianna standing there. Training jacket over a white tank top, cap pulled low, hair in a tight ponytail.

She looked like she had come straight from the guild floors.

"Yeah. Finally."

She pushed past me and walked inside without waiting for an invitation. I closed the door and followed.

"I’m not hurt."

"I don’t care."

She turned and fixed me with those red eyes.

"Tell me how the simulation went. Everything. Including what you did."

Oh-oh.

I leaned against the kitchen counter and kept my voice even.

"We cleared second place. Three Ironclad Stone Goliaths, a pack of blood-seeker leeches, and a few smaller clusters. No ejections. Timer ran out before we hit the deeper sections."

"That’s the official summary."

Gianna crossed her arms.

"I want the part that made Rei Lawless walk out of the observation floor looking like she wanted to either kill you or keep you."

I exhaled slowly.

"How do you know about it?"

"It doesn’t matter."

"She overcommitted against the Goliaths. Opened both palms, forced a massive blood greatsword, and nearly shattered her own core doing it. Health dropped to eighteen percent. One of the constructs was about to finish the ejection. I... I used a Kiss to force a recovery."

Gianna’s expression didn’t change, but the air around her cooled.

"You kissed her."

"Yes."

"In the middle of a simulation."

"Yes."

"And it triggered a permanent core expansion and a class mutation."

I nodded once.

"Four levels. Blood-Forge evolution. Temporary enhanced state that lasted ten minutes. She used it to finish the remaining Goliaths."

Gianna was silent for a long moment. Then she walked past me, opened the fridge, and pulled out a bottle of water like she needed something to do with her hands.

"You realize what that means," she said without looking at me.

"I do now."

"Rei Lawless doesn’t let go of advantages. She never has. If you gave her a permanent growth spike with a single kiss, she’s going to treat you like a resource she intends to monopolize."

"She already tried. Offered her mother’s guild. I refused."

Gianna finally turned. The red eyes were sharper than usual.

"And then she went to my mother."

"Yes. Requested joint training. One week from now. With both of us."

"Of course she did."

Gianna took a long drink, then set the bottle down harder than necessary.

"She’s going to push official channels. Sector rules will force us to at least review it. And every time you’re in the same room, she’s going to look for another opening."

I watched her carefully.

"Are you angry?"

"I’m calculating."

She met my gaze directly.

"You’re not a normal support. We already knew that. But permanent core expansion from a single high-intensity transfer is the kind of result that makes people stop being careful. Rei isn’t subtle when she wants something. Neither is her mother."

"I told her no."

"And she’ll ignore that until it becomes inconvenient."

Gianna stepped closer, voice dropping.

"You used the kiss to save her. Fine. That’s the version that goes in the report. What I need to know is whether you felt the same pull you felt with me."

The question sat between us, heavier than the rest of the conversation.

I didn’t look away.

"It was different. Colder. She was taking. You weren’t."

Gianna studied my face for several seconds, searching for the lie.

Whatever she found seemed to satisfy her enough to keep the edge from turning into something worse.

"Good," she said finally.

"Because if you start treating every emergency like an invitation, this entire arrangement collapses. My mother risked capital and political cover to pull you out of the holding facility. I’m not watching Rei Lawless walk in and claim the benefit."