Chapter 67: Spinning for a Scent Trait
Once everything was settled, Jenna and Mira returned to the guild.
They had left things halfway for the medical alert, and the work didn’t pause just because one support had an episode on a bathroom floor.
The apartment door sealed behind them with its usual hiss, leaving the space suddenly larger and quieter than it had any right to be.
I sat on the sofa as usual and turned on the wall display.
Some guild propaganda piece was already playing, heroic Vanguards clearing a mid-tier gate in slow motion, supports glowing with clean white tethers, dramatic music swelling every time a monster fell.
The camera work was top-notch. The smiles looked practiced. It felt nothing like the blood-scented chaos of an actual simulation.
For a moment, I was taken back to the real world.
How I sat in my dorm worrying about the college fees.
It started feeling lonelier the longer I watched.
I wanted touch. Not the emergency kind. Not the transfer kind. Just someone sitting on the other end of the sofa, existing in the same quiet without needing a reason.
The warmth of Gianna’s hand still lingered in my palm like a ghost sensation.
The new anchor of her energy sat cleanly near my core, exactly where she had put it. Neither of those things filled the empty apartment.
"Hey, System," I muttered at the ceiling.
"Is this also one of your doings?"
[Yes.]
I stared at the muted screen.
"Shameless. Let me enjoy being alone."
[While the Host’s Succubus nature does require regular intimate contact to maintain optimal core stability, what you are currently experiencing is simple emotional withdrawal. In Earth terms, you are missing Gianna Everheart because you formed a connection more than necessary.]
I sat up a little straighter.
"Earth?"
[Of course. This is Earth too. Just a different time.]
That tracked.
The system had already implied as much when I first arrived, but hearing it stated so casually still landed strangely. Different time. Same planet.
A future that had rewritten the continents and the rules of power until almost nothing familiar remained.
I rubbed my face with both hands and let the film keep playing without sound.
"Show me the rewards."
The blue interface unfolded cleanly.
[Sub-Quest Complete: The Hand-Holding Compromise]
[Rewards Issued]
• 1× Bronze Roulette Ticket
• +5 Gianna Favorability
• 50 Succubus Points
[Current Favorability — Gianna Everheart: 44 / 100]
[Succubus Points: 50]
"Sweet. Open the roulette."
A brown-tinted wheel materialized in front of me, the same low-tier interface I had seen before.
Five panels arranged in a circle, each one labeled in clean system text.
[Passive Trait: Thermal Dampener (Lv. 1)]
Automatically filters and stabilizes the minor biological heat waves emitted by your Succubus core when baseline heart rate spikes.
[Active Utility: Gaze Inversion (Lv. 1)]
Allows the Host to subtly deflect the passive attention vectors of nearby targets whose Perception is lower than the current Charm tier.
[Passive Trait: Pheromone Trace (Lv. 1)]
Your saliva and sweat carry a microscopic, non-magical trace of refined mana that leaves a cooling, comforting sensation on a target’s skin for up to three hours after a transfer.
[Active Skill: Fluid Sync (Lv. 1)]
Allows the Host to subtly match and mirror the low-level ambient physical bio-rhythms (breathing, walking pace, minor muscle movements) of a designated high-compatibility target.
[Empty Slot — Reroll Available on Next Bronze Ticket]
I studied the options.
None of them were combat-breaking.
All of them were quiet, social, almost domestic in their utility. The system had a sense of humor.
"Spin it."
The wheel began to turn with a mechanical ticking. Lights tracked around the circle in a blur.
I watched it without much hope.
Bronze tickets had a habit of teasing something useful before landing on the least dramatic option available.
The spinning slowed.
Gaze Inversion drifted into the center and hovered there, the text glowing a little brighter than the others.
For a moment it looked ready to lock.
I didn’t lean forward. I didn’t even straighten up.
"Not falling for it this time," I told the system.
"You always slow on the shiny one first."
[Noted. Host is learning.]
The wheel twitched, slipped past Gaze Inversion, and continued with a final lazy rotation.
Thermal Dampener. Fluid Sync.
Then it settled with a chime.
[Result Locked]
[Passive Trait Acquired: Pheromone Trace (Lv. 1)]
I stared at the description again.
A microscopic trace in saliva and sweat. Cooling. Comforting. Three hours after a transfer. Non-magical, so it wouldn’t trigger most detection protocols. Subtle enough that the target might not even notice why the air around me suddenly felt easier to breathe.
"Of course it lands on the one that makes me smell like a walking security blanket. Give me actual, badass skills. Let me breathe fire and control lightning for once."
[Trait is consistent with current relationship trajectory and recent anchor transfer.]
[Efficiency rating: acceptable.]
"You’re enjoying this."
[The System does not experience enjoyment. It does, however, note that the Host’s verbal complaints have increased in direct proportion to emotional investment.]
I dropped my head against the back of the sofa and laughed once under my breath.
The film on the wall had moved on to a slow montage of supports and Vanguards standing side by side at sunset, looking noble and perfectly synchronized.
No one in those clips ever looked lonely. No one ever sat in an empty apartment staring at a system window because the person they wanted was across the city doing early drills.
I flexed my fingers, still half-expecting to feel Gianna’s hand between them.
Forty-four. Still a long way from sixty, but no longer stuck in the low thirties.
"System."
[Yes?]
"The emotional withdrawal. Does it get worse if I keep forming these connections?"
[Probability is high. The Succubus core prioritizes bonds that provide stable anchoring. The stronger the resonance, the more pronounced the absence feels when the target is not present. This is a feature, not a malfunction.]
"Feels like a design flaw."
[...]
"Hey..."
[?]
"Why did I faint?"