A Love I Shouldn't Feel - Chapter 18 : Tender Surprises

“Kind? What’s kind about it? Taking on such quests isn’t being kind. It’s just being a pushover. A total pushover.”As the voices faded behind him, Kai glanced back at them.Me? A pushover? No way.[You have performed a good deed for an NPC in trouble.] [+1 Benevolence.]A reward given for doing a good deed?!Calculative, yet compelling enough to continue doing good deeds whether it’s healing or dealing damage.The Healing Solaris Cleric, Kai’s, journey to conquering MID Online!

I am currently re-writing the first chapters of this story. They are quite rough and bounce around a lot and I can do better. At some point, I will replace these with the better chapters.Sometime in 2024 Aethon Books will publish the first volume of this story on Amazon, KU, and audible. This will mean the story will be stubbed. I will notify people far in advance of that.In the dystopian world of the future, life is rough when you live at the bottom. Jobs are non-existent. Far too many people live in poverty, crammed into huge buildings called Habitats. With no jobs in the real world, many people can only find work online in VR worlds as servants to the very rich. And it's getting worse. The old internet is unusable and hacked to pieces. The new system needs AI to run things, but all but one of them were destroyed. The last sentient AI is ordered to create a new game world so the rich can have a playground, and the corporations that rule the world can have a new global market place. Everyone wants a piece of the new game. The guilds are competing to be the first to find the dungeons and kill the biggest monster. The corporations are claiming land and putting in their online market places. Ozzy and his friends just want a paycheck.Four friends sign five year contracts as virtual serfs in a small village, and can't go adventuring at all to gain money. They don't have many choices. They can work as a blacksmith, barmaid and shepherd for all those years....or they can cheat and find ways to take advantage of the system and carve out a section of the game world for themselves, and earn a fortune in the real world.When they give you a mop and not a sword, you have to find the loopholes and change the rules.

Xu Xiang is a doomsday survivor who survived for forty years. Before she could fulfill her dream of becoming the overlord, she died.Opening her eyes, she returned to the fifteen years before the doomsday began. With the help of her family heirloom the dragon and phoenix ring, she hoards supplies and prepares to welcome the doomsday.Unfortunately, she was betrayed by her own family and died the night before the doomsday begins. With hatred in her heart, she swallowed the dragon and phoenix ring and jumped off the cliff.When she opened her eyes again, she was still alive, but arrived in a world that was plagued by endless wars and constant natural disasters. Although she's lucky enough to get another chance, she's unknowingly drawn into political turmoil where someone may be killed without knowing who the killer is.Can she survive in this ancient world that is more dangerous and full of hidden dangers than her own? Can she find the courage to trust someone else again? After two lifetimes, can she find her own happiness?

Suddenly, the unmarried twenty-year-old Ye Zhizhou had many more relatives, yet it was too late for him to clearly understand the circumstances as he nearly died in a car accident. After that, he somehow managed to survive and was even forcibly bound to a Salvation System.

How is it salvation?

Harems destroy worlds! Preventing a harem will save them!

. . . .

Ok, prevent harems. After seeing the entire system introduction, the corners of Ye Zhizhou’s mouth twitched. In order to return home safely, he decisively began his risky journey—he’d just treat it as if he was playing a large-scale strategy game.

Since then, the people the protagonist would rescue, he rescued first.The businesses the protagonist would make, he made first. The little brother the protagonist would take in, he took in first. The cliff the protagonist would jump off of, he jumped off of first. The gay s*x the protagonist would have, he’d have. . . . Wait wait, can’t do this one, change it, let me change it.

???: No, you can do this one.

Ye Zhizhou (alarmed): Who’s speaking?

???: Your husband.

Ye Zhizhou: . . . .

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