Apocalypse Landlord: My Tenants Are All Beautiful Heroines.-Chapter 35: Embarrassing The Beast

"Give it back!" Karina yelled again as Aiden dodged her. "The item is cursed! Why won’t you believe me?"

She tried grabbing it again, but Aiden easily dodged her. Enraged at being fooled and worried for Aiden’s safety, Karina willingly transformed to snatch the gauntlet from him since her own strength and speed weren’t enough.

To spare someone else from being cursed, she no longer cared about her secret.

However, the moment she lunged at him, Aiden looked startled and couldn’t dodge. She tackled him, and they both went tumbling down the floor with a loud crash.

Karina was on top of Aiden, his hand pinned to the ground by her, so he couldn’t wear the gauntlet. But at that moment, he wasn’t focused on the weapon, but on its owner.

Karina noticed his gaze and looked away.

She was used to being stared at, used to being thought of as a disgusting creature, something everyone was afraid of. She didn’t expect Aiden to be any different.

She transformed to protect him, but she didn’t think he would take that into consideration before exiling her. After all, she was no different from a monster.

Just then, she felt something on her face. She looked down and saw Aiden’s right hand had slipped from under her clawed hand, and he was... caressing her face.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"Beautiful..." Aiden mumbled absentmindedly. "You’re... beautiful."

Karina froze. She must have heard him wrong. Who in their right mind would think of a monster as a beautiful creature?

However, his gaze told a different story. Her beastly sense was overloaded, but even then, she saw no deception in them. Aiden truly thought she was beautiful.

"W-What...?" she stammered. "Y-You... you’re messing with me..."

She tried to deny the obvious, and who could have blamed her? For a year, every single person, regardless of whether she had saved them or not, viewed her as disgusting.

She saved their lives, not to get their gratitude, but fear. And then this guy came, pinned down by a monster, and called her cute.

At that moment, Karina didn’t understand who was worse. Those who feared her, or the person who seemingly got infatuated with her monster form.

Just like that, her thoughts spiraled out of control. She was so engrossed in Aiden’s words that she didn’t realize her control was slipping.

Within moments, her body shrank back to its usual size. The thick red fur of hers receded under the skin. Her claws reverted back into fingers. In seconds, she was in her human form.

However, she forgot one thing.

Transforming tore her clothes to shreds. Usually, she would have carried a set of workout garments with her, but she wasn’t prepared simply because she wasn’t planning to transform.

Now, she was naked... straddling Aiden.

For a few seconds, her brain simply refused to process it. Then it hit her, and her face turned bright red, much like her hair.

"AH—!" She screamed, her hands instinctively moving to cover herself.

Unfortunately for her, she was quite gifted in the asset department. The more she tried to cover herself, the more alluring she became.

"I-I... this is... close y-your eyes already!" She stammered. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Aiden didn’t do anything. He just stayed there, watching her fiddle around. Perhaps hoping someone would save her before she ruined her entire image.

No one is coming, sweetheart.

Aiden smirked inwardly. He had already blocked everyone’s access to the room. Instead, while Karina was frantically looking around, he cupped her face, forcing her to look at him.

Although he held her face, Karina still couldn’t control her eyes. They kept staring at anything and everything other than Aiden’s face. But it changed a second later.

"Still beautiful."

[Tenant: Karina Shaw achieved an emotional breakthrough. Affection has been upgraded to Desire.]

[Tenant: Karina Shaw’s desire rose to 7%]

What? Didn’t her affection just reach 18% during the meeting? How did she already break through?

For all the cunning he had, he didn’t realize how emotionally starved Karina was. No one, not even her so-called uncle, had shown her genuine warmth since her transformation. She could feel it because of her beastly senses.

Aiden’s actions were essentially like bringing a starving person to an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Karina’s senses were overloaded to the point she was ready to treat his words like gospel, and that was when Aiden hadn’t touched her. He couldn’t imagine what would happen once he treated her like Alisha.

Lost in his thoughts, Aiden didn’t see that Karina’s brain had shut down, and her face... well, by now, it was difficult to differentiate what was redder, her face or her hair.

"I-IDIOT!!" she yelled, jumping off him.

Without even looking back, she bolted into the next room and slammed the door shut behind her. Aiden stayed there for a second before letting out a chuckle.

"Was it embarrassing enough that you forgot about this?" he said, holding the gauntlet.

As usual, he went ahead and registered the item in the shop, only to see an unexpected error.

[Items with unique skills and/or curses cannot be registered to the shop, as no two items can have the same unique skill/curse.]

[However, a basic, curseless version of the item can be registered to the shop.]

[Proceed with registration?]

Just like that, Aiden found another difference between the shop and the workshop. In the workshop, special skills and even unique skills can be imparted to an item depending on the worker’s skill.

On the other hand, the shop can only mass-produce a certain gear or equipment without adding any variation.

It created exactly two things, unlike the items created in the workshop, which couldn’t be exact replicas. Either the stats would be different, or the skills attached to them.

"Show me the stats first," Aiden said, not wanting to register a boxing glove.

+++

Weapon: Combat Gauntlet

Type: Evo-Gear (Close-quarters combat weapon)

Grade: Standard

Durability: 290/290

Damage: 84 ~ 190 HP

Description:

A reinforced gauntlet designed for brutal close-quarters combat. Made of an alloy of unknown origin, it packs quite a punch (pun intended).

Special effect:

• Fracture: Critical hits reduce target defense by 10% per stack (max 3 stacks).

• Breach: Consecutive hits increase the chance (1.7% per hit) to inflict puncture wounds, hitting the organs directly instead of causing external wounds.

+++

Aiden took one look and nodded, registering the item in the shop. While it wasn’t as deadly as the original, it was a decent starter Evo-Gear.

Much better than using a revolver’s butt as a club. Although the price is a bit... much.

[Item: Combat Gauntlet has been registered in the shop, priced at: $28,000.]

[Blueprint: Combat Gauntlet (Standard) has been added to the workshop.]

Perhaps it was beneficial to invest more in the workshop than to keep splurging money on the shop.

"I already put a million dollars to make the workshop, coupled with other expenses, the 25 million budget has already dropped to 23.6 million."

While Aiden was dreaming on the day he’d turn the tenants into funds and exp farming machines, he remembered something.

"Guess I should get her something to wear."

With that, he walked out of the apartment, leaving the cursed gauntlet outside the room’s door where Karina was hiding in shame.