My Scumbag System-Chapter 411: Think Horizontally

Five titles. Each one a scar from a different fight, a different choice, a different version of the game I’d been playing since the System dropped me into a dead boy’s body and said perform.

The Glass House one still stung. Kimiko’s face when she’d looked at me across the breakfast table, that specific maternal sharpness. She’d always been able to read me better than I wanted.

The Gardener’s Bane was new enough that I was still feeling out its edges. The moment I’d driven the silver knife into the Arborist’s chest and felt the Garden exhale. Every plant on the Atoll sometimes turned slightly toward me when I passed them now. Jacob had noticed but attributed it to a behavioral anomaly in the Academy’s botanical maintenance schedule. I hadn’t corrected him.

I scrolled to the Ensemble.

ENSEMBLE:

Natalia Kuzmina — [Rank 10: Covenant] | Title: The Psychic Sovereign | System Symbiosis active | SP generation: tripled

Emi Aoyama — [Rank 5: Dependent] | Imbuement Slot 1-2 unlocked | Daily SP contribution: active

Skylar Amane — [Rank 5: Dependent] | Imbuement Slot 1-2 unlocked | Daily SP contribution: active

Pan Soomin — [Rank 3: Confidante] | Imbuement Slot 1 unlocked

Isabelle Okoye — [Rank 1: Acquaintance] | Basic status visible

PENDING BOND DEVELOPMENT:

Celeste Vance — [Rank 3: Confidante] | Progression: active

I looked at Cel’s entry for a long time.

Rank 3. Confidante. Three weeks ago she hadn’t had an entry at all, just a quest marker and a note from the System about espionage requirements. Now her name sat in the Ensemble with an active progression indicator.

The Know Thy Enemy quest pulsed at the bottom of the notification queue, patient as ever. Rank 4 was the requirement. One more rank and the VHC archives unlocked. My father’s files. The real story of what happened to Kenji Nakano and why his name had been scrubbed from the academic record with such thoroughness that even his own family had learned not to speak it.

One rank.

I thought about the cave. The purple fire. Cel pressing ice against my burned arms with a healer’s precision even though she wasn’t a healer, even though she was operating on fumes, because it hadn’t occurred to her to do anything else.

I thought about the river and the voices and the glass hallway and her hand in mine the whole way through.

You’re calculating, Nel observed.

"I’m always calculating."

You’re calculating whether it matters that you care about her.

I didn’t answer.

For what it’s worth, she said, lighter than usual, the Audience finds the ambiguity delicious. The "does he or doesn’t he" narrative arc is historically very high performing.

"Glad someone’s getting something out of it."

You’re getting something out of it too. You just haven’t decided what to call it yet.

She had a point. I hated that she had a point. I added that to the list of things I was figuring out.

I pulled up the abilities screen because it was easier than continuing that particular thread.

ACTIVE ABILITIES [2/3]:

[EMBER] — Silver Tier | Enhanced via Dragon Witch’s Ring | Flame temp approx 1,400°C

[SPATIAL CLEAVE] — Gold Tier | Upgraded from SEVER | Range extended, ignores magical defenses below Platinum rank

PASSIVE ABILITIES [3/4]:

[MYSTICISM] — Gold Tier | Stamina +300%, cooldown reduction 60%, enhanced sleep recovery

[PROTECTION FROM ARROWS] — Platinum Tier | Precognitive evasion of projectile attacks

[BLESSING OF THE SOVEREIGN] — [Details sealed pending further advancement]

DEVELOPMENTAL:

[Combat Arts] — Rank F | Progression: active

SKILLS & TRAITS:

Siren’s Gaze | Intermediate Kama Sutra | Consort’s Touch | Apex Predator’s Presence | Basic First Aid | Perfumer | Intermediate Pressure Points | Devil’s Advocate | Rockstar Made | Fairy Tale Princess | Kingmaker’s Aura | Silver Tongue | Verdant Command

The Blessing of the Sovereign entry still had its details locked, same as it had since it unlocked after the Necropolis. Nel deflected every time I asked about it. Apollo deflected with considerably more theatrical enthusiasm. Whatever it was, it was sitting in my passive slot doing something, I could feel the particular weight of it in my body the same way you could feel a healed bone that used to be broken.

The Schema Points sat at 2,015.

I turned them over in my head the way I used to turn over the Yamaguchi-gumi’s operational accounts at seventeen, looking for the most efficient allocation.

The tournament was five weeks out.

Every guild would be at full strength. Petrova would have spent the intervening time doing exactly what Petrova did, which was manufacture flawless weapons out of human material with a sculptor’s patience and a philosopher’s conviction that she was doing God’s work. The Cobalt Vipers had Kenjiro Kobayashi now, quiet and precise and dangerous in ways Julian had never understood. The Phantoms had Reyna.

And the Onyx Hounds had a guild that had survived two near-death experiences, a Black Gate, and my leadership, which had in the early weeks resembled a man herding cats with one hand while on fire.

They were good now. Really good.

But I needed to be better.

Investment options, Nel said, in her boardroom voice. Since you’re clearly doing math.

"Ability upgrades. Spatial Cleave to Dimensional Rend would cost 600. Ember to Inferno Stream costs 400."

Correct.

"Or I save and pull the banner. Whatever Apollo has waiting for the tournament."

He does have something waiting. A pause with a precise amount of drama in it. He’s been insufferably smug about it for approximately nine days.

"Of course he has."

I looked at the number again. 2,015.

The problem with saving for the gacha was the same problem it had always been. The gacha was chaos. It had given me Rockstar Made and Fairy Tale Princess in the same pull, which was either the System’s finest hour or evidence that Apollo’s entertainment priorities had only a passing relationship with my survival needs.

The problem with ability upgrades was they were guaranteed but incremental. Spatial Cleave at its current tier had carried me through the Arborist fight by skin of teeth. Dimensional Rend would give me enough cutting power that the margin expanded from barely survived to survived with options.

I thought about the tournament. About Reyna specifically. About what Sterling had called her on Gate Break six months ago, A-Rank with S-Rank potential, and the way she’d looked at me at VHC Central like she was cataloging threat levels.

The Siren’s Discord quest was still open. Force her to acknowledge me as an equal or a threat.

I had a feeling the tournament would answer that one way or another whether I planned for it or not.

Behind me Natalia turned in her sleep. I heard the sound of her settling and then her voice, low and completely uninflected, the voice of someone surfacing without meaning to.

"Come back to bed."

"I’m thinking."

"Think horizontally."

I almost laughed.

I closed the System screens. The blue light dissolved. The room came back, dark and warm, Natalia’s sheets and her desk and the hook by the door with her uniform hanging like a soldier at rest.

I lay back down.

She found me without opening her eyes, shifting until her head was against my shoulder and her hand was at my ribs, that familiar monitoring touch, feeling for my breathing.

"Well?" she said.

"I’m getting stronger."

"I know." She pressed her lips briefly against my collarbone. "I can feel it."

"The tournament is five weeks out."

"I know."

"I need to be ready for Reyna. And whatever Petrova’s built."

"I know."

"Natalia."

"Satori."

"Are you actually awake or am I narrating my plans to someone who’s going to remember none of this."

A long pause.

"Fifty-fifty," she admitted.

I exhaled. Covered her hand with mine where it rested against my ribs.

2,015 Schema Points. Level 3 hidden stats that would reclassify my threat level if anyone saw them. Five titles. Seventeen guildmates who had followed me through things that should have killed them. Four women with varying degrees of complicated feelings who slept within shouting distance of where I currently lay.

And one quest still open, one sealed file, one name erased from history that I intended to unearth.

The tournament was in five weeks.

My father’s files were one rank away.

I was, by any objective measurement, in a significantly better position than I had been six months ago, when the System had dropped me into a dead boy’s life and told me to perform.