Shawn buried his face in his pillow and let out a despairing groan.
His life was over. Not only had he put on a disaster-level, socially suicidal performance in front of a campus-wide celebrity, but he was also stuck with this strange system.
"Dude, what's actually wrong with you?" Leo paused his game and turned around from his computer, his face full of worry. "You've been like this ever since you got back from the nurse's office, like a frostbitten eggplant. Did you really get diagnosed with some terminal illness?"
"Worse than a terminal illness," Shawn's voice, muffled by the pillow, was indistinct. "I've got a 'die-if-I-don't-complete-bullshit-missions' disease."
"Huh?" Leo clearly didn't understand.
Just then, the familiar, PTSD-inducing blue screen popped up in front of his eyes once again.
[Newbie protection period has ended.] [Mission difficulty will now increase. Good luck, you moron.]
Shawn's heart skipped a beat.
[Mission 2: First Kiss Plunder.] [Objective: Steal Eric Dane's first kiss.] [Reward: HP +2, Charm +0.5, unlock new skill "Gaze of the Succubus (Beginner)."] [Failure Penalty: Forced public striptease (The system will take complete control of the host's body, accompanied by professional-grade pole-dancing background music).] [Countdown: 47:58:12]
Shawn stared at the words "Forced public striptease," feeling his blood run cold. He could even picture it: in the crowded cafeteria, his body would uncontrollably climb onto a table and, to the tune of some cheap, tinny electronic dance music, begin an erotic dance that would be enough to land him on the front page of the social news.
That image was ten thousand times more terrifying than anything else.
"No... absolutely not..." he sat up in horror, his hair a bird's nest.
"What's not okay?" Leo was startled by him.
Shawn ignored him, engaged in a fierce mental battle with the system. "Are you kidding me?! First kiss?! Do you know Eric Dane is a devout Christian? His first kiss is as important to him as the Holy Grail! This isn't just a kiss, it's blasphemy!"
The system was silent for a moment, then a line of cold text appeared.
[Suggestion: According to the ancient codex of succubi, a sudden, possessive kiss can instantly shatter the prey's psychological defenses and brand your mark upon the depths of their soul.]
"I'll brand your damn head!" Shawn roared in his mind. "He'll think I'm a demon and beat me to death with a cross!"
Arguing with the system was useless. Shawn knew he had to figure something out. But how could he kiss the most popular guy in school without being seen as a pervert and getting arrested for sexual harassment?
The opportunity, or rather, the disaster, came sooner than he expected.
The university's annual charity carnival was coming up. On the campus forum, a post had been pushed to the top—"Vote for Participants in the Annual Charity 'Kissing Booth'!"
And Eric Dane's name was at the top of the list, leading by a landslide.
Shawn looked at the post and felt like fate had just slapped him across the face. This was practically an execution platform tailor-made for him by the system.
On the day of the carnival, the small kissing booth was mobbed. Eric Dane sat inside, looking a bit helpless. He had clearly been pushed into this by the student council and the football team, but he was still dutifully planting a polite kiss on the cheek of every girl who made a donation.
Shawn hid at the edge of the crowd, his palms sweating. He looked at the line that seemed to stretch on forever, feeling like an antelope about to charge into a pride of lions.
[Countdown: 00:15:27]
The blood-red countdown in his mind tolled like a death knell.
"Damn it, I'm going for it!" Shawn gritted his teeth and squeezed into the line.
The girls in front of him were all flushed with excitement, while Shawn's face was pale and his legs felt weak. When it was his turn, he felt like he was moving with his arms and legs on the same side as he shuffled to the front of the booth.
When Eric saw him, he was clearly taken aback. His blue eyes were filled with confusion and a hint of... wariness.
"It's you?" Eric spoke. "You... want one too?"
"I... I'm contributing to charity!" Shawn forced the words out through his teeth, then stuffed a crumpled five-dollar bill into the donation box.
Eric looked at him with a strange expression, but sighed, turned his cheek slightly, and closed his eyes, looking like he was ready to accept his fate.
Shawn stared at the perfect profile, so close, his heart pounding like it was about to leap out of his throat. His mind was a blank. The system's bullshit, the penalty for failure, Eric's faith... all his thoughts were a chaotic mess.
He threw caution to the wind, closed his eyes, and like a kamikaze pilot ready to die, lunged forward!
However, he was so nervous that he somehow tripped, lost his balance, and pitched straight forward!
"Mmph!"
The expected sensation of a cheek didn't come. Instead, there was a soft, warm, and strangely coffee-flavored sensation.
Shawn's eyes flew open in horror to find his lips pressed precisely and firmly against Eric Dane's, whose own lips were parted in shock, his eyes wide.
The world, in that moment, fell silent.
Eric's mind went blank. He could feel the warmth of the other person's lips, could even smell the faint scent of laundry detergent on him. He should have shoved this offender away, but for some reason, a strange, tingling electric current shot from where their lips met, instantly spreading through his entire body. His heart skipped a beat, then began to race wildly.
Just then, as if waking from a dream, Shawn sprang back as if he'd been electrocuted. He stumbled back several steps before clumsily crashing into a post behind him.
"S-sorry! I didn't mean to! It was an accident!" he yelled incoherently, then fled the scene at a full sprint without looking back, leaving behind an uproar and a dumbfounded Eric Dane.
Shawn ran all the way back to his dorm, locked the door, and slid to the floor with his back against it, his heart still pounding.
In his mind, the system's notification sound finally arrived.
[Ding!]
[Mission 2 has been completed.]
[Evaluation: Epic-level disaster. The host, with a precision comparable to a comet hitting the Earth, has completed the clumsiest "plunder" in history. The conquest target's worldview has developed minor cracks.]
[Rewards have been distributed: HP +2, curr[100/100]. Charm +0.5, current [5.6].]
[New skill unlocked: Gaze of the Succubus (Beginner) — When you make eye contact with the conquest target for more than three seconds, there is a 5% chance of causing their heart rate to accelerate.]
[Good luck next time, you moron.]