The elevator ride down was a slow descent into hell inside a stainless steel coffin.
Rei stood in the back corner. She pressed her spine against the cold metal wall as if trying to merge with the architecture. Her eyes were fixed on the digital floor counter above the door. The red numbers ticked down with agonizing slowness.
4...
3...
The air inside the car was stale. It smelled of old floor wax and the lingering, ghostly scent of someone's cheap cologne. To a normal person, it was just an elevator. To Rei Locke, it was a loading screen for a level she wasn't high enough to play.
Her reflection in the polished doors mocked her. A shapeless gray blob in a hoodie two sizes too big. The hood was pulled up so tight only her nose and eyes were visible. She looked like a suspect in a true-crime documentary.
But the System didn't see a blob. It saw data.
Floating next to her reflection was a wireframe diagnostic of her own body. It pulsed with a soft, invasive pink light. It highlighted her hips, her thighs, and the terrifying lack of barriers between her skin and the world.
[ ASSET DIAGNOSTIC ]
[ LOWER BODY: VENTILATED ]
[ HUMIDITY: RISING ]
[ FRICTION COEFFICIENT: OPTIMAL ]
[ CURRENT STATUS: VULNERABLE ]
"Stop looking at me," she whispered to the empty air. She pulled her sleeves down over her hands until only her fingertips showed. "I'm not an asset. I'm a customer. I'm just going to buy water."
The elevator shuddered as it hit the second floor. Rei flinched. Her knees knocked together.
The movement caused the rough inner seam of her sweatpants to drag against her inner thigh.
It wasn't painful, exactly. It was worse. It was texture.
Without the buffer of underwear, the cheap, pilled cotton of the sweatpants felt like sandpaper made of velvet. It caught on her skin. It teased sensitive nerves that were already screaming from the Heat building in her belly.
2...
1...
Ground Floor.
The doors chimed. A hollow, generic sound effect that echoed in the empty lobby. They slid open.
She looked. She analyzed the pathing.
Option A: The Penguin Shuffle. Keeps the fabric static. Minimizes friction.
Result: Looks insane. High risk of attracting "WTF" stares.
Option B: The Normal Walk. Full stride. Maximum friction.
Result: Looks normal. High risk of sensory overload.
"Min-maxing," she muttered, gritting her teeth. "We play for the win."
She forced herself to take a normal step. Then another.
RUB. SLIDE. SCHLICK.
The sound was faint, wet, and undeniably lewd. The fabric clung. Then it peeled away. Then it clung again.
Rei's face burned. She felt like a walking hazard. Every step was a fresh reminder that she was "Ventilated." She felt drafty. Exposed. Absurdly vulnerable.
[ HEAT: 24% (RISING) ]
[ STATUS: CHAFING (PLEASURABLE) ]
"It is not pleasurable," she lied to the HUD. "It's a design flaw."
Rei held her breath. She peeked out like a soldier exiting a bunker.
The lobby was empty, thank god. Just a row of metal mailboxes and a flickering fluorescent light that buzzed like a dying insect.
But the air was different down here. The L.U.S.T. OS overlaid the world with a faint, buzzing grid. The potted plant by the door, a fake ficus covered in dust, had a low-resolution texture. It looked like a render that hadn't fully loaded.
The automatic glass doors leading to the street were highlighted in a neon green border that pulsed with a rhythmic, inviting beat.
[ ZONE: NEW KOWLOON STREETS (SECTOR 4) ]
[ ENTER OPEN WORLD? ]
[ YES / YES ]
"I hate linear RPGs," Rei muttered, stepping toward the glass.
She stepped onto the mat. The doors hissed open.
The city assaulted her.
It wasn't just the noise, though the noise was a physical wall. The distant wail of sirens. The bass thump of passing cars. The low-frequency hum of the city's power grid.
It was the pressure.
The humidity of Sector 4 hit her like a wet, dirty towel slapped across the face. The air was thick. Heavy. Wet. It smelled of ozone, frying grease from street vendors, exhaust fumes, and the sweet, rotting scent of garbage waiting for pickup.
It clung to her skin instantly.
Rei Locke stepped out of the nest and into the hunting ground.
[ HEAT: 28% ]
She took a step.
RUB.
Rei stopped. Her breath hitched. The sweatpants swung with the momentum, brushing against her labia.
STEP.
SLIDE.
"Oh god," she choked out, stumbling slightly.
It was unbearable. The loose fabric swung with every stride. It brushed against her exposed, sensitive skin. Teasing her. Chafing her.
It wasn't sexy. It was a torture device designed by a pervert engineer.
The System called it "Ventilation." Rei called it "The Walk of Shame Simulator 2026."
Every movement sent a jolt of friction straight to her brain. It bypassed her logic centers and hit the dopamine receptors she usually reserved for unboxing rare loot.
[ SYSTEM ALERT: GAIT ANALYSIS ]
[ MOVEMENT: SHUFFLING ]
[ STATUS: SUSPICIOUS ]
[ TIP: WALKING LIKE A PENGUIN ATTRACTS PREDATORS. STRUT, ASSET. ]
"I'm not strutting," she hissed through her teeth. She kept her head down, hugging the wall of her apartment building. "I'm surviving. I'm speed-running the grocery trip. No side quests. No unexpected encounters."
She turned the corner toward the convenience store. It was only two blocks away. In her old life, before the debt, before Nyx, this walk took three minutes.
Tonight, it felt like a marathon through a minefield.
The street was mostly empty, but "mostly" was too crowded for Rei. Up ahead, the neon sign of a ramen shop buzzed. DRAGON BOWL. It cast a slick red reflection on the damp pavement.
A group of salarymen were smoking outside a bar two doors down.
They were loud. Their laughter sounded jagged, amplified by the System's audio sensors. Rei could hear the clinking of glasses inside the bar. She heard the murmur of their conversation about quarterly reports and terrible bosses.
Rei's heart slammed into her throat.
Abort. Cross the street. Hide in a sewer. Dig a hole and die.
She started to veer left, aiming for the curb, but the System stopped her. Her vision glitched. Static tore across her periphery. Text scrolled rapidly over the men's heads, tagging them like enemies in a tactical shooter.
Her Level 1 Passive Skill, Data Breach, kicked in automatically.
[ MOB DETECTED: SALARYMEN (LVL 2) ]
[ QUANTITY: 3 ]
[ AROUSAL: LOW (ALCOHOL DEBUFF) ]
[ STATE: INTOXICATED / FRUSTRATED ]
[ AGGRO RANGE: MEDIUM ]
[ TAGS: EXHAUSTED, FRUSTRATED, VANILLA ]
A dotted line appeared on the sidewalk. It drew a path directly past them.
[ OPPORTUNITY: WALK PAST THEM. ]
[ POTENTIAL THIRST YIELD: +15 ]
[ RISK: LOW ]
Rei hesitated. Her instinct was to flee. But she looked at her Heat bar.
[ HEAT: 30% ]
She was already revved up. The friction of the walk had primed her. She felt powerful in a jittery, terrifying way.
"I don't need to talk to them," she reasoned. She tightened her grip on her sleeves. "I just need to exist near them. Passive farming."
She kept her head down. She hugged the wall, activating her "Stealth" mode. She scurried past them, holding her breath.
Don't perceive me. I am a texture glitch. I am part of the background.
As she passed the perimeter of the group, the wind shifted.
One of the men, wearing a loose tie and face flushed with cheap sake, stopped laughing. He lifted his head. He sniffed the air like a hound catching a scent.
"Hey," he slurred.
He didn't look at her face. He looked... around her. Searching for the source.
"You smell... good."
Rei froze for a split second.
It wasn't a compliment. It was confusion. He smelled the burnt copper and lavender of the System mixed with the raw, biological scent of an aroused woman. It short-circuited his drunk brain.
Rei felt a jolt of adrenaline. It hit her groin like a hammer.
[ HEAT: 33% ]
"S-sorry," she squeaked, accelerating her pace.
"Wait," the man mumbled, stepping away from his friends. He looked bewildered. "Just... wait."
Rei didn't wait. She speed-walked away. The friction between her legs increased with her tempo.
STEP-RUB-STEP-RUB.
But as she put distance between them, a notification popped up in the corner of her vision, glowing gold.
[ PASSIVE FEEDING SUCCESSFUL ]
[ SOURCE: CONFUSED DRUNKARD ]
[ THIRST EXTRACTED: +5 ]
[ XP GAINED: +10 ]
Rei almost tripped.
She stared at the number. She had made money. She had generated currency just by walking past a guy while not wearing underwear.
"It works," she whispered. A mixture of horror and thrill curled in her stomach. "I didn't even have to talk to him. I just had to be... ripe."
She rounded the final corner. Her heart hammered a drum and bass rhythm against her ribs.
And there it was. The objective.
AFK-MART.
It glowed in the night like a holy shrine. The fluorescent lights inside buzzed with a clean, white purity that promised air conditioning and anonymity.
But the System had marked it. A giant, pulsing AR marker hung over the automatic doors.
[ RAID: THE CONBINI ]
[ DIFFICULTY: SOCIAL ]
And standing behind the counter was the clerk.
The System zoomed in. It expanded a window in her peripheral vision like a sniper scope.
[ BOSS IDENTIFIED: KENJI ]
[ LEVEL: 1 ]
[ ATTRIBUTE: APATHETIC ]
[ WEAKNESS: UNKNOWN ]
Rei stopped ten feet from the door. She hid in the shadows of the alleyway. She leaned against the damp brick wall, breathing hard.
The sweat was pooling at the small of her back. The heat between her legs was a throbbing, physical weight.
[ HEAT: 35% ]
[ STATUS: DRIPPING ]
She looked down at her gray sweatpants. In the dark, she couldn't see a stain, but she could feel the wetness clinging to her skin.
"Okay," she coached herself. "Boss fight mechanics. Don't let him see the back. Don't let him see the front. Keep the hoodie low."
She adjusted the hem. She stretched the fabric until the seams creaked.
"Just buy the water. Don't engage. Use the apathy against him."
She took a deep breath. She inhaled the scent of rain and dumpster juice.
"Logging in."
She stepped onto the welcome mat.
BING-BONG.
The door chimed, announcing her arrival to the brightly lit stage.
Rei Locke stepped into the light. She was wet. She was shaking.
And she was ready to farm.