"You’re already here," Zerena said, gesturing toward the takeaway they’d picked up on the way. "Let’s talk over dinner."

Max felt another wave of annoyance.

There she went again.

Ordering him around like he’d somehow signed a lifetime employment contract without reading the terms.

Then he remembered the view she’d unintentionally provided a few moments earlier while walking upstairs.

...

His resentment softened considerably.

’Fine... I’ll generously let this one slide.’

With that deeply unbiased conclusion reached, he got up and began unpacking the food, arranging the containers and plates on the small dining table.

Oddly enough, he found himself looking forward to the meal.

It had been quite a while since he’d last eaten food cooked by someone else instead of surviving on hospital meals, instant noodles, or whatever tragic culinary experiments he’d attempted himself back on Earth.

"So... same tasks again tomorrow?" Zerena asked.

For a brief moment, Max was tempted to tack on a few extra requirements.

The opportunity was right there.

Unfortunately, greed had a remarkable talent for ruining otherwise excellent scams.

Besides, he had no idea what ridiculous nonsense the system might decide to demand next. Locking himself into an increasingly absurd schedule now felt unnecessarily risky.

More importantly...

He didn’t want to cheapen the value of the system in Zerena’s eyes.

If every tiny depraved act somehow produced mountains of rewards, even she would eventually start asking uncomfortable questions.

Better to keep things believable.

"...Somewhat, I think," Max answered vaguely.

Then he scooped up another carefully assembled bite

"Why doesn’t it just give you the same tasks every day?" she asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Max shook his head.

His eyes kept darting between his plate and the exposed crease of her breasts, visible every now and then because the collar of her shirt was simply too big and hung too low.

"Sometimes it does," he answered. "Sometimes it triggers new ones instead. New ones usually give more points..."

Zerena fell silent for a moment, clearly turning that over in her head.

"And how do you trigger them?" she asked again, trying to squeeze as much information out of him as she possibly could.

Though Max was somewhat distracted by the exposed crease of her chest, visible whenever the loose collar of her shirt shifted, not even that was enough to make him casually hand over information that could come back to bite him later.

Fortunately, she wasn’t asking anything particularly dangerous.

At least, not as far as he could tell.

"Umm..." Max scratched his cheek, pretending to think. "Usually... when I finish the last task, new ones appear."

He paused for a moment.

"Sometimes they’re repeats of old ones... sometimes they’re completely new."

Another brief pause followed.

Then he hesitated, lowering his voice as though the next part was embarrassingly difficult to admit.

"And... sometimes they appear when..." He trailed off, deliberately acting flustered before mumbling, "...when I’m thinking about doing... things?"

"Things like what?" she asked, clearly not following what he meant.

"Things like..." Max mumbled, almost under his breath.

He hesitated for a second before admitting, "...kissing... boobs... and other stuff."

Zerena stared at him for a moment.

Then, to Max’s surprise, she let out a short chuckle.

"So if you spend your time thinking like a pervert," she said, amusement creeping into her voice, "your system rewards you with even more perverted tasks."

She shook her head.

"How wonderfully convenient... for a pervert."

Then her expression settled back into business.

"What else triggers new tasks?"

Seeing that Zerena wasn’t angry, Max relaxed a little.

His harmless, slightly awkward idiot act was apparently still working.

"Umm... doing peverted things can make new tasks appear too," he said. "That’s actually when they show up most of the time."

He paused before adding,

"The only one that’s basically guaranteed is completing a task. That always makes new ones appear... though most of the time they’re just repeats of the old ones."

"So the ones we completed this morning?" Zerena asked. "Did those come back, or did you get something different?"

"The same ones," Max answered, finishing the last bite of his food.

Zerena rested her chin on one hand, quietly thinking it over.

"So unless something unusual happens, tomorrow will probably be more of the same?"

"I think so..." Max replied with a small shrug. "At least that’s how it’s been so far."

"Hm."

She gave a slow nod before returning to her food.

That wasn’t the answer she’d been hoping for.

New tasks usually meant more points.

More points meant more potions.

More potions meant more money.

Unfortunately, it seemed the system wasn’t nearly as generous as she’d have liked.

The conversation drifted to a stop after that.

Neither of them seemed interested in forcing it any further, leaving only the occasional sound of cutlery against plates as they finished dinner.

Later that night, after washing up and getting ready for bed, the two of them ended up doing what most people claimed they wouldn’t do before sleeping.

Lying in bed while staring at their phones.

Just before heading to their separate rooms, Zerena looked over at him.

"If thinking about things can trigger new tasks..." she began, "then try to get a few new ones tonight."

Max looked up.

"You want me to... deliberately trigger them?"

"If possible."

She shrugged.

"We might as well find out how your system works."

Max nodded without the slightest objection.

In fact, a grin spread across his face.

Max nodded.

That conclusion came after Zerena had made one thing perfectly clear.

She wasn’t in the mood to complete any more new tasks tonight.

The problem was...

She still wanted more points.

Unfortunately, simply having Max sit there and think perverted thoughts carried a fairly low chance of triggering anything new.

Which left them with only one realistic option.

Try doing something just perverted enough to qualify as sexual harassment—

without crossing into the kind of absurdity the system usually demanded from its actual tasks.

The theory sounded simple.

Actually deciding what counted as "just enough" turned out to be considerably more complicated.

Most of Max’s suggestions were rejected almost immediately.

Some earned him an unimpressed stare.

Others made Zerena question whether the system had destroyed what little common sense he’d possessed to begin with.

After a surprisingly long discussion, she finally settled on the least perverted option he had suggested.