The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed. A chill ran through his heart.
Could it be that the moment he got off the ship, Momousagi could no longer suppress the yuri spirit hidden deep within her heart? Using his body, had she transformed into a top-tier hunter and begun preying on those innocent, ignorant girls?
No.
No, no, no, no, no...
Noah shook his head, throwing that absurd thought out of his mind.
Leaving aside how ambiguous the earlier detection information had been, whether Momousagi was even into girls remained uncertain. But after spending these past few days with her, Noah dared to say that Momousagi definitely was not the sort of person who would recklessly use someone else's body.
A more reliable guess was that, just as before, when Momousagi gave those female recruits one-on-one close guidance, the physical contact had gone too far and triggered the system's preliminary conquest judgment, establishing ambiguous relationships.
But excessive physical contact alone definitely would not be enough to achieve a preliminary conquest.
Otherwise, the physical contact between him and Momousagi over the past few days had long surpassed that boundary. They should have established an ambiguous relationship and received that 100,000-point reward by now.
More importantly, it depended on their feelings. If those girls felt nothing for him and neither became flustered nor blushed during physical contact, then even zero-distance contact probably would not trigger the system's judgment.
Over the course of the morning, the number of girls Momousagi had guided was definitely far greater than twenty-something.
The rest probably were either uninterested in him, or, even if they liked him, their feelings were far from reaching the level of "admiration."
"Wait, so..."
Noah's expression turned strange. "There are actually more than twenty girls like Shiya hiding around me?"
If his charm was really that great, then why had he never received love letters, chocolates, gifts, or anything like that over the past year?
Now that they knew Momousagi was inside his body, they had found the courage to use requests for guidance as an excuse for physical contact—or rather... to take advantage of him?
...Lustful girls were terrifying.
Noah did not realize that when it came to narcissism, his thought process had always been rather different from ordinary people's.
"Anyway, I don't need to take any responsibility, I don't feel any psychological burden, and I can break the previous deadlock while gaining so many points."
Rubbing his chin, he summarized this unexpected development. "No matter how you look at it, I'm still the one benefiting the most."
Noah glanced at his status panel. He had originally had only a little over a thousand points left, but now he had gained around thirteen thousand more. In a sense, he had unprecedentedly become someone with over ten thousand points for the first time.
But the surprises did not end there. Just as Noah's mood began to brighten, another new system message appeared in the information panel below.
"Side Quest: Ten-Person Slayer, completed" "Quest reward: 100,000 points, S-rank gift box x1, received" "Note: The first side quest was so difficult, yet you still completed it within the time limit. For a novice player, this is truly an impressive achievement!"
The side quest had been completed!
Noah felt his mind explode. His ten-thousand-point status, his preliminary conquests—he threw all of it to the back of his mind. His eyes saw only the system message stating that the quest rewards had arrived.
One hundred thousand points!
An S-rank quest gift box!
Compared to such an abundant haul, the ten-odd thousand points he had just earned were utterly insignificant.
His breathing quickened for a few seconds. After a brief moment of shocked discomposure, he quickly pulled himself together and forcibly returned to a calm state.
"It really was completed. It isn't an illusion..."
Noah blinked and looked toward the quest panel on the far right. The side quest "Ten-Person Slayer" had already been marked as completed. After flashing briefly, it dimmed and vanished directly from the quest panel.
A windfall like this actually existed?
Thinking back carefully, this quest had appeared on the first day he obtained the system—eleven days ago.
Because it was too difficult and had a time limit of only fifteen days, Noah had assumed he would give up. He had long since forgotten about it and focused on figuring out how to find an opportunity to complete the second side quest, "Superior's Confession."
Who would have thought... that with only the final two or three days left before the deadline, he would achieve the objective in this way?
Noah looked at his status panel again.
"Current points: 115001"
After confirming that it really was a six-digit number, Noah began seriously considering a question.
After a pauper became rich overnight, how should he spend his money?
He opened the shop list and looked at the six random items that had appeared this week.
[Swordmaster Ryuma's Insight Notes (Incomplete): 2,000 points] [Mandatory Megaphone (Consumable): 100 points] [Senzu Bean (Consumable): 60,000 points] [Six Styles: Soru Skill Scroll (Intermediate): 1,000 points] [Gambling Mastery (Master): 60,000 points] [Western Economics (Master): 8,000 points]
Items that had originally required painstaking calculation and extremely cautious selective purchases could now all be obtained with a mere thought.
Even the most expensive item, "Gambling Mastery (Master)," cost only 60,000 points. He could buy it whenever he wanted.
Of course, having the confidence to do so was one thing. Actually buying that thing would be a complete brainless move... After some thought, Noah decisively purchased Swordmaster Ryuma's Insight Notes (Incomplete) first.
An item immediately appeared in his inventory. Judging from the icon, it was a yellowed, old, damaged scroll.
After opening it, an entirely new viewing window appeared on the right side of the system panel.
The text displayed inside was the content of Swordmaster Ryuma's Insight Notes. The layout perfectly replicated the original, looking somewhat like a PDF document.
It was not a physical object, which was a bit disappointing, but this seemed good too. Not only was it more discreet, but he could open it and read it anytime, anywhere.
After casually skimming it twice, Noah temporarily put it away in his inventory and looked at the remaining items in the shop.
He had already bought the Mandatory Volume Regulator. He ignored Western Economics and Gambling Mastery outright. After thinking carefully for a moment, he bought only the Intermediate Soru skill scroll from the remaining two items.
He actually rather wanted the Senzu Bean. It was a divine item for restoring stamina during battle and could also heal injuries.
But it really was too expensive. Considering that he was still under the protection of Marine Headquarters, Noah decided to wait until he had more points and it appeared again before buying it.
He was currently in the difficult initial stage for a novice. He still had to be cautious in all things.
After closing the shop interface, Noah decided to save a little under half of the more than one hundred thousand points he had gained this time for next week's new item refresh.
As for the remaining majority, he would use it all at once—to add attributes!
Before you continue