The silk slid against my bare skin with a slowness that was almost sensual, warm like human breath, soft to the point of seeming alive. It followed the curves of my body without bumping into them, caressed the epidermis as if it remembered me. There was also... something else. A source-less shiver, as if something was blinking under my skin, at the edge of vision — or of madness.
Through the thick curtains filtered a breath of warm air, heavy with the scent of melted wax and faded roses, an ancient, domestic, almost ritual smell, that seemed to belong to someone else, another place, another role. My first reflex was to sit up, to question the space, to find my limits again… but the gesture failed before it was even born. My own body betrayed me.
Too light. Too young. Too smooth.
I didn't recognize my hands.
They trembled softly, without convulsion or panic, but as if caught in a visceral hesitation — barely brushing the dark sheets around me. Long, slender fingers, perfectly manicured, as if someone else had lived in this body before me, and I had just slipped into it. The kind of hands a noble heir could display without shame, if the world had offered me another birth.
I tried to get up, but a liquid dizziness stole all my will. The room spun around me like a blurry spiral, and that's when I saw it.
Engraved directly into my chest, deeply anchored into the flesh, a dark red mark, almost black, pulsing softly with the rhythm of my heart, like a foreign breath lodged in my torso. Three interlaced circles, and in the center, a downward-pointing triangle, perfect in its angles, like the seal of a pact or the reminder of a warning etched into the skin.
— "What the hell is this…"
The voice that came from my lips wasn't mine. It was deeper, younger, off. An accent I didn't control. An inflection I had never inhabited. As if my tongue itself had been reprogrammed without my consent.
Panic tried to rise, but I didn't let it through. It struck an invisible wall inside me, unable to externalize, frozen in my throat. Because at that moment, the door opened.
Without a sound.
She entered silently, almost barefoot.
Her hair was pure white, long, smooth, falling over her shoulders like a carefully kept cascade. Her face was calm, but her gray eyes shone with a strange gleam — not shy, not cold either. Just… attentive.
She wore a black and white maid's dress, short, far too tight to be a mere uniform. The fabric clung to her skin, outlining every curve. Her chest was compressed into a corset too tight, to the point that each breath raised the line of her breasts by a millimeter, stretched the fabric as if it would snap.
The neckline opened just enough to show, just enough to suggest the rest.
The bottom of her dress stopped high. Too high. Her thighs appeared bare as soon as she took a step. And when she walked, her hips swayed gently, naturally, with a silent mastery — as if she knew what it did. As if she did it on purpose.
Even her back, partially exposed, had that kind of hollow in the middle you stare at without knowing why. A banal detail. But obsessive.
And above all, there were those ears. Two cat ears, white, standing on her head. Mobile. Twitching.
They moved on their own, slightly tilted toward me. As if they were listening to me breathe.
I should have looked away. But I didn't. She was… too beautiful. Too perfectly shaped to be just a maid. Even my thoughts were ashamed to look at her like that — but I had no others.
They reacted to my breathing.
I remained frozen.
For a whole second, my brain refused to register the information. A lascivious maid? Fine. A cosplay in a strange dream? Why not. But that? Those ears moved. They twitched, tilted, adjusted to my confusion with a precision that left no room for doubt.
Why is she dressed like that?
That was the only coherent thought that crossed my mind, like an absurd buoy in an ocean of confusion.
I hadn't yet understood that this world had nothing decorative about it.
She lowered her eyes when I looked at her, as if that gaze alone were enough to trigger a shiver. I saw it, the shiver: light, but real, running along her bare arms. She placed a silver tray on the bedside table, with slow, polite, almost ceremonial gestures — as if this simple act contained a ritual, an offering to a sleeping god.
When she bent to set the tray down, the fabric of her dress slid slightly, revealing more than expected. A line of bare skin, the brush of a warm breath at the hollow of my stomach — or an illusion born of my disarray.
Then she spoke. Her voice… was of an unjustifiable softness.
— "You are awake, My Lord. Forgive me for entering without knocking."
I found nothing to answer. I was naked. Unknown to myself. Watched by a feline creature in a semi-hentai maid outfit, and she spoke to me as if I were a prince awakening from a divine nap.
And then…
The blinking.
Floating, translucent, unreal.
A screen had just appeared, suspended before my eyes, with no support or visible source.
[Target detected – Status: Unknown (Subordinate class)]
Race: ?
Affection: 12%
Corruption: 0%
Initial mission available.
"Touch her. Obtain your first fragment of power."
I remained still. My breath caught. The screen wasn't blinking: it was alive. Each word pulsed softly, as if it shared my heartbeat, as if this interface wasn't a technology, but an entity — intimate, archaic, lodged somewhere between my vision and my body.
Was it real?
My first thought was: I'm losing my mind.
The second: if I see it… maybe she does too.
I slowly turned my head toward her. She hadn't moved. She waited, upright, hands folded, gaze lowered — like a piece of decor frozen in expectation of an order. A perfectly calibrated presence, made to not exist until summoned. Submission embodied.
I stared at the screen. Then at her. Then back to the screen.
— "Do… do you see something, there? In front of me?"
She raised her eyes, her gray pupils full of sincere surprise.
— "Pardon, My Lord?"
Her gaze passed through the space where the interface floated… without stopping there. Not a hesitation. Not a flicker in her pupils. Nothing.
She saw nothing.
I blinked, harder.
— "Nothing at all? A light? A… panel? A symbol, maybe?"
She slightly furrowed her brows, hesitated, then stepped closer with an almost faded step. Her hand rose slowly, as if she feared damaging the air between us, and she leaned toward me with the same silent fluidity that marked each of her movements.
— "My Lord… you seem feverish."
Her cool palm pressed against my forehead. But her whole body followed — her large breasts brushed against mine, her hair slid over my bare shoulders, and her breath, at that distance, merged with mine.
A touch, barely. A contact not quite voluntary… but not entirely innocent either.
I remained frozen, trapped in that doubt. Was this care? Or initiation?
— "Would you like me to call the doctor?"
— "No." I sat up suddenly, almost with anger. "No, it's fine. Forget it."
So I was alone.
Alone to see this thing. Alone to hear this voice. Alone to feel this floating injunction pushing me to touch her as if it were just a tutorial. But this wasn't a game. This wasn't a hallucination. The screen persisted, even when I looked away, even when I blinked. Even when I pinched myself. It was there. And it breathed with me.
— "Would you like me to wash you?"
I looked up. She hadn't moved.
And it was then, in that humid, suspended silence, that I understood something essential, irrevocable:
If I didn't decide… This world would decide for me.
[Optional challenge unlocked: Let it happen]
Reward: +2% Corruption — Passive effect (Sensorial Contact) unlocked
Risk: Minor dependency
Passive effect: each contact with a female target will trigger heightened sensory stimulation. Intensity proportional to Affection.