SMASH or PASS

Now I have become Eros, the fucker of worlds.

I’m the Goku of sex.

The final accounting of what I gained from five weeks of academy encounters:

Approximately 700 SP. More than months of guild work. More than six cowkin farm contracts combined. The Women Slayer title. Permanent. +50% human female attraction. Every human woman I met going forward would be measurably more inclined to approach, assist, or engage. It also worked on beastkin since most of them had a human father.

Intimate knowledge of the academy’s social networks: who was connected to whom, which families were allied, which were rivals, which daughters reported to their mothers. Three ethics committee members on informal retainer. A reputation that preceded me into rooms I hadn’t entered yet.

What it cost:

Dorian’s complete hostility. A Third Rank noble whose mana projections in combat class had gotten noticeably more aggressive. He channeled something beyond exercise. He was angry. Angry nobles is something that’s going to cause a future problem.

Well, I did fuck two of his future wives. Although he doesn’t know that so he is just being an asshole.

Noble family resentments. Seventeen complaints and growing. While some of them may or may not be fake. I can count on couple of them at least being real.

A woman’s sexual history was a line item in her family’s negotiation portfolio, and I was depreciation written across seventeen houses.

Cassius’s resignation. He’d stopped warning me. He’d stopped offering the escape route map. He sat in the back row, completed his assignments, and looked at me with the tired acceptance of someone who’d tried to prevent a flood by suggesting sandbags and watched the water go around them.

It was a small loss. He was a little useful, but now... Well I was fucking most of this academy. I didn’t really need him by any means.

"You’ve replicated the economic structure of a guild breeding program inside an educational institution," Cassius said, the last time we discussed it before he stopped talking to me. "Removed the intermediary. Kept all the revenue."

"Is that a compliment?"

"It’s an observation. I’d be impressed if I weren’t disturbed."

The ethics committee was compromised. The conference room where they’d summoned me was a recurring fucking session.

Total academy encounters by end of week five: over one hundred individual women. Several repeats. The ethics committee accounted for five recurring entries.

I hadn’t SMASHed a single academy woman. The entire 700 SP was passive contact bonuses. Background income generated by existing in a target-dense environment and saying yes.

The title was permanent. Women Slayer. +50% human female attraction. Every woman I met going forward would be 50% more inclined to approach, assist, cooperate, or proposition me.

The reputation was permanent too. "The School Whore." It followed me through corridors and whisper networks and the specific intelligence channels noble families maintained. Baron Vellmont have stopped sending me messages out of shame.

"Whatever..."

I don’t really need him anymore.

Noble family resentment was accumulating. Seventeen complaints and growing. The families viewed me as depreciation on their daughters’ marriage value. A woman’s sexual history was a line item in her family’s negotiation portfolio, and I was a financial liability written across many houses.

And Fenra.

The gap on the bed wasn’t a couple of inches anymore. It was the full width of the mattress. She slept pressed against the wall, curled tight, her tail wrapped around her own body instead of around mine. She smelled dozens of women on me every evening. Not one scent. Not Helena’s single perfume. Dozens. Layers of different soaps and lotions and body chemistries compressed into my skin like geological strata. Each layer was another woman. Each woman was another inch of distance that couldn’t be closed with apologies or explanations.

She still walked me to the gate every morning. She still waited at the gatepost. She still pressed her nose against my hand when I returned to make sure I’m alright. These were her constants. Her non-negotiable minimum. The baseline of loyalty that her wolfkin nature would not allow her to abandon regardless of what I’d done.

But the morning routine had stopped. Completely. She didn’t touch me during the night. She didn’t curl around me. She didn’t press her face into my neck. She didn’t wag when I came home. She wagged when I LEFT (relief that the scent-parade was over) and wagged when I RETURNED (relief that I was safe). But the wags were functional responses, The joy was gone. Smothered under a hundred different perfumes that weren’t hers.

I tried talking to her once. Just once. During the fifth week.

"Fenra. I know this is hard."

She was facing the wall. Her ear rotated toward me. Listening. Always listening.

"The academy is helping me gain more... Stuff. Important stuff. More than anything else I’ve ever had. In five weeks, I’ve earned what would have taken years at the guild or the farm."

Her ear stayed pointed at me. The rest of her body stayed pointed at the wall.

"I’m not going to say it doesn’t matter. It matters to you. I can see that. I can see the gap." I paused. "I just don’t know how to close it and keep my profits flowing at the same time."

She turned her head. Just her head. Her amber eyes found mine in the dark. She looked at me for three seconds. In those three seconds, speaking after a long time. "You chose your benefits over me. Again. And again. And again. A hundred times. Each time you came home wearing someone else, you chose them over me. Your... profits? But your profits don’t curl around you at night. Profits don’t press its nose against your hand. Profits don’t wait at a gatepost for three hours in the rain because you might need someone when you walk out."

She turned back to the wall.

"..."

How can I handle a wolfgirl who loved me enough to stay and hurt, because leaving would have hurt worse.

’Should I just send her back to Helena?’

No... I can’t do that.

Or I can? What’s stopping me?

She too is just a tool for me. She was good for protection but I don’t really need her that much anymore...

’...!!!?’

What the hell am I thinking?

I can’t just abandon Fenra like this.

I’m not a heartless monster.

Or... I’m? I don’t really need her anymore.

No. No. No.

Fenra stays. That’s non-negotiable.

Or is it? I mean--

Fuck this shit.

I’m not going to stay in this Vsauce loop for hours.

I needed to get out of the academy for a day.

Last time I met Yenna, she told me that the Bronze Ledger had a delivery quest. Brannock to Sylvanneth. 4 silver.

Low pay. But it was a day outside the building, outside the hallways, outside the scheduling system.

I took it.

◇◇◇

The Sylvanneth forest was a different world.

The moment we passed through the tree line, the air changed. Heavy and wet, the tree trunks wider than houses, the canopy turning the light into columns of green-gold. The ground was moss, and my shoes sank when I walked. Everything smelled alive. Not the manufactured alive of Brannock’s market district. The genuine alive of an ecosystem that had been growing undisturbed for centuries.

Fenra couldn’t come. Crossing into Sylvanneth territory requires guild authorization for non-human companions. She stayed at the apartment. On my way out, her tail wagged once. Small. The "be safe" wag. Not the "I’m happy" wag.

The delivery was routine. A crate of alchemical supplies to an elven border village called Syldreth, a settlement of approximately two hundred elves built into and around the massive trees that defined the Sylvanneth interior. The buildings weren’t constructed on the ground.

They were grown FROM the trees, wooden structures that emerged from the trunks like branches, connected by rope bridges and spiral staircases carved directly into the bark.

The receiving depot was at the village’s edge, a stone platform surrounded by forest. An elven clerk checked the manifest, counted the reagent vials, signed the delivery receipt, and handed me the quest stamp without a word.

I headed back toward the forest path. The caravan wouldn’t leave for another two hours. Plenty of time to walk the route back at a leisurely pace, enjoy the forest silence, and think about something other than scheduling encounters and tracking SP.

But the forest had other plans for me.

◇◇◇

That’s when they found me.

Five of them. Elven youth. "Youth" by elven standards meant they were somewhere between sixty and ninety years old and looked seventeen. Pointed ears. Angular features. The fluid grace that all elves share, as if their bones are hinged differently.

They emerged from behind trees with the coordination of predators who’d practiced this.

"A human! A young one!"

"Is he alone? He IS alone."

"I call first conversation."

"You can’t CALL conversation, Litha."

"I just did. First conversation is mine."

The one named Litha stepped forward.

She had silver hair and eyes in the color of wet moss. She circled me. Her footsteps made no sound on the moss.

"You’re the guild contractor? The reagent delivery?"

"That’s me."

"How old are you?"

"Eighteen."

"EIGHTEEN." She looked at her friends. "He’s a BABY."

"I’m not a baby."

"I’m seventy-three. My sister is sixty-one and she’s too young to go out past sunset." She leaned close. Mint breath. "Can I touch your ears?"

"No."

"They’re so ROUND! No points! They don’t move! They just sit there on the sides of your head like decorations!" She reached. I stepped back. "Just a little touch!"

"Litha, you’re scaring him."

"I’m not SCARING him, Mera. I’m being scientifically curious."

A third elf stepped forward. She was a little calmer. She was also wearing glasses, which seemed like an aesthetic choice.

"Is it true that human males can ejaculate multiple times in a single day? According to Alderman’s Biology, the male refractory period is—"

"Please stop reciting the textbook."

"I’m not reciting. I’ve memorized it. Chapter fourteen. The human male section. Four pages. I found it insufficient." She produced a notebook. "I’m conducting supplementary research. Would you participate in a survey? Three questions. Estimated completion time: approximately forty-five minutes."

"How does a three-question survey take forty-five minutes?"

"Because the questions are experiential."

"I’m leaving."

"You can’t leave!" said the fourth elf, who’d been silent until now. She stepped out from behind a tree. "I haven’t said anything yet. I was being patient. I was WAITING. And now you’re leaving before I get a turn."

"A turn at what?"

"Conversation." She looked offended. "I prepared a conversation starter. I rehearsed it with Litha. She said it was charming."

"What’s the starter?"

"’I am fascinated by your species. Would you like to see my favorite tree?’" She gestured at the forest behind her. "It’s an amazing tree. Eight hundred years old. There’s a hollow in the trunk where two people can sit comfortably."

"That sounds like a trap."

"It’s NOT a trap! It’s a tree! With a hollow! Where two people can sit! Comfortably!" She crossed her arms. "I don’t know why humans always assume the worst."

The fifth elf was sketching me in a notebook. She looked up only briefly. "Don’t mind them. I don’t need conversation. I just need you to hold still for another thirty seconds. I’m getting the jawline." She tilted her head. "Turn slightly left? The light is better from... yes. Perfect. Don’t move."

"I’m not posing for you."

"You’re standing still and the light is good. That’s posing." She sketched faster. "I’ll finish from memory if I have to. But the jawline is better live."

"Wait!" Litha grabbed my arm. Elven grip was stronger than it looked. "We only get one human male per YEAR! You can’t leave! We have SO many questions!"

A voice cut through the forest.

"Ladies. Leave the boy alone."

A man walked up the path. Mid-thirties. Human. Weathered face.

I... remembered him.

He was the same merchant I spotted at the Brannock market weeks ago.

"But Aldren..."

"He’s a guild contractor on official business. Harassing a guild member is a Covenant infraction. Should I file the report?"

They scattered. Grumbling. Litha blew me a kiss from behind a tree. Mera mouthed "come back alone." The researcher was still calculating refractory periods as she disappeared into the canopy.

◇◇◇

Aldren watched them go. "You alright?"

"Fine. Thank you."

"They do that every time. The border elves only see one human male a year. It’s entertainment." He offered a hand. "Aldren. Brannock-Vehlmere trade corridor."

"Noel—..."

Usually what followed was ’Ward of House Vellmont.’

However, I didn’t really know if that was true anymore.

"Noel. Bronze Ledger." That works?

"I know. You’re the academy kid. Worst practical score in history. Best written score in a decade." He smiled. "News travels about men."

The academy reputation had reached beyond the wall.

Naturally, my ’other’ reputation must’ve done so as well.

"I’ve got a caravan heading to Brannock. Ride with me."