Chapter 77: One Problem at a Time (R-18)
Zerena’s hand stopped.
Completely.
She froze where she stood, her expression gradually turning thoughtful as the question settled in. For the first time since the conversation began, she genuinely looked worried.
Max watched her quietly. He didn’t mind giving her time to think.
The only unfortunate part...
Was that he had been full-on hard for quite a while now. And his penis, unlike Zerena, showed absolutely no interest in patiently waiting for the discussion to conclude.
Only after several long seconds did Zerena’s hand begin moving again, resuming its slow rhythm around his penis.
A faint smile appeared on her face as she let out a quiet sigh.
"You don’t have to worry about that yet," she said. "If the system ever asks for something like it again, just tell me first."
She glanced up at him. "I’ll think of a solution." There was a brief pause before her expression shifted back to business.
"For now, focus on making the potions. We need a hundred bottles by the end of this week."
The smile on her face widened just a little.
"Though... thanks to your little blunder earlier, we might actually finish half of them in only two days."
Max nodded with a smile that looked considerably more forced than enthusiastic.
Two batches a day?
He could do it.
The problem wasn’t whether he could.
The problem was that after brewing that much, he’d be about as useful as an empty mana crystal. By the end of the day he’d be completely drained, and Zerena would still be standing there with another list of things for him to do.
Which was exactly why he wasn’t in a hurry to pile up Forbidden Points by inventing fake system tasks.
The moment Zerena realized he had spare points lying around...
She’d find a way to spend every last one of them.
Preferably while working him to the point where even getting a hard-on started feeling like unpaid overtime.
Fortunately for Max, in the middle of all the chaos he’d created, Zerena had completely forgotten about the Forbidden Points they’d already accumulated before the panty tasks had even appeared.
Otherwise...
She would’ve realized he already had enough saved up to brew four batches of potions.
Just from the points he got from doing kissing and breast-sucking tasks last day.
Zerena continued stroking his penis while his hands wandered over her butt, kneading and spreading the soft flesh with the casual familiarity that had somehow become part of their increasingly ridiculous routine.
Looking noticeably more cheerful than she had all afternoon, she let out a satisfied sigh.
"At least," she said, "I won’t have to ruin any more of my panties until tomorrow."
For a brief moment, Max considered pointing out that, given the direction their system tasks usually took, sacrificing a few pairs of panties was probably one of the less expensive operating costs.
This was another thing Max hadn’t considered while he was busy completing that particular task.
In hindsight...
He probably should’ve told Zerena he could only manage two batches of potions with the Forbidden Points he’d earn.
Three had been... optimistic.
Unfortunately, optimism had stopped supervising his decision-making somewhere around the moment he’d realized the task involved her vagina.
By then, the practical part of his brain had quietly packed its bags and gone home.
If someone had told him at the time that claiming he could brew ten batches would earn him the chance to complete the task...
There was a very real possibility he would’ve nodded first and worried about the consequences later.
His long-term planning had suffered a temporary workplace accident.
"We may not," Max said, pulling himself back to the present, "but the panty task disappears tomorrow night. It has a time limit. After that, we’ll only have the one where you have to masturbate... unless the system gives us something new."
Zerena didn’t respond.
At least, not verbally.
She simply reached over, took the damp panties down from the hook, and pulled them over his penis before adjusting them into place.
"I’ll think about that later," she said matter-of-factly. "For now, just focus on cumming."
The sentence left her mouth with surprising ease.
A month ago, saying something like that to her step grandson would’ve been unimaginable.
And to what max also merely nodded.
Where a week earlier, he would’ve spent the next five minutes internally celebrating the fact that Zerena had just told him to focus on cumming.
And he did.
The damp panties immediately began rubbing against his hard length as Zerena continued stroking him.
Max, meanwhile, quietly exercised the kind of confidence that only appeared when common sense had already left for the day.
Without asking for permission, he leaned forward and took one of her breasts into his mouth again, slowly sucking on her nipple.
Zerena let out a tired sigh.
"You really can’t leave these alone, can you?"
Max chose not to answer.
Mostly because his mouth was occupied.
Besides...
The answer was painfully obvious.
Compared to the beginning of the week, her breasts had changed noticeably.
Back then, it had taken several minutes of licking and sucking before her nipples finally hardened enough for him to proudly consider his efforts successful.
Now?
They barely needed an excuse.
Sometimes all it took was his hand settling on her breasts, a firmer squeeze, or the lightest brush of his lips before they reacted.
Even the occasional graze of his teeth was enough to earn him another unwilling little moan.
His hands wandered over her heavy breasts while his mouth remained occupied.
They were undeniably saggy.
Not the empty sort that age alone sometimes brought, but the full, heavy kind that simply surrendered to gravity after years of carrying far more weight than it had ever intended.
There wasn’t much in the way of stretch marks either, only pale skin with a few faint veins visible beneath it. If anything, the sag made them look even softer.
The only comparison he had was Analisa.
From what little he’d seen of her...
Zerena’s definitely looked softer.
Much softer.
Max silently approved of the result.
Whether anyone had actually requested his opinion on the matter remained highly questionable.