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Chapter 86
by Xenonach
It wasn’t even on purpose that Marisa’s salute was so sloppy she basically slapped her forehead with the back of her hand.
Pheromone Problem
John woke up to the Quest window he had disregarded last night, immediately souring his mood. He didn’t feel like sleeping had made him much better equipped to deal with the fallout of the evening, and he had a strong suspicion that the Developer was not going to make it easier. Still, there was the possibility that the content of the window was too important to ignore. Or the slim one that it was unrelated to… last night.
’The Pheromone Aura!?! Fuck!!!’ He had forgotten to toggle it off and switch back to Creating alchemist’s fire in the background when he left June’s house. He had unintentionally been blasting his mom with olfactory flirting throughout the dance lesson, not to mention however much of the stuff hung in the air of the house after sleeping with it on.
Unfortunately, this meant that he was unlikely to have just been seeing things in her expression. If he had, then the pervert running his powers probably wouldn’t have pushed him towards a repeat ‘performance’. Given that his mom had, to the best of his knowledge, had a 6 year long dry spell, it was no wonder that she had wavered in the face of a persistent barrage like that… Inadvertent as it may have been, he had essentially taken advantage of her romantic loneliness.
Which is also why he really wanted to dismiss the Quest, or at least the Bonus Objective. Knowing the role that Pheromone Aura had likely played, it was probably safe to do dance lessons without it on. Assuming, of course, that last night hadn’t tainted the whole idea beyond salvaging.
Unfortunately, the reward was not easily dismissed. Just about anything for himself, he would have tossed without hesitation. He would not make his mother the unwitting victim of his own advancement. But Levels for her, whom he couldn’t grind EXP for without exposing her to the Abyss, was a big deal. Especially this many. More than a 50% increase in her primary areas of competence were huge, even if that turned out to be entirely about making housework chores easier for her.
Was it enough to justify this… playing with her emotions, and putting into her head desires that she must be finding instinctively and morally repulsive? No. Ultimately it was not, as things stood. But perhaps if the damage could be mitigated… If he could at least find some way to convey that the situation wasn’t her fault, that she was under outside influence…
Regardless, he had to go down for breakfast. He had a promise to Qhila to keep before class started, and he couldn’t do that by spending all morning brooding in his room. And while he hadn’t thought of a way to make the Bonus Objective palatable, she could at least get the Level they had already ‘earned’, so he accepted the Quest.
He found his mom in the kitchen, nursing a cup of coffee. That she hadn’t cooked was unusual, but not so unusual as to be concerning in itself. They kept a jar of Grandma’s homemade granola for when Brenda had the occasional slow morning. That she was looking like she had barely slept at all went a good bit further than slow morning though, but there wasn’t much he could do about that. Except feel guilty. The leaden feeling in his gut was on that with impeccable diligence.
“Good morning, Mom.”
She blinked and turned towards him, evidently only noticing his presence now. “Oh, good morning, sweetie. I’m sorry I didn’t cook breakfast, I think I’ve been sitting here and half-dozing…”
Despite turning towards him, she didn’t meet his gaze, and quickly looked back down at her cup. That, in turn, left him unable to keep from turning away as well, as the figurative weight in the pit of his stomach grew. Still, he had to say something. Try something to unfuck things, at least a little, somehow. “It’s fine. I, uh, had fun last night. I’m sorry about how it ended…”
“It’s… It’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have sent you confusing signals like that… It was the wrong way to teach you about these things.”
The line “teach you about these things” was a direct, if partial, quote unlocking a memory John thought he had happily repressed. A few months shy of 3 years ago, he had had a long, detailed, and vivid dream about Brenda teaching him a bunch of very explicit “these things” in a very hands-on fashion. Which had very effectively convinced him to quit No Nut November halfway through and never give it another try.
That unwanted trip down memory lane stretched the awkward silence, and added to the reasons why he couldn’t look at his mom right now. At least he could have a pretense of excuse for that by getting the granola in the cabinet while responding, “That’s not- It is my fault, I, uh… I got a pheromone cologne online. While getting ready for the art lesson Saturday, I spilt a bunch all over the place. And since I didn’t want to be late, I just wiped it as best I could with some of the dirty laundry, but then when I got home I had forgotten…”
Brenda shook her head, glancing in his general direction for a moment. “Oh, sweetie, I don’t think those things actually work.”
“This one came with pretty solid looking documentation. And I think it’s less that they don’t work at all and more that they got overhyped as being borderline mind control, rather than a heavy thumb on the scale.” He wasn’t really sure how else to convey that the pheromone ‘cologne’ was the real deal.
Brenda sipped her coffee before answering, “Well, even so, if it isn’t mind control, then that means that in the end I’m still responsible for my actions.”
“Wouldn’t that make me responsible for my actions too?”
“... I guess I can’t argue against that.” She sighed. “I accept your apology if you accept mine?”
“Yeah, that seems to be where we’re landing…” He dug into his granola while his mom nodded, then got up and left. A few moments later, John heard the bathroom door close. Seizing the opportunity, he pulled a vial out of his inventory and poured a bit of the contents in Brenda’s coffee. The least he could do for his part of keeping her awake last night was share some of the caffeine enhancer he had brewed with Qhila yesterday.
By the time Brenda was back, the vial was long gone back into John’s inventory. Noticing nothing amiss, she sat down and drained the rest of the cup. “Why did you buy a pheromone cologne anyway?”
With the mutual apology having cleared the air at least a little bit and a few minutes having passed, he felt like moving on was probably best for now. Thus, he stuffed his response with as much over acted incredulousness as he could muster, “Have you seen June?”
That elicited a giggle from Brenda, dispelling the worst of the awkwardness still hanging in the air.
“The [Developer] really outdid herself last night…” On one hand, John hadn’t really wanted to taint his morning time with Qhila talking about that issue. On the other hand, it was probably best tackled while in a good mood, and 10 minutes into after-sex cuddles was just about the best mood he had ever been in. Besides, his kobold friend might come up with an idea for the practical side of the issue that he hadn’t thought of.
Qhila responded with an inquisitive hum and shifted slightly. She lay on her side while snuggled up to him, her head on his shoulder. With a small alteration of her position, they could look at the Quest window at the same time without really giving up any cuddly closeness.
“... I’m not sure I understand the issue.” She sounded mildly confused. “We did confirm that the Skill isn’t mind control.”
“Brenda is my mom.”
“Okay?” Qhila’s tone made it clear that that didn’t help her understand what was up. Which, in turn, blindsided John completely, but after a moment of actually thinking about it he realized what might be the issue.
“I take it kobolds don’t really care about… [****]?” The fact that Low Draconic didn’t even have a word for it more or less answered that question.
“... I don’t know that word.”
“It means sexual or romantic relationships between blood relatives. At the very least among mundanes, it is generally heavily frowned upon in most places.”
“Ah. No, that’s not really something kobold society worries about, as long as it doesn’t involve children. I didn’t think humans did either, judging by how often Abyssal nobles in various places marry their cousins. Or is it only when it’s very close relatives like parents or siblings?”
“Not really, though it is considered worse the closer people are related…”
“I see. So, is the problem that the [Developer] is pushing you towards… [incesst], that she might think you’re coming on to her and react badly, or that she might respond… favorably to the pheromones and put the two of you in a strained position?”
“The last one mainly. The [Developer] pushing me towards [****] isn’t exactly new, this is just the first time that the reward has been enough to consider doing anything untoward in that direction. But, uh, is there any way to counteract Pheromones more generally? Or something else that can let me fulfill the requirement for the Bonus Objective without actually subjecting Mom to the Skill? The first time was basically an accident…”
Qhila hummed thoughtfully for a bit. “Making sure you’re in a well ventilated place helps a bit, but it won’t do much if you’re close to each other. I, uh, don’t really know anything about human dances so I don’t know if that applies. Other than that, you could use cleansing candles. They weaken, or outright remove, airborne magical effects like alchemical gasses or conjured mist. I had planned to go over making one with you as part of preparing for the barrier dungeon thing, and I guess there’s no reason we can’t make a batch instead.”
“That sounds good. Thank you."
She just shrugged and nuzzled into him.
The school day had been fairly unnotable so far. People were still giving him a wide berth in the hallways, but it seemed like the whole trying to pretend not to be paying attention to him had diminished a bit. Even art class had been mostly normal, with just a few looks shared between him and June. Much as it would have been great to spend a moment after class to make out with his gorgeous teacher-with-benefits, he understood the need for discretion.
The first truly unusual thing to happen was that Christie didn’t meet him at the stairs leading to the roof. Not knowing what class she had before lunch on Mondays, he decided to check at her locker, which is where he found her.
Or rather, he found her nameplate. The view of the shy ravenette was blocked by a pair of jocks that John vaguely recognized as part of the football team. While the din of the lunch break crowd was too loud to make out what they were actually saying, their tone and body language was plenty to raise the Gamer’s hackles. That crude, braggadocious swagger usually meant the meatheads were either being pests in general or sex pests in specific.
He was strongly tempted to simply pop a couple of elixirs and lead with a sucker punch, but he couldn’t well claim self defense when Moira inevitably heard of it if he did. Instead, he **** himself to remain calm as he walked up behind the douche duo. All the way up until he was within arm’s reach, they didn’t notice him at all.
Then he flipped on Pheromone Aura, on ‘Intimidating’ and ‘High’, while clearing his throat. The jocks whipped around like someone had fired a gun. In the process of doing so, they parted enough to let John have a look at Christie. She looked like she was about halfway to a panic attack. She was also wearing a correctly sized school uniform today, but John was entirely too angry on her behalf to admire her looks at the moment.
Clenching his jaw against the white hot fury, he **** himself to appear as calm as he could. Emulating the approach to intimidation that Lord Chastain-Wessel had subjected John to last week, he talked as though speaking self-evident facts, “You are bothering her. That’s a bad idea if you don’t want to be benched for the season, like Frank.”
One of the jocks mumbled something unintelligible that was probably supposed to be a face saving retort. Then they made themselves scarce as fast as they could without literally running away.
As soon as John felt certain that they were leaving, he switched the Skill to calming pheromones instead and put a hand on Christie’s shoulder. “Are you o-”
She interrupted him by burying her face in his chest, so he just wrapped her in the best comforting hug he could.
They ended up staying like that for the rest of lunch break.
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The Gamer, Chyoa edition.
Erotic spin off of the manwha: The Gamer.
When he turned 18, John Newman received a gift from Gaia the world spirit. Starting now his whole life would become a video game. Follow him as he discovers his new powers and use them for his own purposes. Unlike what happens in the original The Gamer has some other priorities and will develop his powers to have a lot of fun with the ladies around him.
Updated on Jun 20, 2025
by Funatic
Created on May 2, 2017
by TheDespaxas
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