Respect Your Betters

Even if I'm missing out on another really good skill to make me stronger, the chance to mess with the minds of beautiful women is too good to pass up. If my hypothesis is correct, I could even eventually use this to manipulate people into becoming my tutees, making me way stronger way quicker. The chance to exploit my skills is way too tempting to pass up. I can imagine it, hundreds of tutees, all of them leveling up just once, and me gaining over a hundred levels overnight. I break out of my reverie as I remember that I have to get to Laura before the giant girl leaves. I rush over, new skill ready for action.

"...not like I did anything wrong. He ran into me." Laura says as I approach, accentuating her words by pointing first at the guard door and then at herself, completely unaware that I've already settled that situation. I barge ungracefully into the conversation, fueled by the confidence I have in my skills and the anger I have towards Laura.

"Hey Laura, do you really think you can just do whatever you want all of the time? Actions have consequences, even if you never learned that." taken aback by how forward I'm being, Laura has to collect herself for a moment before coming back with a rebuttal.

"Shut it squidface, just because you made it out this time, doesn't mean jack shit. Plus, do you really think that you could do anything to me?" she accentuates her words the same way as before, this time actually pointing at me. She really seems to like pointing. Deciding to test my skill, I get ready to provoke her. The giant girl stands off to the side, thankfully not having left yet, but I need to end this quickly if I want to talk to her.

"I just got my class, do you still think you have any power over me? I may have been weak in the past, but that all changes today." I make sure to keep as smug an expression as possible on my face to rile her up as much as possible. To my surprise, her reaction isn't rage.

"PFFHAHAHAHA," she cackles, a sound I never thought I would hear from a human being, "what class could you possibly have that rivals Champion?"

This might be more dangerous than I thought. Champion is a well known class for being incredibly strong. It has all the strengths of the berserker with none of the defects.

"You think that just because you got a class, you can stand up to ME?" she's really yelling into my face now, but I have a way to turn the tables. "You will forever be under my boot, why? The simple reason is that you are weak and I am st-"

She's cut off as I cast Respect Your Betters. It worked even better than I could have hoped! She's gone from pointing at me and then herself again to completely silent. All her anger and **** has just been cut off. She still looks at me with disdain, but now just leaves silently.

"What did you do?" the giant girl asks, surprised. "She just walked away!"

I can't stop myself from laughing. It's not a laugh I'm proud of, vaguely evil, but its the embodiment of all the stress I've suffered at Laura's hands fading away. I do have power, even if she could easily overpower me physically in my current state, I just won! The giant girl watches me, a bit uncomfortable, the surprise and excitement giving way for being creeped out by this tiny man laughing weirdly in front of her. I quickly regain control of myself and turn to her.

"Its one of my class skills! I just tested it for the first time and it worked really well! Seems pretty situational though." I tack that last part on at the end at the growing fear I see in the giant girl's face. She looks like she wants to leave but her curiosity wins out in the end.

"You just managed to get Laura fucking Kelly off your back? What's your class?! Psion? Argument winner?" she's definitely intrigued. Everybody knows just how insufferable Laura can be. Her family background isn't the most exceptional in the world, but they do have connections all throughout the capital. What do they do you might ask? Collect taxes. An evil job for an evil family. Though that's not entirely the truth. The Kelly family is actually comprised of very nice people. How they managed to raise such a demoness is beyond me. She's developed a reputation of being the worst person to have to deal with when paying taxes. Rumors have been circulating that she beats anyone who's even a penny short and then calls them rapists and throws them in jail for much longer than not paying taxes would normally garner. To be the guy who beat her in an argument feels pretty good. I glance around the room to see people giving me thumbs up as my gaze passes over them. This might be the best day of my life. I turn my attention back to the giant girl.

"If you want to know more about me, tell me a bit about yourself first. I'm Ripley, nice to meet you." I extend my hand for a handshake, lifting it above my head.

"Zlixlas, but you can call me Lily." a giant name for a giant girl, but Lily is a much cuter nickname than I expected from 'Zlixlas'. That cuteness is a bit offset by the weird feeling as she takes my hand, hers sizably larger than mine. Being the first giant I've ever met, I was not prepared for the handshake. I knew consciously that giants were born strong, but I was not expecting to have to exert all of my strength to keep from getting pulled off my feet.

"Now that we're properly introduced, here's my class card." I hold it up to her and she takes it from my hands more gingerly than that handshake made me think was possible. She reads it and rereads it a few times, as if to check if what she were seeing were real.

"How the hell does 'Tutor' give you a Skill that lets you win an argument against Laura Kelly?" I shrug, not really sure myself.

"No idea, but this class is awesome nonetheless." she seems curious enough, maybe with a little bit of trickery I could get her to be my tutee. "I have other cool skills too, ones that could help the both of us."

"I'm not planning to make friends here, I have important things to do elsewhere." she hands the card back to me, and makes to leave.

"Wait! I swear to you it's nothing dangerous, like I said it would benefit both of us. Plus, I really want to know how it works." she still looks apprehensive, so I continue. "All you have to do is agree, you can back out at any time. All it does is help both of us get stronger faster, my class is still tutor after all. If you still aren't convinced I could read you the full skill description and effects." I let the offer hang, thinking about how to add 'you can back out at any time' to the skill description without it sounding too suspicious if she asks. Luckily, she relents before I have to do that.

"Alright, I'll do it, but just to see what it's like. I'll stick with it for a little bit, see if it works, but if it makes me feel uncomfortable at any point, I'm canceling it." her position relaxes, "So what do I have to do?"

"Here," I activate the skill for the first time, not entirely sure how it's going to work. Fortunately, it's immediately obvious as a scroll suddenly appears, floating in the air between us. I panic for a second, hoping that the rules of the contract don't give my lie away, but she doesn't even read the text before saying accept.

A light flashes from the paper, so blinding that I'm sure everyone else is probably staring at us, so much for discretion. As the light dies down I move my arms away from my face and look around the room. Nobody is looking, except for the people leering at the giant girl. Even they haven't seemed to notice anything off. Was I the only one who saw that light? I feel a slight throb on my right hand, and look down to see a small, thick line, curved at one end and pointed on the other on the back. It's shaped like an elongated raindrop, with the point in the middle of my hand and the curved end near the knuckle of my index finger. I look up at the giant girl to see her waiting patiently. She seems a little meeker than before, and definitely much less impatient. Is this the effect of the 'weak mental magic' in the skill description? I'm a little excited, but I don't want to push my luck.

"I promised I would show you how it works. Tell me, what kind of skill do you want to learn. Not actual class Skill, just basic skills." I immediately want to use Acquire Skill, so of course I start with that.

"A skill... hmmm, I've always wanted to be faster, so I guess running? Sir." she adds the sir hastily at the end, probably a compulsion from the tutor spell. Its kind of nice to hear though. On second thought, now that I actually have the chance to use Acquire Skill, maybe I should level it up before I use it. I have 29 skill points after all, though using them too quickly might be a bad idea, since I haven't looked at my 4 other new skill choices. Plus, I don't know how long she'll be willing to be patient. On top of all that, I really want to level up Respect Your Betters. I could risk it and check my status and level up options, but I don't want her leaving half way. Even if my tutor spell is permanent, who knows if it'll make her stick around, she could still just leave. It would still help me get stronger, but then I'd be missing out on those massive tits.