Chapter 45: A new ability…

Melody and I entered the small restaurant. It was an isolated building surrounded by parking spots on all sides. The restaurant itself had a generic look, not modern but not old. As we entered, there was a waiter standing behind a small booth area on the right, and the booths and tables and chairs scattered around to the left. Seeing us, the waiter asked, “Two?”

“Six,” Melody replied. “They’ll be coming later.”

“Alright…” the waiter said, tapping away at some screen, then grabbing six menus and sets of silverware. “Right over here.”

He led us to a corner booth with a round table in the center and Melody and I slid into the far side. “Any drinks?”

“I’ll just have water,” Melody replied, turning to me. I echoed her statement and the waiter left to go fetch the waters, leaving behind the menus and the silverware bundles. “You have a new core ability unlock.”

“I do?”

Scarlet Diamond

BDSysteM

Unique - X tier

Active Mistress Imposed Effects: Nudity

Level 2 (increase pending)

Credits: 1598.06

Health: 60/60

Mana: 60/60

Submission: 30 (rewards pending)

Strength: 60

Agility: 60

Points: 10

“Yep, it’s a core ability. Would you like me to decide?” Melody asked.

Do I want her to decide? I let her choose the secondary ability, the core ones aren’t that different I think. It’s fine. Yeah. Otherwise I’ll spend ten years thinking about what would happen if I choose the other one. “Yeah.”

Submission Level Up!

Having reached submission score 30, you have unlocked the following ability.

Your level has also increased by 1.

Core Ability: Temporal Flux (Level 1)

Pet can spawn a stationary chronofield at the location of Mistress, which slowly shrinks until it disappears.

The chronofield speeds up all system rates for all allies within it.

Does not affect pet.

Chronofield specifications:

Spherical field with a maximum diameter of five meters.

Field radius will shrink at a rate of 0.05 meters per second.

Mana cost:

When spawned, consumes the volume in meters cubed of the accessible portion of the chronofield in mana.

Note: When spawned, the non-accessible portions are not charged with mana and have no effect if entered.

Rate increase:

2x base rates

Chronofields:

0/0

Conditions:

In order to activate a field, pet must be bound in some way.

Each additional unique binding allows for an additional chronofield.

Valid binds include anything visible that has a public impression of ownership or anything, visible or not, that physically limits movement or essential functions in some way.

Okay… that seems overpowered. What the fuck? Double base rates, so like ability cooldowns, regeneration speeds… would it apply to my healing if I healed someone in a field? I know it doesn’t affect me, but that kind of applies to them? Maybe?

Regardless, that ability is insane. Although I have no fucking clue how much any of that crap costs. Diameters, radii, volume of a sphere… with chunks taken out of it. I’m not going to know anything about this, am I? Unless I abuse BDSysteM and make it tell me everything. It probably will.

A minor concern though… double base rates. Does that include the effects? Like double a poison rate? Would it make the effect shorter too? So the same total effect, but over a shorter time period. I guess that doesn’t make a large difference, unless it's some regeneration effect, like a super fast mana regen that lets you fire attacks quicker. If you have faster mana regeneration, even if the time also counts down twice as fast, it'd let you kill monsters quicker since they can't regenerate at the rate you hurt them, when they would normally be able to.

Although it definitely does make a large difference for the base stats, things like mana and health regeneration, along with ability cooldowns.

Oh yeah, I leveled up too. How much did my stats increase this time?

Scarlet Diamond

BDSysteM

Unique - X tier

Active Mistress Imposed Effects: Nudity

Level 3

Credits: 2598.06

Health: 120/120

Mana: 120/120

Submission: 30

Strength: 120

Agility: 120

Points: 10

Doubled… and a thousand more credits. Crazy. Nothing compared to Melody’s health though… I wonder what level she’s at.

The waiter returned at some point, setting down the waters and asking if we wanted to order anything yet, or if we would wait for the rest of our party. Melody ended up ordering a few appetizers, and then, after the waiter left, spoke. “Looks like you might need your collar again.”

Yeah… I guess that is a requirement. And a collar is definitely better than any other form of bondage… imagine wearing a gag or something. I’d still be able to communicate with Melody through BDSysteM but… oh god that would be crazy. Hot as fuck, but crazy. “That’s why you chose this isn’t it?”

“Maybe.” Melody smirked. “Want me to put it on you now, or when everyone arrives?”

“Now, please,” I replied instantly, sliding closer and sticking out my neck for easy access. If it’s on before people get here… I might be able to play it off as some weird fashion choice… but if Melody puts it on while they all watch? Yeah… no way.

Melody pulled the collar out from somewhere, I don’t know where. A pocket or something. Then she wrapped it around my neck and fastened it nice and tight. Present, but not restricting. And I got a little notification from my system…

Ability: Temporal Flux

Total chronofields increased by 1 and is now 1.

Perfect. Hey BDSysteM, can I disable those whenever Melody and I are doing… you know? So it doesn’t break immersion.

Yes, yes. I already did you horny slut.

Thanks, cutie. Stupid dumb system. You’re the horny one, okay. The purpose of your entire existence is literally to be horny.

At some point, the waiter returned with a few plates holding chips, some sauces, some chicken wings, and a large bowl of salad. Then he left and returned again with six plates. He told us to wave him down whenever we wanted to order main dishes, and then left.

It was around eleven, roughly ten minutes after the waiter left, when Silvia arrived wearing a white shirt with a chibi panda rolling around holding a piece of bamboo. She walked over to our table and sat down beside us, saying, “Hi.”

“Hey, Silvia,” Melody replied, then turned to me. “Scarlet, can you grab the dungeon clothes from the car? It’s probably easier for everyone to change here.”

“Sure…” I got up from my seat, which required Silvia to get up as well since I had to slide out of the booth, and left the restaurant very confused. Melody wants to talk to Silvia for some reason… without me… so it’s probably about me… how much does Silvia know? Does Melody know that Silvia knows something? Maybe Silvia could see me naked that first day, and she reached out to Melody instead of me… god I hope not. That would be…

I shook my thoughts to clear—shook my head to clear my thoughts, and grabbed as many of the bags of clothes as I could, which was all of them, but I only managed to stack Silvia’s shoes and gloves on top.

I returned to the booth, setting everything on top of the table, and Silvia immediately grabbed  hers and headed off somewhere, presumably to change. I assume Melody explained it to her. “Let’s go grab everyone else’s shoes.”

“Sure…” I replied again, following Melody back out to the car. I took two sets, while she took the final one, and we brought them back inside, placing them on the edge of the table with the rest of the stuff.

Eventually, Silvia returned and we all began eating through the appetizers. They tasted good. Nothing crazy, but what you’d expect from any decent restaurant. The chips were nice and thin, feeling really airy and fluffy in a way. I liked them. Melody asked Silvia a few questions about her experience, which mostly mirrored mine. Nothing at all.

The only thing she knew that I didn't was that to level up one needs to kill ten times their next level, plus the amount killed to rank up to their current level. So level zero to one is only ten monsters. One times ten, plus zero. And from level one to two is thirty monsters. Two times ten, plus ten.

For support classes, it's based on how many monsters you assisted in killing, which I think would mean support classes actually level faster than other classes… right? And tanks would level slower? Although I’m not sure how that’ll work for me, considering I’ve been leveling up from my submission, but I’ll find out soon enough.

As we finished up our small appetizer plates, the electro emo girl Fara arrived with the dodge tank Elle. Amane the nervous wreck appeared a few seconds later, trailing behind them, completing our team. We all sat around the table and before doing anything else, took a look at the menu, each deciding on a dish of some sort.

Melody flagged down the waiter and we all ordered. Melody, Amane, and I all ordered a burger of some sort. Fara and Elle both ordered meat sauce pastas and Silvia ordered macaroni and cheese.

With the orders placed, Amane, Fara, and Elle all went to change into the dungeon-rated clothes while Melody and Silvia began playing rock-paper-scissors for some reason…

Once Amane, Fara, and Elle were back everyone chatted about random stuff. Schedules and whatnot. We basically all overlap, since it always overlaps for freshmen. Amane didn’t say a word unless prompted, unsurprisingly. Fara acted unhinged, blurting out everything, while Melody seemed to be the only mature one, directing the entire conversation. Elle kinda just went along with whatever, not particularly reserved but not outgoing either, and Silvia was Silvia, blurting in when necessary, similar to me.

After fifteen or so minutes our food arrived and our conversation stalled as we all began eating away. There were tidbits of discussion throughout our meal but nothing really kicked up until the end, when Melody finally moved on to the most important topic of the day, asking, “How much do you guys know about dungeons?”

The answer to that, for all of us, was abso-fucking-lutely nothing.