Chapter 121

"Hmm… I see how it is." Luna decreed with a strong scowl. She turned her head sideways and refused to meet Kaiden's gaze. The purple-haired beauty was currently sitting on the couch in their home, with one of her legs crossing the other, and her arms did the same in front of her chest.

Next to her sat a similarly disappointed pink-haired curvaceous bombshell. She also had one leg crossed over the other and her arms crossed in front of her chest, but at least she didn't refuse to look at Kaiden, who had just finished explaining what had happened when he went to have a chat with Aria's mother.

"Girls, he must think of us as mere props who he can use to raise his system's rank. We're just hot women to plow and have cooking streams with. Instead of being Sinsworn Valkyries, the system should just call us 'Harem Members,' I think." Nyx's words stung Kaiden, who was standing in front of the two girls with a downcast look. The fact that she referenced Kaiden as 'he' instead of 'Kaiden, ' 'Kai, ' or 'Master' hurt him the most. Even the always cheery Nyx was angry with him.

Aria stood next to him and was observing even his minutest reactions.

Once the pair said goodbye to Lux and Julia in the hospital, they came home to get ready for the upcoming dungeon dive. However, after his talk with Aria, Kaiden felt obligated to inform his other two lovers of his mistake.

Kaiden took a deep breath and then let go of a lengthy torrent of apologies, which boiled down to him understanding the errors of his ways, to him having been arrogant as well as ignorant of their conviction.

Throughout his onslaught of words, Nyx's smile widened, and by the end, her cheery attitude had returned. "As long as you understand," she said happily, accepting his apology.

Luna, on the other hand, kept scoffing, growling, and frowning cutely alongside his apology. She still refused to meet his gaze and only let go of a "Hmph!" as her reaction to his words.

Aria suddenly spoke up, "But Kai, how did you survive in the first place? I was too angry, worried, and disappointed when I first heard the story, but now that I have heard it for the second time, I can't help but realize that you shouldn't have survived. Your Vitality stat is not even close to being high enough to shrug off pistol bullets."

Kaiden smirked. "You girls should pay more attention to your systemic interfaces."

He then used to cast . His fangs elongated to an unnatural degree, gleaming with an ominous shine.

"Wait, what?!" Aria and Nyx shouted together, which forced the final member of the harem to also part her eyelids to look at Kaiden. "What the hell?!" Luna gasped, at which point the smirking Kaiden decided to be a bit cheeky by lunging at the previously strongly pouting girl, grabbing onto her, placing her in his lap, and aiming his fangs at her neck. "B-bastard! Stop it!" Luna shouted while punching him in the face.

"Hehehe! I'll eat you! The small and weak are always the first ones to fall prey to the hungry predator!" Kaiden laughed manically before getting kicked in the nuts.

After receiving over ten slugs to his face and kicks to his body, Kaiden relented when he pulled his fangs back, ending the spell.

"Hmph!" Luna returned to her state of constant pouting but at least made no move to get off of his lap.

"…" Kaiden winced, doing his best to collect himself before continuing, "As you saw, I got a new spell. We managed to hit the new rank of the system, giving me access to my new sin: Gluttony."

"I can't believe I forgot to check for a whole day…" Aria murmured.

"Yeah…" Nyx agreed. Her embarrassment was clear for all to see. As a woman who aspired to be awakened for a long time now, she knew this was a big blunder on her part.

"So badass!" Luna declared. She was already busy reading her new spells. "We have to go to the dungeons right now! I must try these baddies out immediately."

Kaiden was happy to see that their earlier theory of the girls unlocking new spells while he gets new sin stances upon ranking the system turned out to be the correct one. This meant their power level as a whole increased dramatically.

He quickly bought a new gearset because the silverback mauler monster completely trashed his previous one. Although it got destroyed, it saved Kaiden's life. He was happy with its performance; it was the best he could afford for now. The next rarity, which was titled 'uncommon' was simply out of their budget.

Even though their streams and videos were bringing in good money, they were still very poor by awakened standards. They had 50 Chronos to their name after leasing the new apartment with four bedrooms from Anna's company and buying his new armor. Luna also bought two more beginner potion sets so that all of them could have one of each potion type (heal, mana, poison-cure) on their persons.

As they made their way towards the dungeon, Kaiden began thinking inwardly about their approach to their upcoming clear.

He knew very well that should he broadcast his and his girls' new spells to the awakened platform, numerous eyebrows would be raised, including the eyebrows of a select few people who he truly didn't want to be on the radar of.

However, he had one trump card on his side.

Vespera Ashborn.

He planned to abuse the hell out of her name and reputation of being a cold-blooded murder machine of the highest order.

Kaiden didn't want to call on her anymore, but he didn't doubt even for a second that the higher-ups of the government were very well aware of the connection he shared with the woman, thus, they would leave him alone. Hopefully.

It felt a bit bad to rely on her for protection, but the choice came down to either hiding everything he had and living a secretive, obscure life in the shadows or going full throttle down the road leading to stardom.

If Kaiden didn't have his system and its specific requirements to rank up, he would've been more careful. However, as things stood, should he decide to play things safe, he might ruin everything.

Simply leveling up was not going to be satisfactory; he had to do his best to rank the system up as well, which required him to be in the spotlight. Otherwise, his system might leave in search of a new host.

That wasn't to say Kaiden felt rushed or hated the situation, though. It was the exact opposite, in fact; he loved every bit of it. He wasn't the type of guy who wanted to stalk in the shadows.

He was grateful both for the existence of the system and his mother's protective nature. The combination of these two would allow him to soar to heights he could never have achieved with only one of the two by his side.

Thus, he was a hundred percent sold on the plan to broadcast their upcoming dungeon clear as well.

Their approach could be summed up as:

Go big or go home.