Love Collector Ch. 16

This was the big one. In any RPG, skill customization allows players to tailor their game experience by mixing and matching abilities, creating a play style that is all their own. In porn RPGs, the skill tree was typically focused on circumventing consent in one way or another. Oliver was afraid that would be the case for his own. He hoped for the best while expecting the worst and got a little bit of both.

The skill menu opened.

Right away, he was met with two options. 'Personal', or 'Heroines'. Only one was actually available now, as 'Heroines' was grayed out until he finished one of the girl's routes. There was nothing he could do about that anytime soon, so Oliver clicked on 'Personal'.

The resulting text box was big enough to put his kink list to shame.

"Jesus Christ," Oliver openly remarked. "How the hell am I supposed to pick options from this massive phone book?"

At the top of the screen was the word 'Skills'. Below that were three tabs. 'Tier 1', 'Tier 2', and 'Tier 3'. Oliver began scrolling through the tier he was already on, getting a sense of what kind of things were available.

Everything at Tier 1 cost 25LP, and it all fit into the same mold. These skills were centered around giving Oliver a new ability he could conceivably develop independently after enough practice. They had simple names like 'Drawing Lv. 1' and 'Cooking Lv. 1', which had descriptions claiming they would grant him proficiency in using traditional artistic media and preparing basic recipes.

Another interesting tidbit was that upon purchasing Drawing Lv. 1, Oliver would be gifted a single point to his spark. Cooking Lv. 1, however, added one to his smarts. Checking more random skills out confirmed that everything in Tier 1 shared this handy little bonus, each skill developing one of his stats by a single point in addition to what they already offered.

It was unthinkable to imagine learning such talents at the press of a button, but that did seem to be the implication, didn't it? Given how all of the skills at this tier had 'lv. 1' attached to their name, it also implied he could improve them further, but Oliver couldn't find how much LP it would cost to take one of these skills to the next level.

There wasn't much else interesting in the current segment, so Oliver tabbed out of Tier 1 and moved on to Tier 2.

Here, skills cost 50LP, and they didn't have a level attached to their names. Instead of self-explanatory abilities, these were more abstract and required Oliver to actually click into the skill to check what it offered. What he found after poking around was that everything in Tier 2 was even more incredible than simply learning something and getting a stat boost.

Put in simpler terms, Tier 1 skills were things you could earn by grinding in the game for a long enough time, while Tier 2 skills were the stuff developers would lock behind a microtransactions store. This was the good shit. Most skills in Tier 2 seemed like they were focused on either making life more convenient for Oliver or increasing the effectiveness of his heroine interactions.

An example of a convenience skill was 'This One Sparks Joy'.

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This One Sparks Joy

The dwelling in which you live will maintain itself regarding housekeeping. Rooms clean themselves according to their owner's preferences, floors are mopped spotless, laundry is washed and folded automatically, and so on. You do not need to provide cleaning materials for this to occur. These tasks are performed whenever you are not currently present.

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By comparison, 'Giver of Gifts' fell in the latter camp.

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Giver of Gifts

Heroines receive a small number of additional affection points when gifted a present that they find favorable. Heroines are also more likely to return the favor in some way, shape, or form, whether that be with a physical gift or something less tangible.

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"There are so many possibilities here..." Oliver remarked in wonderment as he continued scrolling and clicking anything that caught his eye. There were skills that made it so he needed less sleep, that increased the affection he gained through conversation, prevented him from tiring out so severely after physical activity, and hundreds more.

No matter what he picked, Oliver's life would improve dozens of times over. The thought of it was enough to tempt him into reassessing his dismissal of pursuing Stacy and Tessa. It was shallow of him, yes, but his life hadn't been all that great before now, and this felt like a karmic shift in his favor so significant it was impossible to ignore.

What kept him grounded was that Oliver's biggest concerns about his skill tree were realized in Tier 2. For every ability that improved his life or made it easier to get closer to girls, there were abilities that tore others down and stripped them of their agency. They were the kinds of skills ripped straight out of the kinds of games he swore never to play again.

Games like Enslavement Trainer, All Women Are My Cocksleeves, Service Sluts of the Brainwashing Mindfuck Academy, and so many more.

This wasn't about kink-shaming. Plenty of people could enjoy those kinds of games and fantasies while remaining a decent, healthy person in their day-to-day lives, but Oliver wasn't one of them. Combined with all the other toxic media he consumed back then, games like that only reinforced the negative thoughts in his brain.

"I can't even develop life-changing superpowers without there being a gigantic asterisk, can I? God, that's stupid..." Oliver sighed. He wasn't tempted to get any of them, but it was hard to get too excited when so many painful reminders of his past were mixed in between all the cute, helpful, and otherwise wholesome skills. "But I guess that's just part of playing in a sandbox, right?"

The truth was that Oliver didn't completely give up playing games that had those elements in them. If he did, there wouldn't be many options for him in his favorite genre. He would've loved it if every dating sim was an adorably moeshit vanilla romp with lots of cuteness, but the sad truth of it was that nonconsent and Japanese porn were like peanut butter and jelly. You rarely found one without the other.

The good thing was that in most sandbox-style dating sims, you typically weren't forced to go down that path if you didn't want to. They gave you the tools to corrupt and enslave, sure, but picking up that tool and using it was the player's choice. No one else's.

Oliver accepted that was why these kinds of skills were showing up and ignored them as he continued searching for something to solve his biggest problem. It took a lot of sifting around because of how many options there were and the lack of any kind of filtering, but he found something not too long after putting his mind to it.

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Selective Hearing

You gain greater control over your sense of hearing, becoming able to filter out unpleasant sounds, songs, and noises, as well as to increase the volume of anything within your range. This skill also applies to perceived sounds, including but not limited to tinnitus, auditory hallucinations, the mental voices of alternative personalities, and any form of audio input created by your abilities.

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"Finally, some good news..." Oliver's finger was already hovering over the 'Buy' button. He had the LP for it. Minus fifty would bring him down to two seventy-five, so it really wouldn't even be much of a setback. Even so, he resisted.

"Better to check out Tier 3 before making any decisions. I still haven't found that best bro skill, and I need to know how much it costs. Going through the menus myself answered most of my questions, but it'd be nice if it gave me someone to talk to about whatever the hell's happening with me."

Tabbing over to Tier 3 brought up another identical list to the ones he'd already scrolled through. Skills at this level cost a whopping 100LP, so Oliver assumed they were somehow even crazier than the ones he'd seen up to this point. He was correct, so much so that it shocked him.

Tier 3 skills were above the level of microtransactions. They were cheats. Impossibilities made manifest that would grant him massive utility in exchange for their high cost.

These skills fell into one of two categories. There were skills that continued the trend of making his life easier, albeit on a much larger scale than those of Tier 2, and skills that were inexplicably horny. There were enough supernatural porn powers ripped straight out of a hentai manga to keep Oliver's sex life from ever getting stale as soon as he started having one. You had things like 'never have to pay for living expenses again' and 'talk to animals' right next to crap like 'grow penis tentacles out of your body' or 'infinite sexual stamina'.

It made for the most wild reading experience he'd had in a while, and it was impossible to ignore how excited he was getting at the idea of actually buying some of these.

"There's... no way any of this is real, is there?" Oliver wondered aloud. He'd mostly made peace with accepting his new powers for what they were, but the kind of things he could buy at Tier 3 was so unbelievable that they presented that notion a significant challenge.

"Huh. You know, maybe I could learn to get over everything that happened with Stacy, and... no, damn it-" Oliver shook his head to keep the stupid out of it. "I like Mia, and that's enough! I'm sure I'm gonna get tons of LP for getting closer to her and putting in the effort, yeah!"

But now, there was a problem with that line of thinking- the problem being the word 'but' itself. Yes, Oliver liked Mia... but... there was always going to be a temptation for more. One that he wasn't so sure he could resist once he started buying up some of these overpowered skills.

He sighed, slumped over his coffee table, and checked his pizza's current status. Still running late, naturally.

"Is there even such a thing as ethical use of dating sim-inspired reality-bending powers, or am I just thinking way too fucking hard about all of this?" A regular guy probably would've thrown caution to the wind by now and gone hog-wild, planning to win over all the hot women in their life, but those kinds of guys didn't have the same baggage that Oliver did. He was more mindful about things like this because there was a time when he wasn't, followed by a long period where he had to relearn basic empathy.

It was unlikely Oliver could come to any decisions by himself. While he didn't exactly need guidance and was more or less confident he knew how this all worked by now, he started looking for the 'Your Best Bro' skill. He hoped it would give him someone he could talk to about all of this who would believe him, and if his experience in the genre was anything to go off of, Oliver had a hunch that it would.

Just about every major element of a sandbox-style dating sim was present in his life by now, save for one glaring exception, and it turned out that exception was waiting for him near the end of Tier 3.

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Your Best Bro

The ultimate, non-judgmental wingman capable of providing guidance and support in your endeavors to win the hearts of your heroines. A bro unlike any other- a bro who exists solely to unconditionally further the ambitions of you, his best friend. Also provides unparalleled platonic male companionship at no extra cost.

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"Great, it sounds like I was right..." Oliver was relieved if a little weirded out by the description. "Still... 100LP seems like an awful lot just to unlock the token support character. Ah, well. I'm gonna go crazy if I don't have anyone who understands this crap, so it kind of pays for itself."

Oliver bought his first skill. It wasn't the flashiest purchase he could've started with, yet it was something he needed. A confidant.

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Skill Purchased!

Your Best Bro

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