Sheila stared at him for a long moment.
He really thought he was about to become a permanent ice sculpture in the starter zone since her eyes were completely unreadable.
"You are honest, at least," she finally said as she stood up.
The water barely covered her waist, leaving a lot of pale skin and perfect curves out in the open.
Kai swallowed hard.
"Turn around, and let me get dressed," she ordered.
Kai spun around fast as his heart beat fast in his chest. He squeezed his eyes shut because dying at level two to a naked witch was not on his bucket list.
Ding!
[Bond with Sheila increased by 1.]
'Holy crap.' Kai smiled a little to himself.
'Maybe this game is not so bad after all.'
He just told a level thirty-five boss she had a hot body, and the system actually rewarded him for it. He heard clothes rustling behind him and the soft sound of bare feet on the grass.
"You can turn back now," she said.
Kai turned around quickly, hoping for a peek before she finished tying her clothes, but he was too late.
Sheila was wearing a long, elegant blue robe that hugged her figure perfectly.
She looked exactly like her character model from the game, just way more detailed and real. She was absolutely stunning, incredibly dangerous, and very much out of his league.
"What is your name, wanderer?" she asked as she crossed her arms.
"Kai," he replied, trying to sound more confident than he felt.
"Well, Kai." She walked up to him, and he realised she was taller than he expected, or maybe she was just floating a little bit off the ground to intimidate him.
"You owe me for spying on me, so you are going to help me find something."
A blue translucent screen popped up right between them.
[New Quest: Assist the Ice Witch.]
[Rewards: Unknown.]
[Failure penalty: Frozen for 400 years.]
Kai read the penalty box and gulped loudly.
Four hundred years was a very long time to spend as an ice cube, so he didn't really have a choice here.
"Sure. What do you need?" he asked, acting like he was totally cool with the threat.
Sheila smiled, but it wasn't a nice smile at all.
It was the kind of smile a predator gives right before dinner.
"I need a vampire's heart."
Kai froze entirely when he heard her reply.
'Vampires,' he thought.
'They are literally the strongest creatures in this entire world.'
He just started this game and killed a wolf with a broken stick ten minutes ago, and now he already has to mess with her high-level underlings.
Kai let out a long sigh and rubbed the back of his neck because this was getting ridiculous.
"Sheila, look, I am very good at power scaling, so let me tell you something," Kai started, gesturing with his hands to emphasise his point.
"Although you have way better curves than the vampire queen, making an enemy out of the strongest being in the realm isn't exactly what a smart witch should do."
Her ice-blue eyes narrowed at him, and the temperature around them dropped a few degrees.
She clearly did not like being told what to do by a guy in cheap jeans.
"Power scaling?" Sheila repeated the foreign word slowly as if it left a bad taste in her mouth.
"What nonsense are you talking about? I control the winter itself."
"Yeah, and that is super impressive," Kai agreed quickly, holding his hands up in surrender because frost was literally creeping up his sneakers.
"But the vampire queen has crazy life steal, ridiculous speed, and a whole army. It is just bad math for you to go solo against that, so it is a terrible matchup."
"A vampire walked into our village and took the younglings to use them as a blood bank," Sheila explained, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper.
"She started it first, so I have to end it."
Kai nodded slowly as if he didn't already know this exact storyline from playing the game.
He knew exactly how this played out.
Actually, Sheila and the vampire queen did fight once in the main canon, and that battle was the last appearance of the Ice Witch in the entire game.
She got completely wiped out.
'She is the first person I actually formed a bond with here, so I really don't want to lose an ally,' Kai thought. Plus, she was way too gorgeous to just die as a mid-game plot device.
"So you know it is a total suicide mission?" Kai asked, crossing his arms to match her stance. "You march in there alone, and you are just going to get yourself killed."
"I am powerful enough to handle a few leeches," she shot back, stepping a little closer to him. "And you are coming with me since you owe me."
"I owe you for looking at you for two seconds?" Kai raised an eyebrow. "I feel like a four-hundred-year ice nap is a bit of an overreaction. Besides, I am only level two, so I am basically cannon fodder right now."
Sheila walked right up to him, stepping so close that her chest was practically brushing against his face. He could smell the winter chill and something sweet like vanilla coming off her skin. She looked down at him with an amused smirk, clearly aware of the effect she was having on his poor, low-level gamer brain.
"Are you scared, Kai?" she teased, her voice softer now but still carrying that dangerous edge as she trailed a cold finger down his cheek. "A bold man who stares at a witch while she bathes shouldn't be afraid of a few vampires."
Kai tried to take a step back, but his feet felt stuck to the ground, mostly because he really didn't want to move away from her.
The height difference was definitely working against him, but the close-up view was spectacular.
"I am not scared, I am just being practical," Kai replied, trying his absolute hardest to keep his eyes on her face and not on the cleavage peeking out from the top of her blue robe.
"If we are going to do this, we need an actual plan because we can't just knock on the front door and ask for a heart."
"Then it is a good thing I have you to do the planning," Sheila said, leaning in just a fraction more so he could feel her cold breath on his skin. "You seem to think you know a lot about how this world works for a simple wanderer."
'I know everything about this world because my team built the level design,' Kai thought to himself, but he obviously couldn't say that out loud since she would think he was completely crazy.
He needed a way to keep her alive, but he also remembered the main objective of this ridiculously named game.
The system literally told him to try to sleep with everyone.
He was a gamer, so he had to complete the main quest.
That was just how it worked.
Kai planned out his next few words carefully and looked right into her icy blue eyes, forcing himself to look past the beautiful mountains resting between them.
He took a deep breath, deciding to double down on the bold strategy that got him the bond point in the first place.
"If I help you save those younglings. Would you sleep with me?"