My Pick Up Artist System

[Congratulations! You have been judged to possess the worst destiny with women]

For some reason, after Miyuki left, Ben remembered that line. It was the first thing the system told him. As he put on his clothes, he couldn't help but agree with that evaluation now…

A door opened and Fariq exited from the bathroom with a guilty expression. "I disturbed your rendezvous. I apologize man…"

Exhausted, Ben glanced at him. "We talked about this. Didn't you see the rubber band on the doorknob? You're supposed to be s.e.xiled!"

Fariq glanced at his feet. "I was on the phone ordering a pizza from Domino's. I got distracted and wasn't paying attention…"

Fariq was a sweetheart, so Ben couldn't stay angry at him for long. Instead, he pointed his blame to the next guilty party in line.

Ben's eyes turned red. 'Pizza again...I curse you Domino's! You better hope I die! Otherwise, this vendetta won't end! If I don't destroy you, I'll call you granddaddy!'

...

In fact, death wasn't enough for Ben. He resolved to haunt them even after. 'I hope your clients like their pizza with ghost-inspired tomato sauce!'

Ben was planning to get Insidious on the marinara...

...

He still remembered when the milf from the fetish club gave him a fake number of Domino's before leaving. Since the customer was always right, Ben interpreted that to mean Domino's was always wrong...

Putting his fated enemy aside for the moment, Ben sighed with frustration. 'Fariq just had to come tonight… He's had so many opportunities for a cliche last second c*ckblock…yet he waited until now… I expected it to happen before, but it never did. I almost forgot it was possible! If they were in my shoes, I imagine the entire world would've forgotten… It's like...he chose the perfect timing for maximum effect!'

…

Fariq withdrew something from his desk. "Benjamin, I have to go drop off a doc.u.ment to a partner in a group project. If the pizza comes first, please pick it up for me. I already paid for it. Sorry again about before…" He then left the apartment.

When the door slammed shut, Ben refocused on the most pressing matter at hand. He opened his system screen.

00:57:05

00:57:04

00:57:03

When he saw there was less than an hour remaining, Ben started sweating. 'Why is the timer still continuing?' His face turned pale. 'Don't tell me…'

He opened his mission screen with dread.

[Novice Welcome - Seduce a woman within one month or die]

[Reward: ???]

[Punishment: Eradication]

Ben began to pant. "System...what is seduce? How did that not count?!?"

…

Ben thought the system would ignore him again, but she answered him a moment later.

[Evaluating completion criteria of Novice Welcome challenge…]

[Evaluated]

[Penetrative s.e.x with s.e.x.u.a.l organs required for challenge completion]

[Current challenge status is evaluated as incomplete. Novice Welcome Challenge is still active]

Ben stopped breathing... Then the system continued.

[Partial completion detected]

[Recalibrating challenge punishment due to partial completion]

'Oh, thank god...' Ben released a sigh of relief, holding his chest. He was hopeful. 'Please…remove the eradication punishment…anything else, just don't kill me…'

[Challenge punishment recalibrated]

[Congratulations! Punishment of eradication has been downgraded]

Ben smiled from ear to ear. He wanted to sing. He wanted to laugh. He wanted to cry!

It was like a sword was removed from his neck!

[Punishment is now soul evisceration]

…

Ben was still frozen in a smile, but the sword was reinserted through his anus…

He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry. He wanted to cry…

…

Ben shot up from his bed. "Congratulations my ass! HOW THE F*CK IS THAT BETTER?!?"

…

The system clarified.

[If challenge completion remains at the current state, you will be left with a complete corpse]

…

Ben's jaw dropped. "Offering a complete corpse? WHEN HAS ANYONE EVER ACCEPTED THAT?!?"

…

He glanced at the challenge clock.

00:54:45

Understanding his challenge wasn't complete and that it would be a waste of time debating with the system, Ben grabbed his phone and keys, and sprinted out the door to Miyuki's room.

A few seconds later...

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

"Miyuki?!?"

He yelled but no one answered…

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

"MIYUKI?!?"

Ben was clenching his fists so hard that his nails dug into his palms…

It seemed she wasn't in her room…so he called her cell. Ben paced in circles as the phone rang.

*Ring* *Ring*

*Ring* *Ring*

*Ring* *Ring*

Nothing…

He called her again…

*Ring* *Ring*

Still nothing…

He texted her…

Again nothing...

00:52:09

That's when reality started to set in for Ben. 'Am I going to die?'

Large beads of sweat acc.u.mulated on his forehead as he realized his story might not have a cute happy ending like every novel he ever read…

He walked back to his room as his mind raced at 100 miles an hour. 'What should I do?'

Breathing hard, he remembered something. 'Wait. I still have a bunch of phone numbers. I should text everyone…Maybe I'll get lucky…

Arriving back in his dorm room, Ben sat down on his bed in a hurry. He didn't have time for a booty call. It needed to be a text and his only hope was getting lucky by sending it out to all the girls' numbers in his phone.

He lacked the time to choose who to send it to, but he was fortunate that Antonio recommended an app to him a while back to mass text girls. Ben tried it before and made a contact sub-list of the girls whose phone numbers he'd acquired. That's what he would use now.

00:49:52

Ben looked at the countdown and gulped. Beads of sweat trickled down into his eyes and mouth; the salty taste a constant reminder of his terrible predicament.

With shaky hands, he wrote out a text message…and pressed send… 'There, now it should've sent to all the girls. I just have to wait and hope one bites…'

He indeed sent it to all the women he intended to. However, there was an unfortunate complication. Due to not being very used to the app, and acting under tremendous psychological pressure, Ben also sent the text to his entire phonebook...

This was the day when humanity recorded its most desperate booty text of all time…

…

The exact words were, "I need s.e.x now. willing to eat butt. u up?"

…

When Ben wrote it, you could say he wasn't thinking straight...

With the colossal weight of imminent death hanging from his neck, he was more concerned with saving every second than being perfect. So he wasn't willing to waste too much time coming up with lots of message ideas.

He read somewhere in a pick up blog that lots of s.l.u.tty girls liked to have their butts eaten… Then, he thought that since the most likely to respond was a s.l.u.t…it would be smart to appeal to his clientele…

Ben didn't know if the trend analysis of increased butt-eating was accurate...but he had nothing more to lose and this was a super long shot from the start. So, he became a booty texter willing to eat butt…

Soon, the replies started coming in. As multiple text message alerts arrived at once, Ben's eyes lit up, thinking he might have a chance after all… Then he read them.

The first was from Beluga. "Benjamin, I take it you sent this to the wrong person…"

A bad feeling brewed in Ben's stomach.

The next was from Antonio. "that's gonna be a hard no from me dawg…"

…

'Oh dear god, no…' Ben formed a hypothesis about what occurred here…

His brother Lucas responded next. "knew u were a fag*ot…"

…

The last one was from his 70 year old grandmother. Ben gasped. 'Don't tell me I even texted gram-gram…'

"Benjamin Romero, you are a disgrace…"

…

"No! Gram-gram…"

With a pallid face, Ben grimaced. 'She's getting better with the technology stuff...'

It was the worst time for Gram-gram to update her technical skills...

Yet, Ben lacked time to appreciate the irony… Once he understood the full extent of his mistake, he wanted to slap himself, but it was pointless because that wasn't even the bad news. The worse news…was he didn't receive any more texts…

Staring at his phone, Ben's heart skipped a beat…

He wouldn't fret about it though, because soon, his soulless corpse might not need a heart at all…