Unfortunately, the free recipes the government handed out with a potion lab license didn’t include anything as convenient as "reverse aging and become twenty again."

Shocking oversight, really.

What they did include were practical military staples.

Regeneration potions.

The sort that could regrow missing arms and legs if the dose quality was high enough.

The army bought those in bulk.

Constantly.

Zerena knew even the lowest-grade versions sold for around four hundred units on the market—and the army paid roughly the same without much bargaining.

So she did the math.

Profit.

Supply costs.

Market demand.

Then the other side of the equation.

Losses.

Which, unfortunately, mostly consisted of... enduring Max’s ridiculous system requirements. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

After a moment of honest evaluation, she concluded that "loss of dignity" barely even qualified as a business expense anymore.

At worst?

An annoying, exhausting side task.

Like tax paperwork.

But weirder.

Much weirder.

Letting out a long sigh, she rolled her eyes and muttered, "...So."

A pause.

"Do you even know how to kiss?"

Max had lived through one entire lifetime and learned plenty of things.

Unfortunately, like many other forms of physical affection, kissing had remained completely absent from his personal resume.

So, naturally—

he had absolutely no idea what he was doing.

And for once, he didn’t bother lying.

He simply shook his head.

That earned another long sigh from Zerena.

"...Right," she muttered, sounding far too resigned about this conversation. "Then we’ll start with the other stuff first."

She waved a hand dismissively.

"We can leave that for the end."

The tone sounded less like discussing intimacy and more like reorganizing a painfully inconvenient work schedule.

This time, Zerena had decided to watch something on TV instead of reading.

She lay lazily across the bed, having very deliberately claimed the perfect viewing position—maximum comfort, ideal screen angle, minimum effort.

Meanwhile, Max continued doing his thing, positioned between her legs while she lay on her back, completely absorbed in whatever show was playing on the screen.

Her upper clothing was already off as Max’s gaze drifted toward her chest.

Age had left its marks there—soft heaviness pulling them outward and slightly to the sides, like water-filled shapes yielding naturally to gravity. Yet they hadn’t completely lost their firmness. Their generous fullness kept traces of elasticity intact, especially around the center, preventing them from fully collapsing into the sag their weight seemed determined to achieve.

It was one of those details that made the body look undeniably real rather than idealized—shaped by time, size, and life itself instead of perfect symmetry.

He had seen them before.

Once.

And, in Max’s completely unbiased opinion, once was nowhere near enough to properly appreciate nature’s craftsmanship.

So now, leaning forward, his thighs brushing lightly against hers as he held them again, he took the chance to study details he had barely registered the first time.

The faded pink tone of her areola caught his attention first, softer in color than he had remembered, while the nipples still held that faint natural sheen that made them look oddly vivid against skin marked subtly by age and time. His focus lingered, not out of surprise anymore, but from the almost obsessive curiosity of someone determined not to waste a second viewing.

They weren’t the biggest he had seen since arriving in this world—that prestigious, deeply unfortunate title still belonged to the first villain of his main arc: Nurse Diaza.

A woman he would very much prefer not to think about.

Mostly because remembering her brought back mildly traumatic memories and a disturbing amount of unwanted medical imagery.

Still...

he planned to deal with her sooner or later.

Preferably before he ended up becoming an unwilling organ donor in whatever horrifying side hustle she was apparently running.

Shaking his head to clear away the gruesome memories, he looked lower—at her stomach, surprisingly flatter than he would’ve expected, with subtle curves near her waist and around her navel. Her flanks dipped inward in a way that made her figure seem oddly balanced—slim yet soft, toned yet undeniably curvy.

In other words—extremely erotic.

Enough to make the unsupervised part of Max’s brain imagine his tounge tracing a slow path upward from her navel toward her chest—

Unfortunately, common sense—or at least the weak, half-starved version of it he possessed—managed to intervene.

Too early, he reminded himself. Zerena still wasn’t supposed to know the full, horrifying extent of his degeneracy.

So he settled for something safer.

Or at least relatively safer.

His eyes dropped to her deep navel for a moment, conveniently giving him an excuse to stay close while continuing his completely innocent and totally academic observation of her chest from a nearer angle.

And, not wanting Zerena to snap at him for just sitting there staring, he moved instead—giving her nipple a gentle lick.

Zerena, lazily focused on the show, suddenly felt a small jolt run through her body.

Max failed to notice it.

For now.

He would soon enough—the familiar bar had quietly appeared over her head again—but at the moment his attention was occupied elsewhere.

Completely occupied, in fact.

Because, like several other entries on his rapidly growing list of "things acquired after transmigration that absolutely were not part of the tutorial," licking nipples was first too.

And apparently his body had chosen to register its opinion on the experience with absolutely zero subtlety, a very noticeable reaction forming inside his pants.

And how could it not? It was constantly rubbing against her soft stomach as he kept rolling his tongue around her nipples, his hands still fondling and squeezing them, making parts of her breast push outward—though only the portion that could fit inside his mouth as he sucked on them hungrily, soft sucking sounds filling the air.

Not because the sensations were overwhelming—they weren’t.

Manageable.

Noticeable, yes, but still manageable enough to push toward the back of her mind while she kept her attention fixed stubbornly on the television.

So she did—but not for long, as Max had now spent enough time on both of them that they had grown a little in size, coated with his saliva. He finally looked up, a bit surprised by the bar that had filled up slightly.

’Ten percent... nice.’ he thought, immediately pleased.

For the moment, though, his attention didn’t stay there long. As he went on sucking, staying just shy of her nipple. He deliberately grabbed her breast in a way that made her now slightly aroused nipple settle between his fingers as he closed them a little.

"—Haaa...."

For the first time, he got a solid reaction out of her—a sharp breath escaping when her nipple was squeezed a little too tightly.

"haaaa...." getting a solid reaction from her for first time as she took a sharp breast from getting her nipple squzzed bit tightly but he didn’t look up or he would be found out of his mishvoisness as he kept on sucking rolling his touneg again around her nipple doing same to other.

Max noticed the sound—

but very deliberately did not look up.

Because looking up would risk revealing exactly how intentional that little bit of mischief had been.

And his acting budget was already stretched thin.

So he kept going as if nothing had happened, staying focused, repeating the same rhythm with suspicious innocence.

Zerena, meanwhile, stubbornly kept her attention aimed anywhere except downward, clearly attempting to demote the entire situation into the mental category of mild inconvenience.

’Hah... so that’s what the soap tastes like...’ Max thought, catching the lingering floral trace on her skin. But the scent was changing quickly, shifting into something warmer—raw, faintly sweaty, carrying just a slight sharpness that only seemed to excite him more.

And that was enough for him to grow more eager, sucking a little harder, giving broader, deeper licks around them. A look of disgust flickered across Zerena’s face as he did it, but she endured it. She had to give something in exchange for using Max, and having her breasts covered in his spit wasn’t much of a price.

And truthfully, the disgust wasn’t really at him sucking on them so hungrily, almost animal-like, his lips wrapped around her nipples as he continued.

The main source of her discomfort wasn’t even what he was doing.

It was the fact that she was feeling it.

The persistent tingling sensation refused to stay politely ignorable, drawing her attention back again and again no matter how much she tried to mentally shove it aside.

And she really didn’t want to be feeling that.

Especially not because of him.

Not that it was exciting her or making her want more—nothing like that.

But it was becoming increasingly difficult to completely tune out, which irritated her far more than she cared to admit.

Mostly because she had actually been watching a fairly interesting show.

But with a sigh, she finally looked down.

Seeing what he was doing immediately made her frown.

But with a sigh, she finally looked down, only to find Max holding both of her breasts from the middle, angling them upward as he focused on one for a few seconds before moving back to the other again.

That sight made irritation flicker across her face.

"You better not be starting to think these as your playthings?" she warned.

Caught mid-motion, looking slightly startled, he pulled back just enough to shake his head quickly.

"I wouldn’t dare..." he said, sounding appropriately nervous.

Internally, however?

He was absolutely smirking.

Because while Zerena was busy laying down territorial boundaries, his attention had already flicked back toward the Arousal meter.

[Zerena Falkner]

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