Max worked his way around the laboratory with an expression that suggested he’d personally been betrayed by civilization.

One shelf after another disappeared beneath the rag as he dusted them off before moving on to the cluttered tables, muttering silent curses toward Zerena with every extra chore she had somehow managed to invent.

He already had several ideas for the punishment she’d receive for making him clean this entire laborator.

It reminded him of something from the previous Max’s memories.

Back then, he’d once declared what he believed to be the ultimate form of silent rebellion.

He’d stop talking to them.

He wouldn’t eat.

Surely they’d notice eventually.

Surely someone would ask why he was sulking.

...Right?

Apparently not.

The silent protest continued.

Day one.

Nothing.

Day two.

Still nothing.

Eventually, hunger proved significantly more persuasive than wounded pride, and the entire revolution quietly collapsed without achieving a single political objective.

Not once had either of them asked why he wasn’t speaking.

Not once had they even noticed he hadn’t been eating.

In fact, thinking back on it now...

They had never actually told him to come eat in the first place.

He’d simply eaten whatever was cooked at home.

Which, after he’d turned ten, had mostly meant whatever he cooked himself.

Annalisa had stopped doing it years ago.

"...That’s actually kind of sad," Max thought.

For a brief moment, he almost felt sorry for the previous Max.

Almost.

Then a grin slowly spread across his face.

’You died too early, my friend.’

’You never got to see what I’m planning to do to these heartless women.’

Comforted by that deeply questionable thought, Max accepted the bottle.

"Thanks," he said.

She didn’t answer.

She didn’t even bother coming all the way downstairs.

Still standing near the staircase, she glanced around the laboratory before speaking in the same businesslike tone she’d been using all day.

"You look tired, so let’s not make the potions today," she said. "We’ll do them tomorrow morning instead."

For one glorious second, Max felt hope.

Then she continued.

"For now, vacuum the place and wipe the floors too."

Max nearly spat out the mouthful of water he’d just taken.

Another order.

Seriously?

He stared at her.

She stared back.

Slowly, painfully, he swallowed the water instead.

He answered with a reluctant nod.

Zerena noticed the annoyance written all over his face.

Strangely enough...

That only made her a little annoyed too.

’She’s still thinking about making me brew potions after making me clean the whole place?’

Max looked at her in disbelief.

’Heartless bitch...’

Still...

She hadn’t actually yelled.

She hadn’t forced him to move immediately either.

Tiny progress.

Pathetically tiny.

But progress nonetheless.

At least she was slowly learning that she couldn’t order him around quite as effortlessly as before.

As for Max?

Grinding wasn’t exactly unfamiliar territory.

Back in his previous life, he’d spent an embarrassing number of hours farming money, affection points, and obscure collectibles in dating sims just to buy gifts for his waifus.

Compared to that...

Grinding through a little cleaning in exchange for future rewards didn’t seem nearly as unbearable.

He’d survived far worse game mechanics.

The difference was...

This wasn’t some dating sim anymore.

She was real.

And, little by little, Max could actually feel himself making progress in real time.

A few weeks ago, Zerena probably would’ve yelled at him without hesitation.

She might’ve even smacked him across the head for talking back, making him immediately regret ever thinking about resisting.

Now?

She didn’t.

Not because she’d suddenly become kinder.

And certainly not because she’d lost the ability.

If she really wanted to, Max knew she could still scare the life out of him.

Years of fear didn’t disappear overnight, and Zerena knew perfectly well he wasn’t about to run away after everything she’d drilled into him.

The real reason was simpler.

She couldn’t afford to push him too far anymore.

People like Max—awkward, isolated, emotionally neglected, and suddenly handed extraordinary power—weren’t exactly famous for making stable life decisions when they finally snapped.

The last thing she wanted was for him to do something utterly irrational.

Whether that meant disappearing, breaking down completely, or deciding the entire world deserved to suffer with him.

So she had to maintain the balance.

Firm enough to stay in control.

Soft enough that he never felt completely cornered.

Forcing a small smile that looked more practiced than genuine, she said,

"After you’re done... we’ll talk about tomorrow’s system tasks."

A wide grin immediately spread across Max’s face.

Seeing it only made Zerena even more irritated.

At this point, she’d finally accepted an inconvenient truth.

That whole embarrassed, frightened act he’d been putting on whenever the system assigned one of its ridiculous tasks?

Almost all of it had been an act.

Maybe he’d been nervous at first.

Maybe.

But there was no way someone who genuinely hated those tasks would enthusiastically lick another person’s armpits like they contained the secret to immortality.

The idiot clearly enjoyed them.

And that somehow made the whole thing even more infuriating.

Especially because she wasn’t some youthful beauty anymore.

Zerena knew she’d been beautiful once.

In her prime, she’d attracted more than enough attention without asking for it.

Those days, however, had long since passed.

She hadn’t even bothered looking at herself properly in a mirror for years.

Age had done what age always did.

So how could someone like Max possibly find her attractive?

The only explanation that made any sense to her was painfully obvious.

The boy wasn’t normal.

He was an absolutely hopeless degenerate.

The kind of pervert who’d somehow manage to find an elderly woman attractive simply because she happened to exist within licking distance.

As it turned out, Zerena’s conclusion had been painfully accurate.

Max was every bit the hopeless degenerate she’d decided he was.

The moment she mentioned tomorrow’s system tasks, whatever lingering resentment he’d been nursing toward the cleaning assignment mysteriously vanished.

Motivation returned with miraculous speed.

He attacked the laboratory with the efficiency of a man speedrunning household chores to unlock the next story event.

Dust disappeared.

Tables were wiped until they practically reflected light.

Even the floor ended up polished far more thoroughly than the room had probably seen in years.

Zerena watched the entire performance in silence.

Apparently, dangling tomorrow’s tasks in front of him had proven significantly more effective than yelling ever was.

Once he was nearly finished, she turned toward the stairs.

"Turn off the lights before coming up," she said, already heading upstairs.

She didn’t even wait for an answer.

Max was still in the storage closet, putting away the damp cleaning rag he’d used to wipe down the last of the tables.

"Yes!" he called back a little louder than necessary.

The excitement in his voice was impossible to miss.

At this point, he could barely think about anything except discussing exactly what tomorrow’s system tasks were going to be.

To an outsider, Max’s excitement might’ve seemed... a little pathetic.

Getting this worked up just because Zerena wanted to talk about tomorrow’s tasks?

Really?

But that conclusion ignored several very important facts.

First...

They weren’t discussing ordinary chores.

They were discussing thoroughly perverted system tasks.

That alone dramatically changed the emotional landscape.

Second...

Max had been an ultra-level weeb.

Or, put more bluntly, a shut-in.

Back on Earth, casually chatting with another person had been rare enough to qualify as a monthly event.

A conversation about something this embarrassing? This intimate?

His previous-life self probably would’ve suffered a fatal system error before making it through the first sentence.

So yes.

He was excited.

Ridiculously excited.

Practically jogging upstairs two steps at a time, Max found that whatever lingering anger remained from being forced to clean the laboratory vanished the instant he stepped into the room.

His eyes widened.

Zerena had already slipped out of her dress.

For a brief moment, her back was completely bare, with only her panties still on while her bra rested carelessly on the bed behind her.

It wasn’t the view he’d secretly hoped for.

The front would’ve been significantly more... educational.

Still—

he wasn’t exactly in a position to complain.

Before he could appreciate the sight for more than a second, Zerena casually pulled on a loose shirt and turned back toward him.