I was supposed to be having lunch with Mrs. Peterson today.
Forty-two years old, recently divorced, owner of that little Italian place on Fifth that somehow survived three recessions. She'd texted me this morning with a very specific request involving the back office and that skirt I complimented last week. I'd responded with something appropriately flirtatious but just vague enough that she could pretend I was being sweet if she wanted to.
That's the thing about women like Mrs. Peterson. They want plausible deniability built into everything. Makes it easier to tell themselves stories about what's actually happening.
Instead, I was currently staring at the underside of a truck.
This wasn't how today was supposed to go.
"Young man? Can you hear me?" Someone was kneeling next to me. Paramedic maybe. Hard to tell with the sun turning everything into silhouettes. "Stay with us, okay? The ambulance is coming."
I wanted to laugh but something wet bubbled up my throat instead. Classic. Absolutely classic. I'd read this setup in at least thirty webnovels. Guy walking home, not paying attention, truck comes out of nowhere. Next thing you know he's in a fantasy world with some kind of cheat ability, wondering why the local peasants are speaking perfect English.
"You're going to be fine," the paramedic lied. I wasn't going to be fine. I could feel exactly how not-fine I was. Something important inside me had definitely stopped doing its job.
What would Mrs. Peterson think when I didn't show up? Would she be annoyed? Would she text me with increasing irritation, each message a little sharper than the last? Or would she just assume I'd gotten cold feet?
I felt bad about that. Mrs. Peterson deserved better.
My phone was somewhere on the pavement. Smashed, probably. Four sugar mommas in my contacts and not one of them would know what happened to me. They'd just think I ghosted them.
Pfft. Ghosted. That was almost funny.
"Kid, stay with me." The paramedic's voice seemed further away now. "What's your name?"
"Damien," I tried to say, but it came out as a wet gurgle. "Damien Gremory."
I couldn't feel my legs anymore. Or my arms. Actually I couldn't feel much of anything, which seemed like a bad sign. The edges of my vision were turning dark and fuzzy, like an Instagram filter for dying people.
Actually, it was kind of funny. All those webnovels I'd read.
Was I about to become that cliché?
Probably not. Probably I was just going to die regular-style. No isekai adventures for Damien Gremory. Just the cold ground and whatever came after.
The darkness at the edges pushed inward, narrowing my vision to a pinpoint of light. The paramedic was still talking but I couldn't make out the words anymore. Just a distant mumble under the rushing sound in my ears.
I thought about Mrs. Peterson one more time. About the architect who started it all. About the marketing executive who always wanted to meet at that hotel with the ridiculous chandelier in the lobby. About the literature professor who made me read Chaucer before she'd let me touch her.
They'd been good to me. I hoped they'd be okay.
Then the darkness swallowed the last bit of light, and I felt myself falling.
Well. That sucked.
Good luck.
Wait, what? Who said that?
Good luck.
The voice didn't sound male or female. It didn't sound like anything, really. Just words appearing directly in my head without passing through my ears first.
Good luck.
"Wait," I tried to say, but I didn't have a mouth anymore. "That's it? Just 'good luck'? No explanation? No rundown of my new powers? No tutorial?"
No answer. Just silence and darkness and the lingering sensation of falling without moving.
Real helpful, mysterious voice. Thanks for nothing.
Then the falling stopped, and I felt...something. Not quite a body yet. More like the idea of a body. The potential for one.
And information started filling me. Not words exactly. Knowledge that simply appeared as if it had always been there.
Incubus.
That's what I was now. An incubus. A male demon that feeds on sexual energy.
Wait, seriously? That was my cheat ability? I got hit by a truck and reincarnated as a supernatural fuck machine? What kind of pervert fantasy—
Mana Saturation.
The knowledge unfolded in my not-quite-mind. Mana Saturation wasn't sexual energy. It was deeper than that. It was experience crystallized into power. The residue of survival. The weight of a life lived against resistance. And it accumulated most densely in those who had been carrying the most for the longest.
Women like Mrs. Peterson. Women who had been through something and kept going.
I was going to be hunting MILFs in another world.
This had to be a joke. Some cosmic prank on the guy who spent four years downloading webnovels about exactly this situation. I was going to wake up in a fantasy world with a power system specifically designed to reward me for exactly what I'd been doing on Earth anyway?
I didn't know whether to laugh or be offended.
System connection established. Welcome to Vaelthar, Damien Gremory.
A status window appeared in my mind's eye, glowing softly against the darkness.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
STATUS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Damien Gremory Race: Incubus
Title: Earth's Mightiest Level: 1 (0/100 XP)
MILF Hunter
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Oh come on. That couldn't actually be my title. "Earth's Mightiest MILF Hunter"? Was this system making fun of me?
The status window continued populating with information. Classes—both locked. Attributes—all 10s across the board, which seemed mediocre. Skills—
[ VEIL OF THE UNNAMED ] [ INCUBUS HUNGER ] [ DRAIN ] [ PREDATOR'S GRACE ]
Those sounded promising at least. I tried to access more information about them, but the knowledge didn't come. Apparently I'd have to figure those out on my own.
Great. Mysterious voice gives me two words of encouragement, system gives me a joke title, and now I'm about to wake up in some medieval fantasy world as a sex demon with no instruction manual.
This was going to go great.
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A/N: Thanks for reading this chapter! Support by adding to your library and giving a power stone or two. (∿°○°)∿ ︵ ︵ ︵ ︵ ︵ ǝʌol