Information, skills, and kisses!

As the food came, the boys got their plates and begun to dig in, and have a lively conversation once more.

Rhys could hear the system's voice ringing a "MISSION SUCCESS" but chose to ignore it in favor of listening and talking with the targets.

"You're about halfway there, host! Soon you'll be able to see the female and male lead's affection towards each other." Kane commented.

"Does it even matter? I already made them hate her." Rhys replied to Kane, twirling his fork and taking a bite of his noodles.

"Yes! The leased the number, the greater chance you have of completing the world without killing the corrupted female lead." Kane replied, now eating off of Rhys' plate.

"Does anyone ever actually want to kill the female lead?" Rhys thought, surely no host in this system is a proud murderer, right?

"That depends, there are many different more worlds and genres, but as for hosts in your specific system then there's at least one." Kane replied, shivering a little.

"How many hosts are in my system, then? You mentioned something about there being almost five hundred hosts, right?" Rhys asked, not really sure if he wanted to know the answer.

"Including you, there's about twenty three hosts in the reverse harem target capture system." Kane replied.

"You did mention you messed up before, right? So what are the other system options?" Rhys asked, taking a sip of his water, while smiling as the targets were talking.

"There's way too many to list, you'll find out soon enough, anyways. The ones closest to your's are the harem target capture system, done by both men and women, and reverse harem target capture system done by both men and women." Kane began.

"The system opposite to your's is the male or female hosts who capture the targets that are female. Your's have male and female hosts who capture male targets."

"That's way too long of a name, I don't really care how the system manages all these hosts anymore." Rhys thought to Kane as he finished up all on his plate.

As the four of them finished their meal, they paid and drove home, a sense of exhaustion falling over almost all of them.

Unfortunately for Rhys, Erin, and Seth, Xavier still had a large amount of energy, conflicting with the three introverts.

"Let's watch a show! How about a game show? It'd be fun! But don't be disappointed when I win, oh, how about we go somewhere tomorrow?" Xavier began, talking what felt like a hundred words per few seconds.

"I'm honestly exhausted, I'm sorry." Rhys said using his smile skill as he let out a small yawn, to which Seth nodded along to.

"I'd prefer to be by myself for now, too." Erin chimed in, to which Kane snickered an threw in a comment.

"To be by himself thinking about your kiss, right host?" Hearing this comment, Rhys glared at Kane quickly, before apologising to Xavier again.

Xavier pouted, like a child about to throw a tantrum. "Fine! I don't care." He muttered. Worried that Xavier's affection may go down, Rhys made a mistake in promising him they could go somewhere the next day.

"Really?" Xavier and Erin both said, however their tones were drastically different than each other's.

Nodding yes to Xavier, Rhys mouthed an apology to Erin before making his way to his room, letting out a yawn.

"I thought my health improved." Rhys hissed as he closed his door and plopped onto his bed, trying to go to sleep.

"You can't sleep yet! You still have time to practice your skills. Your health has improved but the problem is your mindset! You think going out is draining and so are people!" Kane hissed, pulling Rhys to his feet.

"Since where did you become so strong!?" Rhys thought over to him, to which Kane laughed, a smug look on his face.

"I evolved, obviously. Now get to work on your skills! You can't become the best host at this rate." Kane huffed.

"I never said I wanted to be the best host." Kane replied as he started his waterworks skill, and eavesdropper, making his way to his desk.

"You do! Compared to the other systems I'm nothing! As soon as you see them, you'll immediately understand." Kane began, handing Rhys a pencil.

Opening his notebook, Rhys began to practice his multilingual skill, not even thinking about it he started to write in French.

"It's a hundred years until I meet them though, right?" Rhys asked, letting out another yawn.

"It may actually be sooner, probably within the next few years, since we nearly have five hundred hosts." Kane said, as Rhys hummed, mindlessly writing and crying.

"You're taking this too easily! That's a huge deal. Currently only the top hosts get to freely converse!" Kane began, rambling on and on.

"From what I'm hearing, the other hosts are like problem children for the system." Rhys said.

Kane paused for a second, in a way, Rhys was right. A lot of the other hosts in the children did their jobs, sure, but they did act like problem children once in awhile.

"That's besides the point! You need to be a great host, how else am I supposed to brag?" Kane retorted.

"I see I'm not the only prideful one here. But at least I have a reason to be prideful, unlike you." Rhys said, turning the page.

"Would I be able to learn French if I remember what I wrote?" Rhys asked Kane, changing the subject before Kane could riot.

"Probably. It'd be embarrassing if you can't remember the French sentence for I hate this system after writing it repeatedly on a whole page, that'd be a little sad." Kane said.

The two went back and forth for the next two hours, before Rhys was finally released from his torture. His waterworks skill had reached level 4, his eavesdropper remained at level 1, and his multilingual reached level 2.

"You could of done better." Kane shook his head as Rhys flipped him off, leaving to take a shower. He was just fully mentally exhausted at that point.

As Rhys turned the water on, he heard the voice saying "OBLIGATORY SYSTEM MISSION", making him want to cry.

"There will be a power outage tomorrow, convince the targets to partake in rainy day activities, and kiss at least each target once. Rewards available upon completion, failure results in (2) memory loss."

Rhys nearly jumped as he read what appeared on the screen, "Two?! What the hell!" He hissed, before looking at the requirements again, nearly having a heart attack himself.

"Looks like you'll have to do it. The easiest way may be to do truth or dare, or maybe seven minutes in heaven. Or perhaps a penalty game, where the penalty is a kiss?" Kane thought, fully on board this ship.

"What? What even qualifies as a kiss!" Rhys looked at Kane, who only smiled in return, laughing a little.

"Well, it's a kiss, so I assume the lips? It didn't say a kiss on the cheek." Kane responded, causing Rhys to blush.

His hands were tied, he had zero choice in the matter, as failure resulted in not one but two memory loss, the system was just being cruel to him at this point.

"Fine I'll do it!" Rhys hissed out a response before hopping into the shower, trying to calm himself.

His fatigue had faded away in any instant as he tried to devise a plan, any plan, to succeed.

Reading Rhys' mind, Kane nodded along. "It's not a bad strategy, it should work. Well if worse comes to worse I'll just push you into them. The aftermath doesn't matter so long as you don't fail the mission, you can always raise their affection again eventually." Kane commented.

With it settled, Rhys dried off, changed, and brushed his teeth, before making his way to bed. A ten minute shower ended up being nearly forty minutes, and he finally felt his fatigue coming back.

Turning off the lights for him, Kane let out a small yawn and curled into Rhys, a small smile on his face as well. At the very least, tomorrow would be entertaining.