Chapter 17: Relationships

While those three have been progressing nicely, they are not the only ones. My intelligence, for instance, has continued to see steady as well as impressive improvement from my knowledge gathering efforts. And now sits at a hefty 17 points, not that far away from raising my brain's processing power by another 100%. I really can't wait for the day it rises to 20. It will speed up my work an absolute ton when it finally does.

Besides my intelligence attribute going up, my perception has gone up a bit as well, just not to the same extent. Reason being that I hit a bit of a slump for a while until I came up with the bright idea to rig up several pitching machines with turret targeting modules. Once I had those sucker shooting baseballs at me while my eyes were shut, it began increasing, like the rest of my attributes. It simply took me getting hit in the face a few times before I got the hang of things.

Unlike my intelligence improving at its usual fast pace, my charisma attribute has seen marginal improvement by only increasing by a piddly 2 points, raising its total to 7. Not really unexpected given how much time I spend on trying to improve all my other stats. That said, I was hoping to see a bit more improvement than that, but whatever.

Unfortunately, as that is, it isn't anywhere comparable to my luck, which has seen exactly zero improvement since I was reincarnated, and man, have I tried absolutely everything possible. I've experimented with all sorts of luck related activities to get it to improve, ranging from playing poker and slots to even getting grandma to buy a bunch of lottery tickets for me when I went out with her to play bingo with her and her friends.

After doing very many luck related activities for quite a long while, I came to the painful conclusion that luck was inherent and could not in any way whatsoever be improved through training like the rest of my attributes. I was hoping things would be different from the games and it could be improved through effort, but alas, it is what it is.

Luckily, it can still be improved via the system either by perks and quests rewards. There could be additional ways it can be raised with, but those are the ones I know of from the Wastelander games.

Alongside my attributes increasing substantially, my skills have also seen a significant increase all across the board, with my highest skill surprisingly being my heavy weapons skill, which sits at a colossal 97 closing in on 100 rapidly.

I expected either my repair or science skill to take the lead and be my highest skill with both of them sitting at 95. But I guess my interest in heavy weapons has made enough of a difference that my heavy weapons skill was able to take the lead from those two. Going to the gun range with grandpa John to practice and try out new techniques also helps with that, not to mention the blunt heavy sword I use frequently to train my melee skills.

Continuing on from my highest skill to my lowest skill, that spot is unsurprisingly occupied by my piloting skill. Not a big surprise there considering that is a skill that only really goes up with experience to my knowledge and seeing how young I am, I haven't had the opportunity nor the pleasure to get behind the wheel in this life, yet. Beyond that, I also haven't invested much effort in reading about the different driving and piloting techniques I have access to, so that contributes to its low number.

In addition to my skills, agility, intelligence, perception, and strength attributes coming a long way with charisma and luck excluded, my hand to hand combat abilities have improved to the point where I can pretty much match grandpa John in sparring, even when he's going all out. Unfortunately, grandpa John isn't in his prime any longer, thus my accomplishment isn't nearly as impressive. Too bad, I would've loved to have had a spar against him when he was still roaming the wild wasteland.

Nonetheless, with him being a bear of a man and a veteran wasteland explorer with numerous life and death battles under his belt, I would say it's still quite an achievement, especially so for my age.

With hand and hand covered, that wraps up my physical abilities.

Next on the list… I suppose I'll cover my relationships. Starting things off, my and Alice's relationship has continued to progress as expected, with the two of us getting closer and closer each and every day. We have even gotten to where she is sleeping over here now, quite frequently at that.

She would probably sleep here every night if she could. However, her parents drag her home every so often under the guise that she needs to see her sister, though it's blatantly obvious they just want to see their little girl. And now that I've arrived at this point, Alice's mom and dad had another baby and what would you know it was another girl.

Over the last 4 years, because of an increasingly busy schedule, I haven't really interacted much with their new kid, Bella, like I have with Alice. That said, the kid appears to like me enough whenever I'm around her, so that's good. The little gifts I bring her every time I show up probably help with that.

Now that I'm thinking of it, I should probably spend more time with her since it wouldn't be bad if I could land both sisters for myself. And with how my endurance is progressing on top of me going through puberty already, my urges are pretty nuts right now. Thankfully, I have the mind of an adult and can just forcefully control and suppress my urges myself, despite it being quite the never ending battle.

Nevertheless, I think I'll be needing more than just Alice in the future to satisfy my primal urges if things continue the way they're going. There is no way her stamina will be able to compete with my own superhuman amount. I can already envision the future where Alice is passed out on the bed, satisfied as can be, whilst I on other hand, am still raring to go.

That said, there is a chance I could end up wrecking my whole future with her by pursuing more women than just her alone. But I know her inside and out so I'm nearly 100% sure that she won't have that much of a problem with it, if any at all, as long as I keep her by my side and satisfied.

Aside from the possible destruction of our relationship via my own hands, I'll have to see how her sister's personality turns out and if it's even worth pursuing her. I also prefer capable women, so I'll need to invest a decent bit of time and effort in trying to teach her the plethora of things I've her sister and I have learned over the years. Alice can also help me out in that area as well and take some of the future workload off of me.

So if the stars align and she has a genuine interest in all the stuff she would be required to learn and train in and has the drive required to stick with it, she may be a potential candidate. If not, I'm sure I'll encounter more beautiful women in the future that'll check all the boxes and tickle my fancy. I actually have a few women in mind that should exist out there in the wasteland and check the boxes I want, one of them being a red-haired thorny rose in Vegas, part of one of the major powers there…

Ohh, there is also the fact I'll have to wait 6 years after I leave the undercity for the wasteland at the age of 18 for me to be even remotely interested in her physically and that's not even taking into account if there are romantic feelings between us. Six years is a lot too, so all this may just be pointless for the most part if I end up encountering enough women for myself. At least Bella will be a hell of a lot better off compared to her peers.

Besides Alice getting a sister in recent years that I may want to pursue a possible relationship with in the future and my desire to make a harem, I was thinking my own parents would have another kid. However, they haven't, and seeing how they treat Alice as basically their own daughter, I guess they didn't feel the need to have another with her here nearly every day of the week. More attention for me, I suppose, not that I need it.

Onto other relationships, I've made a couple of good friends in these last five years, consisting of Big Tom who I met through my after school sport activities, specifically wrestling. The kid is surprisingly almost as big as me, hence why I call him Big Tom.

As to how Tom and I became friends, it's pretty simple, actually. Due to our large sizes, we weren't allowed to wrestle with the other kids. Therefore, with the two of us only allowed to wrestle each other. Hence, we quickly became friends after battling it out on the mats many times. It was also made easier by the fact that Tom didn't have any friends to speak of. Which, now that I'm thinking of it, is kind of sad.

In addition to Big Tom, I met and befriended a pretty intelligent kid when I was out and about at school with Alice several years back, named Bob. When I first encountered the kid, he was getting bullied.

Not liking what I was seeing, I stepped in and roughed them up a bit, putting a stop to it. Following helping him out, he seemed quite appreciative of the aid I provided him by putting his bullies in their place, and after chatting with the kid; I found out he was quite intelligent for his age.

Seeing potential in him, I decided to befriend the kid. Unwilling to see my newly acquired friend at the time get bullied again in the future while I wasn't around, I took him under my wing and set him up with Big Tom so he wouldn't be bothered any longer. After introducing the two of them and having Big Tom protect Bob, they took to each other and quickly became friends on their own.