For having caused possibly untold financial destruction to a bloodthirsty criminal organization that would have my head if they knew about it, I slept like a baby. But to be fair, it wasn’t the craziest thing that happened to me since I arrived in this strange world.
I woke up at 6:55 am, a few minutes before my alarm could ring, and greeted the day with a placid smile. Getting ready was quick and easy too, with the bathroom trip and instant coffee already feeling routine. The morning was going perfectly. That’s how I knew things were about to go wrong.
----------------------------------------
Thunk
A massive pile of booklets slammed onto Hiroi’s desk as the short old man looked at me with a kind smile.
“Uh… those are a lot of manuals, boss,” I said while standing inside the apartment complex’ main office.
“Indeed! It’s Ultarian’s Festival Week, so a lot of people are more active around their homes, which means things tend to break. For someone like you though, you should be finished in only a few hours!”
“Festival Week?” I asked.
“Don’t tell me you didn’t celebrate when you were a kid?” He shot me an offended look. “It’s when we try to have as much fun as we can so new stories can be made from it to please Ulatrian!”
“Yeah, well…” I took a deep breath. “You know how I said I needed more experience?”
Hiroi slowly nodded. His smile stood, but it looked rigid. The man had been through enough to know where this was going.
“I was able to get another job at one of the local casinos!” I cheered. The wind flew out of my sails when I saw that my boss hadn’t reacted at all. “I’ll be finding cheaters as part of security. It’s normally supposed to be at night, but there’s a tournament going on this week that starts at nine.”
“Right, you said as much,” the old man finally nodded. “Wasn’t that what Eunice said you were originally going for but didn’t feel comfortable with? Why the sudden change? Is being a handyman too boring?”
“No, absolutely not, it’s perfect!” I shot back with a raised voice. I noticed I was standing on my toes, and got back down to my normal height. “Sorry, I mean, it’s perfect. It’s honestly everything I wanted out of a job, actually.” I sighed. “But with the mob, and the racket they’ve got you in, I feel it’s my only way of doing something to stop them. I really don’t think I can explain it, but working at a casino will give me what I need to put those sons of bitches down for good.”
Hiroi looked at me with a curious expression, but as he read the sincerity on my face, he gave me a knowing smile. “Very well then. I can’t say I know what you’re trying to do, but I know that you mean it. By the way, where did you get hired anyway?”
“At Goldshanks’ casino.”
“Goldshanks, huh?” Hiroi rubbed the stubble on his chin. “I’ve heard of him. He’s a lot nicer than the other big names on the strip, and actually treats his employees with respect! But they don’t really have the same camaraderie that most others do. You see, they don’t have sex with each other, so they’re not as close. The atmosphere always seemed too artificial to me so I never went there.”
“Really now?” My lips twitched upwards for a second. Only in this world would something like that be considered normal. Before I could think up a better response, Hiroi continued.
“Anyway, you still have a job with me, and if you really need to make it there so early, you’ll need to finish your work here first. This is my policy for my employees, and you’re no exception. That means you have to fix all of these before you get going.” He pointed at the pile sitting on his desk.
The old man didn’t look angry or vindictive, but he was firm. A man with convictions as strong as these was someone I couldn’t put up much of a fight against. I let out a short sigh. “I understand. So where’s my first stop?”
----------------------------------------
I walked up to the door and softly rapped on it. Sitting at the front of the apartment complex was Building A, which was made up of several individual units stacked on top of and beside each other. I had to climb a small set of stairs to get to this particular apartment.
After a few seconds, the door opened and I was greeted by a young woman with shoulder-length brown hair wearing a long, white bathrobe. She held herself with a brazen confidence, as if the world was a play and she had written the script. With a cocked hip that leaned on the doorframe and a come-hither smile, she let loose a seductive smile, beckoning me.
“So you must be the repairman, huh?” she asked, eyeing me up and down. “I just stepped out of the shower, I hope you don’t mind if I’m like this-”
“Ma’am, please just show me what’s broken,” I said without blinking. This wasn’t my first rodeo, after all.
“…f-follow me,” she replied with a barely noticeable stutter. However, she quickly caught herself and led me inside.
We made our way several feet into the short corridor the apartment opened up into and made a sharp left into the kitchen. The woman pointed towards the refrigerator and gave me a nod.
I walked up to the device and opened it up, feeling a blast of stale cool air blow past my face, a world of difference from the crisp and warm early morning summer air just outside. But besides that, everything seemed to be fine. My mind was somewhat addled thanks to the stress of having somewhere to be soon and the relatively early hour, so I knew I was missing something, but what?
The woman had regained her hungry eyes in the time it took for us to reach her kitchen, but looking at me stare at her refrigerator in confusion made morph into a mild discomfort. “Uh… the light’s broken.”
My eyes went wide, and if I wasn’t in someone’s company, I would have slapped myself on the face. Instead, I kept my composure and calmly replied. “Yup, I knew that. Just trying to figure out what could be the cause.”
“Maybe it’s-”
“[Diagnose Problem],” I whispered to myself as I activated the ability.
Tinker (lv 3): Diagnose Problem
Device
Refrigerator Light
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
Issue
Burnt out Bulb
“-the lightbulb? It’s pretty old and could have just burnt out?” the woman finished.
“Yeah, could be,” I nonchalantly replied while reaching for a spare in my toolbox.
It took me all but fifteen seconds to replace it, and when I was done, the fridge was working as good as new.
“Wow, you sure do know how to handle… small and delicate objects.”
I cocked my eyebrow at her for a moment before just accepting the compliment and nodding. “Glad to be of help! If that’s everything, then I’ll just get going-”
“Hold on, there’s also my dryer!” she quickly exclaimed, before grabbing my hand and leading me to the device in question.
Most of the apartments in this complex were well-kitted enough to have their own washer and dryer, and this one was no exception.
Just down a short hallway from the kitchen was a closet that contained the pair of appliances in question, both of them situated on the floor with barely an inch of space between them. There was a small shelf over the washer that held detergent and dryer sheets, while the space above the dryer was empty. In fact, it looked like there used to be a shelf or some other object attached to the wall from the lighter spots, but whatever had been there was long gone.
The surprise of being grabbed and dragged, even if it was gently and over a short distance, helped to jolt me ever more awake. Enough so that I’d preemptively called forth my Skill.
Tinker (lv 3): Diagnose Problem
Device
Clothes Dryer
Issue
Jammed Motor
“Motor’s broken, huh?” I mumbled out loud.
“Yeah, actually!” the woman said with surprise at my sudden clarity. “From… overuse.”
“Alright, let me get to it, then.” I slowly pulled the unit out of its alcove in the wall and began to get to work.
It took some time to squeeze into the small space between the dryer and the closet’s back wall, and even longer to take apart the back of the device to access the motor, but I’d eventually taken it out and cleaned it with a cotton swab and some lubricant.
In the background, I could hear the faint strike of matches and a record player playing smooth jazz. Mostly fitting music for my success, but I wouldn’t celebrate until I was actually done.
With one final motion, I stuck the motor back into the dryer and hooked up the belt to its shaft. After screwing the back on and doing a quick test run, I smiled and let out a sigh of relief.
[Skill Level Up! Tinker lv 3 -> 4]
The grin forming on my face immediately fell. [Tinker] was a strange Skill. Not in how it worked, because that was predictable, but in what specifically caused it to level. “No, no…”
“Oh, you got the dryer working again?” asked the woman from her living room in a sultry voice. “How wonderful, now come here for your reward.”
I slowly dragged my feet through the carpeted corridor, trying to draw out the motion as long as I could. My face wore a dead expression as I rounded the corner and looked to a sight straight out of a dream.
“So for your prize, I’ll let you do anything you want with me,” said the woman with a wink as she let go of her gown and let it fall to the floor, revealing her utterly nude form.
“Really, anything now?” I slowly asked. “Did I fix everything that was broken?”
“You sure did,” she replied with a predatory grin. “Now how about I fix something for you?”
“Well in that case, I want you… to let me go. I’ve got more apartments to service, and I have somewhere I need to be.”
“In that case… wait, what?”
“You said everything’s fixed, so I’m going to get going now. Bye!” I quickly turned around and made my way to the front door.
Just as I touched the door handle, I felt a hand on my shoulder. When I turned around, I saw the same woman standing there with her other hand on her hip and giving me a childish pout.
“What gives?!” she asked. “I’ve been flirting with you since you got here, and you ignored every single one of my advances. And now that you’ve got a naked woman right in front of you who wants you to have your way with her, and you just ignore her? What’s your problem?!”
“Well for starters, I ignored your advances on purpose,” I started, a similar looking pout forming on my own face. “And as for my problem, I’ve got three.”
She looked at me as confusion began to seep into her gaze, but her frustration held, urging me to elaborate.
“First, I’m busy and I have to get through all of these fixes quickly. I have somewhere very important I need to be and I can’t wait.”
“Important enough to ignore this?” she asked, pointing at her form.
“Yes,” I deadpanned. “And second, pleasing you isn’t my job. I really am just the handyman, not the apartment gigolo. Hiroi hasn’t hired a replacement yet.”
Her lips fell, and the pout dissolved, only leaving confusion and a dose of surprise. “Wait, you aren’t? But Glinda said that there’s a new man around, and that it was you!”
I silently swore to myself. She knew I was just a handyman, but that didn’t stop the old lady from spreading those stupid rumors.
“Well alright, it isn’t your job to please me, but why wouldn’t you want to anyway? Am I ugly or something?” she asked, hurt. “And what’s problem three?”
“Problem three is that you’re married, and I know your husband.”
Every emotion on the woman’s face disappeared, and all that was left was a silent horror.
“Please don’t tell him,” she whispered.
I was tempted to tell her off then and there, but there was a look of desperation about her that made me hesitate.
“It’s Ultarian Festival week, and his job doesn’t count it as a holiday so he’s still going in! I’m desperate, and I don’t know what else to do!”
“And that’s why your dryer’s motor got jammed?”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t have any toys, so it was the next best thing.”
This was a strange world. After waking up in the body of another man with a magical System, I thought I was given a second chance on life. I still felt that way, but… it was complicated. In that wherever I ended up apparently ran on porn logic, and the System was entirely geared towards getting me laid. For example, while the [Tinker] Skill worked on just about any machine, it only leveled up whenever I fixed a device that had a sexual purpose. Case in point, the dryer.
“I know I asked too much of you, but I don’t want the relationship with my husband to get worse!”
This place would’ve been a dream come true for a lot of people, but for me, it was a wet nightmare. A debauched lifestyle wasn’t something I was interested in. I knew what the rabbit hole of vice would lead to, and I wasn’t jumping in. So I did what any hopefully sane person would do, and tried to live normally.
It was hard.
But it was something. And before me was one of the things that made it hard. No, not like that!
“I’ll tell your husband… to take some time off to spend with you. I think he might listen to me if I ask nicely.” With the System.
The woman’s face began to warm as a smile slowly spread across her lips. “Thank you.”
I nodded and turned around, leaving the apartment and heading to the next tenant in need of help.
But I had to admit, the strangest part of this world was that so many of the biggest problems could have easily been solved with just a few words, yet almost nobody bothered. Of all of the nonsense I’d experienced since coming here, this was one that kept me wary.