Chapter 96: Companion Management!

Kyle stared at the glowing interface that had just flickered into existence in front of him. The notification had been sudden, almost casual, like the system had decided he was ready without bothering to give him any warning.

"That’s new."

He looked at the new feature he had just unlocked and instinctively followed the feature screen, reading the description carefully.

[

Companion Management

Description: Allows the Host to monitor and manage relationships with registered Companions. Displays information regarding their feelings, bond, trust, satisfaction, compatibility, and current relationship status.

] 𝖋𝙧ⅇ

Kyle’s eyebrows rose slightly. The wording was clinical, almost bureaucratic, but the implications were anything but. A system that tracked emotional and relational data in real time was either incredibly useful or incredibly invasive. Possibly both.

"Oh, that’s nice but what’s the requirement for companions?"

The system answered without delay.

[It depends on several personal and interpersonal factors, including the nature of the relationship, the mutual feelings involved, and the depth of the bond between you and the individual. These are a few of the variables which decide if someone could be registered as a companion. Also, only opposite gender can be registered as a companion.]

"I see, that’s interesting. I think I know who’s going to be in my list of Companion,"

Saying that, he opened the Companion Management interface fully, fully expecting to see only Lira’s name. If he was lucky, maybe Stacy would be there as well. Their arrangement had shifted recently from purely transactional filming into something that at least resembled friendship with benefits.

Sophia, on the other hand, should not have been anywhere near this list. One heated encounter fueled by the absurd effects of that pill did not make a companion.

The screen populated.

[

Manage Companion:

1. Lira

2. Stacy

3. Sophia

]

Kyle’s expression blanked for a second.

"Sophia? Why’s she here?"

He stared at the third name, genuinely confused. Lira made perfect sense. She was his girlfriend. They had mutual feelings, shared history, and a relationship that had developed with actual communication. Stacy was more of a stretch, but he could at least rationalize it. They had spent enough time together, and the recent shift in their dynamic had introduced a degree of genuine friendliness. Sophia, however, was different. Their only real interaction had been intense and forced sex that was driven by the overwhelming libido the pill had forced on him. There wasn’t anything like normal conversation between them at all.

"Sophia... and I only had sex that too because of the heat of the moment and because of the inexplainable amount of libido that pill gave me."

He kept looking at her name, trying to reverse engineer the system’s logic. The more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

[No need to be confused. The threshold for companion registration is fixed but the requirement of the mixture of variables can be random. Some variables can be overpowering while others can be straight up zero.]

Kyle processed that for a moment. Then the realization hit him all at once, and he couldn’t stop the laugh that burst out of him.

"Wait—wait—hahaha! Are you telling me that I fucked Sophia so good that I ended up making her my companion..."

The absurdity of it was almost too much. One encounter. One and somehow the system had decided the sexual performance alone had been enough to push her across the registration threshold. He laughed harder, the sound half disbelief and half pure, unfiltered ego.

"Throughout the heaven and earth I alone am the MILF breaker,"

He declared it with a proud voice and a smug, cocky look on his face, as if the title had already been carved into stone somewhere.

[Alright, don’t get cocky. Dominating one lonely and dry milf with the help of external powers doesn’t make you the Genghis Khan yet.]

The system’s tone was dry, almost weary, like it had seen this exact brand of premature self-congratulation before and was already tired of it.

"I know, but a win is a win. You gotta celebrate your small wins and also it’s pretty big for someone who was a forever virgin," Kyle said, still grinning.

[That’s good. You are becoming mature. Staying humble is a good skill in itself. It can help you avoid many situations.]

The system sounded like a resigned old man delivering advice it didn’t fully expect to be followed. There was a brief pause, almost like a sigh.

[Well, you do deserve to be happy about your achievements but don’t get ahead of yourself.]

"Of course. Anyways, let’s take a look at the stats of my dear companions."

He opened Lira’s profile first. Of the three, hers was the one he was least worried about, and the one he expected to look the strongest.

[

Companion Management

Name: Lira

Relationship: Girlfriend

Bond: Very High

Trust: Very High

Feelings: Very Strong

Satisfaction: High

Status: Stable

Compatibility: Very High

]

"Just as I expected. I’m a good boyfriend like I was meant to be."

He grinned at the screen. The numbers lined up with how he felt about the relationship. It was still early, but both of them had approached it with a level of honesty that most people their age seemed allergic to. That had carried them further than time alone would have.

"Next, let’s look at Stacy."

[

Companion Management

Name: Stacy

Relationship: Friend

Bond: High

Trust: High

Feelings: Strong

Satisfaction: Very High ℯ𝐥.𝒄ℴ𝓶

Status: Stable

Compatibility: High

]

Kyle blinked.

"Wait. Why is her satisfaction higher than Lira’s?"

He examined the two profiles side by side in his mind. Most of Stacy’s ratings were close to what he expected. Their relationship had become more comfortable, and the high trust and bond ratings suggested that their interactions had developed beyond their original arrangement.

But very high satisfaction?

That caught his attention.

"Does satisfaction depend on the physical side of a relationship? Because that would explain part of it, but surely that’s not everything."

[As previously stated, satisfaction is a composite assessment. Its contributing factors depend on the individual and the relationship. The system does not equate satisfaction exclusively with physical intimacy.]

"So there’s more to it."

[Obviously.]

Kyle gave the interface a dubious look.

"Could’ve just said that."

He reconsidered Stacy’s profile. Their friendship had developed in an unusual way, but the important point was that they seemed comfortable with the arrangement they had established. The system’s assessment might reflect that, along with other factors he couldn’t directly observe.

He couldn’t be certain.

And that uncertainty was precisely why he needed to be careful about drawing conclusions from the numbers.

"Alright, I won’t assume I know everything from a few labels. But it’s still useful to have an idea of where things stand."

"Now for the MILF."

Kyle opened Sophia’s profile.

[

Companion Management

Name: Sophia

Relationship (Title): Sexual Partner

Bond: Low

Trust: Medium Low

Feelings: Medium

Satisfaction: Lower High

Status: Stable

Compatibility: Medium

]

"I guess I was right. Satisfaction is based on the sexual satisfaction after all."

The conclusion felt solid. Even with almost no emotional foundation, Sophia’s satisfaction sat at Lower High after a single encounter. That told him everything he needed to know about how heavily the system weighted physical performance. Bond and trust were still low, which tracked. Feelings were medium—higher than he would have guessed, but not impossible if the sex had been that impactful for her.

He closed the interface with a quiet mental command. The blue glow faded, leaving him alone with his thoughts again.

"Well, the stats are mostly like what I expected, aside from the fact that I would need to be more wilder with Lira now. I gotta make her walk less."

A sly smile pulled at the corner of his mouth as the thought settled in. The idea of pushing further with her of finding the edges of what she could take and then carefully crossing them had a certain appeal. Not out of pure dominance, but because the system had just confirmed there was still room to improve. High satisfaction was good. Very High would be better.

"But I will do all of this after I come back."

He laced his fingers together and stretched his arms forward until his shoulders cracked, then worked the joints in his fingers one by one. The small physical reset helped clear the last of the amusement from his system.

"This is a useful feature. A very useful feature. I won’t have to worry about assessing the situation with everyone now. I can just look at this and plan out what to do next."

He yawned, the sound long and lazy. The weight of the day was starting to settle in, but the new interface had given him something concrete to work with. Data instead of guesswork. Numbers instead of gut feeling. For someone who had spent most of his life navigating relationships by pure trial and error, that felt like a genuine upgrade.

"But I will do all of this later. I got to make the preparations now."