"So, the last one is half an hour too?" Zerena asked.

Max nodded immediately.

Internally, he was feeling rather pleased with himself.

After all, he’d successfully increased the armpit-licking requirement by nearly twenty minutes beyond what the system had actually demanded.

A small victory.

Unfortunately, the satisfaction didn’t last long.

Because the more he thought about it, the more he regretted where those extra minutes had gone.

In hindsight, allocating them to kissing would’ve been a far better investment.

At the time, however, kissing hadn’t been part of the discussion yet. The possibility hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Which was understandable.

The moment Zerena had agreed to let him kiss her, most of Max’s higher brain functions had immediately resigned from their positions.

"Well then... come on," Zerena said, raising her arm while remaining seated.

A moment earlier, Max had been thinking that this final task was a terrible trade.

Compared to kissing, it seemed painfully unappealing.

A distant second-place finish.

Possibly third.

Then she raised her arm.

And every complaint immediately vanished.

His brain abandoned its previous position without hesitation.

The exposed skin caught his attention first, slightly flushed and carrying a faint sheen of sweat from everything that had happened earlier. The deeper part held soft pinkish tones and natural lines that became more visible from this close.

Max’s eyes didn’t stop there.

They drifted lower.

Toward the side of her chest left exposed by the position.

The curve caught his attention immediately. A faint sheen of sweat still clung to her skin, catching the light whenever she moved.

As he shifted closer, his hands settled on her breasts while her scent drifted toward him again. The familiar floral smell was still there, but now it mixed with the warmth of sweat from everything they’d been doing.

Then he paused.

Actually paused.

Long enough that Zerena started feeling hopeful.

’At least this one he’ll find disgusting...’

A perfectly reasonable assumption.

A tragically optimistic one.

Because the very next moment, Max leaned forward and gave her entire armpit a long lick.

Still apparently not satisfied, Max leaned in again and gave it another long lick, as if he were somehow trying to suck the flavor out of it.

The action made Zerena tremble slightly.

"Mm..."

The sound escaped before she could stop it, and she immediately bit her lip in frustration.

Not because of what he was doing.

But because the idiot genuinely didn’t seem to find licking her sweaty armpits disgusting.

At all.

If anything, he looked increasingly enthusiastic.

Which somehow made the entire situation worse.

One of his hands continued squeezing her breasts while the other slipped around her back, keeping her pressed closer as he stubbornly continued his task. Every now and then his fingers brushed against her nipples, earning an increasingly irritated glare from Zerena.

Finally, she couldn’t ignore it anymore.

"Do you have to play with my breasts while doing it?" she asked angrily.

Displaying a level of courage normally absent whenever common sense was involved, he kept his hand right where it was.

"It gives a few extra points..." he said.

Conveniently, he already had the excuse prepared.

Zerena stared at him.

She didn’t say anything.

Which Max immediately interpreted as permission.

A dangerous habit.

"But with that, I have to do the other arm too," he added. "So... can I sit here?"

The question would’ve sounded much more convincing if he hadn’t already started moving before she answered.

Sliding forward, he settled himself between her legs again.

Somehow.

Somehow, the idiot had managed to do it twice in the same day.

Before Zerena could properly react, he’d already guided her legs around him and gotten comfortable.

The sheer audacity of it left her briefly speechless.

Not because the movement itself was particularly difficult to stop.

But because Max had a remarkable talent for acting first and letting everyone else discover his intentions afterward.

Once again, Zerena found herself in a compromising position.

Her stomach was pressed against him, her body drawn so close she was practically sitting in his lap. Her breasts brushed against his chest as Max grabbed her arms and lifted them over her head, positioning them exactly where he wanted.

"I really shouldn’t have gotten myself involved in all this crap..." she muttered.

At this point, she wasn’t even trying to hide her dissatisfaction anymore.

Whether Max heard her or not had stopped mattering several disasters ago.

Max, meanwhile, was paying approximately as much attention to her complaints as he normally paid to warning labels.

As long as she wasn’t actually stopping him, his brain had already categorized the grumbling as background noise.

The sort of thing that simply happened whenever Zerena was forced to deal with him.

A surprisingly common occurrence.

Shifting closer, he settled into position again. One hand rested against her waist, keeping her from drifting away while his attention remained fixed on the task in front of him.

Zerena watched him move from side to side, her eyes following him despite herself.

He found himself enjoying the weight of her thighs resting across his legs, their softness making it annoyingly difficult to focus on anything else. Every now and then, he could feel the faint pressure of her hardened nipples against his chest whenever she shifted, only for her to half-heartedly try pulling away before giving up entirely. At some point, she seemed to decide that resisting was simply more effort than it was worth and stayed pressed against him instead.

Max, naturally, took that as permission to continue.

Not that his attention was helping him remain sane.

He stared at her armpits with the focus of a sage studying a divine revelation carved into stone. Fine lines traced through the skin there, small natural creases running deeper toward the center and spreading outward in subtle patterns.

Objectively speaking, there was absolutely nothing special about them.

Subjectively speaking?

His brain disagreed with remarkable enthusiasm.

They looked strangely familiar—almost exactly like the kind of details artists obsessed over in those secret weeb comics he definitely only read for the plot. The resemblance was so close that a tiny, traitorous part of his mind immediately began comparing reality to fiction.

To Max’s immense surprise and growing concern...

Reality was winning.