Kapitel 4: Prologue IV : Three Aspects of Cuteness

"So I can't just have pure physical power as everyone will surely have their own criteria for cuteness...but I can make everyone perceive me as cute anyways...hmm...but cuteness stems from physicality from the first place..." He mumbled to himself while thinking of how to use the remaining three-quarters of his points, already deciding to use it for only cuteness and nothing else.

He knew the three most important aspects of cuteness and took that into account, physicality, behavior and the perception of others. The most important one was the perception of others as it affected the two other aspects heavily, so his points would be mostly going into fixing that as he didn't only want a select group of people to think him as cute as he's aiming to be the cutest in the Omniverse after all.

The physicality aspect of cuteness will not be neglected as the first impression always starts with your appearance, so a good portion of points will go into it as well. For behavior, he didn't want to affect it too much as behavioral cuteness came from the soul.

behavioral cuteness refers to cuteness in the actions and behaviors displayed when living your normal life, a few examples would include hair twirling, head tilting, cute natural accent, how you sneeze, and a million other types of small actions and reactions in normal life.

There was also something called fake cuteness which is stemmed from behavioral cuteness by purposely doing actions that are perceived as cute by others to gain attention, most of the actions done are overly flamboyant and exaggerated and can easily be spotted as fake due to the actual behavioral cuteness being subtle and thus hard to copy and show off with.

It was for this reason that he didn't want to mess too much with his behavioral cuteness as he wanted a natural type of cuteness. He had always played as a girl on any game that allows it and every single online handle he had was extremely girly and cute, he even frequently roleplays as a girl online and learned a lot of tips and tricks from pros, so though he may not have actual real-life experience acting cute, his online experience should be good enough to pull him through.

After taking all of these into account and scribbling a few ideas into a fresh notebook, he had finally decided what to choose.

"Okay, for 25% of my points, I would like an ability that allows me to subtly change my body over a long period of time, based on my desires and 'cuteness'. I would also be able to divert the path my body takes at any time."

Though it seemed pretty basic from how he described it, it is actually quite versatile as giving no specific details will only make the power encompasses everything that it has to work with, from how it defines cuteness to the extent of how he would be able to change his body.

Even the time frame is to be determined as he was not specific and only indicated that he wanted it to be 'long', that was due to another reason which was the drastic changes in his body in a short period of time from the perspective of those around him.

If his power took a long time to take effect, it would only be seen as changing as he grew older, though people may suspect something is up if they were to investigate deeply as such drastic changes are unnatural despite the time taken. That would be solved by his next power though.

"Next, for 45% of my points, I would like the passive ability to charm others with my cuteness, the cuter I am to them the better I am able to charm them. Regardless of their perception of cuteness, they will think of me as 'cute' when interacting with or seeing me."

With this ability, he would be able to affect all the beings in the omniverse, from eldritch tentacle monsters, to sapient humanoid robots, there were no exceptions! Well, that was what he hoped at least, with it being as vague as his other power, he wouldn't actually know how it'll turn it.

The power would not actually force anything to think of him as a certain level of cute, but will only give them the ability to find him cute if they didn't already. An example was if his level of cuteness in their perspective was in the negatives, thus not finding him cute, the ability would set her cuteness in relation to their perspective to zero and would never fall into the negatives and can only go up.

How he knew that was how his power would work despite not voicing it out is due to a question he had asked previously relating to concepts and ideas he wouldn't be able to properly put into words, the being had explained that they would be able to sense his ideas and concepts through the words he speaks as long as he associates those ideas and concepts with those words, and thus while thinking of all the intricate details of the power, he had spoken a general description to still have the vagueness present.

As for how cuteness is measured in terms of how others see him, even he doesn't know, and he didn't like the idea of a power that just increases his cuteness without any effort like 'cuteness increases over time!!'. Though it was a big risk as he might not be able to increase his cuteness over a certain point and thus making his powers obsolete, he would rather pursue true cuteness over fake cuteness any day.

"Finally for my last 5%, I would like my behavioral cuteness to be increased, and please lock it all in." The most direct and subtle way to increase his behavioral cuteness was to do exactly that, and he was sure the type of behavioral cuteness he wanted would be applied due to 'the ideas and concepts he associated the words with.

'Congratulations candidate, you have used up all of your points and are ready to be transferred to the other world, before doing so, I would like to inform you that you are still able to back out of this chance and return to your normal life in your current world.'

He was a bit surprised that he even had a choice to reject this opportunity as it never crossed his mind, though he understood that some people were content with the life they lived and wouldn't judge them for backing out, he was still curious why the being had only informed him at the end rather than at the start. He shrugged as it didn't matter much to him.

"No way am I going back to my old boring life, despite all the fun I had, I'm sure that my new life will be a million times more filled with joy and fun compared to the last" He grinned in excitement thinking of all the things he would do when he reached the other world.

'Since that is the case, you will be transferred to the other world upon your approval, as most candidates would still have a multitude of questions to ask even after using up all their points.'

"I'm all good! Take me away!!"

And with those words, his world faded to black as the being started his transferrence.

---

12:32 PM

That was the time that had been displayed when a young man in his early twenties had glanced at the corner of his holo-watch projection. He had left his post upon receiving an urgent call from his wife's manager, telling him that she was currently in the hospital and in labor.

He had immediately dropped everything he had been doing and rushed to the exit, telling a colleague of his to inform his superior that his wife was giving birth and that he would formally report to them sometime later. He knew that what he was doing was against protocol and he would be dished out punishments when he returned, but he couldn't be bothered to care at the moment.

"Staring at the time wouldn't do you any good kid, you'll just get yourself all worked up" The driver of the hover taxi had spoken from the front, speaking in a tone of experience and remembrance.

"You have children, sir?" The only kind of experience someone would have while giving advice like that was one with a family, and he could use any sort of advice right now.

"Just the one, but the amount of trouble he gave me would be comparable to taking care of multiple children, that's for sure" He chuckled as he recalled the past.

"I remember when I was around your age, I rushed to the hospital without giving myself any time to cool down, making the nurse in charge of my wife forcefully lead me out of her room, saying that my panicked and excitable mood would only negatively affect my wife and the birth." He smiled bitterly as he remembered the face he had made when he had been made to wait outside of the room while his wife gave birth.

"So take my small bit of advice and cool down with some tunes, you'll be there much earlier than I ever was, any requests?" He pointed to the radio, serious about wanting him to calm down.

"That's alright, I like what's playing anyways." He smiled politely as he decided to take the drivers advice, leaning back into the seat, crossing his arms and closing his eyes.

After half an hour or so, he had woken up from his short nap and was re-energized, just in time for the hover taxi to arrive at the hospital his wife was residing at. He quickly paid the driver with his holo-watch and thanked him for the advice, briskly walking into the hospital.

Though he was still rushing, he was much calmer and relaxed after getting his thoughts sorted with the nap he had taken, after checking in at the counter he made haste to his wife's room and decided to cast a calming spell on the way, not wanting to take the risk of kicked out of the room from being too frantic.

Approaching the room, he saw his wife's manager sitting outside with a blank expression on her face as she usually had, only nodding to him in acknowledgment. Knowing that no words needed to be spoken he just nodded back before facing the door.

With three heavy knocks to the door, it was shortly answered by a female nurse and the agonizing screams that only sounded a bit like the love of his life. He flinched upon hearing the harrowing wails mostly due to them suddenly streaming out of the soundproof room.

"Mr. Lanixer I presume? Please come in, and make sure to keep calm and collected as the birth takes place, she's only two hours into labor so expect the next few hours to be the most tiring ones in your life" The nurse quickly said before she turned back to continue her duties.

He quickly entered the room less someone closed it on him and came to his wife's side, softly calling out her name as she continued to wail due to the pain, placing a hand on her head and the other holding her hand.

"Paela? I'm here, i'm here now honey..." He called out to her gently, moving his mouth closer to her ear so he wouldn't have to shout through her screams.

"Ae-Aereon? Y-you're here...thank the heav-Hnggg AAHHHH!!!" Paela weakly responded upon hearing her loved ones voice, giving a small strained smile as she attempted to hold back her screams.

"I'm here now so there's nothing to worry about, don't force yourself to talk with me and just scream as much as you like, I'm not goiny anywhere" He reassured her with a calm yet kind tone, making the nervous woman relax a little before she returned to screaming at full volume.

The next few hours, as the nurse had said, truly were the most exhausting hours he had experienced in his life.