บท 98: System Malfunction

After smashing her head onto the pillow, Valentina went to take a cold, cold shower to clear her head. She truly couldn't believe what had just happened and the fact that she had just agreed to try dating Kaiser Grayson.

To be completely truthful, she was a complete novice at love. Familial love? Impossible. She was an orphan in her last life, and her family hated her in this one.

Romantic love? Even more impossible. Although she could also be considered attractive in her old body, she had a horrible romantic life. Her unofficial titles were queen of a single date, queen of the one-night stand, and queen of flirting that led nowhere because while she was a student, she was studying hard to maintain her scholarship while working almost full-time and couldn't find the time to sleep much less maintain a relationship.

Once she graduated, she became a workaholic at the start-up, and whatever free time was spent volunteering at her old orphanage or doing the necessary chores at her home. The few times that she had gone out and tried dating, she had never really clicked with guys, and after a failed dating experience with one of her coworkers, she swore off love and dating until she was in a more stable spot.

The only thing she could say she fully and consistently loved for a long time and maybe loved back in her past life was the pet goldfish that she had since college that lived on her work desk, and even that was questionable as it seemed to like anybody who fed it. She was just someone who had bad luck with love.

Trying to love someone and make herself vulnerable so they would love her and understand why she was the way she was and how her past had shaped her was something she had zero experience doing. It was honestly a very scary thought, and she would rather go back to the suffering of her student days.

Still, it seemed that she had somehow agreed to try with Kaiser, and she had a sinking feeling that she might mess it up if she continued to grow in her career and became busier and busier. But she would try to take it day by day.

After repeatedly banging her head on the bathroom door in belated regret, she came out of her bathroom to see Luca, who had somehow come back into her bedroom and was looking at her with a betrayed expression.

"Mom? You sent me out?" he called out to her in a little husky voice and held his hands to be picked up.

Hearing the way he called her, she restrained a sigh and went to pick him up, "My little nugget. Say, Auntie Val."

"You don't like mom?" As his eyes began to tear up as he looked at her, she patted his back comfortingly.

"Luca. I'm not your mom; I'm your auntie. You should only call mom to the person your dad marries, okay?"

"Are you going to marry Dad?" he asked immediately. Seeing his sparkling eyes, Valentina felt her mental energy drastically deplete.

"...go and ask your father. He was also the one who moved you to your room," She told him, shamelessly selling Kaiser out. Luca immediately began glaring before he wiggled down and ran out of her room after gently closing the door.

Bang!

Hearing the door of another room being slammed open, she calmly locked her door and lay on her bed, mentally exhausted.

All she wanted to do was sleep. For some reason, her brain felt fried, and she felt as if she couldn't do anything more.

As if hearing her words and wanting to deny her rest, the system decided to speak up.

[Warning!]

[Host is taking inadvisable actions that may conflict with The Host's mission. The Host should make sure not to allow external entities to interfere with The Host's mission, or there will be dire consequences! Recommending The Host to reconsider accepting the proposition.]

"What th-?"

[Warning!]

[Host should use your own efforts or system rewards rather than external entities to complete The Host's missions. Actions like utilizing an external entity to intentionally complete tasks, buying your way to the top, using an external entity to kick out Aaliyah from film projects, or ruining the Salazar family will be strictly penalized, or there will be dire consequences!]

"Are you threatening me? For interacting with Kaiser or for him completing my task?" Valentina asked with a cold smile while making sure her anger wasn't conveyed.

[...]

[Warning The Host to watch your actions. Or there will be dire consequences.]

"What are the dire consequences? Fully explain what you mean." Valentina demanded.

[...]

[Warning The Host to watch your actions. Or there will be dire consequences.]

"Are you planning on blaming me if Kaiser makes a move against Aaliyah or the Salazar family? Or if he accidentally completes a task? It's not like the knew."

[...]

[Warning The Host to watch your actions. Or there will be dire consequences.]

"Why can't I use external entity? Why would that affect the mission? And why are you complaining now? I've had a deal with Kaiser to switch agencies for months. And he's been helpful for the past couple of months."

[...]

[Warning host not to make a mistake. Or there will be dire consequences.]

Seeing that the system was being unreasonable, Valentina went to her go-to threat.

"Shall I just quit if you don't give me details? I'm ready to become a full-time nanny."

[Warning host not to make a mistake. Or there will be dire consequences. Dire consequences include immediate death or worse.]

What was going on with the system? Valentina leaned back and analyzed her actions within the past two days. Nothing of note had really happened except for the discussion she had with Kaiser. Then, the system changed its tune and began warning her.

Either it didn't want her to be in a relationship at all, or it had something against Kaiser and the power/influence he wielded. Interesting.

Wanting to test her hypothesis, she asked the system, "If I reject Kaiser and cut contact, I won't get a warning like this if I try to date someone as long as it doesn't affect my career and missions, correct?"

[Yes, that is....I cannot answer that.]

Bingo. Kaiser was the problem. Making a mental note and smirking to herself, Valentina decided to press the subject.

"So you still know how to respond to questions instead of only giving out useless warnings."

[...]

"Moving on, how will I even know if I am violating the rules."

[The Host will receive a warning if The Host's actions are against the system's core rules and values. Will The Host be rejecting the proposition from the external entity?]

Seeing that the system refused to even call Kaiser by name when it had mentioned Aaliyah previously, she hid a smile while making a note of it.

"Will you be telling me your problem with Kaiser?" Valentina asked sweetly in return.

System: [...]

Valentina: "^_^"

[Ding!]

[Task Completed!]

[Accept Reward Custom Body Scent with Special Effects?]

Seeing that The System decided to shamelessly change the subject, Valentina gave up pestering it for now. However, it seemed she needed to begin collecting information, starting with recalling anything she remembered from the original novel and writing it down. She would have to ask Kaiser to dig into her past a bit more and find out if there was any connection between him and the original Valentina and ask Rio, too, since he seemed to know her past as well.

She had been peacefully going along with the system, but more and more, it kept messing with her and disturbing her peace. If it was going to keep interfering with not just her career but her personal life, too, then she needed to figure out how to contain it and what the limits were. When she had gathered all the information she could, she would sweep in for the kill.

"Accept, just accept." She grumbled as she thought about the mountain of things piling up for her to do.

[Reward accepted. Please describe your ideal body scent and the location you want the scent to come from.]

"Make it surround my entire body. I like sweet things, so make it vanilla marshmallow scented with a hint of bitter orange and a dash of something spicy."

As a sweet smell began to emanate from her body, she wrinkled her nose. It was sickeningly sweet.

"Too sweet; dial down the vanilla a bit."

"A little more floral note."

"Take down the spice a bit."

As she continued tweaking the scent setting, the system adjusted it to her specifications until she finally found something that fit what she was looking for perfectly.

Smelling the final composition, a soft orange blossom and honeysuckle combination sweetened by a marshmallow sugar scent blended subtlely with amber notes and the barest hint of oud, she felt sweet, sensual, and luxurious.

"Perfect. Now reduce the scent level by about 50 percent." As her ideal scent wafted around her in satisfaction, she smiled happily. Now, she could save some money on perfume and have a memorable, unique scent that no one else would have.

Since she was done with the system for now, she pulled out her phone to look at her social media accounts. Due to the video that was posted by the Imperial Post Journal, a lot of the comments on her insulting her had reduced drastically, and she was temporarily trending under #SalazarVsSalazar.

Aaliyah had also taken her original post description down and blocked the comments on it and some other posts, which made her smile. The director, Rio, and a couple of the other cast mates reached out, and after assuring them that she was fine and had been released from the hospital. She then made a post letting her followers know she would be hosting a live tomorrow where people could ask her questions and she could chat with her fans.

Done with work obligations, she asked the system to make itself useful and add a healing factor to the scent and went to sleep.