Leveling Up Wives In The Apocalypse

"It appears you were right on the money," Mathew said before releasing a heavy sigh. "But it might be far worse than you expected."

Nadia and Daria tensed up a little. Mathew's words were enough to put them on the edge, but his relatively relaxed, resigned tone also served to limit just how wary they turned.

"What's wrong?" Nadia asked.

"There is a limit to how strong I can grow as a husband," Mathew said in a serious tone and with a serious face. And then, right as his words reached his own ears, his lips turned into a wide smile as he laughed out loud.

"Is this some sort of metaphor?" Daria asked, leaning her head over her shoulder with a confused expression on her face.

"No, I mean it literally." Mathew shook his head a little to calm himself down. "I can only bring my stats up to a hundred and eleven points before I will have to change the class to grow them any further," he explained.

'And that also explains why I didn't really feel much difference,' he thought, taking another look at his statistics. 'Brawn and agility both grew by fifty-one points, so the difference is less than a half in stats alone.'

Each of those two of Mathew's stats grew by fifty-one points. Basically, it reflected one's growth after dumping the benefits of five levels all into one stat.

'And given how I'm not twice as fast or strong as I was before, it seems that the returns from the higher numbers are diminishing.'

"What's the problem, then?" Daria asked, squinting her eyes in confusion. "Isn't a class change a good thing?"

"For you or any other wife of mine, it sure is," Mathew said and nodded his head. "But that's the problematic part. I can't say for sure that it's the same for me."

"Because you don't know what are the exact benefits of the class you already have," Nadia chimed in, pointing out the exact reason why Mathew was bothered by the situation his system attempted to push him in.

From a gamer's perspective, changing classes was most often than not something to look forward to, not something to be wary about.

'Assuming that this entire system is built around the data from this world, it wouldn't make sense not to go through a class change,' Mathew thought, still unable to decide between the two possible choices. 'But the same can't be said when your primary class is bugged and allows you some massive exploits!'

The idea of becoming far stronger than he was with just a single decision, potentially obtaining some overpowered abilities or something as simple as unlocking the full potential of the statistics he had...

'It's pretty appealing, I'm not going to lie,' Mathew thought to himself. 'But the risk is too great. This might, very well, be the system's attempt at fixing the bug by turning it obsolete.'

"Guys, I think you are forgetting about one thing," Leila said as she appeared at the entry to the shower cell. She already pulled her own clothes up while holding both Mathew's and her co-wives' shit in her hands. "I understand your worry about the downsides of changing your class," she said, passing the clothes to the other girls, "but shouldn't you check what you can change into first?"

Mathew opened his mouth, ready to reply... Only to realize he had no proper words to respond to Leila's suggestion.

She was right. Almost completely right. And yet, there was something, a gut feeling, that told him not to proceed too hasty.

"Worst case scenario, you won't have to decide on any of the new classes," Leila pointed out, throwing Mathew's clothes right at his chest.

"So even if the window won't close after opening it... I can just ignore it," Mathew muttered, taking his time to analyze Leila's idea.

"Wait," he added, lowering his eyes and raising his hand. His eyes turned blank as he focused all his attention on the topic at hand. "But what if the system won't allow... No, that doesn't make sense."

"Mathew!" Nadia called out, a small bit of irritation appearing in her voice. "How many times have we asked you not to keep your ideas to yourself?"

"Oh, right," Mathew said and shook his head. "We agreed that there is some sort of... intent behind this system, didn't we?" he asked, using the same deduction tactics that Nadia used on his earlier on.

"That's the most reasonable explanation we could find for it," Leila agreed while nodding her head. "But just like with everything else..." she left her sentence open while spreading her arms out to the side and then shaking them.

"It's just a conjecture." Daria smiled.

"Still, going with that explanation," Mathew glossed over the girls' point, "if there was an intent trying to get me to stop abusing the exploits we found, wouldn't it just remove my ability to do so rather than trying to go in such a roundabout way?"

The shower room turned silent. The girls looked at each other before all zeroing their looks on Mathew.

"There are times when I doubt your intelligence," Leila said, not holding her words back at all. "But man, this clearly isn't one of those times," she then added, turning her insult into a semi-praise.

"That, or it has limitations to how much it can influence it that we don't know of," Nadia pointed out, cutting the spark of enthusiasm that appeared within the group.

The room turned silent once again. This time, however, for quite longer than before. And for some time, only the constant tapping of the water from the showerhead Mathew forgot to turn off filled the area.

"Welp," Mathew slapped his hip. He then shook his head before throwing his pants on the wet floor and casually getting his shirt through his head. "I guess we can drop this topic for now," he announced. "We managed to learn quite a lot and I feel a bit better thinking about it," he admitted before turning his eyes toward Daria.

"Thank you," he said only to move his eyes toward Nadia. "Thank you," he said again before moving his eyes to Leila and repeating the process, "Thank you."

"For wha..." Leila attempted to bite at him with a tiny smirk on her face.

"No problem," Nadia cut into her words, gracing Mathew with a gentle smile.

"For now, there is no need for me to change the class," Mathew then announced. "Be it as it may, I grew stronger by an equivalent of..." he took a moment to glance over at his status window, "eighteen levels at once."

Mathew smiled, using the joy of raising his strength to divert his thoughts away from the feeling of filth that brought his mood down so much only recently.

"Saving it for a time of absolute need does sound like a plan," Nadia backed up Mathew's decision with a wide smile. Her eyes, then, moved down to his still unclothed crotch only to move back to Mathew's face right away.

"Oh, right," Mathew muttered, realizing that he forgot to wear his pants. "There is a chance we might get a merchant to tell us more about what this class change will entail. And for now..." Mathew's smile instantly soured as his eyes moved to the side, where a massive number of messages still remained for him to read through.

"I guess I need to read all of the info that my system gave me when it evolved."