1 Bonus Chapter: Prologue

A/N: I have been unbelievably slow in writing speed - 1.4k over the past two days, despite actively trying to write - so I won't be updating Waifu Dungeon properly this week. As compensation, have this thing I wrote a while back. If you're new, feel free to skip it.

I was minding my own business, looking for new stories to read online. I'd finished with my work for the day, managing to write over 5k words, and that meant I could waste my time however I wanted. I picked out a story from the list, and... really? They were starting with the scene where they make a build? Don't they know that's a terrible, boring scene, that anybody with a lick of sense skips? I quickly scrolled past that chapter to the next, ready to get to the part where the actual story happened.

Then it happened. The transition was instantaneous and without sensation: one moment, I was in front of the computer screen, the next I was in front of a beautiful woman.

My eyes looked around - or tried to. It was only then that I realized they could not leave her body, her face, could not notice even in the periphery of their vision a presence or absence. I could no more see to her left or right than I could see out the back of my head. "What's going on?" I asked, still bewildered.

"I'm sorry to have taken you out of your world without asking - technically, you're still there. You were peeled in two. Like the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics, though not quite the same mechanism. There was one of you, and now there are two. I'm going to be sending you down to another world, called Gekai, to a city called Orario. It's from a setting you may know, called Danmachi." Her thumb trailed across my lower lip, teasing and enticing. "I'm going to give you an opportunity, I'm going to make you strong enough to handle everything that could be waiting for you, my love."

"I think you need to take a step or two back," I told her. Not in the sense that she needed to get away from me - I only realize that was a possible sense now, writing this here. Neither of us even considered it in the moment, the idea that I wanted physical space away from her was as absurd as it was impossible. The meaning was simply that she needed to move back a step, in terms of her explanations.

"I love you. I want you to become a great hero, the one I know you could be. I want you to have..." She sucked in a deep breath through her nostrils, then exhaled. "A harem. Of all the women you love. But I only have so much power to bless you with, to make you more than what you are." She kissed me softly on the lips, then pulled back once again. "So I wish to send you to a world where power waits for you to grasp it. And I want to send down to you all the women you love most in the world."

"I'm single. I don't have a girlfriend, or even an ex-girlfriend I'm still pining over."

"I know. But you love Cassandra Cain, Noriko Iwakari, Julia Jacoby, Erza Scarlet, Ganko Kimura, Koriand'r, Juvia Lockser, Dustiness Ford Lalatina, Naomi Evans, and Rei Maxwell." That was, in order, my "top ten waifus from all of fiction" list. I had spent some time working it out and tweaking it, so it was pretty well and truly set. "I want to give them to you, I want to lie with you, and you with them. I can twin them, just as I did you, with small tweaks to the twin - making her in love with you, mostly, though also making it so Naomi can function without U.N.E.D., Rei can exist without Brighton, and the ones who don't speak English, speak English. Sadly, I don't have the power to twin all of them here and now. But... love is my power, too," she said. "You love me, don't you?"

I couldn't help it - I did. It was strange, since I knew her for only a minute or two, but the love I felt for her, it wasn't some sort of mind control. It was just a product of the simple reality that her presence encompassed my senses so completely. "Yes," I told her. She smiled at that, warm and inviting, and kissed me on the lips.

"Love is part of my portfolio. Passion. Desire. Lust. Need. Who has, and who wants, who gives and who takes. So I can give you a power born of my love for you, stronger than any woman of the world to which I will send you - but it will only be so much. It's known in your world, though only in fiction: an Exaltation. You will become a Sidereal, a Chosen of Serenity."

I gulped and nodded, blinking at her for a few long seconds as I took that in. I assumed this wasn't quite the actual goddess Venus from Creation, in the Exalted setting. Our Earth was supposed to be the aftermath of her universe's destruction, for one, and for two, it was a bit narcissistic to imagine she would fall in love with me of all people. But she did have blue hair, and she was drop-dead gorgeous, and she was talking about love in some rather transactional terms at the moment, so she was pretty close. In any case, I knew what sort of powers she referred to, relating to fate and causality and love and desire. I'd played one in an RPG, a ways back, in my own world.

"There's more than that, though," she said, after taking a moment to let those thoughts sink in. "I am a goddess, after all, and I'm going to use my power for your sake, Drake. I can offer you a budget of 205 points, and some things within it - to acquire any more beyond what you gain first off, you'll have to build new, fresh connections, ideally with powerful women. All you will require, is an honest declaration of their love for you."

"Oh, is that all?" I asked, earning a giggle from Venus, playful and loving.

"Yes. I know, but it won't be so hard as you would think. Anything unspent can be spent later, and here is what you may purchase:"

The list simply appeared in my mind, ex nihilo. The explanations were a bit longer, but this is the gist.

• Sticky Fingers (5): Be really good at sex. Instant pass. Only useful for women I was already fucking, and if I was in a fuckbuddy relationship with a woman, well, who needed that?

• Faerie Feast (10): Be really good at cooking. Pass again. I really doubt being a good cook is some kind of incredible seduction power.

• Love Spot (20): Be incredibly handsome. Worth considering, but, the problem was that it was completely unguided. I couldn't remember much about Danmachi, since I'd never actually watched (or read, or whatever) it, but I was pretty sure that there were enough crazy chicks that it was a bad idea.

• Potpourri (20): Have a good sense of smell and have pheromones that are under your control. ...maybe? Weirdly specific, but could be useful.

• Zenryoku Zenkai (20): Defeating women makes them fall for you. Again, maybe? Depends on what sort of world I was headed to, and I didn't know Danmachi well enough to know whether this would be a good pick.

• Alluring Whisper (20): Sound really pleasant to the ear. Probably the best of the "seducers," since it's voluntary control whether you talk or sound really nice.

• Don't Stand So Close To Me (15): Teaching people, or being taught by them, really inclines them to fuck you. Way too specific to be worth the points.

• Brown Sugar (15): Requires Sticky Fingers. Your cum is an aphrodisiac. Moronic. Absolutely no buy.

• Everlasting Talent (10): Eternal youth. Very good purchase, but my brain offered up some vague recollection that the setting of Danmachi had people get longer lifespans when they had a god's blessing, and until you actually started getting old, you could put it on the backburner. I decided to set aside the points for it, buying it later if I actually started to risk getting old without having gotten extra points.

• Body Talent (5): Better control of your body, be athletic, be reasonably hot. Definite purchase, I wasn't fat but I wasn't exactly some kind of muscle dude.

• Martial Talent (5): Be good at fighting, learn to fight fast. Yep.

• Wild Talent (5): Be good at wilderness survival? Orario was a city, though. Nah.

• Science Talent (20): Be good at crafts. Sounded like it might be good for some hyperspecific build, but not mine.

• Creative Talent (10): Be good at the arts. Again, not very useful. I was already a fairly competent writer anyway.

• Soul Talent (20): Be good at magic. It was a magic setting. Yes.

• Talent Sharing (10): Share a Talent you purchased - Everlasting and Body were shared for free. Since it was a magic setting, I was definitely picking up this, for Soul Talent.

• Sexual Calibration (2): No issues with sweat and such during sex. Tiny quality of life benefit, definitely not worth actual points, hard pass.

• Fertility Calibration (2): Total control over the ability to impregnate a woman. Definitely sounded like a good idea, Danmachi was a medieval setting and it was shonen so nobody actually fucked. I doubted they had good birth control there. Buy.

• Cassandra Cain (20): Yeah. I've loved her for a long, long time. I couldn't exactly skip her.

• Noriko Iwakari (2): Hell yeah. Super cheap, too. She helped motivate me to pick up Talent Sharing, since the petite little autist would definitely benefit from learning magecraft.

• Julia Jacoby (20): Someone I considered a bit harder, given her raucous personality, but she was cheap, and she had a very useful and unique set of skills.

• Erza Scarlet (100): The higher price tag represented the fact that she was much stronger than most of the other options. She was also super sexy and I loved her, so, I bought her too.

• Ganko Kimura (20), Koriand'r (100), Juvia Lockser (100), Dustiness Lalatina Ford (50), Naomi Evans (10), Rei Maxwell (20): I liked them all, but by this point I had only 21 points left, so any purchase other than Naomi would make it impossible for me to pick up Everlasting Talent if I turned out to be incapable of seducing women in the new world.

• Paper Trail (1): Made it so that the girls I summoned had a history in the world we went to. This seemed like a really good idea to avoid getting caught being an interdimensional weirdo and getting into the consequent trouble. If it turned out to be pointless and nobody would mind us being that, then, it was only 1 point each. I bought it for all four of the women I'd purchased, leaving me with just 17 points left.

That left me with 17 points left over, which I saved, since I could buy things later on, and I definitely wanted to be able to buy Everlasting Talent later. Venus just smiled beneficently at me as I finished. I had been explaining my thought process the whole time, just in case I didn't understand something, and she seemed a bit put out that I wasn't purchasing a bunch of seduction powers, but not enough to comment on it.

"I am certain that with your wonderful, charming personality, you will be able to seduce so many women, my love," she said. Well, not enough to comment on it directly. "So I understand that you don't wish to waste points on seducing more women." Well, not enough to complain about it.

"I'm... dubious that I'm that charming, Venus," I said, and she smiled at that, too.

"You charmed me, didn't you?" She let out a small laugh when she saw that I was confused by the statement. "I'm sorry. You are creative, thoughtful, intelligent, analytical. You want for so little, and you care for those you love. You're generous when you don't have to be." Everyone's generous when they don't have to be, except total sociopaths. I hadn't given that much to charity, certainly not goddess-attracting levels, even grading on a percentage based curve. "You have a stoic's passion and an artist's heart, and it's a truly delightful combination."

Oh. That actually made sense. It fit her, specifically, since I was pretty sure Venus's portfolio included the arts and passion, so that kind of thing was probably some kind of gap moe for her (and I'm sorry to use a weeb term for it, but I don't know an English one that captures it). "So, do you have any complaints about my selections? I don't know Danmachi that well."

"I'm sure you will be able to handle yourself, and I cannot make your decisions for you. I wish you all the best, my love," she said, kissing me on the lips with fierce passion - and when I opened my eyes, I was on the streets of an alien city, four women surrounding me.

The beautiful, wild-eyed Julia spoke first. "Ahh? What happened? And why do I think you're so handsome, mister?"

"I would also like to know why you are so attractive and appealing," Noriko added. "Although you are tall and muscular, which are physically attractive traits, I believe I wish to do more with and to you than I would to any other man."

"He... did it," Cass said, softly. "But... with good intentions?" She asked.

Erza just stared at me, blushing.

"Outta the way, weaklings!" Some brusque, muscular guy with dog ears popping out of the top of his head said, practically barreling through the group of us. We quickly found somewhere a little less high traffic to talk.

"Ah, was that Bete Loga?" Julia asked, curious.

"I have no idea who that is."

"He's the best boy in Danmachi!" Julia proclaimed, with a vivacious smile.

I was just glad that she knew what the hell setting we were in.