The Likeability Ability Is Broken
The likeability ability is broken.
It’s stuck at a permanent 100.
I stared at the translucent window floating in front of me, the one only I could see, and let out a long, exhausted sigh.
Why did it have to break like this? Of all the ways it could glitch, it just had to lock everything at maximum affection.
My name is Lee Hanseong. I’m what people in this ruined world call an Awakener. Twenty-seven years old. Single. And currently surrounded by women whose eyes are practically dripping with obsessive love.
It all started a few years ago, right after the Great Gate War ended. The world had been torn apart by dimensional rifts spewing monsters for decades. Humanity fought back with everything we had—guns, magic, sheer desperation—until the Awakeners finally turned the tide. Now we’re in the reconstruction era. Cities are rising from the ashes, new laws are being written by those with power, and hidden beings like Dragons and ancient souls are starting to stir in the shadows.
Me? I awakened a rather unique ability during the final battle.
Likeability Manipulation.
At first, it seemed like a god-tier skill. I could see everyone’s affection levels toward me as floating numbers. With a bit of focus, I could nudge those numbers up or down. Want someone to trust you? Bump it to 70. Need a brutal enemy to hesitate? Drop it to 30. It was perfect for survival in a post-apocalyptic hellscape where trust could get you killed.
But then the ability broke.
Right after I used it on the wrong person.
ERROR: Likeability Manipulation has malfunctioned.
All targets’ affection values toward user have been permanently fixed at 100.
Warning: Extreme emotional dependency detected. Psychological contamination risk — HIGH.
The message had appeared the moment I tried to lower a certain woman’s affection from 92 to something more manageable. She had been staring at me with those terrifyingly bright eyes, whispering things like “You’re the only one who understands me” while covered in monster blood. I panicked. I reached for the dial in my mind and—snap. Everything froze at 100.
And it wasn’t just her.
Every woman I had ever interacted with using the ability was now stuck in permanent maximum obsession mode. The healer who used to blush and run away? Now she follows me with a scalpel hidden behind her back, smiling like a lovesick doll. The cold-hearted guild leader who once threatened to execute me for insubordination? She now cancels entire raids just to have dinner with me. And don’t even get me started on the Saintess who keeps murmuring prayers that sound suspiciously like marriage vows.
I rubbed my temples, feeling the familiar spike of a stress headache coming on.
This is not how I wanted to live. I just wanted to survive, maybe get a nice apartment in the rebuilt Seoul district, and never have to fight another S-rank monster again. Instead I’m living in a goddamn yandere harem nightmare.
The worst part? They don’t even realize anything’s wrong. To them, their feelings are completely natural. They’re convinced I’m their soulmate, their reason for existing, their everything. And because their likeability is artificially maxed out, any attempt I make to create distance is interpreted as “playing hard to get” or “a test of our love.”
Yesterday, when I told one of them I needed some alone time, she spent six hours standing motionless outside my door, eyes wide open, whispering “I’ll wait forever, Hanseong. Forever.”
I shivered just remembering it.
Now I was sitting in a high-end café in the Central Reconstruction District, pretending to read a report on the latest Gate activity while three different women texted me simultaneously. My phone wouldn’t stop vibrating.
I groaned and turned my phone face-down on the table. The barista—a pretty girl I had once casually complimented during the war—kept refilling my coffee with hearts drawn in the foam. Every time our eyes met she blushed so hard I thought she might faint. Her likeability had been at 65 before the glitch. Now it was 100, and she looked two seconds away from proposing.
I can’t keep living like this. One of these days they’re going to realize the others exist and then it’s going to be a bloodbath. Or worse—they’ll decide to share me. Permanently.
I needed a solution. A way to fix the broken ability, or at least find a way to lower their obsession without triggering a psychotic break. The System had gone suspiciously silent ever since the error message. No help there.
Maybe I could track down the old hermit who taught me how to awaken my powers in the first place. Or dive into an ancient ruin that might contain artifacts capable of rewriting soul bonds. Or—
The café door opened with a cheerful chime.
Three women walked in at the exact same time. Their eyes locked onto me instantly, like heat-seeking missiles. The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees as their gazes met each other’s.
Seoyoon, holding a basket of cookies with my face on them.
Ji-eun, still wearing her blood-stained combat coat from yesterday’s “elimination.”
And Saintess Mirinae, glowing faintly with holy light, clutching what looked suspiciously like wedding vows written on parchment.
They smiled at me in perfect unison.
Oh no.
This is it. This is how I die.
I forced a smile and waved weakly.
“Hey… ladies. Fancy seeing all of you here at the same time. What a coincidence.”
Their smiles widened. The likeability numbers above their heads—visible only to me—burned a solid, unchangeable 100.
Yeah.
The likeability ability is definitely broken.
And I have no idea how to fix it before they decide I belong to all of them. Forever.