The figurine girl's words were both easy to understand and impossible to comprehend.

"Let's fuck the maid"?

I mean, I'd love to but… 

"Hey! Come on! I know you want to!"

"I mean, sure but-"

"Weren't you literally jerking off thinking about her a few days ago?"

"How did you know that!"

Caught by surprise I couldn't help but shout at the figurine girl.

From upstairs I heard the sound of stomping moving from around my stepmom's room to the top of the stairs.

"SHUT UP AND LET ME WORK!"

After yelling her sentence, I heard the sound of Luce stomping back to the room and slamming the door behind her.

I know I was loud, but jeez, give me a break for once.

Unable to say anything to Luce, I glared down at the girl in front of me.

"Hey Conor, just because she can't hear me doesn't mean she can't hear you."

"You know what… never mind."

There are a million things I want to say to her, but I feel like, no matter what I go with, I'll just end up with more of a headache. 

…

"Hey, figurine girl."

"Figurine girl?"

"Err. What's your name?"

"Well, I'm the embodiment of your inherent skill, so… Corruption?"

"Corruption doesn't sound like a name though, and it would be confusing, if I had a skill, to call it and you the same thing."

"You do have the skill though? And we are the same thing?"

"Whatever. Your name is Fig now."

"Fig?"

"Yep."

"... Short for 'Figurine Girl'?"

"Yeah."

"..."

"..." 

"I guess your naming sense has always been kind of trash."

"Rude, but besides the point."

"Not beside the point! This is about my name! I only get one of those!"

"Anyway, can you really do it?"

"Do what?"

"Can you really use that magic to let me have sex with Luce?"

It would be a complete lie to say the thought wasn't tempting. 

"I can't, but you can!"

"Huh?"

"I'm just the manifestation of your inherent skill, the only one who can do anything is you!"

The conversation felt entirely surreal. I was asking a little toy person if I could really use magic to have sex with that annoying maid, but the more I thought about it, the more I desperately hoped it was real.

She'd been giving me crap for years. The idea of making her want to have sex with the person she constantly belittled and called a failure was just too tempting, and it quickly began eroding my sense of caution. Adding on that she's a cute redhead girl who I've been seeing around for years was more than enough to completely get me on board. 

I could already clearly envision the sight of her naked in front of me, begging me to go down on her, and my dick started reacting accordingly.

Being horny and having potentially risky decisions to make is always a bad combination of course, but at this point I was starting not to care.

Still, I had reservations left before I could bring myself to charge upstairs and try to use a magic mind control spell I'd only discovered a few minutes ago.

If this so called "inherent skill" said I needed to do something ridiculous like hypnotize her with a pocket watch or knock her out and whisper to her in her sleep, then I would definitely bail for now.

"Okay Fig, so how do I use the skill?"

"Still Fig, huh? Well, whatever. Just look at her and think about using it and you're good."

"Wait, that's it?"

"Would you rather do the thing with the pocket watch or a laser pointer or something."

"Well, no, but-"

"We're talking about your inherent skill! I'm a part of you! Obviously you can use me whenever and wherever you want!"

Once again, Fig looked like she was lecturing a toddler, and once again I felt annoyed. Not so annoyed that I didn't recognize the other way her last sentence could be interpreted, but annoyed nonetheless. 

Suddenly a thought came to me.

I stared at Fig and thought "Corruption" while trying to feel skill activatey. 

Fig's expression quickly changed from smugness to… exasperation?

"Hey Conor?"

"Um…"

"Why would you think you could use your skill on itself?"

"Well…" 

"I mean, in the first place, I'm a part of you, so you don't need a skill to make me do anything anyway."

At any other time her words might have suddenly tempted me to tell her to strip or put on a show for me, but right now I was just kind of embarrassed, and desperately wanted to change the topic.

I averted my eyes before asking my next question.

"So, uh, what are the limits on the skill?"

Seemingly either satisfied at my reaction or happy to talk about herself, Fig perked back up and started explaining in her usual tone.

"Well, it depends on the person! I'm a newly born skill who's only been around since last night, so I'm not super powerful yet, but I'll be able to have a good idea of what you can get away with once you activate me!"

"And if I fail?"

"Then nothing happens! She definitely won't know you tried to use Corruption on her or even remember that anything happened at all other than you looking at her!"

"And I can make her do anything I want?"

"Err… Well it depends again! The way Corruption works is by letting you influence her mind, but I'm not strong enough to just do whatever to whoever… yet."

"Meaning?"

"We can only push someone so far at once."

"And about how far is that?"

"Remember that hentai video you watched last week with the mind control app and the nun?"

"...that's uh."

Even if she calls herself my skill, having a woman ask me about the porn I watch is just… and if she remembers that, doesn't that mean she just knows everything I've watched?

"Well, I'm nothing like the hypno app!"

"Huh?"

"At this point you can't use me to do something crazy like make that nun into total slut or anything. At most you could maybe convince her to say the word 'slut', you know?"

I couldn't help but feel disappointed as Fig tried to explain her ability to me.

"That sounds… kind of useless?"

"I AM NOT!!!"

Offended, Fig flew up into my face and pressed her tiny head closer to mine, leaning towards my face as she scowled at me. It's the sort of pose that's probably supposed to be intimidating, but it kind of fails when the person doing it is both adorable and small enough to squash with a shoe.

"Hey! You're thinking something super mean, aren't you?"

"...Anyway, what were you saying?"

"Hmm. I'm saying I'm not useless! You may only be able to do a little bit the first time, but the next time you see that same nun you can make her do a little more, and the next time even more. As long as you keep working at it you can slowly change her morals into whatever you want! You just need to be patient and work hard at it!"

Ah. So it's a slow and steady kind of skill. Not "brainwash" or "mind break", but "Corruption".

Then the question is:

"So how far can I push Luce right now?"

"Well…"

"It depends?"

"Yep!"

Of course.

"Okay Fig, what does it depend on?"

"Well, what she thinks of you, for starters."

"But she hates me."

"True!"

That's twenty points of psychic damage!

"No, don't agree with that."

"But she does! The thing is she doesn't just hate you for being a NEET, she also thinks you're physically at least a little attractive, and she probably pities you a little too!"

I know that's true, but do you have to say it?

"Okay. So if that's true, what does it mean for using Corruption?"

"It just means you have to push her boundaries in a way that appeals to her positively!"

"Meaning?"

"Say things in a way that makes her feel like it will make you stop being a NEET or that plays off of your looks?"

So I should try to push her to do things that she thinks will increase positive things or decrease negative ones. It seems almost idiotically straightforward, but I guess that makes about as much sense as anything else.

"Anyway, the best way to get a feel for the skill is to try it, you know? As long as you use your skill on her, I can probably more or less kind of tell how far you can push things."

Well, I can't really argue with that.

I stood back up from the couch and searched around for a minute until I found my phone buried between the cushions. Even if Luce supposedly wouldn't remember me using the skill, it's not like me just going up to randomly talk to her would be fine by her.

Now let's see, what can I use as a pretense? 

"You're kind of a scaredy cat huh?"

I ignored the figurine girl and put my phone to my ear.

"Hello?" I said to the disconnected phone.

"Hey, Mile. Yeah, Luce is already here."

As I talked to myself, I started walking up the stairs, keeping my volume within reason, but loud enough that Luce could probably hear me. She hates me, but my stepmom is her best friend's mother and also signs her paychecks.

"Yeah, I'll pass the phone to her right now, just give me a second."

As I said that I opened the door to my stepmother's room and found Luce dusting off the top of one of the dressers.

As soon as she heard the door open she turned towards me looking irritated.

"Yeah, Mile, she's right here just let me give it to her."

I looked over at Luce who had stood up and started walking towards me, curious as to what was going on with Mile.

When she was only a few feet away from me I stared at her and loudly shouted in my head: "Corruption!"