Dimensional Summoner: Infinite Growth in a Leveling Apocalypse

Chapter 3: Biology Was Not Consent

"Um," I said.

"Mmm?"

"Your hand."

"What about it?"

I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear the smile in it.

"It’s—" on my ass "—lower than I’m comfortable with."

"Is it?" She squeezed again, thoughtfully, the way you evaluate fruit. "You carry far too much tension here. It’s unhealthy."

"A goddess from another dimension is groping me. The tension is situational."

She laughed, and the sound was warm honey and dark promises. "I’m not groping you. I’m appreciating you. There’s a difference."

"There really isn’t."

"There is. Groping is selfish." Her fingers flexed. "I’m being very generous."

Two weeks of hiding. Two weeks of starvation. Two weeks of watching the world burn through a cracked window, alone and useless and too weak to save anyone including myself. And now the first supernatural being to notice my existence was treating me like a centrefold.

First a Level 9 thug wanted my ass. Now a goddess from beyond reality is exploring it. Apparently the apocalypse has discovered exactly one use for maximum Charisma, and unfortunately it involves my cheeks.

She released me—not completely, only enough to lift my chin with one finger. Her golden-violet eyes were bright with amusement and something warmer. Something hungrier.

She leaned in.

I knew what was coming. I had perhaps one second to stop it, and I used all of it trying to turn my head, trying to step back, trying to say wait—

She kissed me.

Kiss was an inadequate word. This was an invasion. Velisara didn’t ask and didn’t hesitate; she claimed my mouth like she had already decided it belonged to her, one hand cupping the back of my head while the other stayed exactly where it had landed earlier. Her lips were soft and warm and completely unignorable, she tasted faintly sweet, like honey dissolved in wine, and the divine heat radiating off her made my head spin.

This is not a blessing. I have been scammed by heaven.

I pressed both hands against her shoulders and pushed. Nothing happened. She didn’t even notice.

Strength 3. The gift that keeps on giving.

Her tongue touched my lower lip and I made a sound I refuse to classify. Warmth spread through my chest, my stomach, lower—a purely physical reaction my brain had not authorised. She hummed approvingly against my mouth.

Traitorous body.

This was assault. A very gentle, very warm, technically pleasurable assault, but assault nonetheless.

Why does divine assault taste like expensive dessert?

When she finally pulled back I gasped like a drowning man. My face was hot, my lips tingled, and my dignity had filed for unemployment.

"What the hell was that?"

Velisara touched her own lips thoughtfully. "A greeting."

"That was not a greeting."

"Would you prefer another attempt?" Her eyes sparkled. "I have several variations. The second is usually more—"

"No."

"—intimate."

"I said no."

She laughed again, utterly unbothered. "As you wish. For now."

For now. Two words that promised nothing good.

I wanted to be furious, and I was, partially. But it was hard to hold on to anger while my body was still trembling from fourteen days of starvation and my brain was still processing the fact that a literal goddess had just—had just—done whatever she wanted. Without asking. Without caring.

The anger I’d felt toward the Level 9 thug had been clean and simple. This was messier. She wasn’t crude and she wasn’t threatening; she was beautiful and warm and apparently genuine in her attraction. She had healed my lip. She had looked at me like I was treasure.

She still hadn’t asked.

"You’re upset," she observed.

"I’m—" I stopped, took a breath, and heard my own voice come out quieter than I’d intended. "You didn’t ask."

She tilted her head. "Ask?"

"The kiss. The... touching. Any of it."

Understanding flickered across her face, but not guilt—confusion, the look of someone shown a social rule they’d heard about and never once encountered in practice. "You’re angry because I didn’t request permission?"

"Yes."

"But you wanted it."

"No, I didn’t."

Her eyebrows rose, genuinely surprised. "Your body responded. Your soul flickered. The heat in your blood—"

"That’s biology, not consent."

She stared at me. I stared back. The silence stretched.

"You’re serious," she said slowly.

"Very."

"Hmm." She studied me with new eyes, less hungry and more curious. "I’ve never been refused before. It’s novel."

"Congratulations on your first rejection."

"Thank you." She sounded almost sincere. "I’ll treasure it."

This goddess has problems. Severe, possibly incurable problems.

Why does a tiny, deeply defective part of me find that charming?

Before either of us could go further, the light around her flickered. Velisara looked down at her hand, where her fingertips were dissolving—not violently, but fragmenting into golden-violet particles that drifted upward like embers.

"Already?" She sighed. "Typical."

"What’s happening?"

"Your universe." She gestured vaguely at the air. "It knows I don’t belong here. The dimensional walls are trying to eject me. I forced my way in through an unstable tear, but apparently this reality has standards."

The particles were spreading up her hand and forearm. Thin cracks of light split the air around her, jagged and wrong, showing darkness behind them.

"Wait." My voice rose. "You’re leaving? Now? You haven’t—" I gestured at myself, at the apartment, at everything. "You haven’t done anything yet! Food! Power! Healing! You came across another universe, assaulted my dignity, and now you’re just—leaving?"

"Assaulted?" She tilted her head.

"My dignity," I repeated. "You grabbed my—"

I gestured meaningfully downward. She glanced at her own hand, then back at me, and smiled.

"Your dignity is very soft."

I am going to kill a goddess. Somehow. With a can of possibly-dog-food and two stale crackers.

"Can you give me power?" I demanded. "Before you dissolve? Anything?"

Velisara raised her remaining hand and golden light gathered in her palm, dense and warm—and the dimensional cracks screamed. The walls shook. Paint flaked from the ceiling. Something that was neither sound nor silence pressed against my eardrums.

She stopped. The light died.

"The local laws reject direct interference," she said, frowning. "Irritating."

"Food?"

She tried again. A shape began forming in the air, something round and golden and fragrant, a fruit made of distilled sunlight—and the cracks widened, and the shape dissolved, and something small and purple hit the floor.

I stared at it. Velisara stared at it.

"A grape," I said.

"It was supposed to be a feast."

"There’s one grape."

"The dimensional rejection is quite aggressive." She sounded genuinely embarrassed. "I apologize. Hospitality is important in my culture."

I bent down and picked it up. It was warm, glowing faintly, probably the most magical fruit ever to exist, and I ate it. The warmth spread through my stomach—not enough to fill me, not enough to heal me, but enough to take the sharpest edge off the hunger, and I hated that it helped at all.

A goddess crossed universes for my face and contributed one grape to my survival. The literal least helpful divine intervention in human history.