Peerless Perverted Actor Has a Celebrity Harem?!

[Ding! Perfect Crown.]

[Type: Item.]

The System screen brightened, and there, suspended dead centre in the glow, floated an actual golden crown.

It looked outrageously, offensively regal, forged out of something closer to molten sunlight than metal, its rim edged with delicate patterns that squirmed and rearranged themselves whenever Park tried to focus on any one of them. Several pale gems sat along the band, each holding a small private glow deep inside it, and thin threads of gold drifted around the whole thing in slow lazy orbits, as though the crown had personally reviewed the concept of gravity and declined to participate.

Park stared at it for a long moment.

"You’re kidding, right I was—"

Before he could finish the sentence, the crown vanished off the screen.

Something heavy dropped into the space between his feet.

Park jerked backward so fast his knee nearly clipped the underside of the low table, and a sharp metallic clatter rang out across the tiled floor as a genuine, physical, fully-real golden crown bounced once, rolled half a turn on its rim, wobbled like a dropped coin deciding whether to be dramatic about it, then toppled and settled against the leg of the couch.

For several seconds he just looked at it.

It was an actual physical crown, delivered with all the ceremony of a brick coming through a window — no warning to speak of and none of the reverent light-and-choir treatment a moment like this was supposed to come with.

Park bent down and picked it up.

The instant his fingers closed on the metal, the crown dissolved.

Golden sparks burst apart between his hands and spiralled upward around his body, warm against his skin as they climbed, gathering above his head in a slow turning column of light. The light twisted once, folded in on itself, condensed — and re-formed into the crown a second time, this time settling its weight down onto his brow.

It rested there for exactly one heartbeat and it was gone again, weight and glow and all, leaving nothing behind but the faint warmth where it had touched him and the distinct impression that he had just been knighted by a slot machine.

Park sat perfectly still on the edge of the couch.

Dramatic? Absolutely. Unnecessary? Almost certainly.

’Cool as hell!’

"System," he said, with total sincerity, "that was so fucking cool."

The panel returned in front of him.

[Perfect Crown, Level 1.

—While equipped, the Host is protected from accidental public embarrassment and will always appear at his best in person, in photographs, and in recordings.

The Host’s body will remain in constant adaptive growth; any exercise, physical training, or repeated practice will produce improved results while preserving the Host’s ideal physique.]

Park blinked. Read both lines again, slower.

"Wait. Slow down and explain that properly, because right now it sounds like you stitched vanity, damage control, and a gym membership into one fashionable hat."

[While Perfect Crown is equipped, the Host will not suffer accidental incidents that would embarrass you and damage your public image. In photographs, video, broadcasts, and direct public observation, the Host will naturally appear composed, attractive, and flattering from any ordinary angle. Unconscious blunders, awkward accidents, poor timing, and unintended embarrassment will be prevented or resolved in a manner favourable to the Host’s image.]

Park leaned back into the leather and let that settle across his chest.

So if he tripped over his own feet in front of a crowd, what happened, exactly? Did the body somehow catch itself before he hit the ground? Did the universe quietly rearrange the stumble into some elegant half-step so the entire audience assumed he’d meant to do it, that it was choreography, that the young master had simply felt like dipping mid-walk?

If someone photographed him asleep, drooling face-down into a pillow with his mouth hanging open like a man three days dead, would the picture instead show a beautiful young thing resting in peaceful, saliva-free repose, untouched by the indignities of ordinary human biology?

Was the Crown correcting reality? Manipulating perception? Or simply walking up to probability, taking it gently by the collar, and bullying it until it behaved?

Before he could decide which of those three options disturbed him most, another line surfaced:

[Note: Perfect Crown protects the Host only from accidental embarrassment and subconscious blunders but does not erase deliberate choices, intentional misconduct, or consequences created knowingly by the Host.]

That answered it:

If Park caught his shoe on a carpet, the Crown would save him.

But if Park kissed a married actress at an awards ceremony, cracked an insufferable actor across the jaw at a press event, or lifted a middle finger toward a live broadcasting camera in front of forty million people — the Crown would simply stand off to one side, arms folded, and watch the scandal bloom in real time with something close to professional curiosity.

He turned that over for a moment, and found he approved.

This was better; it kept the leash on his accidents while leaving his appetites entirely his own problem. Whatever trouble he walked himself into, knowingly, with both eyes open and a smile on — that trouble stayed real. It could still cost him and burn him.

And every photograph the world took of him burning would, apparently, be gorgeous.

’Which,’ he thought, ’is going to make the eventual scandal so much worse. A blurry ugly photo, people forget in a week. A beautiful one, they frame.’

"So," he said aloud, mostly to hear it confirmed. "It makes me look flawless without making me immune to my own terrible teenager decisions."

[Correct.]

"Reasonable. I can work with reasonable. So what about the other effect, mmh?"

The second effect still waited under the first:

[The Host’s body will absorb physical training with exceptional efficiency. Exercise will produce faster development in the intended areas while maintaining symmetry, proportion, mobility, and aesthetic balance. The Host will not become awkwardly bulky, unevenly developed, or physically distorted through ordinary training. The body will continue moving toward its optimal lean idol form.]

Park’s eyes narrowed with slow, warming interest.

"So workouts show results faster."

[That is kinda the purpose, Host.

[Perfect Crown ensures physical development remains efficient and visually harmonious. The Host may increase strength, speed, stamina, flexibility, or muscular definition without unintentionally developing a heavy or disproportionate build.]

Park looked down at his own body, at the new chest and the new arms that had already been better than anything the old him ever owned before the System laid a finger on them.

’So the Crown isn’t just a multiplier on the gym; it is also sculptor:’

If he trained for strength he’d get stronger without swelling into a walking some weightlifter, and a season of running would bring his legs and lungs up without leaving the rest of him soft and forgotten. Flexibility, fight choreography, anything at all — the results would settle exactly where they looked best and refuse to gather anywhere they didn’t.

His body would stay lean, balanced, and annoyingly, indecently perfect, while every drop of sweat he spent paid out double.

"Oh, you sweet motherfucker," Park murmured, and pressed a hand flat against his chest, briefly, honestly moved. "What am I even supposed to give you in return?"

The System did not answer.

Instead, the last reward opened:

[Ding! Spoiled by System acquired.]

—The Host may occasionally receive additional gifts from the System ranging from abilities, items, opportunities, and useful information.

Note: Rewards may be granted when necessary, when certain conditions are fulfilled, or whenever the Host sufficiently impresses the System.]

Park’s whole expression changed on the spot.

The exact same System he had, not fifteen minutes earlier, called a stingy bastard to its face — had apparently built an entire standing reward whose only job was to give him more rewards. A gift that produced gifts from time to time.

How magnificently mature of it to sit there and pretend it hadn’t heard the slander.

"How generous," Park said, and sat up straighter, smoothing the front of his shirt with the sudden invented dignity of a man realizing the person he’d been rude to controls his allowance.

"System. If I have ever, at any point this evening, said anything even faintly unpleasant about you, I need you to understand that it was harmless conversation. Friendly teasing. The natural, healthy friction of a beautiful connection between us good friends deepening under pressure."

He delivered every word of this without a flicker of shame, which was, in itself, a small miracle of nerve.

"Don’t take it personally. You’re brilliant. Elegant. Mysterious. Possibly the single finest administrative entity ever attached to the corpse of a dead actor. Truly an honor to walk this journey with ya."

He rubbed his palms together.

"So. What did I earn?"

Because surely he’d already done a few impressive things tonight. He’d accepted his own death with remarkable composure, all things considered. He’d tested his new abilities responsibly rather than sprinting downstairs to show off. He’d make a move on a beautifully woman and written a love song and sent it to a beautiful, dangerous woman with no caption to hide behind — and that last one alone, he felt, deserved formal recognition for courage, recklessness, or the increasingly blurry border between the two.

A chime rang:

[Ding!]

Park leaned forward, eager as a dog at a door.

[The Host’s shamelessness has impressed this Oh, Glorious System.]

His grin spread wide and unrepentant.

He knew talent when he saw it.

[Reward Type: Information:—

[Your father is the person responsible for preventing you from succeeding in acting.]

The grin died on his face.

Alexander Bennet, the Prime Minister? The man whose blood he carried, had, apparently, spent years quietly reaching into every opportunity Park ever stretched toward and strangling it in the crib — while letting the boy go on believing that the industry simply didn’t want him, that he wasn’t good enough, that the doors stayed shut over some private failure of his own rather than a father’s hand pressed flat against them from the other side.

Before Park could assemble a single complete thought around that, one last message surfaced.

[Gift: Good night, Host.]

"What do you mean, good ni—"

Park blacked out.