Nevertheless, I liked how it answered most of what I was asking, or should I say, thinking about. It was quite aggressive in its sarcasm and mockery, but once used to the humor, it was still better than a completely dry chatbot. Probably.
Since there weren’t any offers, I decided I might as well create one. Back to the [Lend] section, I went into the main lending feature. It looked just like the test one, so there was no possible confusion.
For the first one, I didn’t try to bite more than I could chew. After a bit of thinking, I went with the most basic stuff once again.
[Tenna_372692. Male index finger. 10 minutes. Free.]
I pondered if I should ask a few points for this, but it was a no-brainer. I wouldn’t buy it even for free, so paying for something like that was out of the question. I would be lucky if even a single person didn’t just straight up laugh at it. That was fine, it was just a test. Because it was with real people this time, I wanted to start easy and see how it went.
I was extremely startled when I received an offer almost immediately.
[Disilatrop Fengardin, female, wishes to rent your body part.] [Accept] [Refuse]
‘Holy carbuncle! For real? What sort of alias is that, though?’
Not only was someone interested in my lousy finger, but it took less than ten seconds for them to ask for it. Now that was unexpected.
Still, this was very welcome. This way, I could test how a real transaction would happen. I clicked accept.
[The transaction is starting.]
From there, nothing much happened from my point of view. It was different from the test since I had been both the lender and the renter. Now that I was only the lender, there was nothing much to see, except for a timer going down from 10 minutes appearing on top of the SBPR screen with the name of the transaction next to it.
Yet, if everything worked normally, my finger should be in a completely different place now. I couldn’t feel much of anything, except that the temperature there was slightly lower than in my room.
For some time, nothing happened at all. I thought I could feel air currents on my finger, or maybe it was just my imagination. It was hard to tell, even though it was quite heart-pounding not to know what was occurring on the other side at all. My only reassurance was that I knew no harm could happen to me.
Another random thought came to my mind.
[You do not have a high enough rank to get the answer to that question.]
That was a shame. I played games a lot and, if this worked the same, I was certain that…
Suddenly, I felt something touch my index finger.
“Ah!’
I was so surprised that I stopped the exchange unconsciously while involuntarily letting out a shout. My heart was beating so fast in my chest that I could hear it. I stayed immobile and quiet, hoping that my parents, and especially my mother, hadn’t heard the noise. My mother wasn’t one to joke around, and I would be in trouble if she found me still fooling around this late at night.
After a few long seconds of silence, I exhaled at length, feeling that I was safe for now. When I examined my finger, there was nothing wrong with it at all. I completely overacted to a simple touch, but I couldn’t help it. The long moments of nothing happening combined with the sudden contact had been too much for my fragile heart. I didn’t like horror, okay?
Still, the transaction wasn’t fully halted. It was just a temporary stop. Once I was calm enough again, I resumed it, wanting to “see” this through to the end. The time left was about 6 minutes.
My finger was sent to the renter again, except that this time, I was ready for anything and everything that could happen.
For a long few moments, nothing happened. Then, I felt a touch once again. Now being prepared, I accepted it. It wasn’t anything special either. Just some small pocking, sliding, and pressing. If I had to guess, it was like another finger was touching mine. Considering nothing was interesting about my finger, I could only guess that the person was trying SBPR itself. Maybe they hadn’t gone through a solo test of their own and found it very magical, which would be understandable.
For the rest of the time, nothing much more took place. My finger was touched from time to time, and the countdown eventually reached zero.
[Transaction complete. Renter satisfaction: 41%. Your satisfaction: 6%. You earn a very small amount of experience toward the next rank.]
[Congratulations! You are the first in your area to complete a lending transaction! Even though it is expected due to the advantage of being an antenna, there have been some who couldn’t even achieve this. You have very little merit, but congratulations anyway. You earn 50 points. You earn a large amount of experience toward the next rank.]
[Current points: 150.]
My guess had been correct. This worked just like a game. Special achievements would give nice bonuses. Since this bonus was a one-time thing for everyone participating, it felt like there was a sort of competition between users.
On top of that, it gave satisfaction rates on both sides, which was one of the few metrics to know if the transaction went well or not. I could only guess that the other side received the same information. It was also interesting to note that they cared about the lender’s satisfaction level, and not just the renter's. In other words, it was a tool to get a better chance of having one’s rent offers being accepted.
I loved gaming and games in general, and could already feel myself engaged in this, on top of the potential sexual part. There was a social aspect that seemed quite intriguing.
Now that this was done, I took another look at the rent offers and was surprised by what appeared.