Chapter 16: Thank You (Illustration Warning)
Chapter 16: Thank You (Illustration Warning)
#
Afterward, we spent a long while pressed together and sharing our warmth before heading to the master bathroom.
I turned on the shower and washed Seon-yeong's body.
Standing under the bright lights, she grew shy again.
"Team Leader... I didn't get anything on me there."
"Ah... I wanted to touch you and did it without thinking."
I'd been casually feeling her breasts, and Seon-yeong twisted her body and spoke in a small voice.
Was it ticklish?
Standing naked in the light, Seon-yeong's skin looked even paler.
By contrast, my body was deeply tanned a dark brown, as if I'd been sunbathing.
Against my skin, Seon-yeong's hands as she washed me looked even whiter and softer.
Her gentle hands and the sight of her naked body under the bright light made my cock rise and throb again.
The sex had been fully satisfying, yet desire was welling up once more.
Seon-yeong saw my erect cock and flinched, startled.
"How did something this big fit inside me...? You troublemaker. I'm still sore because of you."
Still shy as we washed together, Seon-yeong put on a stern face and scolded my cock.
Then she squeezed out a generous amount of body wash and carefully caressed and cleaned every inch.
"Seon-yeong, should we start speaking casually to each other?"
"You have already been speaking casually to me since earlier. Heh. Should I do the same?"
"Yeah. And call me Tae-sik."
After we'd had sex, I didn't want her to keep calling me Team Leader.
That was how we settled on less formal ways of addressing each other while Seon-yeong washed my cock.
I should stop keeping a formal distance when I addressed her too.
"Mmm... slurp, slurp."
We'd rinsed off all the soap.
Seon-yeong crouched on the bathroom floor, opened her mouth wide, and took my cock inside.
She'd twisted her hair up and pinned it, maybe to keep it from getting wet, and even while giving me head she looked up at me to watch my reactions.
Was that what they called a messy bun?
Beneath her smooth forehead, her large eyes were turned upward.
From this angle, her face looked surprisingly young and beautiful.
"Puuh... haah."
Seon-yeong let my cock slip from her mouth, then wrapped one hand around the shaft and stroked it.
In the bathroom mirror, I could see her back held straight and the curves of her round ass.
The deep groove between the muscles along her spine looked sexy.
I toyed with her earlobe and Seon-yeong twitched her head, as if it tickled.
She took the head of my cock back into her mouth.
"Hng. Seon-yeong... I'm cumming."
Slap, slap, slap, slap, slap.
At my signal, her hand stroked the shaft even faster.
She didn't take her mouth away.
I came in Seon-yeong's mouth as her lips worked over the tip.
She kept her mouth on me and continued stroking me until the climax passed, drawing a deep groan from me.
"Tae-sik... you go out first."
After she spat out the semen and rinsed her mouth, I stood behind Seon-yeong, stroking her body.
When she used the newly intimate form of address, it still sounded a little awkward.
It made my heart flutter.
We'd get used to it soon enough.
I went back to the master bedroom, straightened the rumpled bedding, and lay down.
I checked my phone and waited a little while, and Seon-yeong came out wrapped in a towel.
"Ah, it's warm. So nice, hee-hee."
With her makeup off and ready for bed, Seon-yeong burrowed into my arms.
She was much more openly affectionate than I'd expected.
As we lay together in bed and chatted quietly, her voice grew softer and softer, maybe because she was getting sleepy.
I adjusted her pillow and pulled the blanket up so she could sleep comfortably.
At my movement, Seon-yeong whimpered and clung to me again.
Mwah.
"Good night."
With a little sound of assent, she wrapped her legs around me.
It was a little uncomfortable for me, but if it made her comfortable—well, that was fine.
Listening to her quiet breathing, I let the drowsiness take me.
#
Morning wood.
Whoa. My body felt light.
I woke with a jolt, my eyes snapping open along with a vigorous morning erection.
Normally, an alarm dragged me awake and I'd groggily check my phone and squirm in bed, but that morning I woke completely refreshed.
I looked over and saw Seon-yeong fast asleep at the edge of the bed, curled up like a shrimp.
'Did I push her in my sleep?'
I carefully pulled the blanket over her so she wouldn't wake, then went out to the living room.
After using the bathroom, I checked the time in the brightening living room and stretched.
Even though I'd set my mind on sleeping in, I'd only slept about six hours.
I stretched and checked over my body; the pain was almost completely gone.
I lifted my shirt to inspect my side and found the bruise already fading.
I could feel what my ability had done.
I finally understood what Seon-yeong meant when she said she could intuitively sense how many times she could still use Shield.
Was it a kind of awareness?
Calling it an enlightenment felt a little too grandiose.
Perhaps experiencing an effect once was the trigger that allowed me to recognize the ability.
'Is it similar to using a muscle?'
I wasn't sure if the analogy was exact, but it felt like something I'd experienced back when I was hitting the gym hard.
When I first began back exercises, a trainer had once told me during a personal-training session to focus on feeling the target muscle.
As he said it, he used his hand to press the muscles below my shoulder blade.
When I first pulled on the machine, I'd tensed my traps, arms, and shoulders instead.
Once the trainer helped me isolate the muscles in my back and feel them working, I could perform the exercise by myself.
In the same way, once I raised Enhanced Recovery, I got an intuitive sense that my body's efficiency had gone up.
By feeling the change in my body, I realized what role the ability played.
'My stamina seemed to recover more efficiently too.'
The rate at which my stamina recovered in a given time, and my natural recovery rate—the way my body healed itself when injured—had both improved.
Muscles went without saying, of course, and what I'd clearly learned this time was that Enhanced Recovery affected my virility, too.
Improved sexual recovery didn't simply mean shortening the time between ejaculation and my next erection.
Although that kind of recovery had indeed gotten better.
More broadly, the ability helped me maintain a vigorous life.
It helped me recover quickly from mental strain and keep both my body and mind healthy.
Together, all these effects worked in synergy to keep me in peak condition.
I didn't know what biological processes were involved.
Were my cells regenerating faster, or were entirely new cells multiplying rapidly?
With my limited knowledge, I knew cancer cells proliferated rapidly.
If I studied medicine and broadened my base of knowledge, would my understanding of my ability deepen as well?
Then what about the mental realm?
The sense that my mental wounds had healed was abstract and difficult to explain.
Even so, I knew the shock of fighting zombies and the fear of seeing someone I knew transform had eased considerably.
I didn't understand the mechanism, but I knew the results.
As I sat in the quiet living room, bathed in morning sunlight and reflecting on my ability, I silently cheered.
My ability wasn't a dud.
On the contrary, it was fair to call it overpowered.
There might be even better abilities out there, but I decided not to think about that.
Instead of worrying about the unknown abilities of strangers, I wanted to develop my own.
#
After finishing my stretching and meditation, I washed up quickly and came out; two hours had passed since I'd gotten up.
It was a leisurely, pleasant morning without a fixed time to leave for work.
A leisurely morning gifted to me by Enhanced Recovery.
The secondary effects of my ability seemed enormous.
I brewed drip coffee and made French toast with sliced bread.
Eggs were going to be hard to find soon.
'Should I look for a chicken somewhere?'
The fragrant scent of coffee spread through the house, and the sunlight streaming into the living room grew stronger.
"Tae-sik~"
As I was enjoying the leisure, the master bedroom door opened and Seon-yeong came out.
She walked straight over and wrapped her arms around me from behind.
"Sleep well?"
"Mm-hm~ Did you?"
I turned around to face Seon-yeong.
Her hair was tousled, with a tiny speck of sleep in the corner of one eye.
She'd apparently come straight out as soon as she woke up.
"I slept great. How about coffee and toast?"
As my gaze dropped from her face, I noticed her nipples poking against her top.
Going braless must be more comfortable for her.
"Sounds good! Just let me hit the bathroom real quick!"
Seon-yeong came back out in no time, and we ate breakfast.
Ga-yeong must have still been asleep; it was quiet.
"Tae-sik, how's your side?"
"It's almost healed. My condition's good, too."
I explained what I'd learned about Enhanced Recovery and told her how I felt.
Seon-yeong was as pleased as if it had happened to her.
She, on the other hand, was still exhausted by the strain of the previous two days.
"Let's at least do some stretches after breakfast. The more worn out you are, the more you need to loosen up."
"Hnnng... I just want to lie down."
"You'll loosen up faster if you move. I'll give you a massage when you're done, too."
"Oh! Are you good at massages, Tae-sik? It's been forever since I had one."
Listening to Seon-yeong's condition, it didn't seem like a good idea for her to go out with me today.
Once I said I'd give her a massage, she started wolfing down her toast.
I remembered that Seon-yeong used to book massages after work, so I offered one and found her delighted.
"I'll show you the skills I picked up working at a sauna. I'm not going anywhere, so eat slowly."
"Then after breakfast I'll do some yoga, first time in a while. It'll take about two hours!"
After we'd settled the morning schedule, I left Seon-yeong to wash the dishes and went into the study.
I was planning to prepare an emergency survival pack.
Ga-yeong's parents' hobby was hiking, so the house had plenty of good backpacks.
I had permission now, so I could say goodbye to shoving supplies into drum bags.
'I don't have anything like that... a shame.'
My search showed that the type of bag and its contents varied depending on the intended purpose and how long one expected to survive.
There were purpose-built packs and many items that would be difficult to prepare at home.
The more I browsed that sea of information, the more desperately I missed online shopping.
Making do with what we had, I picked out two hiking backpacks for Seon-yeong and me to use.
They were tough and waterproof.
I planned to load my pack to five kilograms and make a trial trip that afternoon.
It was a kind of rehearsal, but at the same time, it was the real thing.
'The most important things are water and food... so pack a canteen and energy bars.'
Once I started packing, I realized that five kilograms allowed less than I'd expected.
A one-liter canteen alone was exactly one kilogram.
For fighting zombies, I packed my familiar baseball bat and, as a separate backup weapon, a small hammer.
Hiking boots or lightweight running shoes would be great to have, but there were no shoes here in my size.
Once I got greedy, there was no end to it, and there were far more things I couldn't pack right away.
If I could just order them for rocket delivery now, that would be ideal, but there was no way to get parcels delivered.
The conclusion was that I had to scavenge more.
I realized that surviving from then on would mean an endless war of scavenging.
"Seon-yeong... did you sleep well?"
"Ah, Ga-yeong. Did you rest well? Are you okay?"
"I think I've got a cold, with body aches."
Ga-yeong must have gotten up, because I heard them talking in the living room.
Her voice sounded awful, probably because she wasn't feeling well.
'There's no way any hospital is functioning.'
The pharmacy shot to the top of my internal scavenging priority list.
I was better off thanks to Enhanced Recovery, but for Ga-yeong and Seon-yeong, we absolutely needed to raid a pharmacy.
I took the over-the-counter medicine back out of my bag.
This house didn't have a lot of over-the-counter meds.
Was there a pharmacy nearby?
With those thoughts in mind, I took the medicine into the living room, where I could hear everyone bustling around.