Prologue — The Glass Cannon I Created

My age was twenty-seven.

Noel — a man in his twenties, an office worker as ordinary as anyone else, grinding through one exhausting day after another.

Today, just before the gridlocked commute home, my soul had all but been torn loose by my boss's endless nagging and the avalanche of paperwork he dumped on my desk.

But there was exactly one reason I could endure that hellish fatigue with my whole body: the anticipation that the long holiday I'd been dreaming of would finally begin tomorrow.

The moment I stamped out of work, my steps turned feather-light. I stopped by the convenience store in front of my apartment, stocked a plastic bag generously with ice-cold cans of beer and snacks, and headed home.

The instant I opened the front door, I kicked off my shoes carelessly, and before even flipping on the light in my dim one-room apartment, I dashed to the desk and pressed the power button on my PC without a moment's hesitation.

The monitor blazed to life with the grand roar of spinning fans.

The companion destined to open this glorious holiday with me was Futanari Academy, an adult erotic RPG that had recently gone viral through word of mouth on the seedy corners of the internet.

The game's setting was somewhat unusual — and utterly audacious.

Every time I paged through the lore compendium spread out beyond the monitor, I couldn't help letting out gasps of admiration.

In this world, the existence we commonly know as "men" simply did not exist.

There were only two kinds of people: the Futanari, bearing potent male organs, and the pure females who panted beneath them — a world of desire that was deeply strange and intensely stimulating.

Five great races inhabited that world.

First, the Humans. Compared to the other races, their physical abilities were nothing special, but they possessed limitless potential that no boundary could define, a terrifying growth rate, and above all, a reproductive capacity that overwhelmed every other race.

Second, the Elves. Living in mystical forests, they were divided into two branches — standard Elves and Dark Elves — gifted with unnaturally delicate and precise mana control, and a deep communion with the spirits of nature.

Third, the Dwarves. The byword for artisan spirit, and — fitting for a race whose blacksmith trade was as titillating as their reputation — a collective of master craftsmen superb at metallurgy and every manner of intricate, miscellaneous handiwork, excelling at creating and building things.

Fourth, the Beastkin. They carried the physical traits of all manner of animals — dogs, cats, foxes, wolves, boars, dairy cows — with wild, savage strength and sharply honed senses as their advantages.

And last, the fifth: the Maine, or the Demonic Folk. An umbrella term for the seductive yet grotesque monsters that imitated human form — succubi, incubi, lamias, alraunes, arachnes.

The Maine in particular possessed two terrifying advantages: a self-regeneration ability that rapidly restored even fatal wounds to their original state, and a bizarre quirk that let them absorb part of another person's abilities as their own simply by ingesting that person's saliva.

But even these dreadful Maine harbored one fatal flaw: a despairing biological structure that made reproduction among their own kind utterly impossible.

Caught between the prosperity of their race and the threat of extinction, the Maine ruthlessly abducted the most fertile humans and used them as 'seedbeds' — breeding beds — to bear their young.

Why not abduct elves or beastkin instead? Because for the Maine, those races' baseline combat power was so high that capturing them was difficult, and their birth rates were pathetically low compared to humans — the cost-benefit simply didn't add up.

In the end, the Maine's sole target was humanity itself.

Naturally, humans and Maine fell into an unavoidable enmity, each ceaselessly hunting for the other's throat.

To stand against the gruesome threat of the Maine, human society began actively cultivating special Awakened individuals — those blessed from birth with unique abilities and a Heavenly Vocation — and to raise them into warriors, founded more than a hundred military-style academies across the Human Territory.

Among them, the most prestigious institution, ranked within the top ten of all academies in the Human Territory — Futanari Academy — was this game's main stage.

Originally, Futanari Academy was a sacred sanctuary open only to Futanari Awakened with the strength to match, where even the entry of ordinary females was strictly forbidden.

But as the explosive sexual appetites of the Futanari students and instructors, growing stronger in both skill and mana by the day, gradually reached an uncontrollable level, the national leadership wracked their brains and finally proposed an extraordinary emergency measure:

'One candidate shall be selected from among the ten Saint candidates of the Priest Academy — itself ranked within the top ten, just like Futanari Academy — specifically the one with the highest scores, and dispatched as a designated receptacle to handle the sexual relief and mana-stress discharge of the Futanari instructors and students.'

And the main character I had created through the game's character-customization window, pouring in every last one of my lewd preferences before enrolling her in that hell that was also heaven, was a character named 'Iris.'

Every time I looked at that status screen, a hollow laugh escaped me.

After all, the Priest is a healer — a class meant to provide care from the safe rear lines, with absolutely no reason to march to the front to swing a sword or take a beating.

Pouring points into pointless middle-of-the-road stats like Strength or Endurance would obviously just produce a trash character that was neither one thing nor the other.

'I'm never going to the front lines anyway, so what's the point of spreading stats around? Dump everything into Mana and use that overwhelming pool to spam heals — that's the optimal play!'

Obsessed with efficiency and playful concept-building, I had crafted an extreme stat sheet by dumping every last status point into Mana alone, leaving the minimum 1.0 everywhere else.

Quite literally a glass cannon — no, a glass heal-cannon, through and through.

Beneath the guise of a holy priest's garb, she was in truth an eighteen-year-old pink-haired girl flaunting a bursting, oversized bust through a leather nun habit that left her bare skin perilously close to exposure.

After taking a long swig of canned beer to wash down my throat, I clicked away with my mouse, stacking affection points with the charming futanari heroines inside the Academy using my lovingly crafted Iris.

Clearing quests one by one and collecting the sweet rewards, savoring the tantalizing event scenes unfolding across the screen — I was basking in the freedom of the holiday's first day, when suddenly—

Riiing—!!

The cheerful game BGM cut off abruptly, and the entire monitor screen began flashing in a bizarre blood-red glare.

Then, accompanied by a system warning tone, an enormous popup — one I had never seen in my life — bloomed up to fill the very center of the monitor.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"Ha, would you look at that? Smishing viruses these days have really gone off the rails. Must've splurged on the presentation, huh?"

Convinced it was nothing more than some newfangled internet scam or a vicious malicious popup, I sneered.

It was the same tired old pattern as always — click [YES] and sure enough, some shady payment window would pop up or you'd get funneled to a harmful site.

"Alright then, let me play along and get screwed over for once."

A slight beer buzz and a flicker of playful mischief ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠kicked in, and without a shred of hesitation I dragged my mouse over and mercilessly clicked the [YES] button dead center on the screen.

And immediately after—

FWOOOOM—───────!!

With a thunderous boom that felt like it would tear my ears apart, a blinding, surreal flash burst from the monitor screen as if tearing space and time itself apart.

"Wh-what?! What the hell?!"

I had no time even to scream.

The entire room was swallowed in a blinding white light that seemed ready to sear my eyes out of my head in an instant. Before the stinging violence of the light, I could do nothing but clamp my hands over my eyes and squeeze them shut.

I felt my consciousness drifting, floating away toward some distant, hazed shore.

The humming drone of the computer, the bitter-sweet smell rising from the beer can, the cool touch of the air conditioning against my skin — all of it vanished in an instant, like a lie.

In that vast sensation of swimming through weightless space, what tickled my nose was a fresh, subtle fragrance of expensive sandalwood, mingled with a strange, sweet scent rising from damp skin.

"...nngh... mmm..."

How much time had passed?

With my head splitting from dizziness, I slowly lifted my eyelids.

What spread before my eyes was not the concrete ceiling of my grimy studio apartment.

It was an unfamiliar Western-style room, lit by the soft glow of candles, with antique wooden beams and ornate furnishings arranged in luxurious harmony.

The mattress of the bed I lay in was so impossibly soft that my body sank deep into it.

"Wha...? Why am I... why am I somewhere like this, and not in my own apartment...?"

Had I passed out drunk?

As I tried to sit up with a dazed mind, I froze — struck head to toe by a strange, foreign sense of weight.

Merely raising my upper body sent a heavy, dragging sensation pulling down around my chest.

At the same time, down below, stockings and leather material clung tight against my skin, delivering a slick, borderline-agonizing texture.

A terrible wrongness, as if every sensory cell in my body had been ripped out and rearranged.

Seized by panic, I turned my head to the side without thinking.

Right beside the bed stood a long, luxurious full-length mirror, far taller than I was.

And the moment I looked into the space that was supposed to be reflecting me — my breath caught dead in my throat.

Standing in the mirror was not Noel, the disheveled, exhausted ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠twenty-seven-year-old man.

Moist, dewy pink eyes.

A risqué nun habit that lewdly bared the lines of her cleavage and thighs.

And a young girl with breasts so huge, so overflowing, they seemed about to burst free of the thin leather —

The character I had created just moments ago on my computer screen, packed full of every lewd desire I had — 'Iris' — was there in the mirror, staring back at me with the same stunned, hollow expression, clutching at the tight fabric strangling her chest.