Shelter on the 8th Day (3)
I told Franc, “I was too tense and the fatigue piled up… I really need to rest.” Then I lay down and casually pulled out the soul stone, pretending to examine it.
*Umm, this isn’t a phase stone at all… I suppose it’s more like a soul stone. Franc’s soul stone. Mmm.*
My eyes stayed fixed on the soul stone, but my attention drifted to the edge of my vision, where Franc stood. It wasn’t one eye on the stone and one on her—my naked eye fixed on the soul stone while my peripheral vision quietly mapped the surroundings in a sophisticated form of stealth. The downside was obvious: the technique left everything slightly blurred, so I couldn’t even read her expressions clearly.
Franc flinched when she noticed me suddenly drawing the soul stone from my pocket, but I acted as if I hadn’t seen it. I blinked sleepily, then began idly toying with her soul stone, tracing its smooth surface.
Soon Franc’s body jerked repeatedly. She lifted her hand, lowered it, then lifted it again, as if the entire motion screamed *I can’t touch the soul stone, but how do I stop myself?* It was unbearably cute.
The earnest demeanor she had shown moments ago had vanished completely. I was relieved. I had worried that even while teasing her she would remain stiff and unreadable. Thankfully, she had broken character.
Or had she?
While I watched her squirm under the erotic thrill of her own soul stone, I realized her sensitive spots were connected to the raised nodules on its rounded surface.
*Heh heh heh heh.*
A lewd chuckle escaped me.
Especially when I stroked the largest protrusion and brushed it lightly, Franc’s head stiffened. Her jaw lifted slightly and her thighs clamped together. No real experience, but if clit stimulation felt like that…
When I circled the two smaller nodules on the opposite side with my fingers, her slender shoulders shrank and she pressed one arm tightly against her chest. This must be the nipple area.
At first she tried to endure it, but after I toyed with and caressed her for so long she could no longer hold on. Her body trembled uncontrollably and her rigid posture finally melted.
My sadistic streak burned hot at the sight of her desperate movements.
I rubbed her clit with my thumb and dragged my index finger along the long groove, mimicking the way one would swipe a smartphone screen. Franc squeezed both hands between her thighs, arched her back like a drawn bow, and let out a sharp
“Ah!”
Her expression was a mix of pain and distress—brows furrowed, lips parted.
Her hands fluttered helplessly, pinching and clutching her thighs. Every time her body convulsed in response to the stimulation, her full breasts bounced.
*Thank goodness my body is still a little soft. Lying down hid the obvious bulge in my pants.*
The serious, earnest attitude and the faint smile she had worn earlier had vanished. Her posture was so disheveled I almost felt relieved she hadn’t collapsed.
Franc panted, shoulders quivering, thighs twitching as she tried to control the overwhelming pleasure. She had reached climax, yet her face still looked unsatisfied—somewhere between “normal” and “midway through a break.”
She kept stealing glances at her own body, but since she couldn’t bring herself to pleasure herself, her eyebrows drooped and she panted with a desperate expression.
Her tear-filled eyes lowered in sorrow. My head grew hot. A sadistic thrill surged through me at the sight.
*To think such a beautiful young lady would be brought to climax by my hands…*
So I was going to make her come. I was sending her over the edge!
Certain she was too dazed to notice me, I gripped the soul stone with both hands, focused my detection ability on it, and carefully mapped every curve.
I targeted the points connected to her erogenous zones—the clitoris, the nipples, the cleft of her buttocks, and the hidden parts—while my palm kneaded her entire body. Then I began to slowly rotate the soul stone in my hand.
Her waist shot upright, then swayed as if about to fall backward, before she folded forward. The overflowing pleasure swept through her entire body, and I couldn’t stop my own excitement from rising…
My heart pounded painfully. My breathing grew ragged. The desire for an immediate happy time welled up, but I forced myself to hold back and continued to tease her with the soul stone.
Franc convulsed violently, then collapsed backward onto her side. She raised her knees, trembled all over, and rocked her hips. Her hands never left her chest, squeezing and kneading. Drool spilled from the corner of her slightly open mouth, and her eyes were completely unfocused in ecstasy.
*Swallow.* My heart thundered. A strange sense of accomplishment mixed with a burning warmth deep in my chest.
As she fell backward, her knees raised, the petals of her flower were laid bare. Because it glowed on its own, the plump flesh between them and the tiny hole in the middle leaked transparent liquid that quivered as it passed over her buttocks. It was crystal clear.
The liquid that had fallen to the ground vaporized again and was absorbed into the air around her body… Was that her love juice? The stuff that helps with insertion during sex?
My nose twitched. If her colors had been visible, would my entire body have flushed?
Looking back, she seemed a little brighter now. Maybe the flush on her skin was just from the heat.
*Oh.*
Franc seemed about to turn her face toward me, so I quickly closed my eyes. It was a shame, but I had no choice if I didn’t want to be caught.
*Uuuu! I want to open my eyes! I want to examine every inch of her flushed, aroused body!*
When I saw her reach orgasm, I realized that the blurry video I had made with my detection ability didn’t matter at all. The disappointment that my detection ability couldn’t even perceive her properly was almost painful.
*That enormous…! Uuuu…!*
I couldn’t find the right words. Still, being able to watch such a magnificent sight in real time made me wonder what value a fake video based on memory could possibly have.
I wanted to watch Franc writhe and moan beneath me, but I also felt a bit guilty for my own desires. And she didn’t even have a physical body… The thought made my heart ache unbearably.
*Ah, real tears.*
The sensation of tears sliding down my cheek made me open my eyes again. There, right in front of me, was Franc’s huge, white breasts! Sweat glistened on her skin and a single droplet of sweat hung from the tip of each nipple, dancing in my line of sight…
I stared blankly at her unexpected sight, then lifted my eyes at the gaze from above. Franc was looking down at me from above my body, her expression flushed and her eyes blazing as if she wanted to cover me!
How had that happened?!
I froze in shock, staring at her. She saw the tears flowing down my left cheek and her face filled with confusion.
Then our eyes met. Franc’s body stiffened like ice.
“…”
“…”
She immediately dropped to her knees, slid sideways, and began to flail in panic when she saw the tear marks on my cheek.
*She must not have realized they were crocodile tears.*
I didn’t know what she was thinking when she saw my tears, but her panicked, pitying expression felt deeply concerned. The memory of her reaching climax from pleasure moments ago vanished from my mind. Seeing me cry made her eyes well up too, and my boiling head suddenly cooled.
*Whoa…*
The feeling of my conscience being drilled through by a drill rather than a needle made my raging erection soften.
*What kind of thing did I do to such a kind Franc…?*
But that pose just now… No, I shouldn’t think about it! It’s dangerous! Really dangerous in so many ways!
Franc’s body seemed to return to normal. The love juice between her thighs had vaporized and been absorbed back into her. Probably the excitement had faded because of the shock.
The memory of her writhing in pleasure had lasted only a moment. After I shed a single fake tear, she returned to her usual kind self and gently reached out to touch the tear marks on my cheek with a sorrowful expression.
Of course, her hand simply passed through me.
A whirlwind of emotions swept through my chest and countless thoughts flashed through my mind before they all converged into one.
I…
I guess I had truly fallen in love with her.
The awkward atmosphere lingered. The tension made me uncomfortable, so I quickly wiped my tears, forced a smile, and said,
“Humph. I’m fine. I’m completely okay, Franc.”
Franc looked even more sorrowful at my actions.
“Really? There’s Franc right here and we’ll return to reality in seven days. Why would I be worried?”
Seeing me try to comfort her, she thought I was still worried about her, so she clasped both hands over her chest and forced a smile.
The sight of that smile made my heart skip. I turned my eyes away and cleared my throat.
The situation wasn’t safe enough to toy with Franc like this… I must have lost my mind for a moment.
The feeling of my conscience being pierced by a lance still lingered. I wondered if I would never be able to play such pranks on Franc again.
*I can’t promise anything, but…*
My head was a chaotic mess of hot and cold, rising and falling emotions. I managed to calm myself, and Franc seemed to calm down as well. She walked back to the entrance of the tree house, tidied her appearance, and sat down in a modest posture.
Her face brightened slightly and she fidgeted, as if embarrassed. Had she remembered what had just happened? The sight of me stained with Franc’s desire made me feel strange.
*Uuu, topic change! I need to change the subject!*
Right. If it was Franc, she probably knew where all that water had come from.
“Do you know where all that water came from, Franc?”
Franc adjusted her posture and sat comfortably. She thought for a moment, then poked her head out from behind the curtain, checked the direction of the cliff, and pointed to the opposite side.
That direction was northeast? She made a mountain shape with both hands while looking at me, then curled her fingers to show the peak disappearing.
*A mountain shape?* If it was just an ordinary mountain, the tip should be sharp. The fact that she deliberately curved it… Was she talking about a volcano?
Was she referring to a lake that had accumulated water, like Baekrokdam on Hallasan or Cheonji on Baekdu Mountain? Had that been called a volcanic lake? Water pooled in the crater of a dormant volcano.
“A volcanic lake? The lake there overflows and pours out like this?”
When I asked, Franc smiled brightly and nodded slightly.
*In the world…* To create a land flood that large. How enormous and how much water did it store?
Better yet, had Franc actually been there?
I had lived eighteen years, so I could guess, but sixty years should be enough time to understand most of the terrain around here.
*Umm. Then it will stay like this until the rain stops.*
*Nod nod.*
I was stuck here. But if an aberrant appeared in this situation, it would be terrible. Even if a massive aberrant far away was swept away by the flood and pushed all the way here, it wouldn’t be strange.
If it was swept away by the flood and then detected me, it would stick to the trees…
When I voiced my worries, Franc shook her head and gave me a reassuring smile.
*Huh?*
When I looked puzzled, she pointed at herself, then clenched her fist and punched the air like a boxer.
*Umm.* There were unusually few aberrants around here. Did that mean she had killed them all when she was a giant?
It was true that when we first met, a few words like that had been exchanged. I didn’t know enough words—weak, pathetic, and so on that my head would ache. But I knew *everything*, *monster*, and *on the cliff*.
Still, even if it was ten meters tall, compared to the size of the forest it was tiny. I had wondered how many aberrants she could have killed while roaming around in such a small body… Was that not the case?
Since I had the chance, I would ask directly.
“When we first met, you said you had killed all the aberrants on both the upper and lower parts of the cliff… right?”
Franc nodded with a kind smile, but the faint killing intent made me shiver. It was understandable. Abandoned in the Phase World, she had been chased by aberrants until she herself became one. It was only natural she would feel rage and hunt them down to exterminate the species.
I wanted to ask more about how she had become an aberrant, but it wasn’t the right time to ask and she probably couldn’t explain it with simple gestures or expressions. I decided to ask again later.
Instead, I asked what ranks of aberrants she had killed. When I listed the ranks I knew, she tilted her head and said they ranged from low-rank variants to high-rank variants.
*With a sigh of relief, I realized I had fallen into a truly filthy place.* A region with every rank of aberrant from low to high.
Of course she had killed many, but this place was insane. I had to escape from here.
According to Franc, the probability of encountering an aberrant was extremely low. The problem was that if I did encounter one, the probability that it would be extremely powerful would also be high.
*Could I use my detection ability to find such strong aberrants first and escape without being detected?*
Suddenly, the shelter Franc had promised to guide me to came to mind. If I was there, I could survive until day fifteen while enduring the remaining time. There was no reason for her to deliberately bring me there unless it was the place.
But moving there now was impossible. Franc didn’t seem to want to go either.
I closed my eyes and turned my surroundings into a detection map. Heavy rain still poured down, and the ground was completely flooded like a disaster area, with water rushing at three meters high.
When the land flood came, it had been five meters, but it had subsided a little and now stood at three meters. It wouldn’t go lower than that. Three meters of water with such a strong current would drown even the best swimmer. It would fall into a temporary waterfall fifteen meters away.
The cliff edge was slowly eroding, which was slightly unsettling, but when I saw the shape of the first waterfall I had seen, it seemed it wouldn’t erode all the way to where we were even if it continued for a while.
By the way, it was a mountain… Curiosity about Franc’s words made me want to climb the tree and look in the direction of the mountain. How huge was it that it could turn the land into a sea? I was really curious.
The trees I had seen during the journey here were about twenty meters tall on average. But the tree I was climbing now was over fifty meters. If I climbed a little higher, the view above the forest would open up and I might be able to see the mountain?
*Ah, my expression must have been too obvious.* Franc looked uneasy and fidgeted.
But I had to pretend I didn’t notice.
It was roughly two o’clock in the afternoon. While I was tormenting Franc, I had completely forgotten about lunch. I pretended not to notice and put on my slightly damp and wrinkled school uniform.
Franc watched my every move with an anxious expression. When I sat back down, unbuckled my belt, tore off a piece of bark from the branch I had brought for food, and began to eat the leaves, the anxiety on her face finally eased a little.
For thirty minutes I chatted with Franc while slowly chewing the leaves. When she saw me eat, she looked at me with a cute expression, as if my eating was adorable.
*Adorable…?* A little embarrassing. I wondered if Franc’s eyesight was normal.
Anyway, after eating ten leaves and feeling full, I dusted off my hands and stood up. Franc’s expression changed from *Huh?* to *Ah!* as she blocked the entrance with her own body.
“I should check the surrounding situation once. Since this tree is more than twice as tall as the others, I can see from the top without climbing all the way up. It’s not dangerous.”
Franc shook her head desperately, looking at me with a pitiful expression that said *It’s dangerous, don’t go.* I smiled wickedly.
“If a man says he’s not allowed to do something, he becomes even more curious, you know?”
Since standing straight was difficult, I passed through her full breasts to get outside.
Franc pouted and followed me, trying to stop me. If I kept looking at her expression, I would weaken and change my mind, so I deliberately turned away from her.
I didn’t need the claw gauntlet.
I pulled the horn awl from my waist, made footholds in the tree, and began to climb slowly. Franc floated up behind me, circling around me slowly as if trying to stop me!
*Wow.* When had she become able to float so easily?
“Franc. You can fly easily now?”
I paused for a moment and looked at her. She gave me a slightly embarrassed smile mixed with worry, then nodded. I laughed and started climbing again.
Realizing I couldn’t stop her, she moved a little farther away so she wouldn’t interfere with my climb, and began to ascend toward me at the same speed.
After climbing the tree for a while, the tops of the surrounding trees came into view beyond the branches. It seemed I only needed to climb a little higher.
“Wow!”
I found a branch I could step on comfortably and climbed up. Through the gap between the branches and leaves, the outside scenery appeared.
It was literally breathtaking.
When it had been raining heavily, the fog had been so thick I couldn’t see an inch in front of me. Now, although it was still foggy, I could see far.
Still, beyond that it was completely obscured by fog, and the only things visible were the gray sky, pouring rain, and the sharp tips of the trees. Those elements created a scenery I had never seen before.
Franc kept exclaiming in admiration, watching me with the worried eyes of a cute little sister who wouldn’t listen to reason.
I smiled at that and kept looking around. Suddenly the rain lines thinned and the view widened.
Through the rain clouds that had lowered very low and were churning, at the far end of the eastern horizon, a vaguely visible mountain rose as if it touched the sky!
*Whoa, it’s enormous!*
The shape was hidden by what might have been fog or clouds, so far away that distance was hard to judge. Yet when I stretched out my hand and spread my palm toward the mountain, only a small part was covered.
Was it like seeing Mount Everest from a village near the Himalayas?
This mountain was different. It wasn’t a jagged mountain range but a single towering peak.
At the summit, things that might have been fog or clouds surrounded the mountain. Through the gaps, part of the peak had collapsed and water gushed out.
*What? Water keeps flowing out.*
If the collapse had caused the water to pour down, I could understand it. The mountain’s edge was visible even from this distance, so it must be huge.
But what I couldn’t understand was… The land flood had hit two hours ago, yet the water continued to pour out. Water was gushing from the mountain? Not lava, but water?
I couldn’t understand it with my knowledge.
When I asked Franc what I had seen, she answered in short, short sentences. There were too many unknown words for me to understand.
*Hmm.* I had seen what I wanted to see. Time to go down. The raindrops were falling again, soaking my clothes once more. Franc was also restless, wondering when I would come down.
Watching her follow me down, Franc finally let out a sigh of relief and floated down after me.
It looked comfortable. I wanted to fly too.
When I returned to the tree house, I took off my shirt and school uniform and hung them on a branch. Then I lay down on the floor.
What now?
Franc lay beside me, mirroring my position. Her upper body was slightly bent as she looked at me. *My, my face with the acne almost gone and my body a little slimmer must be lethally attractive to Franc’s heart? Heh heh.*
*No way.* Objectively my standard appearance was sixty points. My face was only forty.
Somehow I felt like self-deprecating myself. No, it wasn’t *somehow*. It was *self-deprecation*!
I stifled the sigh that wanted to escape and put my left hand in my pants pocket, gripping the soul stone. Franc’s body twitched at the faint erotic stimulation and she looked at me with trembling eyes.
*No no, it’s not that this time. Ah, of course I want to torment Franc all day, but the things I did earlier weigh on my conscience, and since she’s in spirit form, if I continued to stimulate her spirit for a long time, who knows what would happen…?*
I was a little lacking in self-control, but I wasn’t a complete idiot.
At that moment, a thought flashed through my mind. I shot up and yanked my pants down.
And there! I caught Franc glancing at the front of my underwear for a split second!
*…*
I felt like I had corrupted an angel. Like painting my name in three letters on pure, clean white cloth with a brush.
Franc suddenly sat up a little when she saw me take off my pants, pretending to be calm as she looked at me… but—
*Her pupils shook.*
*Franc, young lady.*
If I made her shy, she might jump off the tree in embarrassment. So I pretended not to notice.
I turned my pants over and looked at the pocket attached to my pants.
I had been thinking of making a small pouch to put the soul stone in and wearing it around my neck like a necklace.
Who knew what would happen in the future? If I escaped in a hurry and the soul stone jumped out of the pocket and fell to the ground, or if I fell to the ground and didn’t notice and ran away far away…
Her earnest wish was to return to the real world and achieve enlightenment. If my carelessness caused me to lose the soul stone and that path was blocked, how much despair would she feel?
At least I imagined it would be like the sky collapsing.
And the shock I would feel as a result of losing her would be no small amount.
Of course, with my real-time detection ability, such things wouldn’t happen, but I had to be careful because the word *force majeure* existed.
Above all, if I was in a situation where I needed to escape, it would definitely be at least a low-rank aberrant or higher. As an aberrant, it would notice the phase energy leaking from Franc’s soul stone, so there was no way an aberrant would swallow Franc’s soul stone whole.
*…No more bad thoughts. Let’s make what I was going to make.*
The school uniform pants I had designed with practicality and coolness in an 8:2 ratio had extremely deep pockets. You could fit an entire forearm in.
I imagined that in the Phase World, if you found nuts or something, the intention wasn’t to fill your pockets, but…
But for me, who had fallen into the Phase World with a useless belt and edible leaves, the pocket had no meaning. I had nothing to put in it.
So I carefully cut the part where the pocket began with my claw gauntlet and put the soul stone inside. When I grabbed the end of the pocket, it was just right. I made a hole with the horn awl, took out the string I had prepared, and threaded it through to turn it into a necklace pouch.
Franc’s eyes sparkled with emotion when she realized what I was making. When I put my pants back on, a hole appeared where the right pocket had been and my underwear was partially exposed, but who would like seeing a man’s underwear? So it didn’t matter.
*…But Franc kept glancing at the hole.*
I folded the school uniform fabric attached to the pocket twice vertically, then folded it again into a fan shape horizontally, and used the tip of my claw gauntlet to make a hole.
Then I threaded the string through the hole and put it around my neck.
*Oh, perfect.*
Since I had folded the entrance part several times so it wouldn’t open unless I deliberately opened it with my hands, there was no risk of the soul stone jumping out even if we fought.
It was tough and sturdy like a school uniform pocket, so there was no worry that the edge of the soul stone would tear the cloth.
It was a pouch that wouldn’t tear even if I put a sharpener upside down.
“It’s well made. With this, even in an emergency situation where I drop Franc’s soul stone and we become separated, there shouldn’t be any problem.”
I tugged at the pouch to show Franc that the entrance wouldn’t open. Franc leaned into my arms with a face mixed with tears.
To be so moved. I should have made it earlier and reassured her.
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