Level Up, and the Test. Yeah, It Wasn't a Dream
It wasn't a dream. The unidentified text that had echoed in my head and floated before my eyes, like I'd been dropped into a game world. That mysterious voice announcing I'd leveled up—I definitely hadn't misheard it.
(Obviously… it has to be connected to me coming back alive from that dungeon.)
(Level up… so this is what it actually means?)
I had my suspicions, but no solid proof. That's what I'd thought just a few hours earlier. But now, after stepping outside for the first time in a while, sweating through a workout and gulping down water, I could say one thing with absolute certainty.
(My body's… back to normal.)
Whether I ran ten kilometers or cranked out fifty pull-ups, even one-handed push-ups that used to wreck me back in my prime—I didn't get tired. That strange, indescribable discomfort, like my body had been forcibly stitched back together, was gone. The painful, ragged breathing that had choked me had vanished too.
(How… how can something like this happen overnight?)
“…”
Level up. Yeah. Maybe I'd recovered and then some—maybe I'd become even stronger than before.
Level up. It literally meant becoming far stronger than your previous state, didn't it? It hadn't happened just once. The announcement had kept ringing out until my consciousness finally cut off. So if my hunch was right, I had to be much stronger than before.
With a grim expression, I stopped in front of the punching machine on the sidewalk.
(How long has it been?)
(Feels like five years since I last hit one of these.)
It was ridiculous to measure strength with a toy like this, but whatever. Might as well try.
I did some light stretches, wrapped my left hand around my right wrist like a brace, and gripped tight. Then—!
“Hup…!!!”
With a short breath I tightened my core. I poured every ounce of muscle and body weight into the punch, but I'd overdone it. At the last second the force twisted inward. Instead of a satisfying impact, a short scream rang out across the empty street.
“Ow…!!!!”
“Huuuuuuuugh…”
A pathetic sound that no one would believe came from a muscular 187-centimeter, 83-kilogram man. Fuck… and of all places, it landed right on the knuckle that sticks out when you make a fist. I must have slammed the metal frame next to the cushion with everything I had. I swallowed the dizziness and tears, crouching on the sidewalk.
“Ugh… ah… fuck… I didn't break my hand, did I…?”
“It doesn't feel like it's moving right…?”
I'd been feeling great, but that one punch ruined everything. I stood up, clenching and unclenching my right fist, when I noticed the solid metal where I'd struck at an angle was dented inward.
“…What the hell?”
“No way… did I bend that?”
This thick piece of metal? No, impossible. No matter how strong I was, how could a fist bend solid steel? I told myself it was a trick of the light, fed another coin into the machine, and this time focused on breathing calmly and striking the target cleanly with less brute force.
And then—
“BOOM!!!!!!”
My right fist slammed into the target dead center. The tremendous sound left no room for doubt.
“I… leveled up.”
My body was in far better shape than before, and I wanted to test myself. Not with ordinary stuff like running or pull-ups, but with fierce, life-or-death combat. I wanted to push myself to the absolute limit with desperate struggles that gnawed at both mind and body, where adrenaline surged in to fill the emptiness.
Of course, some people would probably call me insane. But this wasn't about showing off or bragging. It was a critical factor that would decide the fate between me and Elphy, and whether I could step back onto the battlefield or not.
Naturally, Elphy wouldn't be thrilled if I told her I was going back to hunter work. Still, I believed this was what I was best at and the one job that would earn me real respect in this society right now. Even if I couldn't use magic, I was confident I could hold my own in an E-rank dungeon.
(If I can't fight, I can just haul mana stones…)
(As long as I stick close to the rift…)
Maybe one day an opportunity to become a real hunter would come. That's why I wanted to test the effects of my level-up in actual combat right away. The problem was, I was still just an ordinary citizen. Entering a rift was almost impossible.
Of course, as the first discoverer I might be able to sneak in, but knowing where and when a rift would appear was nearly impossible unless you were an insider. In the end, I'd have to go through a rift processing company like Elphy had. The question was whether any company would hire someone who couldn't even use magic.
I let out a long sigh and just ran hard toward home.
An average of fifty rifts, big and small, appeared every day in the Seoul and Gyeonggi region alone. Unfortunately, none of those fifty would be the battlefield I needed to stand on.
So I thought hard. And thought harder.
What place is most similar to a battlefield?
What kind of training would let me feel a physical state closest to real combat?
Running up a mountain with a 40kg military pack? Doing a triathlon in a weighted vest with sandbags on my ankles and wrists? Self-imposed hell-week training?
No… none of that was enough.
When you got down to it, what was a battlefield? What was combat? It was a place where you could never feel at ease, where it wouldn't be strange to die at any moment. That was what made it a battlefield and combat.
Triathlons, 40kg pack runs, self-hell training—they could push the body to its limits, but they could never erase the deep-rooted sense of safety.
So what exactly was the closest thing to real combat?
Grabbing some random person on the street and picking a fight? Or going after that thug bastard from yesterday?
“…”
No. The truth was, I probably already knew the answer. It was just too difficult. Maybe because it was even harder than the battles I'd faced before, I'd been turning a blind eye to it… But the answer was actually very close by.
The man, looking like he'd made up his mind, stepped into the adult shop he often visited with Elphy and spoke with a solemn expression.
“…One condom, please.”
“The usual? Same one you always buy?”
“…Yes. Okamoto Mega Big Boy.”
To me, sex was combat.
Of course, some people would probably say What the hell kind of nonsense is that? But it was true. They wouldn't understand. A man? A male daring to say something like that about sex? Unforgivable.
Some might even call it deception. Yeah… I get it. After all, what man would refuse a woman that beautiful with breasts like hers when she asked for it? At first, I loved having sex with this gorgeous slave. Up until then, I had never once regretted slipping my hand between her thighs that drunken night…!
But the more Korean Elphy learned, the closer we became. The master-slave hierarchy slowly weakened. And as it did, she started demanding sex more and more often.
Sure, fine. A big-breasted beauty rubbing her crotch on my thigh and begging for it—who could say no? Every time, I fucked my slave like a beast. And every time, I thanked the heavens for keeping me alive and giving me such a beautiful slave.
Yeah… it really should have been like that. At least until I started wasting away. Until the day she first demanded sex more than once a day.
Hey Elphy… can we take a break tomorrow?
I mean… no matter how good sex is, doing it this much is…
Why? Do you… hate it?
No… it's not that I hate it… it's just… I've gotten raw from doing it so much…
I'll heal it… with magic…
I still remembered the bright smile on her face as she said that in her awkward Korean. There wasn't a trace of malice in her expression. If anything, our relationship only grew tighter and more intimate… But for some reason, that was the first time I felt my life was in danger.
Did this girl never get tired…? No… even if women were built to take it in and men were built to release, this was too much. She wasn't even a succubus… Forget stamina—why was her sex drive so insanely strong?
Back then I seriously wondered if my bedroom skills were the problem and I just couldn't satisfy her. But after giving in to her pleas and going seven rounds for the first time, I looked into her eyes as she eagerly sucked on my limp cock and realized something.
Fuck… this bitch is a monster.
I used to be confident in my stamina, but the physical strength and sexual appetite of the demon race were on another level. A mere human like me could never keep up. If I didn't do something, I'd be sucked dry until nothing but a husk remained.
Combat. Ah… yes. If this wasn't combat, what was?
I'd slept with plenty of women during my mercenary days, but none of them had squeezed my cock this hard. The stimulation was worse than any onahole. If I lost focus for even a second, if I breathed wrong, I'd blow my load instantly. Being able to cum inside a woman like this might be the ultimate fantasy for every male.
But what if it happened three times? Four? Five…? What if it went all the way to seven?
I could somehow manage twice by getting hard again, but from the third and fourth rounds onward, it stopped being something a human should do. My legs shook. My prostate convulsed past the point of contraction. While the slave, still unsatisfied, rode me in cowgirl position, my over-sensitized nerves screamed in agony.
Fuck… this is sex?
No… I finally understood. This wasn't sex. It was sexual exploitation. Yeah… if this wasn't sexual exploitation, what the hell was it?
That's why, after that day, I taught her the limits of the human race. I started buying her dildos and all sorts of toys to preserve my essence as much as possible. That's how I ended up here.
So suggesting sex first was obviously crazy. But for some reason… today I felt like I might actually win.
That's why I said,
“Um… ahem…! It's kind of boring… Want to do something?”
“Huh? Ah… you mean ‘that’?”
I spoke first, and so the battle began.