This Is Way Too Shameless!
The moment we stepped out of the alley, the first thing Silla did was start criticizing my outfit.
"And you! What is with that slovenly getup?!"
"You're the one who told me to come dressed like this."
"Well, yes, I did say that — but this isn't just anyone you're meeting! This is me, the young lady of House Silvanel and the young lady of the World Tree Kim family! And you couldn't even make the slightest effort?!"
"…?"
This from someone who'd shown up in the same cowgirl outfit she wore out in the field.
This masochist elf — don't tell me she already can't hold out and is fishing for me to do something filthy to her?
For a second I considered just whipping my hand up and smacking her tits the way you'd slap someone across the face, but then I remembered how little time had passed since she'd already kicked up a fuss about elf-kidnapping laws and whatnot the moment she arrived. I let out a small sigh.
"Bok-soon."
"Yes… no! Do not call me by that name!"
"Just asking out of curiosity… how many times have you actually been here?"
"This is my first time at Dongmyo Market. My family always provided my gear and potions for me."
"What, first time? So you weren't just picking a fight — you genuinely didn't know? I thought you knew the whole deal and told me to dress like a slob on purpose."
"Pardon?"
Silla tilted her head, as if to ask what on earth I was talking about.
"I only told you to dress like a slob so you wouldn't get the wrong idea and show up with your dick swinging around like some horny mutt going, 'Hehehe, I'm dating a super-hot elf!' Don't tell me this place has a dress code or something — kyaah?! Wh-where do you think you're pulling?!"
"You clueless Kkanf."
I gave the tits I'd been casually groping a good, firm tug and made her look around.
"Here. Look around you right now. What do you see?"
"What do I see? Nothing but shops as far as the— wait. Huh?"
Equipment shops with gear lined up on hangers like clothing racks, potion stalls whose colorful displays looked like a rainbow had settled over them, magic-tome shops flying "Bookstore" signs while peddling grimoires to mages, and even street vendors sitting on straw mats selling fairly expensive curse-dispelling totems.
True to its reputation as the largest hunter market in the country, shops packed every direction as far as the eye could see.
And as Silla's gaze was dragged along by the pull on her chest, taking in every corner of Dongmyo Market, she eventually seemed to sense something off. She tilted her head.
"S-something feels strange. It's like… the merchants are looking at me like prey. Is it just my imagination?"
"Of course not. That's what you get for dressing up like that."
"Excuse me? How is this 'dressing up'?!"
"Everything you've got on — sure, it looks like the kind of trashy outfit a cheap tart would wear, but those are high-end pieces made from rare monster materials. Regular people might not notice, but you think the merchants here wouldn't recognize them?"
"What?!"
Silla shot back as if I were talking nonsense — even if she had dressed up, what did that have to do with merchants eyeing her like prey?
I clicked my tongue.
"Showing up at Dongmyo Market dressed like that is basically announcing, 'I'm a wholesaler, so please fleece me for all I'm worth!' Right now every merchant here can see the title Sucker floating over your head."
"Bullshit! There's no such thing! You're just spinning tall tales because I don't know the local culture — anyone can tell just by looking around that… huh? That potion over there… wasn't the price tag just saying 1.5 million won?"
Silla, who'd been snorting that even a lie needed some effort to be believed, went wide-eyed.
The tag that had clearly read 1.5 million a moment ago had, in the blink of an eye, become 2 million.
"And over there, and over there… why is everything going up by at least five hundred thousand from when I first looked, and some people are jacking it up by a full million… hey! You there! You just made eye contact with me! What are you so casually changing the price tag for?!"
"The way you cuss people out every other sentence, I figured the whole 'young lady' thing was just a bit — but not knowing the golden rule of Dongmyo Market? Guess you really are a proper young lady after all."
"How can this be…?!"
The first time or two she might have written off as a trick of the eye, but watching merchants brazenly rewrite price tags right in front of her left Silla staring around in pure bewilderment, as if this were the first time in her life she'd seen anything like it.
She was so stunned she didn't even react when I groped her chest, so I had no choice but to lean down and bite her pointed elf ear.
"Kyaah?! Y-y-y-y-you?! What do you think you're doing?! Biting an elf's ear in front of everyone! How shameless can you—?!"
"There we go — looking this way now. Anyway, you get it, right? Why you have to come to Dongmyo looking like a slob."
"What a shocking place. To think you have to throw away your dignity just to avoid getting fleeced."
"Dignity?"
Was there a word in the entire language that suited her less?
I tilted my head at that, then pulled Silla in against me — she was still flinching under the predatory stares of the merchants, her shoulders slumped.
"What is this? Flattery? Don't tell me you think your end is drawing near and you've decided you'd better start treating me nicely?"
"The guy who just bit your ear? Unlikely. I'm just curious why someone who knows so little about how Dongmyo Market works came all the way here — and why she dragged me out here with her. Oh, and I'm sexually harassing you on the side, of course."
"Hmph. As if your real goal wasn't just feeling up my chest. Fine. I was planning to tell you anyway. I just got distracted for a moment by that slovenly mess of an outfit."
Silla snorted and promptly shoved her hand straight down into her own cleavage.
The pervert who'd been getting off on being groped in public was now casually fishing around inside her own chest in front of everyone, which left me tilting my head — but Silla paid my reaction no mind. She pulled out her phone, tapped away at it, and held up a screen showing a news article.
"Shaman Hunter Park Jeom-rye…?"
"You've heard the name, haven't you? The former S-class Hunter, Park Jeom-rye!"
"I know her."
A retired former S-class Hunter. A living intangible cultural asset. So skilled at gut rituals, fortune-telling, face-reading, and the like that not only Korean hunters but high-ranking hunters and senior officials from overseas would pack up bundles of cash and come begging her to read their fortunes, faces, and fates.
"Rumor has it she's lost a lot recently on stocks and crypto…"
"Exactly so. Even a gifted shaman has to throw up her hands before the horrors of the stock market! Anyway — I obtained information that she will be giving readings somewhere here in Dongmyo Market today."
"Ah, so that's why you called me here? To help you find her?"
When I asked if we just needed to find the old woman in the article, Silla nodded vigorously — and her massive tits bounced right along with her head.
"Yes! If it's her, she can surely tell us how to drive out that goddamn reaper! She's always wandering from place to place, so even my family's influence couldn't easily arrange a meeting — I never imagined an opportunity like this would fall into our laps!"
Then she thrust her enormous chest out proudly, declaring, "As expected, heaven helps those who help themselves!"
I snorted, half in disbelief, and asked her,
"Okay, but this is funny. Why do you think I'd help you find her? There's nothing in it for me. My sex slave disappears, and I get bullet holes punched through my balls — why would I go looking?"
"An elf is going to die! Maybe a D-class like you doesn't matter, but a beautiful elf like me is going to die — and you won't help?! Even a sex maniac must have some compassion!"
"If we find her, my life as a man dies!"
Compassion, nothing — the balls that produce my affection would get blown open!
When I pushed back, Silla tilted her head as if I'd said something completely unhinged.
"Pardon? That's none of my business. You're a hunter, aren't you? A hunter who protects the lives of the innocent. You ought to be overjoyed at the chance to save the life of an innocent, lovely elf like me — and to receive the honor of being castrated by that elf's own hands, kyaaaaaah?!"
"Aigoo, this damn Kkanf!"
"Y-you bit my ear again?! Shameless! This is way too shameless! How can you so brazenly commit the shameless act of biting an elf's ear in the middle of a crowded market, kyaaaah?!"
"You think ears are all I can bite?! I'll bite your tits too! Huh? Like this, like this?!"
"This crazy bastard actually bit me!"
Finding people could wait. First I needed to figure out how to punish this masochist elf who had a gift for pissing people off.
I dragged Silla back toward the alley we'd just left.
"That's it. Forget finding people — today I'm going to drill some manners into you good and proper. Time you learned firsthand what happens when a sex slave gets lippy. Come on, drop those pants! Ass out!"
"D-drop my pants… don't tell me you're going to spank me?!"
Her elf ears were already flushed red with anticipation, and I was fully prepared to teach her the proper posture of a sex slave right then and there.
"Yeah — just like you want. I'll smack that ass and that womb of yours with this hand and this meat club of mine until— hmm?"
"I-I'm going to be violated?! My virginity, which I was saving for my future husband, stolen by a mere human… you — what are you looking at?"
Right then, something caught my eye.
I pointed in the direction of what I'd spotted and told Silla — who was still putting on a show of resistance, breathing hard — to look over there.
"That thing over there. That wasn't there a minute ago, was it?"
"What? All of a sudden… huh? Was there a house like that over there?"
It couldn't have been more than ten minutes since we'd left this alley.
In that short time, a house had appeared inside it.
And not just any house — a rather handsome hanok.
I wasn't the only one seeing it. Silla nodded in agreement. Wondering if a dungeon had spawned in the meantime, we both dropped into combat stances and exchanged a look — and right at that moment,
Creeeeak—
"Who's out there! Who's making all that racket!"
A presence suddenly made itself felt beyond the hanok's walls, and the tightly shut main gate swung open. An old woman — the owner of the voice — appeared from the other side.
Silla spoke in a trembling voice, as if she couldn't believe it.
"G-good heavens, Hunter Park Jeom-rye…?! Don't tell me she was really in a place like this…?!"
"Huh?"
Silla's ears were flapping wildly in genuine shock. Looking closer at the old woman, she was the spitting image of the person from the news — and from the phone screen Silla had just shown me.
It was the very old woman Silla had been looking for.
"Wait, but it's this easy to meet her? From what you said, she was supposed to be as hard to find as a legendary Pokémon."
"What are you saying in front of Hunter Park Jeom-rye?!"
"I'm saying it's that surprising. Ow, quit pinching me…"
I pinched Silla's nipple right back in retaliation for the jab in my side, and looked at the old woman.
She, in turn, regarded us through half-lidded eyes, then said,
"They said a welcome guest was coming today — so it was you, Chuk-yong? But where's that old lady of yours, and why'd you bring some long-eared girl along instead?"
"Pardon?"
"Tsk tsk tsk. Still got those grabby hands even at your age, I see. Shameless old coot. Get on in here already."
With that, she turned and went back inside.
I stood there staring blankly at the empty gateway and muttered,
"Chuk-yong is my late grandfather's name…"
"What?! Then your grandfather was…?!"
"She might be one of his old acquaintances."
Still half in a daze, I hurried through the gate.