Beautiful World: Was I This Kind of Man?
The setting of this novel is a parallel-dimension Earth.
Beyond expectations.
In the flesh she was truly beautiful. Her type differed from Hye-yun and Ji-yu, yet she possessed a feline, alluring, brain-melting beauty, and those fully dilated pupils even lent her a vacant, doll-like charm that only heightened the effect.
She seemed far too tense; I was just about to ease her when Chaehyang erupted from my body of its own accord.
Chaehyang is being emitted.
Remaining amount: 11/15
She was already a fish in the net, yet somehow the scent had poured out anyway. My first thought was that it was a waste, but I quickly accepted it as the surest way to loosen her nerves.
While I brewed coffee I recalled Song Dahyun’s acting. She had debuted with near top-tier looks—not quite Hye-yun’s level, but close enough to draw plenty of fans—yet at some point her craft had stalled and never advanced. I remembered how her ranking had steadily slid: weekday dramas, weekend slots, finally morning soaps.
Hmm. No talent, then?
Acting talent: 3/3 Max.
She possesses a gymnastics talent of Level 9. Had that same level of performance been applied to gymnastics, she would have been called the fairy of Korea.
Huh? Another woman whose talent I didn’t know about?
Gymnastics 9 looked like it would bring little practical gain. And it was a pity that her acting talent had already fully bloomed at its Max.
The Constellation will swap their talent levels for you. The sole condition is that you must accept the mission at 100% when you cross into the Three Kingdoms World. Will you accept?
What? If the talents are swapped, does that mean the ceiling levels of gymnastics and acting are exchanged?
Correct. In Song Dahyun’s case her acting talent becomes 3/9 Lv. Her gymnastics ceiling drops to 3. Of course this occurs only after Kim Ian has acquired the gymnastics Level 9—that is, after he has obtained it at Level 5.
Suddenly the face of Han Ji-yeong, the vanished beauty queen of the nineties, floated up. A woman who had possessed not a shred of acting talent yet had stubbornly poured everything into effort. She was half-retired after marriage now, but she remained a rare beauty on Hye-yun’s level.
That actress Han Ji-yeong… is she by any chance…
If you are thinking of the Han Ji-yeong you recall, she has no acting talent. As a Model 9 she would have enjoyed enormous wealth and fame had she worked as a supermodel. And when Kim Ian acquires her, the talents will likewise change. The same applies going forward to existing women such as Jeong Hye-yun. You will be able to pull the ceiling of useless talents and raise the acting ceiling all the way to Level 12.
So this was what Jini had meant when she said she would help. It wasn’t an immediate boost to current talent values, only an expansion of the ceiling—but that was still something.
Han Ji-yeong as a supermodel, though…
I pictured her with angel wings like the Victoria’s Secret top models. And Hye-yun as well… the lingerie would probably sell out the next day.
Modeling required a kind of performance, yet the acting demanded of a model and the acting demanded of an actress felt like different textures. Jini’s confident guarantee of success made that clear.
Still, I had no desire to touch a married actress who was living well, so I folded the fantasy away. I was already on the verge of obtaining Go Hyerim, Jeong Hyeon-jin, and now Song Dahyun; any more would be pure greed. And I had no wish to waste precious stamina on a second-hand woman who was no longer a virgin.
Even if she came in, she’d only be a concubine…
Her marriage history was far too public; even Han Ji-yeong would rank no higher than a concubine in my harem.
All right. I don’t know what the mission is, but I’ll accept it.
Wise choice. On the 19th, when you transfer to the Three Kingdoms World, you will be able to view the mission, but you have forfeited the right of refusal. This is advance notice. That is all.
Just what kind of mission were they planning to force on me? The thought flickered and I brushed it aside. It was a place I had to go and work I had to do. The Constellation would never set me a task that truly harmed me.
Well… the Constellation is a bit of a pervert, though…
Every item bestowed was sexual in nature, and there had been more than a few distasteful suggestions—like experiencing Hang Jeok’s body. I snorted a quiet laugh, took ice from the freezer, floated it in cold water, and poured the freshly brewed coffee over it.
Carrying the tray into the living room I found her glancing around the apartment in obvious tension, hands placed neatly on her knees like a soldier at attention. That feline, bewitching face, the vacant charm of those hazy pupils… anticipation for sex with her rose sharply. The fact that she was selling her body under coercion, and the pity that fact had once stirred, both evaporated.
Has my true nature always been this ugly?
Was it from the moment I raped Han Ju-ae, or even earlier when I toyed with Ji-yu? I had begun to regard women lightly. And Song Dahyun’s pitiful determination to offer herself only excited me further.
Hmm… Chaehyang really is strong.
Spending it on one person still felt wasteful; the scent seemed to work on five or even ten women as long as they shared the same space. A suspicion flickered that the Constellation might be deliberately trying to burn through the stock—just as the Chaehyang capsules had been reclaimed.
To ease her tension and give the scent more time to sink into her body, I exchanged light conversation, praising her work and tossing out a little empty boasting.
“Acting genius… pfft, what’s that supposed to mean?”
A flushed face, full lips, pupils that always looked slightly unfocused—everything about her was sexual. She covered her mouth and laughed at my nonsense, then lightly tapped my shoulder. The gesture clearly closed the distance between us.
Time to close in little by little.
“My girlfriend’s a freshman at Dongra University. We ran into seniors Go Hyerim and Jeong Hyeon-jin by chance at the Stella Hotel café. They told her to try acting in the hotel room, and both of them called her a genius… well, it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“I’ll believe you. And I trust Director Ahn Jeongeun’s eye as well.”
“Haha. Yeah.”
That face is pure envy…
Whether she envied Hye-yun for attending Dongra University or for being called an acting genius, a quiet loneliness settled over Dahyun’s features. Her eyes still stared with open longing.
I edged closer while she sipped her coffee. The fifty centimeters between us shrank to ten in those few moments. Whether she noticed or not, she took another sip, then speared a piece of castella with her fork.
Chew, chew.
Those full red lips grew even more pronounced. I closed the final ten centimeters. Her slender thigh brushed mine. At 171 cm she was fairly tall, and her legs looked especially long.
She flinched.
“Cough—cough…”
She must have swallowed wrong; she gulped coffee in a hurry. Yet she did not pull away. Color simply climbed from her nape upward.
Just go for it?
When I had only seen her on screen I had thought, as a human being, that this was wrong. Facing Song Dahyun in the flesh, I wanted her. And with Chaehyang already flooding the air, the meal was already set on the table.
“You came prepared for this, right?”
She hurriedly set the castella down and kept gulping coffee as though her throat were blocked. Her face was burning; panic was written all over it.
“Th-that… yes. In the underground parking lot I left Song Dahyun the woman behind for the last time. I mean it.”
She fixed me with an unexpectedly resolute look, then, as if shy, turned her head away again. The urge to paint that feline, bewitching face with my own color surged up hard.
I’ve been strange lately. Ever since I raped Ju-ae?
It might be rude to think such things with Song Dahyun right in front of me, yet I carefully managed my expression. From Ji-yu onward, and especially when I raped Hyeong-cheol’s mother Ju-ae, something inside me had come unlatched. I was certain of it now. I wanted to take the woman before me by force if necessary and make her my slave.
Chaehyang makes it easy, but still…
“It’s not easy for me either, you know. Sleeping with a woman I don’t know—well, I’m a fan, but still a stranger—feels a bit off. I’ve been wrestling with it a lot.”
Half apology, half heavy hesitation. The nuance was clear: You may have decided, but I haven’t.
She looked desperate. The will to appear in Ahn Jeongeun’s film by any means was plain. Using that desperation felt ugly, yet a strange, exquisite pleasure rose with it.
“What…? You’re not going to do it?”
“I was still deciding. But now that you’ve made up your mind, it’s hard to refuse.”
I pushed the apology to ninety percent, the hesitation to ten. I could see Dahyun visibly shaken.
“Ah… th-that is…”
Her lips moved, yet she could not bring herself to say “please have sex with me.” How easy was it for a virgin to beg a man she had just met for sex? Women like Ahn Jeongeun were the exception.
Watching Song Dahyun fidget filled me with a peculiar thrill. Was I truly a sadist?
I let out a long sigh, opened the balcony sash, sipped coffee, and sighed again.
“Then why did you come closer? You clearly approached first and pressed right up against me.”
A reproachful voice. The goodwill that Chaehyang had been building seemed to freeze or even reverse; resentment colored her tone. From behind me came the sound of Dahyun on the verge of tears.
A flicker of guilt made me turn. I knew my words and actions no longer matched. I had closed the distance, and I had spoken as though we would sleep together.
“I thought if you said that you’d just leave.”
“I… I can’t leave. I don’t even have an agency. I think this is my last chance.”
Yes, Kim Ian. Song Dahyun will in fact retire soon, marry a senior from school a year later, and live as a housewife. That desperate claim is no lie, so please do not torment her too much. This is my personal advice, not the Constellation’s. Use Purification once and clear your head.
…All right.
At Jini’s quiet counsel I cast Purification. My mind cleared and the sadistic urge toward her lessened a little—yet it remained.
This is my nature. The latch really did come off with the rape.
I had already committed rape, blackmail, and worse more than once; remaining normal would have been stranger. That would make me a true psychopath or sociopath.
“I’ll be honest. Sex for work? Yes, possible. Beyond that, I don’t see women as women.”
The night view of the Han River. Car lights on the bridge, the bridge lights themselves—so beautiful they clashed with the atmosphere inside this room.
“What? If you don’t see women as women… are you gay?”
What? Ah…
Could my words be taken that way? Looking back, saying I could have sex for work yet did not see women as women left room for misunderstanding.
“No, not that. I mean I see women as sex slaves. Any woman who sleeps with me has to declare herself my slave. All of my women have made that declaration.”
“What? Slave?!”
A cry of pure shock, enormous in volume.
I nodded, still gazing at the Han River, drained the coffee, and nodded again.
“It’s just a formality. You kneel in dogeza—no, simply bow—state my name and your own, and say ‘I am your slave.’ That’s all. I don’t actually treat anyone like a slave after that.”
“…That’s all it takes?”
She must have imagined genuine slavery; after a brief pause Dahyun’s voice returned, sounding somewhat relieved. After all, it was only the words “I am your slave.”
“Yes. Hearing those words just thrills me.”
“You won’t… order me around, or cling after the film ends?”
“Of course not. I respect my women’s free will. I’ve told them they can leave whenever they want.”
Whether any of them would ever want to leave was another question, but if one insisted, what could I do? Hye-yun or A-jeong, whom I would meet on the 17th, I would probably cling to if they tried to go—they were wives. Yet because I had ranked the others as concubines, if Hyeon-ju or Jeong-mi or Eun-hee said they were leaving I felt I could let them go without regret.
Hypocrisy, of course… I know perfectly well they can never leave.
Reason said one thing; the unconscious already knew they would never go.
“I’ll do it. The slave declaration.”
Song Dahyun’s voice reached me and I smiled thinly. She could not see it, yet for a moment I felt like a spider who had just watched a pitiful butterfly fly into the web.
“You have to do it naked. I’ll give you about five minutes. Finish preparing and kneel. If you’re not ready when I turn around, I’ll take it that you have no intention.”
“What…? Naked… yes… sob… yes…”
The coffee tasted unusually bitter. Aware that my personality was changing, my mind grew complicated; guilt rose and faded in cycles. Casting Purification again produced no effect.
I no longer felt like myself.
Yet by the time the cup was empty those conflicts and worries had weakened considerably. The desire to obtain Song Dahyun only grew stronger.
My true nature?
I called for Jini or the Constellation, but after the earlier exchange there was no reply. Behind me came the sound of clothes being removed and soft weeping; I kept twitching as if to lift my head, half disgusted with myself, half feeling the lust swell.
Do I have to accept that this is the kind of man I am?
Thinking carefully, ever since meeting Hye-yun—or rather ever since dreaming of Grandfather—I had known a deep reckoning would one day be necessary. The me before and the me after were different; the me before the Three Kingdoms World and the me after were different. Especially from the moment I deceived and toyed with Lee Ji-yu and then Han Ju-ae, the change had accelerated. I should have faced these questions during the years I spent in the Three Kingdoms World when time was plentiful, yet I had been a child then and something like regression had occurred.
“Sob…”
The weeping behind me grew louder. For now I would settle the matter of Song Dahyun who stood before me, then organize my thoughts by the 17th when I met A-jeong. If I continued without reflection, the confusion over what my self even was would only maximize.
I set the empty cup on the balcony table, walked backward into the living room, and closed the window. With the road noise shut out, silence filled the room; only Dahyun’s muffled sobs remained.