Emily. Why Is Michael Here?!
Organizing traits. General traits [Acting 10 … Divine Power 12], Unique traits [Divine Archer 6, Heavenly Brush 5, Huo Qubing’s Bow 5]
KLMA 01118 Universe — Earth, Seoul. Return complete. A-Mart usage is restricted. Time will begin flowing soon. Exercise caution.
I watched Jeong-mi disappear into the master bedroom.
And in my arms, Hye-yun was nestled close.
Seeing her freeze there in a daze filled me with such overwhelming joy. Her scent—the one I had missed to the point of madness—satisfied every breath I took. Her soft body against mine. I wished this moment could last forever.
Come to think of it, I should release a clone soon, too.
Revenge. The idea of taming someone through pain with a clone didn’t sound half bad.
So I planned to use the clone technique on the fourth floor for a moment, hand over a card, and rent a room near Independence Gate.
Soon Hye-yun’s breathing reached me. Her sweet exhalations tickled my skin.
“Should we just clear out of the house for a bit?”
Back then, Hye-yun and I had been completely obsessed with sex and nothing else.
I wanted to empty the house so Jeong-mi could train the bitches more easily, and enjoy a short date with Hye-yun in the meantime.
“Hm? From your room?”
“No. Want to walk around Yeonseo University? We’ve got about three or four hours until Hyeon-ju and the others arrive.”
Hye-yun’s face lit up with a bright smile. She nodded eagerly, clearly delighted.
“Yes!!! I want to link arms with you and walk around your school—and later mine, too.”
“Alright. There won’t be many students around right now, but the campus is right next door. Let’s stroll around like a campus couple before you get famous.”
“Campus couple? Okay.”
She beamed at the words “campus couple.”
My own heart pounded just saying it.
“Then I’ll head to the fourth floor and find some clothes. White tee and jeans… no, beige cotton pants.”
I’d told myself to throw the jeans away, yet I’d unconsciously kept them.
Jeans were no longer wearable for someone with my size. The pain when I got hard was simply too much.
“Okay. I’ll wash up and come out too. Hehe. So this is our first date?”
I nodded.
That smile of hers—the one I’d missed so desperately.
Even if it was a goofy, wide-open grin.
Hye-yun wore that foolishly happy expression for a moment just from hearing the words, then slipped straight into the bathroom.
I watched her for a second longer, left a text for Jeong-mi, and headed down to my room on the fourth floor.
I called up Yu Ji and Xiang Yu’s forms in the transformation slots.
In this world, Xiang Yu’s body still remained in the slots. Even while listening to the explanations earlier I’d half expected it, but here the clone count was [0/2], and Xiang Yu’s slot was fully intact.
I already knew how to use the soul-summoning circle and soul stones the Constellation had given me—I’d just used them.
Later. Xiang Yu isn’t urgent right now.
Yu Ji’s body could be used for summoning the same way later, but right now I had a better use for it.
A public bathhouse. Going to one with Hye-yun sounded perfect.
I dug through my bag, pulled out an unused wallet, and loaded it with cash and a debit card.
Then I stripped completely and took out clothes and shoes that would fit the body I was about to transform into.
Transformation Slot 7: Beast Man
Because it was a form stored in the slot, five percent of my stamina drained away and I felt my eye level rise slightly.
Immediately I cast the clone technique.
In an instant, Beast Man Number 7 appeared beside me with a blank expression.
Thought Division.
Thought Transfer.
I’d handled clones often enough now that the process finished quickly. The beast man opened his eyes.
I switched back to my original body—Slot 3—then looked at him and gave the order.
“You know modern civilization, right?”
“Of course. I copied Master’s thoughts exactly.”
I smirked at the guy, then ordered him to get dressed.
“Get dressed. Once I leave, there’s a card in that wallet over there. Move. There are plenty of one-room places near Independence Gate Elementary. Rent a cheap one. ID… it’s a waste, but—”
I handed him one of the three identity-creation scrolls I’d received from the Constellation.
“Tear it once I’m gone. You know the target?”
“Yes. Gi-hun’s mother.”
I nodded.
He already had all my memories, so he’d recognize her the moment he saw her.
Gi-hun lived in Mirae Apartments, so of course his mother lived there too.
“And these—two Chaehyang capsules. Twenty depilation talismans, twenty coloring talismans, twenty Hoechunbu. Absolute Obedience Contract won’t work and semen has no effect, so manage her like this for now.”
“Yes.”
I pulled an empty medicine box from subspace, dropped the two Chaehyang capsules inside, then summoned the talismans by number from subspace and handed them over.
The clone grinned, accepted them, and set them on the desk.
I pulled on a white tee and beige cotton pants, then clapped him on the shoulder.
“Good. Make her so addicted to your cock that she’d die if you told her to.”
“Yes.”
“Once I leave, be careful and get out right away.”
He nodded.
“You can use the tuition money I saved for the room deposit. Got it?”
Another nod.
Anything more would just be nagging, so I put the jumper back on and left the room, heading up to the fifth floor.
Just before entering Hye-yun’s house, Jini’s voice brushed my mind.
My head spun for a second.
The clone had actually requested a Double Penis. I snorted and granted it.
White tee and cotton pants.
She’d matched me in a couple look—white tee and beige cotton pants of her own.
Only difference: I wore a jumper, she a black coat.
Hye-yun linked her arm through mine and rested her head against me.
The moment we stepped out of the villa we passed Yeonseo University’s east gate and walked side by side up the gently sloping hill.
“Honey, even though I live right here, I haven’t come to Yeonseo University much.”
“Hm? Why not?”
“Osung Arts High is pretty intense. In middle school the commute was long, so I never had free time.”
“Arts high, huh. Did you do a lot of theater?”
Hye-yun’s dream was to be an actress.
She wouldn’t have gone the arts-high-to-theater-and-film-department route without talent.
I’d never seen her act even once, so I had no idea how good she was, but the Acting trait definitely existed.
Level 4. A little disappointing, but still.
If I used the Professor 5 level I’d gotten from Go Sun, I could guide her further.
“Yeah. Because it’s a high school sponsored by the Osung Group, big-name actors came often and taught us a lot. The teachers’ pride is insane. They say even after you go to university, almost no school can teach the way our high school does.”
“Ah… I’ve heard of it. Osung Arts High.”
Osung Arts High near Hongdae only accepted a hundred students a year.
In practice the competition was fiercer than Seoul Arts High.
The acting class usually took fewer than twenty a year, so they must have valued Hye-yun’s looks and talent highly.
“Hehe. Honey, I never even acted before entering high school. In third year of middle school I saw Senior Hye-rim and decided I wanted to be an actress, so I just submitted the application… and I passed the interview.”
“What? That’s possible?”
“Yeah. The interview was a week-long boarding camp. Like a survival show.”
“So they picked you for potential?”
“Yeah. Teacher Seo Su-jin strongly recommended me, apparently.”
A veteran actress in her sixties. Seo Su-jin?
She’d only ever played supporting roles from her youth, then at some point became the go-to mother and grandmother actress.
Her acting ability never seemed that special to me.
Even when I’d been a complete outsider to acting, and even now that I had the Acting trait, that opinion hadn’t changed.
Hye-yun’s looks had probably played a big part.
I couldn’t say it out loud, but her face was the kind that could star in a high-teen or youth drama and become a star even if her acting was wooden.
“Impressive. Catching the eye of a senior like that. Did your acting improve a lot in high school?”
“Yeah. The teachers were dissatisfied in first year, but by third year they said my growth speed was fast. That they had expectations. It’s embarrassing to say it myself, but… hehe.”
She said she grew to Level 8, right? Yeong-ho called Level 9 the talent of a great actor.
Having Level 9 from the start would be ideal, but building talent from the bottom through theory and practice wasn’t bad either.
A sudden question rose.
Was it possible for talent to form through pure effort alone, without something like Instructor or Professor?
It is possible. Cases where talent is generated through effort alone are limited to Level 1, just like talent created through Instructor. The few actors who claim they became great through pure effort were all born with at least Level 1 talent. Compared to those around them with higher talent, they simply believed they had none.
Ah…
Come to think of it, there had been an actress in the nineties whose looks were on Hye-yun’s level, yet no matter how many lead roles she took, her acting never improved.
In the end she only shot commercial after commercial, and fans made the bizarre claim that her beauty buried her acting.
Thinking of her, it made sense.
Even in documentaries she supposedly thought about acting and practiced all day long, yet she never escaped wooden performances.
Once she passed thirty and the commercials dried up, she married and vanished from the entertainment industry.
“Do you have the confidence to become a top star?”
“Yeah. Meeting you seems to have stabilized my heart. I’ve been looking at scripts for a few days and my acting’s gotten even better.”
Hm?
What did that mean?
Her acting had grown in just a few days?
Did I not tell you not to worry before? What blocked her talent growth was Oh Jeong-mi—no, the lust ghost. After falling in love with you, the range of her emotional acting expanded dramatically. She currently holds Acting trait Level 6.
If you don’t know love, does your acting not grow?
That seemed possible.
If she’d never experienced love and still tried to act, she wouldn’t have been able to properly perform love stories—even tragedies like Romeo and Juliet that centered on romance.
Knowing I’d helped her growth made me truly happy.
That emotion must have shown on my face, because she studied me and grew even happier.
“I’m glad. I was worried meeting me might have gotten in the way.”
“Don’t say that. I’m not lying—when I read scripts the emotions come alive even more.”
“I know. You don’t lie. It’s written all over your eyes.”
She fell silent and leaned against my arm again.
To the left, school buildings came into view. The recently built International Hall, it seemed—a few foreigners were visible. To the right, the slopes of Ansan.
Ansan.
Come to think of it, I’d lived right on the Ansan foothills myself and still barely visited Yeonseo University.
If I’d just enjoyed hiking, I would have stopped by to rest now and then.
“Hye-yun, we really lived close. This Ansan—my old apartment was right on the Ansan foothills too. Your villa’s just a short climb up to Ansan as well.”
“Yeah. If I’d met you earlier and gotten rid of Mom’s ak-gwi, we could have dated since middle school. It’s a shame.”
That wasn’t true.
Back then I couldn’t even see ak-gwi, let alone deal with them.
With the vitality I felt through the clone, if I’d only dated Hye-yun I might have addicted her…
But then my relationship with Oh Jeong-mi would have been the worst possible.
“True. Until recently I didn’t have the ability to deal with them. I could only see ghosts.”
“Really? That must have been scary.”
“Well. I can control whether I see them or not.”
“Are there any ghosts here?”
“Hm?”
Soul Eyes.
I swept the surroundings. Fortunately, neither Ansan nor the school nor the people walking by showed any ghosts.
I was about to look at Hye-yun and shake my head when I spotted an intense red light coming from the International Dormitory.
Hm? An ak-gwi? …It looks bigger than Jeong-mi’s lust ghost.
Compared to ordinary souls, Jeong-mi’s lust ghost had been about 1.5 times larger.
This one looked nearly twice the size of ordinary ghosts, and it was lodged in a black man’s body.
Beside him, a platinum-blonde white woman carried a red lust ghost of her own.
At least that one was about the size of ordinary ghosts, perched on her shoulder with its mouth to her ear.
Completely taken over by an ak-gwi?
But looking closer, the face shape felt familiar.
“That black guy over there—isn’t that Michael?”
“Huh? Really!! Michael…”
“Hye-yun, turn your head. It looks like he’s being dominated by an ak-gwi.”
Michael’s soul wasn’t human-shaped.
Fortunately our eyes hadn’t met yet, but when I examined it carefully the form was truly grotesque.
A bull’s head on a human body.
A red bull? Why red?
He is not being dominated by an ak-gwi. He was born as an Incubauros race. Pasiphaë, cursed by Poseidon, coupled with a bull and gave birth to the Minotaur. That Minotaur then coupled with a succubus and produced a new half-spirit race. Children of Incubauros are born with Incubauros souls if male, and half-succubus souls if female.
Complicated talk. I knew Poseidon, but Pasiphaë? Coupling with a bull?
I knew the Minotaur—the bull-headed monster.
Simply put, the Minotaur had coupled with a succubus and created a new race.
There were other races in this world?
When parallel dimensions are created, gods are not copied. Demons and angels above a certain grade are the same. However, Incubauros fall below the threshold, so they were copied and live in this world. Yokai are the same. Now that it is a complete human world, they hide their identities and live among you.
But the guy spotted us and started walking this way.
Even on the stairs he kept watching us… the platinum-blonde woman had her arm locked tightly through his.
Why? Does he know Hye-yun? Summon.
I summoned the wall-wood dagger into my pocket and tightened my grip on Hye-yun’s arm.
“Hey guy. Come on.”
“Me?”
Michael climbed the stairs onto the sidewalk and gestured at me. Guy? It didn’t seem like Hye-yun was the target.
“Okay.”
“Honey, you said it was an ak-gwi. Let’s just go.”
“It’s fine. If it’s an ak-gwi, it’s nothing to me.”
As we drew closer he looked a bit bigger than in the video.
One-ninety? On top of that, a muscle-pig black man was grinning, white teeth flashing.
“You, Jeong-mi’s daughter. You okay?”
“You’re Michael, right? The one who sent the video.”
“Oh. Yeah. I sent it to deal with the ak-gwi stuck to that woman Jeong-mi. I only hunt women with lust ghosts attached. You took care of it?”
So this guy just wandered around hunting lust ghosts?
But his expression wasn’t bad. He looked proud of me.
“Yeah. But how did you know?”
“I had Sook-ja hide something in Jeong-mi’s house. A lust-ghost monitor.”
“Hmm. So you’re going to eat the lust ghost next to you too?”
“Okay. While watching Jeong-mi I found a hot new one at the language institute here a few days ago. Emily.”
The platinum-blonde white woman. About 170 cm and a beauty.
She approached and held out her hand.
“Kim Ian.”
“Emily. But can you deal with lust ghosts? Ghosts?”
I nodded.
“Hey guy. Show me?”
“Here?”
Michael’s head bobbed.
“I absorb them through sex. Did the same with Sook-ja. Emily’s still a pure virgin. How about it? Don’t tell me you use your cock too?”
Crazy.
Apparently there were all kinds of exorcism methods. Exorcising through sex.
“The lust ghost’s soul will scatter. You okay with that?”
“Okay. Even better.”
Looking closely, the lust ghost on Emily’s shoulder had gone rigid.
I drew the dagger and stabbed straight through the lust ghost’s temple. Emily flinched as the blade thrust.
Soul Devour and Soul Purification activate.
A rush of pleasure hit me, and right in front of my eyes Michael’s soul opened its mouth wide and sucked in the scattering lust-ghost soul.
Crazy.
“Wow. You absorb souls too, dude.”
“You can see souls?”
“Of course. Our family’s been able to see souls for generations.”
Hye-yun kept staring at Emily in silence, clearly wary.
Once the lust ghost was dealt with, Emily’s face cleared and she stepped toward me.
“It’s true. I feel clear-headed.”
“Excuse me. I need to treat you.”
Seeing the faint red still lingering in Emily’s soul, I approached and placed my hand on her head.
Emily’s face flushed bright red.
Soul Purification.
My hand glowed, and in an instant Emily’s soul blazed with light before purifying pure white.
At that moment Emily’s eyes went unfocused and her mouth fell open as if she’d climaxed, a moan escaping.
“Haaang!!”
“Wow. Maybe me too?”
Michael shoved his head forward.
When I lifted my hand from Emily’s crown, she glanced at Hye-yun for cues.
“I’m this man’s wife.”
Hye-yun linked her arm through mine and pressed close.
Emily’s face fell with disappointment.
“Honey, just a second.”
“Okay.”
But Hye-yun briefly unlinked her arm, approached Emily, and dragged her off into the distance.
Michael’s head still thrust toward me.
Up close the grotesque bull-headed form was even clearer.
Will this be okay?
It is fine. Incubauros are born with pure white souls. That family targets lust ghosts with their perverted tendencies, so absorbing them has clouded the soul.
I had no choice. I placed my hand on Michael’s head and cast Soul Purification once more.
Soul Purification.
Flash.
The bull-headed soul blazed, and white waves spread from the crown downward.
The soul purified in an instant.
“Whoa… what is this? Dude. Can you come to America?”
“Why?”
“My father…”
Michael’s desperate eyes.
His father would also be Incubauros, and if he’d only hunted lust ghosts his soul state wouldn’t be normal either.
“The stamina cost is heavy. I can’t do it often in one day. About two people a day is the limit.”
“Okay. Just Father and my two little sisters. The sisters are pure virgins. You take them and live with them. They’re pretty.”
“Crazy.”
“Hmm, you can see my spirit form, right?”
I nodded.
I still didn’t understand how the conclusion had become me living with Michael’s sisters.
Michael bowed his head again, showing me the bull head once more.
“They’re downgraded succubi. After their first time they can’t handle the lust. Not unless it’s someone with power like you. And you only need to purify Father. If you do his women too, even better.”
I hesitated. America wasn’t a distance you casually hopped over like the next neighborhood.
Once the semester started I probably wouldn’t have free time either.
As I fell into thought, Michael pressed even closer.
“Ian? Please. Come to America…”
But the schedule probably won’t work.
Kim Ian, you must go to LA, America on the 19th anyway. Accept. You are going this month.
“Alright. I’m going to America mid-month anyway. Where do you live?”
“LA, Beverly Hills. How many days?”
You board the plane on the 19th.
“I leave on the 19th. Back March 1st.”
“Okay. I’ll go ahead and get ready. I’ll text you the email, so send your arrival time. I’ll come pick you up.”
“Alright.”
I nodded.
Michael pulled me into a hug. Surprisingly simple and pure.
“But why’d you film the video?”
He grinned.
“Leaving a trail as a video file, you know. It’s the 21st century. Lust ghosts go into heat when they see my sex scenes. And if an electronic device with the file is nearby, it also monitors lust ghosts. Two birds with one stone.”
“Crazy.”
No wonder Jeong-mi had looked ready to fall for Michael.
It wasn’t Jeong-mi—the lust ghost itself had gone into heat.
I smirked.
Michael grinned back and held out his phone.
I typed in my number; he called to confirm my phone rang, then hung up.
“Then I’m off to soothe my women. Gotta purify them with my sex ASAP. Now that you’re around, even if my soul gets cloudy it doesn’t matter, so I’ll work even harder.”
Michael shook my hand and started to leave. Emily?
“You’re not taking Emily?”
“Emily’s yours. She’s a pure virgin, so enjoy her.”
I stared blankly at Michael as he casually declared Emily mine.
He snorted and stepped closer again.
“Hm?”
“You didn’t know? When you deal with a lust ghost, favorability slowly rises. Then if you have sex—boom!!! It’s over. Especially if they get fucked by a huge cock like yours or mine, they become slaves. You take their assets too. Heh heh.”
Michael cupped his hands like an explosion, shouted “Boom,” and laughed lewdly while eyeing my crotch once.
He waved and left. When I turned around I saw Emily bowing at a perfect ninety degrees to Hye-yun, and Hye-yun gently stroking her hair.
Ha… this easy?
I pictured Emily’s beautiful face and walked toward them.