???-Class Hunter — Jeon Somin: Succubus (1)
Taejin thought to himself.
Why is she here?
The exhibitionist he'd seen just a few days ago was standing right beside him — and this time, fully dressed?
That was the strangest part of all.
Didn't exhibitionists usually hide their identities?
Still, Taejin had a rough idea why she was doing this.
Because even if she shows up, there's nothing I can do about it.
How exactly was he supposed to report her? Sure, he could — but he had no intention of gambling with his own life.
So Taejin took the light she offered, then drew the smoke in deep.
"Hss—"
A faint clarity settled over his head as he exhaled a stream of cigarette smoke. Looking at the exhibitionist beaming beside him, he smiled and said,
"Thanks for the light. Nice to meet you for the first time. You're very kind."
Why say "nice to meet you for the first time"?
He'd be honest about it.
He didn't want to acknowledge her.
No — he just wanted to walk past her like a complete stranger.
Yes, he was sleeping with Hunters left and right, but he had zero desire to get tangled up with someone who looked this dangerous at a glance.
After all, the skill to appear behind him the moment he closed and opened his eyes was not something any ordinary Hunter could pull off.
So he simply rewrote her in his mind as someone he didn't know.
Please. I didn't say anything. I don't know anything. Just leave — that was the message.
Framed that way, Taejin's reasoning almost sounded rational. There was just one thing he hadn't accounted for.
"You don't remember me~? Oppa, that's so mean~"
Reika was extremely interested in Taejin.
Which meant every last bit of his effort had been completely wasted.
"No, uh..."
Why won't you just play along and pretend you don't know me?
He desperately wanted to ask — but one look at her eyes, which had gone a shade darker, told him that saying it out loud would get him thoroughly screwed. So he pivoted fast.
"I just... didn't know what to call you..."
The excuse he'd scrambled together seemed, surprisingly, to please the exhibitionist in front of him.
"Just call me Reika~ Nice and easy."
"Re... Reika-ssi?"
"A little too stiff, don't you think~?"
"...Reika."
Apparently satisfied, she grinned with a little heehee of a smile.
"Good boy. Taejin oppa♥"
—A chill ran through him!
At her words, Taejin's entire body went rigid, a shudder of pure dread rippling through him.
H-how does she know my name?
For the record, the security guards' names were not public information.
The only people who knew his name were a handful of residents in the apartment complex.
He hadn't exactly gone around introducing himself either, which made it worse.
So if she knew his name — what was he supposed to think?
Obviously either a stalker, or someone who'd gotten hold of his personal information somehow.
Either way, the goosebumps were inevitable.
Taejin swallowed hard, cold sweat beading on his skin.
Watching him, Reika laughed like she was having the time of her life.
From that alone, Taejin could tell the woman in front of him had some seriously twisted tastes.
She could plainly see how uncomfortable he looked — and she was still laughing like that.
Anyway, while Taejin sat there wound tight—
"No need to be so tense, oppa~"
—she kept smiling brightly as she spoke.
"I wasn't stalking you or anything. I just overheard a tiiiny bit of what other people were saying~"
Isn't that basically the same thing?
Taejin did not say that unsexy line out loud.
...Because there was no telling what this terrifying woman would do if he did.
Instead, he asked something else.
"...So, uh. Is there something you want from me?"
Honestly — why was this woman paying him so much attention?
Taejin had one guess.
Don't tell me... the app?
But at the same time, a strong conviction told him that couldn't be it.
He hadn't mentioned it to a single soul, and he'd always been extremely careful whenever he looked at it.
So it was more reasonable to assume there was something else.
Which was why Taejin cut straight to the point.
At his words, Reika looked intrigued all over again.
"Plenty of fear, but not easily broken. Full of curiosity, but knows how to hold back..."
Taejin wondered if she was talking about him.
Listening to it, it almost sounded like she was insulting him and praising him at the same time.
Regardless of how he felt about it, she seemed to mull something over, trailing off — then,
"Mm. You're a fascinating man after all, oppa."
Taejin absolutely did not ask why.
Instead—
"Yeah, I guess I'm a little like that."
—he sucked cigarette smoke into his mouth with trembling hands.
As the cigarette burned down, so did his insides.
Shit. Should I have just kept my mouth shut?
A brief silence stretched between them.
"Pffft—you really are fun."
Apparently his answer had amused her. She cackled and thumped him hard on the shoulder.
Ow!
For the record, it hurt like hell.
This woman was ridiculously strong.
The one silver lining: there was no killing intent or irritation directed at him.
So he laughed it off with a hollow haha, pretending it didn't hurt, and after a moment—
"I did say I'd give you a reward the next time we met, didn't I~?"
—she brought up something he had absolutely zero interest in.
No. He didn't need it.
...The words nearly slipped out again, but he couldn't even imagine what would happen if he said them, so he just shut his mouth. Watching him, Reika laughed and continued,
"You're so excited you can't even speak, huh? Heheh. Since you're looking forward to it that much, I'll have to give you a premium gift."
She said it, then made a little dum-dum-dum-dum! drumroll with her mouth — and suddenly shoved her face right up to his ear.
For a split second Taejin thought she was about to give him a peck on the cheek.
"Today Cha Dohui's panties and bra are white and red, respectively~"
"Eh?"
What came out of her mouth, astonishingly, was the underwear colors of the most famous woman in the entire country of Korea.
"Wait. What are you even...?"
Completely blindsided, Taejin muttered in a daze. Reika flashed a mischievous little smile.
"Well then — see you next time, Taejin oppa~"
He watched her wave goodbye, blinked once—
"Huh—"
—and she was gone.
As if the entire conversation had been with a ghost rather than a human being.
At the word ghost, Taejin's body gave a brief, involuntary shiver.
Then... Cha Dohui's underwear colors too?
Oh boy.
If a ghost said it, that almost made it more reliable, didn't it? He thought about it seriously while chain-smoking right there on the spot.
Because if he didn't, he wasn't sure he could hold it together.
After smoking for a long, long time, Taejin finally managed to head back into the dormitory.
Meanwhile, someone had been watching Taejin as he somehow shook off the tension and headed home.
Or rather—
"He really is a fun oppa~"
Reika watched him go, smiling to herself.
Of course she was.
He was the one person making her otherwise boring life in Korea interesting.
I was originally going to appear naked as a surprise~ But it suddenly got so cold, hiiing~
She'd planned to show up in front of Taejin naked again, just like last time.
The reason she hadn't was this unimaginable cold.
Just a few days ago the weather had been warm enough for Reika to walk around naked without a problem. Now the snow was falling so heavily that if you skipped sweeping for even a day, everything got buried.
It's basically the same as Hokkaido in Japan.
Thanks to that, Reika's surprise event for Taejin had failed.
Still, his reaction had been good enough that she didn't mind too much.
On the surface he seems like a meek little everyman who can barely assert himself — but somehow, in the critical moments, his instincts kick right in~
You could argue that any ordinary citizen ought to have at least that much street smarts, but what he had was closer to pure instinct.
The ability to predict how someone would react to whatever you said next.
Taejin had tried to hide it, of course — but his expressions were an open book to Reika.
Naturally. She was the head of an assassination organization.
In a world of betrayal and slaughter, reading faces was the bare minimum.
And in that regard, this man named Taejin was even more special.
People with instincts that sharp were rare.
Street smarts usually developed according to the life a person had lived.
So someone who seemed perfectly ordinary most of the time — then suddenly sharpened the moment a person who triggered those instincts started talking to him — was almost unheard of.
Street smarts grew gradually with environment, after all.
Thanks to that, Reika hadn't felt particularly uncomfortable talking to him.
If anything, she'd enjoyed it.
I wonder what he'll show me next.
For a while, at least, Reika would keep watching Taejin.
More precisely—
Ahh, I hope the deployment gets delayed a little~
—until she had to go hunting for that Outer God, or whatever it was called.
Meanwhile, at that same hour—
In a room where sunlight barely reached, a woman buried under her blankets stirred and sat up.
"Uuuugh..."
As she pushed herself upright, things that did not belong on a human body were growing from various places across her frame.
"W-why is my body like this...?"
Specifically: a tail, horns, and even a pair of small wings.
If you had to put a name to it — a woman whose appearance resembled a demon, and among demons, a succubus.
No.
"Hic... I'm scared..."
Jeon Somin muttered to herself, locked alone in her room.
Trembling at the thought that someone might see her like this.