Chapter 14
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 14
Chapter Title: Recruiting a Master!
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Recruiting a Master!
Yoo Narae had long stood on a truly agonizing fault line, caught between the instincts of a wolf craving a pack and the human fastidiousness that shunned people.
She always said she suffered on that borderline.
And on top of that, she wasn't just any beastkin.
As the granddaughter of the Hunter Association Korea Branch Chief—the practical pinnacle of power in the organization—she was a "rescued existence."
The Branch Chief never pressured her at all and was endlessly kind to Narae.
But it seemed that very kindness had become an even heavier burden.
It weighed on her.
To avoid betraying those expectations, she had desperately tried to cultivate some social skills.
She applied to countless guilds and knocked on innumerable doors.
But what came back was disappointment and despair.
On the surface, polite smiles, but those eyes looked at her not as a "beastkin," but as if observing the silhouette of a transparent, walking monster.
Some had even labeled her a monster outright and attempted to assassinate her mid-dungeon.
That was the day it happened.
Narae insisted it was self-defense, but in the end... she had killed a person.
"It was two months ago. Some hunters unusually took the initiative to form a party with me. Of course, their scent was suspicious, but... I held back. Really hard. Then inside the dungeon, they attacked first, and I barely subdued them... but one of them, I accidentally killed."
"I see. That must have been difficult."
"Grandma pulled strings to smooth it over as self-defense, but after that, the atmosphere at the Association got even worse. People whisper whenever they see me, and the beast-like stares got thicker."
Society doesn't wait.
Whether she's human, beastkin, or monster—it doesn't matter.
Time flows on, and Narae is now in her mid-twenties.
The age to hide behind her parents is gone, and the time to get by on excuses has long passed.
But she couldn't exactly mingle with those who only saw her as a "beast," either.
In that narrow gap, she began to wonder if maybe she really wasn't human at all... and her PTSD reached its breaking point.
Then the incident happened.
On that suffocating day, she tore off the clothes she was wearing right there on the roadside.
In the middle of the city, naked.
The wildness she usually suppressed... exploded that day.
And astonishingly, she confessed that in that moment, alongside the shame, she felt an incredible sense of liberation.
"It was weirdly amazing, just so good. It was just a moment, but... it felt like something clicked and released?"
I knew intuitively.
Exhibitionistic Disorder.
In psychiatric terms, a paraphilic disorder accompanied by "recurrent, uninhibited urges" and "severe impairment in social functioning."
But this was a little different.
'For a normal human, this would definitely be a pathological symptom. But Yoo Narae isn't human—she's a beastkin... a canine, pack-forming carnivorous beastkin.'
For her, "wearing clothes" was just a human cultural norm distant from her original instincts.
The liberation from being naked was far more likely a temporary awakening of suppressed instincts than simple exhibitionism.
"And... lately, it's gotten even stranger. Something keeps boiling up inside... like an unbearable heat?"
"Could you describe that feeling a bit more precisely?"
"Well... like a pot about to explode? I get angry for no reason, and I just... want to do something. The other dawn, I snuck out to the mansion yard and ran into a wild boar up on the mountain."
She said that after her first exposure, she roamed the mansion yard naked every night, chasing that sense of liberation.
Like a wild wolf.
The maids and the Branch Chief already knew but pretended not to, quietly covering for her.
Then yesterday dawn.
That night, something "boiled up" inside her.
All the stares she'd endured, the time surviving without dying through adaptation, and the wolf blood crying out for the hunt.
When she came to, the wild boar was already torn to shreds.
"I saw that boar carcass on my way here... the bones and flesh were almost cleanly separated."
"Y-You saw that too?! Ah... so embarrassing..."
Narae suddenly flushed red and covered her cheeks with both hands.
Why is butchering a wild boar embarrassing?
While I sat there stunned, she wagged her tail slightly and grinned broadly.
Something... felt terribly off. It wasn't just shame.
That reaction looked more like a conditioned response to pleasure mixed with stimulation.
I took a deep breath and reorganized my mental diagnosis.
At this point, Yoo Narae was dealing with...
1. Complex PTSD from years of persistent discrimination.
2. Resulting repetitive dissociative exposure behaviors.
3. Gradually externalizing distrust of others and suppressed anger.
And now...
4. Edging closer to impulse control disorder.
Honestly, I was anxious.
'If I'd met her before she killed that person two months ago... at least it might have stopped at mere exposure urges.'
Even as we talked, Narae's fingertips kept oddly brushing her lower abdomen.
Upper thigh line, around the lower belly.
More specifically... the area above her genitals.
"You've seemed uncomfortable for a while now... Is something bothering you?"
"Ah... yeah. Around this time, it gets kinda hot down here? Sensitive, I guess. Makes me irritable for no reason..."
She withdrew her hand and smiled as if it were nothing, but one word had already crystallized in my mind.
Heat cycle.
I swallowed hard.
'The puzzle pieces all fit.'
Life as a beastkin, attempts to adapt as a human, repeated discrimination and rejection, betrayal by comrades two months ago and the bloody self-defense, and the liberation from "undressing" first felt in that moment.
It wasn't mere exposure impulse.
For her, it was an instinctive means to affirm her own existence.
But the timing was the problem.
It perfectly overlapped with the beastkin's breeding season.
'Is this good luck... or are things really falling apart now?'
The issue was that she herself had no awareness of her condition.
'Just feels hot.'
'Weirdly angry.'
That's how Narae put it, but precisely, this was the initial arousal response of sexual impulses and mating instincts.
'But telling her that now would only break her.'
She was clinging to society's threshold with her toes to avoid becoming a monster.
Piling "You're in heat right now" on that fragile self-esteem?
Identity dissolution.
Faced with the fact that human reason had lost to base animal instinct, she'd plummet straight to rock bottom.
'This needs delicate handling.'
Even now, her instincts were swelling to burst.
On the surface, suppressed.
But her body was speaking.
Unconscious rubbing between her legs.
Covering exposed skin with her hands, only making it more prominent.
And the most dangerous moment.
Her hazy, unfocused gaze toward me.
Gulp...
Fortunately, she was still projecting that rage onto external stimuli like the wild boar... but the question was how long that would last.
And above all, she was doing it unconsciously.
If this deepened, the next target could easily be someone else in this mansion.
For example... the maids.
Or right now.
Me, sitting right in front of her, was plenty at risk of becoming a victim.
So.
I needed to treat her as quickly as possible.
"Narae, earlier you asked me to... become your 'Master.' What exactly did you mean by that?"
"...?! Th-That was...!"
The moment my question ended, her ears perked up, tail flicked.
Startled by her own slip, she frantically shook her head, pretending ignorance.
But it was too late.
From that one phrase, I'd realized the root way to heal her condition.
When I asked again, she hesitated, then looked up at me—her frame much smaller than mine—wagging her tail, ears flushing, and cautiously spoke.
"I... can feel my body's state to some extent. Even now, I'm forcing it down... I don't know when I might snap again, like that time on the roadside, stripping and screaming... So... I thought I needed someone to control me."
"So... you were looking for a 'Master' to control you, and ideally... someone to 'raise' you?"
"Y-Yeah... that's right!"
As my words ended, Narae's face burned bright red, hands clasped over her belly, breathing shallowly.
Stimulated by the word "raise," perhaps.
No, having already confessed she wanted to be raised, she was utterly sincere in this moment.
From my perspective, it was complicated.
Mentally unstable state.
Stress, heat cycle, PTSD, exposure urges... Narae's tangled condition was a classic multilayered personality disorder bordering on advanced paraphilia.
By the book, isolation and medication first.
Then impulse suppression training and psychological restructuring to restore social function.
But... she wasn't just a patient.
Beastkin physiology, biological heat cycle factor, and above all, her status as a national asset-level prospective S-Rank Hunter.
Considering all that, the standard approach would only cause bigger side effects.
So I made my decision.
No choice but to go with an extreme, medically verified treatment like with Yunhwa: Role-Play Based Emotional Substitution Therapy once more!