04
Chapter 4: Murder
'Not bad.'
Observing Kim Ah-rin as she triggered a heavy fountain show inside the restroom stall, a faint smile played across my lips.
By tuning into the parasitic tentacle, I was able to observe her entire breakdown in real-time. Just as I held a direct connection with the parasitic tentacle, I could feel an active, profound bond forming between Kim Ah-rin and myself.
By actively driving her into heat via the parasite while aggressively searing the psychological image of the tentacles directly into her brain, her Corruption Level had skyrocketed to 75 in less than a single day. As her Corruption Level advanced, the strength of our mental bond intensified accordingly. At this rate, maximizing it to 100 would take almost no time at all.
Severing the active connection with Kim Ah-rin, the unresolved logistical dilemma reentered my thoughts.
To ensure my long-term survival in this world, I needed to grow exponentially stronger. However, achieving that within this societal framework required entering [Dungeons] to hunt monsters or systematically scaling the [Tower]. While participating in high-stakes [Raids] was another valid method, it was an entirely unrealistic option for a low-level entity like myself, so I dismissed it immediately.
I harbored absolute confidence in my survival. I had zero doubts that even in my base form as a tentacle creature, I would ever perish within a low-tier dungeon or the bottom floors of the Tower. However, the critical issue was that every single [Dungeon] and [Tower] entry vector was strictly regulated by the central government and the premier high-ranking guilds. Entering them without official authorization was fundamentally impossible, and every single entry and exit log was meticulously tracked.
As far as the public record was concerned, I was classified as a talentless civilian who had failed to awaken a trait. In this baseline state, obtaining authorization to enter a [Dungeon] or the [Tower] was practically impossible.
Even if I somehow secured an entry permit, a talentless civilian rapidly scaling the Tower or exponentially multiplying their level would immediately sound alarm bells within the Hunter Management Bureau. For a Level 1 entity, drawing that level of surveillance was a catastrophic risk vector. Even though I possessed an SSS-grade trait, my current Level 1 status meant I would be instantly vaporized if I encountered a high-level, elite Hunter in a direct confrontation.
‘Securing a fabricated identity would be ideal...’
The issue was that I possessed absolutely zero channels to procure a high-grade forge. An ordinary citizen living a mundane life would naturally have no reason to understand the logistics of identity forgery. While a deep dive into illicit web forums might eventually unearth a forgery broker, I had no objective matrix to verify whether the contact was trustworthy or a government sting operation.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Right on cue, someone began aggressively pounding on my studio apartment door.
"I know you're in there! Open the door right now, I know you didn't go out."
It was the voice of my landlord. Deactivating my tentacle mass and condensing back into my base human disguise, I swung the door open.
The man stood barely 160 cm tall, his horizontally bloated frame terminating in stubby, unappealing limbs. The most immediately jarring feature was the filthy, unkempt thicket of hair sprawling across his jawline. Rather than a simple lack of shaving for a few days, it looked as though someone had haphazardly ripped patches of coarse animal fur and glued them unevenly to his skin.
Greasy, yellowish skin glistened beneath the bristling patches of hair, and whenever he opened his mouth, decaying, blackish gums flashed beneath his sparse teeth. He was the absolute textbook archetype of a middle-aged man harboring a bitter grievance against the entire universe.
"Did you seriously think pretending to be out would work on me?"
"What are you talking about?"
"Don't play dumb with me! I've been mashing your doorbell for ages, and you intentionally sat in there ignoring me!"
"The doorbell has been completely broken since before I even moved into this unit. Since you brought it up, when exactly do you plan on fixing it?"
The landlord cleared his throat violently, rapidly pivoting the conversation away from his maintenance failure.
"Your rent is overdue. If you don't transfer the balance immediately, consider yourself officially evicted."
Thinking back, yesterday had indeed been the designated rent deadline. With the sheer volume of reality-altering events that had unfolded, the mundane detail had completely slipped my mind.
"Fine. Just give me a second and I'll wire the funds directly to your account."
I harbored zero desire to engage in a tedious verbal sparring match with a creature of his caliber.
"You're late, so you're going to tack on an extra 50,000 won penalty to the transfer."
"A 50,000 won penalty for being a single day late?"
My base monthly rent was 500,000 won. A ten percent penalty for a twenty-four-hour delay was an interest rate that would make even predatory loan sharks weep. Furthermore, there was absolutely zero clause within our official lease agreement dictating a 50,000 won fee for a one-day delinquency.
"The guilty party always squawks the loudest. The fault lies entirely with the one who missed the deadline. Breaking promises so casually... this is exactly what's wrong with your generation... Tsk, tsk."
Bizarrely, his blatant extortion failed to trigger even a shred of genuine anger within me. If I had to describe the sensation, it felt identical to the mild, annoying buzz of a mosquito hovering near one's ear—a minor, unpleasant nuisance. And as far as my experience was concerned, there was only one logical methodology to deal with a mosquito.
"You'd better start listening to me very carefully, kid. Do you have any idea how many terrifying individuals I run with? If I drop your name to those guys, do you seriously think this ends with a mere 50,000 won?"
"Hey, old man. Do you have a family?"
"What the hell does that have to do with anything?"
"I was just curious if there's a single soul on this earth who would actually bother looking for you if you suddenly dropped dead. But thinking about it now, it was a completely redundant question."
A creature of his caliber was structurally incapable of maintaining a functional family dynamic.
"Wh-What?!"
Before the landlord's brain could even process the words, I instantly weaponized my arm, transforming it into a mass of tentacles that violently lashed outward and wrapped entirely around his head.
“Mmph... Mmmph!”
As the wet, viscous tentacles completely sealed his facial features, the man began to thrash in absolute, unbridled panic. His stubby limbs flailed wildly against the air, but the disparity in physical power was absolute.
I quietly looked down at his struggling form.
Eyes dilated in pure, unadulterated terror.
A face rapidly flushing a violent crimson as pressure mounted.
The wet, choked gasps escaping past the sealed fleshy mass as his oxygen supply vanished.
For an ordinary human, this was the exact temporal window where ethics, morality, and guilt should have triggered a momentary hesitation. Yet, bizarrely, my consciousness remained perfectly stagnant. It felt no different from watching a mild insect nuisance finally being neutralized.
[Hardening].
The moment the tentacles calcified into a rigid, stone-hard density, I systematically applied concentrated physical pressure.
Crunch.
Initially, a faint, crystalline fracturing sound echoed through the hallway.
The landlord's pupils dilated to the absolute biological limit, nearly tearing his eyelids.
Creeeeak.
His cranium began to cave inward, the baseline symmetry of his skull warping under the compression forces.
Thick crimson streams began oozing through the tightly locked gaps of the tentacles, and the completely muffled man began to let out wet, animalistic whimpers.
Maintaining absolute silence, I channeled an additional surge of raw physical force.
Splatch!
With a heavy, blunt concussive rupture mimicking an overinflated water balloon bursting, his head completely disintegrated. Vivid crimson blood and grayish-white brain matter splattered violently across the entire perimeter of the hallway.
Losing its central nervous system anchor, the limp, headless torso collapsed forward onto the linoleum flooring with a dull thud.
……
I stood perfectly still, looking down at the fresh corpse.
This marked the literal first time I had taken a human life. Yet, my heart rate remained chillingly steady.
My hands didn't exhibit even a microscopic tremor, and my breathing remained perfectly rhythmic.
The entire space had simply defaulted back to a tranquil silence now that the grating acoustic nuisance had been permanently erased.
While the execution had been entirely spontaneous, I hadn't taken the life without a concrete structural understanding of the immediate aftermath.
The exact millisecond I looked down at the decapitated corpse, an innate biological protocol flared within my consciousness.
I knew precisely how to process the biomass.
As if I had been executing clean homicides for decades, my body naturally shifted, shedding the human disguise to transition into my baseline tentacle mass.
Dark crimson tendrils spilled across the floor, undulating outward toward the fresh kill. The moment the tips of the tentacles made physical contact with the flesh, they began to violently writhe like ravenous predators scenting blood.
Without a moment's delay, they began to systematically consume the landlord's entire corpse.
“Schllluck.”
Sucked entirely into the internal vortex of the tentacle mass, the corpse began to rapidly liquefy under highly concentrated digestive enzymes. Bone matrix and muscle tissue dissolved into a viscous, slurry-like fluid, and even the extensive blood splatter was vacuumed off the linoleum without leaving a single cellular trace behind.
Zero nausea manifested within my psyche. On the contrary, a deep, primal sensation of absolute nutritional satiety radiated outward from the core of my being, mimicking the satisfaction of an incredibly hearty feast.
A few moments later, once the remaining micro-traces of blood and tissue had been fully integrated into my mass, the hallway returned to its baseline state. The corpse, the blood, and every single kinetic footprint of the execution had been completely wiped, as if the event had never occurred within this timeline.
[You have executed a human. A fixed percentage of the victim's baseline attributes has been permanently absorbed. The target's baseline metrics are exceptionally low. STR increases by 0.1.]
[You have committed an act of malice by executing a human. Initial Homicide Bonus applied. EVIL increases by 3.]
My stats had increased. I shifted my limbs experimentally, but the physical difference was microscopic. The landlord's baseline metrics were far too low to yield a significant STR yield, and while the EVIL increase was substantial, it didn't trigger an immediate visible transformation.
Regardless, expanding my methodology for rapid power acquisition was an exceptionally positive development.
This was one of the core evolutionary advantages unique to Villains who contracted with fallen deities. A vast majority of them possessed innate capabilities designed to siphon the lifeforce and attributes of targets. Consequently, to maximize their growth curve, they naturally defaulted to systemic homicide, permanently solidifying their path as criminals.
And just now, I had officially stepped across that exact threshold. Furthermore, the yields of the consumption extended far beyond a mere fractional stat increase.
Activating the [Transformation] skill, my viscous mass rippled and condensed violently, shifting its structural parameters until I stood there perfectly transformed into the landlord. The facial wrinkles, the coarse animalistic beard, the exact height, and even that ambient, repulsive aura were completely identical.
By consuming a target, I acquired the capability to perfectly mirror their physical identity. Utilizing this feature would make fabricating flawless alibis in the wake of future executions an exceptionally simple logistical task.
‘This piece of trash was completely addicted to gambling.’
As his biomass was integrated, a dense stream of his core active memories flooded my consciousness. The landlord had been the literal textbook definition of human waste.
Despite inheriting a substantial real estate portfolio from his parents, he had systematically liquidated every single asset to fuel his gambling addiction. He had ultimately resorted to borrowing from high-interest predatory syndicates, causing his debt to snowball exponentially until this final apartment building had been heavily leveraged under a hidden mortgage long ago.
The "terrifying individuals" he had bragged about weren't his associates at all. In fact, they were elite loan sharks who had threatened to systematically sever his limbs if the outstanding balance wasn't fully cleared within the month. He had simply attempted to weaponize their reputation to extort an extra 50,000 won from me.
The final collection deadline was right around the corner.
Attempting to actively assume his identity long-term to manage the property was clearly a logistical dead-end. However, the fact that his gambling addiction had alienated every single family member and social contact meant the statistical probability of anyone launching a missing person investigation was virtually zero—an exceptionally clean outcome.
Thud... Thud...
The acoustic signature of footsteps ascending the apartment stairwell echoed through the corridor. I instantly recognized the physical profile of the rhythm—it was Kim Ah-rin, returning early from her studio after leaving her shift.
It appeared I was about to receive the exact answer regarding what occurs once a female's Corruption Level reaches 100.
***
The physical effort required for Ah-rin to ascend the stairwell felt heavier than anything she had ever experienced.
'Going to a medical clinic isn't an option...'
Ever since the emergence of the high-tier Priests, the baseline financial cost of standard medical care had skyrocketed to extortionate levels. Stepping foot inside a clinic without specialized private insurance was a financial death sentence, and the baseline premiums for those insurance packages were astronomically high.
For a backup dancer operating on razor-thin margins, private medical care was an absolute impossibility.
While she was acutely aware that her biology was experiencing a severe, terrifying malfunction—frequently plunging into uncontrollable states of hyper-arousal while harboring sudden, visceral homicidal urges toward casual bypassers—could a standard doctor even diagnose this? With zero clinical precedent, she would likely just be immediately committed to a psychiatric ward as a lunatic.
Ultimately abandoning the concept of medical intervention, Ah-rin draggingly returned to her floor.
The moment she crested the landing, she noticed a figure standing perfectly still in the middle of the corridor.
Focusing her vision, she realized it was the young man living in the unit right next to hers.
While they had never once exchanged a direct glance in the entire history of their tenancy, the man's eyes were currently locked entirely onto her form.
"Ah-rin, are you feeling any better?"
"Huh? How... how do you know about that?"
"Ah, don't you remember? We were talking yesterday right outside, and you suddenly fainted right into my arms."
"I... I did?"
Ah-rin's heart skipped a beat in immediate shock. She had actively interacted with this man yesterday?
Furthermore, despite having absolutely zero cognitive memory of ever speaking to him, he claimed they had engaged in a full conversation. If that were true, could this man hold the literal key to understanding why her biology had fractured? Could she extract a clue from him?
Ah-rin took a step forward, closing the physical distance between them. The exact millisecond she entered his immediate perimeter, a profoundly bizarre sensation short-circuited her nervous system.
'What is this...?'
Her heart rate violently spiked as if she had suddenly fallen frantically in love, and an intense, localized heat began to blossom deep within her lower abdomen.
A man she had harbored absolutely zero baseline attraction toward for months was suddenly triggering a massive physiological response?
Furthermore, this emotion lacked even a microscopic trace of standard romantic flutter.
It was a primitive, raw sensation of absolute reverence and biological submission triggered by encountering a fundamentally superior 'entity'—a crushing weight of subordination that instantly reduced Kim Ah-rin to a female in heat.
Transformed into a baseline female explicitly engineered to submit before a dominant alpha organism, Ah-rin had to deploy every ounce of her remaining willpower to keep her thighs tightly locked together.
"Your face is completely flushed. Are you sure you're alright?"
"I-I'm fine... More importantly... why exactly was I talking to you yesterday?"
"Ah, I was executing some heavy maintenance on my furniture and making a considerable amount of noise. You came over to complain... I'm incredibly sorry about that. You collapsed so suddenly that I didn't even get a chance to properly apologize."
"I see... Then, did you... carry me into my bed?"
The man offered a slow, deliberate nod.
The exact millisecond the gesture registered, Ah-rin's core instantly became thoroughly drenched. The hyper-arousal state had violently reasserted its dominance over her anatomy.
“Ahn...”
'N-No... stop it.'
The quality of the arousal this time was fundamentally distinct from her breakdown at the studio. This time, her subverted biology was explicitly screaming for the specific male standing right in front of her.
Her instincts commanded her to cease all self-pleasure and immediately open her legs wide for this specific organism.
Her lower abdomen throbbed and spasmed in a rhythmic, desperate protest, her womb practically begging to be seeded by the neighbor's lineage.
[Your ultimate purpose and happiness reside in incubating this male's seed.]
[Submit to the design. Surrender entirely to the pleasure. And be systematically reborn.]
[Only then shall absolute, eternal bliss be yours.]
Fighting back the commands detonating within her consciousness with everything she possessed, Ah-rin desperately clamped down on her soaring libido.
She knew with absolute clarity that if she surrendered to the weight of this submission right here, she would permanently cross a threshold of no return.
Logistically, she needed to terminate the interaction immediately and bolt into the safety of her apartment, yet there was one final, burning inquiry she needed answered.
“Hngh... Haah... Then... did anything out of the ordinary occur while I was unconscious?”
"Nothing particularly noteworthy comes to mind."
"I... I see..."
"Except for the part where you were successfully impregnated with my seed and completed labor."
"What?"
What words were escaping his lips? Ah-rin's cognitive functions completely locked up.
"By the way, how is your core holding up? It was exceptionally dilated. If I had known you were a virgin, I would have moderated my physical force slightly, but your anatomy was far too beautiful to assume you were uninitiated."
"Then... it was you...?"
While Ah-rin's vision saturated with absolute, unadulterated horror, the man began to close the remaining distance between them with slow, measured steps.
Her logical mind screamed at her to flee, but her muscle groups refused to execute the command. Before she could even attempt to pivot, the man smoothly wrapped his arms around her frame, pulling her flush against his chest.
Locked in his embrace, Ah-rin completely forgot how to breathe.
She needed to escape.
The entity holding her was a catastrophic anomaly. It wasn't human. The survival protocols inside her head screamed in a continuous, deafening loop.
Yet, her body completely refused to detach itself from his skin.
On the contrary, the closer their physical proximity became, the more frantically her heart hammered against her ribs. An intoxicating, heavy heat systematically bled into the deepest recesses of her internal organs. The structural integrity of her legs completely dissolved, and every single time his breath brushed against her skin, her entire frame rhythmically twitched.
It was a profound paradox.
She was experiencing absolute terror, yet simultaneously, an inexplicable, deep-seated sensation of primordial safety washed over her.
It felt as though her biology had been patiently waiting for this exact temporal marker for eons.
"Kim Ah-rin. Submit to me."
[Submit.]
The exact voice that had been echoing inside her cranium for hours. Hearing it directly through her auditory nerves, his spoken voice carried a kinetic weight infinitely more absolute than the internal psychological projection.
An all-consuming impulse to bury herself even deeper into his mass violently overwhelmed her.
Consequently, when the man leaned down and pressed his lips against hers, Ah-rin completely surrendered, accepting the kiss without a shred of resistance.
The exact millisecond their lips fused, the floodgates of her suppressed memory violently burst open. She remembered every single detail of what had been executed upon her anatomy while she slept.
The memory of being completely defiled by the man—no, by the monstrosity standing before her—and successfully birthing his parasitic tentacles.
Yet, memories that should have triggered a psychological break felt profoundly, beautifully ecstatic. The absolute realization that she had successfully integrated this entity's seed erupted within her soul as a wave of uncontainable, biological joy.
As the physical logistics of those acts and the memory of that absolute, cosmic pleasure seared themselves permanently into her core consciousness, Ah-rin's eyes rolled backward into her head as she hit a massive, unbridled peak.
“Oh... Hngh... ❤️”
Cresting over the intense orgasm, a final clarity solidified within Ah-rin's mind. She recognized with absolute certainty that she had been biologically engineered to suffer absolute defeat before this entity—a destiny from which there was no escape.