The Blonde in the Machine Shed

Kang Nayeon.

The gate of Boksun Halmeoni's house stood half-open, as it always did. When I pushed it the rest of the way, the old hinges let out a creak of protest.

I slid my hands into my pockets and stepped into the yard, cleared my throat once, and called out toward the house.

"Hello? Anybody home?"

No answer came back.

Not that I'd expected one. At this hour, Boksun Halmeoni was never indoors — the only day of the year she skipped the orchard was the memorial day of my late predecessor, her husband. And right now it was harvest season, the busiest time of the whole year in the fields. She wouldn't drag herself home until sundown at the earliest, rubbing her aching back the whole way.

But her granddaughter, I'd assumed, would still be here.

Had she followed her grandmother out to the orchard? I was just turning to sweep the yard with my eyes when a faint stirring of movement drifted out from the shadow of the old farm-equipment shed parked along the side path.

High-tied blonde hair catching the sunlight. It was the same woman I'd glimpsed in passing earlier.

I pressed myself against the corner of the shed and peeked out, holding my breath. A lit cigarette dangled at an angle from her full lips, and her eyes were locked onto her smartphone screen.

My heart pounded so hard it felt like it would burst up my throat. I forced down the breath that tried to escape and struggled to steady myself.

Then I approached her, slowly.

Only when I'd closed the distance to two paces did she seem to notice me, lazily lifting her eyes from the screen. Her sharp black gaze met mine dead-on.

Now, a question.

"……"

How, exactly, is a man supposed to strike up a conversation with a young woman his own age — when every grandmother in the village doesn't count?

Embarrassing as it is to admit, I wasn't just an utterly hopeless virgin — I was a virgin beyond utterly hopeless. Just how bad? To this day, my entire lifetime of conversation with young women consisted of the handful of words exchanged while filling out paperwork at the counter of the township office.

My school years? The Wolan Branch School I attended had a grand total of two students. The older boy who shared my classroom eventually grew a big head in more ways than one, got smart, and escaped to the city ages ago. What remained was me, alone.

So to me, a girl my own age wasn't some niche genre — she was straight-up pure fantasy material.

As I stood there staring at her like a man whose soul had left his body, she frowned and slid the cigarette out from between her fingers.

"……What do you want?"

A low, bristling voice. That one chilly sentence sent a cold sweat trickling down my spine.

"Uh, well… um…"

The crushing tension made my lower abdomen throb faintly. My mind had gone blank as a fresh sheet of paper, my tongue froze, and the words came out spinning in all the wrong directions.

"Can't you just get to the point?"

"Th-that… um… will you take my s-seed?"

"…What?"

The instant those words left my mouth, her pretty face twisted into something vicious. She dropped the cigarette to the ground, and then—

Smack—!

A sharp crack rang out, and my left cheek lit up with fire. Her palm was brutal enough to snap my head sideways. As I clutched my throbbing cheek and glared straight ahead, I found myself staring into eyes brimming with genuine murderous intent — and a tightly clenched fist.

Th-this isn't right? This isn't how it's supposed to go!

Could it be… the common sense alteration I'd set up didn't take?

Drenched in a cold sweat, I scrambled to think.

Right. The condition I'd set was receiving the village chief's seed.

But she had no idea that the man standing here was this village's chief. Which meant the premise of "village chief" had never been satisfied — that's why the alteration had bounced off…!

Seconds before her fist connected with my face, I blurted out in desperation.

"W-wait! Calm down! You've got it wrong! I'm the village chief of this town!"

"……The village chief?"

That did it.

As if a switch had been flipped, the murderous glare settled on her face vanished like it had never existed. Wearing a dazed expression, she began looking me up and down.

"Oh, you're the chief? Why didn't you say so?"

"Th-that's right. I'm the village chief of this town."

"Should've mentioned it sooner. I thought some deranged pervert was jumping me in broad daylight with a hard-on. And I threw away a perfectly good cigarette over it."

She bent down, dusted off the cigarette pack she'd hurled to the ground, and picked it up. The content of her words was still savage, but her tone had softened considerably from before.

Phew. I survived. D-did I, though?

"But… you're really the chief?"

"I just told you I am."

She didn't look entirely convinced, though. Standing at a slant, she gave me another slow once-over.

"You're way too young… thirty?"

Don't just casually drive a knife into my chest. We're only two years apart, you and I.

Granted, I do look older than my years. But try eating dirt and farming under a blazing sun. See if you don't weather fast!

"Didn't your grandmother tell you? That a young man is running the village now."

"I think I heard something about that… or did I not? Hmm…"

She scratched her head, still looking fifty-fifty on the matter. Clearly, words alone weren't going to cut it.

How do I prove this?

Suddenly I remembered a keyboard battle I'd gotten into on an internet forum ages ago. Nobody had believed me, so I'd screenshotted my official letter of appointment as chief and posted it as proof. It should still be sitting in my phone's gallery.

I dug up the photo in a hurry and showed it to her, and only then did the tension fully drain from her face.

"Sorry, I completely misunderstood. That slap earlier — did it hurt a lot?"

"N-no, not really. Barely felt it. Totally fine."

I played tough for the sake of my pride as a man, but honestly, my cheek stung like hell. How is a woman's slap this vicious?

But this was no time to be dwelling on minor aches and pains. I had a far more important objective in mind.

"Ahem. So, about that. Um… taking my seed… I mean, sex…"

"You mean you want to have sex, right? Got it. In Wolan-ri, it's just common sense that once a girl reaches my age, she receives the chief's seed."

This time, the words flowed naturally out of her mouth.

It was common sense I'd implanted through the System, sure — but hearing it spoken directly from those pretty lips stirred up a strange, delicious sense of corruption, and my lower half surged to life with a jolt.

"That's right. Exactly that."

"Do you have somewhere to do it, though? Doing it at Grandma's place would be awkward… she might walk in on us."

"If you follow that road over there, that's my house. Less than a five-minute walk."

"Oh? Well, close is good. Let's head over, then."

Far from resisting my lead, she actually strode off ahead of me, taking long, brisk steps.

Common sense alteration — I'm sorry for all the trash talk. You are the best.

Afraid of losing her if I so much as blinked, I scrambled after her, tail wagging.

Watching her amble along ahead of me, my gaze naturally drifted downward. The rippling curve of her firm ass straining against a scrap of fabric — panties or shorts, impossible to tell — and the deep inward dip of her waistline. From behind, she was pure art.

Every fiber of me wanted to seize that plush flesh in both hands right then and there, but I barely managed to clamp the desire down. After all, in just a few minutes I'd be free to knead it to my heart's content on my own bed.

Then, at the fork in the road leading to my house, an important fact suddenly occurred to me.

'Wait — I never even checked her information, did I?'

In all fairness, when we'd first met, I'd been so swept up in raw excitement and adrenaline that half my brain had short-circuited. And since I tended to let my ability sit around gathering dust, I occasionally forgot even the most basic, useful functions like this one. Or should I say — for one reason or another, it had simply been wiped from my mind?

'Resident Profile Inspection. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Kang Nayeon.'

In the same instant, a translucent blue status window materialized, overlaying itself above her head.

The first line to catch my eye was, without question, this one.

'So she has a boyfriend.'

The relationship field — Park Suhyun · Male (16 years). I swallowed dryly without meaning to and let my gaze drift down the window.

Intercourse count: 177. And the remark tacked on right below it — childhood-friend pure love.

Look, I'd expected as much. A woman this gorgeous wasn't going to be single — that would have been the strange outcome. I'd let myself hope, deep down, but seeing the title "pure love with a childhood friend of 16 years" confirmed with my own two eyes put a heavy weight on one side of my chest.

For the record, I was a devoted, unwavering Pure Love Fanatic — the kind who consumed nothing but pure-love stories in anime and webtoons alike. Pure love is supreme.

'Am I… committing something deeply unnatural here?'

A flicker of guilt crossed my mind. Maybe I was. I was about to steal away another man's longtime lover through common sense alteration — a foreign instrument — just to sleep with her.

But you see.

"Is this your house? It's pretty grand… there's even a third floor? And a separate annex?"

Her voice snapped me back to my senses.

If I didn't get this woman in front of me pregnant — if I failed to pump fresh blood into this dying Wolan-ri — then in the not-so-distant future, this village might be wiped clean off the map entirely.

All that would remain here would be abandoned houses, haunted ones, and a rusted road sign with the village name on it.

Having thus armed myself with a righteous cause and rationalized it to my satisfaction, I fished my keys out of my pocket.

The door swung open with a click, and we stepped into the entryway side by side. Even taking in the interior of my house, she looked completely at ease, without a trace of wariness.

"Hey, could I take a shower first?"

"A shower?"

When I echoed her dumbly, her eyes narrowed into a sharp glare.

"What, were you planning to do it without washing? It's you I'm talking about — you've been reeking of sweat this whole time. There's no way I'm having sex with a guy who stinks of BO."

"O-oh, right. Obviously you should wash. Go shower."

"I'll go first~"

As if my guidance were entirely unnecessary, she glanced once at the bathroom door and marched straight toward it.

And before the bathroom door had even finished closing behind her, she yanked down her zipper and began stripping off her clothes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without a shred of hesitation.

The sight was so scandalously stimulating — like being given front-row seats to a high-end strip show — that blood came rushing to my groin in hot pulses until it swelled to the point of bursting.

"…What? You want to wash up first?"

Noticing me standing there frozen mid-gawk, she tilted her head in mild confusion.

"Sh-shall we wash together?"

Trusting in the absolute power of common sense alteration, I gulped, steeled myself, and took a step closer.

"…What?"

"Yeah. Didn't you say the sweat smell was a problem? Washing alone, you can't really reach everywhere properly — I could scrub you down nice and clean, you know."

At my shameless proposal, her pretty brow creased faintly.

Had I pushed too far? She mulled it over for a moment, then heaved a long, annoyed sigh.

"Ugh… fine. I'll wash you, so let's go in together. But don't you dare touch my body. My body is mine to wash."

So she'll have sex with me, but her body is off-limits?

What kind of algorithm is this damn common sense alteration even running on?

Well, whatever — sharing one space and washing together was already more than enough.

I hastily peeled off my clothes and tossed them aside, then slipped into the shower after her.

Behind her, crouched on the tiled floor and pumping body wash vigorously into her palms. In the steam-hazed ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠air, her breathtaking bare body — revealed through her falling blonde hair — lay spread out below my gaze, utterly unguarded.

With her clothes off, her ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠figure was more stimulating than anything my imagination had conjured. It was a flawless silhouette for which the word perfection was the only adequate description.

That warning — don't touch my body — had me half out of my mind trying to suppress the urge to seize her from behind that very second.

'Screw it. I'll just grab her, lift her clean off the ground, and—!'

I was busy spinning every degenerate scenario through my head and calculating my angle — and in doing so, I missed my moment entirely.

"Okay, lather's ready. Come over here and stand still."

Her hands coated in mounds of white foam, she spun around sharply.

And only then did her gaze drop, quite naturally, onto my naked body.

First she gave my broad shoulders and the hard-cut planes of my chest a brief once-over, and an admiring murmur escaped her lips.

"Huh… your body's better than you look?"

It was a passing compliment, but my shoulders squared themselves all the same.

This was a body that had rolled in nothing but farm work under the scorching sun for fifteen years, whatever it looked like. One hundred percent honest, uncut, field-compressed muscle, thank you very much.

But her gaze didn't stop there.

"……"

Slowly, past my stomach… it came to rest, fixed, on my cock — already swollen and raring to go from all the excitement.

"……?"

Her movements stopped dead.

Lips half-parted, she simply stared down at my lower half, saying nothing.

She wore the expression of someone who had just laid eyes on a monster that should never, ever have been seen by human eyes.

At that delicate look on her face, I felt my cheeks burn with embarrassment and unconsciously drew my legs together.

…Is mine really that small? It's at least above a-average… right?

Frankly, I had no idea whether my cock was big or small. With nobody to compare against, how could I possibly have a feel for it?

Once, driven by sheer curiosity, I actually posted about it on a forum — and this is what I got back.

And that was the entire comment section. Unbelievable.