About That Time I Possessed a Blond Hung Shota

I swallowed the Jabberwock's Core.

It dissolved away, smooth and effortless, down my throat.

Mana spilled out of the disintegrating core and came pouring through my blood vessels like a waterfall. An alien mana—one that fused a hot, viscous essence with a rough, ferocious one, plus a faint trace no bigger than a grain of millet, all blended seamlessly into one—settled into my body.

So that faint little speck must be the Dragon Factor. Way too small and scarce to mean anything for now, though.

Skills that weren't even in the game? And they're a perfect match for shaving down mental resistance through Charm! Thanks a bunch, Magic Circle sensei!

Materialization—the single rarest thing in illusion magic! Just like Nostalgia, my illusions get actual mass now, so I can fool every single one of a target's senses!

Thumbs up! I flashed one at the magic circle on the platform as it lost its light and crumbled to dust.

Mass generated by illusion magic is, quite literally, molecules that rearrange their structure to match the observer's perception. With even the chemical structure warping to deceive the target—scent, touch, taste, sound, all of it—unless they were using mana, even seriously high-ranked hunters would struggle to tell real from fake.

I reached into the Charm and the delusion planted in Kim Taehyun's head. Through the delusion, I confirmed he was dreaming after blacking out.

A nightmare. A nightmare of losing Lim Yehwa and chasing after her. His rage, his grief, his regret, his anxiety, his sense of loss—the swirl of dark feelings born from having the beloved lover he'd been with since childhood stolen away gathered together and took root.

From beneath the skin, slender, ink-black roots crept down along the outer surface of his skull. A jet-black orchid sprouted, writhing, on Kim Taehyun's scalp, its leaves pressing up against the skin from below. They were illusions, and yet they carried mass and weight—true substance. Slender black phantom orchids, indistinguishable from ordinary strands of hair, began feeding on their host's emotions to sustain the illusion I had planted.

Then I rewrote the content of the dream.

The Portal Chastity Belt has made managing my women so much easier, so while I'm at it, I should give our dear protagonist a little encouragement so he can push the story along smoothly, no? Heh heh.

Shaaa~

Kim Taehyun's dream slowly changed color. He infiltrated the campus and cut down the Crawler operatives who had kidnapped Lim Yehwa. Having put them down and rescued her, Kim Taehyun accepted her engagement. Eyes closed, the two of them closed the distance. The empty space in his vision was replaced by the softness of lips. The exhaustion of battle crashed over him, and he drifted straight into sleep. A smile spread across Kim Taehyun's mouth.

"Yep, that's not lips. That's my thumb, squished flat and pressed against you~ Like I'd ever let you taste my girl's lips even in a dream, Taehyun-taehyunie..."

Squish♥ squish♥

Haaaa, my fingers are melting... the main heroine's tits are incredible...

Churrrp♥

I tangled tongues with the sleeping Lim Yehwa. Then I dressed her again, lower garments and all, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠where she lay sprawled across the auditorium floor, and turned myself invisible through the delusion. The newly acquired Horizon trait granted substance to the invisibility illusion sustaining my form. An illusion with substance could interfere with molecular structure, blurring my scent and the sound of my movements into something faint and indefinite.

My rank's still too low, though—full silence and no scent is asking a lot, and touch would still register somewhat if I bumped into someone. Kgh! I want to grow this thing fast! If I can just push it to A-rank, I'll have an all-access pass to the women's bath!

As I put distance between myself and the scene and headed out of the campus, I sensed the presence of other hunters nearby. Beyond the promenade I could see hunters in black suits with blue badges, men and women alike—and among them, a head of cold sky-blue hair in a braid, a hairpin adorned with ice branches and carved blossoms catching the eye. Her delicate features, the small face with its refined nose, stood in stark contrast to the heavy breasts draped in a pure-white one-shoulder dress, the right shoulder left bare—swaying gently like plump, ripened fruit. Her yellow eyes swept over the half-collapsed, gutted campus, its skeleton and innards laid bare. The moment the fallen Kim Taehyun and Lim Yehwa came into view, her expression flickered with surprise, and she entered the campus alongside the other hunters.

It's Seo Hwa-rin~ Seeing her in the flesh, she looks even bigger? A solid H-cup... Ha, sis... Should I just pounce?

I smothered the lust, tore my eyes off Seo Hwa-rin, and left the campus. The basic groundwork for conquering the original story was more or less complete.

I opened the store window.

So the store only sells things obtained as system rewards, huh... If any quests pop up, I'd better clear them nice and thoroughly.

I purchased one Reality Entry Pass.

My scent blurred and my footsteps faded to nothing as I bolted out of the campus. Sprinting at full speed past the Association staff clearing away Crawler corpses and the citizens gawking at them, I made it back into the city. I hitched an invisible ride in a taxi heading the same way, enjoyed the rush of wind, and rode it all the way to my villa. In a CCTV blind spot, I dropped the invisibility, slipped into my studio apartment, and used the pass.

The world drained into black and white, and the dust suspended in the air simply stopped. Inside that frozen world, a portal glowing blue yawned open. Through it, I could see a familiar chair and computer. My real-world room. I took a step, heart pounding with anticipation. The blue shimmering at the edge of my vision guttered out.

Ding!

"Eunghhh~ home, sweet home~"

My reflection stared back at me from the monitor's dark screen. Delicately carved features, swaying golden locks, finely arranged features all mirrored back across the glass. I circulated my mana. It worked exactly the same way it had in that hunter-romance world.

The wooden panels of the door stretched out like tentacles, branching every which way. I clawed, squeezed, and hammered at the bed, and it shattered into pieces. I ran my hands over the tentacle-like panels. I knew they were illusions, and yet I could feel the weighty smoothness of finished wood. The moment I released the illusion, the ruined bed rippled like a mirage and was instantly whole again, and the door restored itself in the blink of an eye.

Now that I think about ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it, I can mimic matter manipulation to a decent degree, can't I? Having substance means things really break and people really get hurt until the illusion ends, so the versatility is enormous... At this level, I'd say I'm starting out at C-rank at minimum?

Real-world hunters come in two broad categories, divided by one question: can the mana inside your body be condensed into a core—a Dantian, a Circle—or not? The former, naturally, climb to B, A, and S rank, while hunters who can't manage it stay stuck at C no matter how good their abilities are. Their basic mana output is simply too low to deal meaningful damage to the monsters of B-rank gates and beyond.

I fished my phone out of my pocket.

"Oh? Not a single second has passed? Heh heh heh."

With fingers trembling in anticipation, I connected to Hunta Gallery.

Back in the earliest days of the Gate Calamity, before the word "hunter" had even entered the language—a chaotic era when every manner of cross-species refugee poured through the white gates and humanity itself hovered at the brink of apocalypse—there was a single communication channel that helped bind them all together, and it went on to become today's Hunta Gallery. I shoved that dusty old history lesson out of my head and set my mind to the real problem: how exactly was I going to dunk on the pitiful, precious non-awakened squatters of the gallery? How could I show off the things I now had—the things only I could enjoy—in a way that would hurt them the most?

Then it hit me.

Pulling on the black off-shoulder sweater my little sister had gotten in a misdelivered package, I struck a pose and snapped a selfie. Then I slapped the post up at lightning speed. Every time I hit refresh, the replies were bursting at the seams.

"Wow, what an absolute dumpster fire. This is exactly why I flex, ehehe."

Gazing out over the wreckage of the gallery, I idly kneaded my cock with both hands. The sight of the pure, gentle protagonist's lover—someone I'd only ever known through a novel and a game—sprawled beneath my monster cock, panting for breath. The feel of those petals squirming and dripping with my seed still clung to my glans.

"I really did fuck the original heroine... the innocent couple that millions cheered for and watched over together... Heh heh, and now she's my personal onahole..."

Smirking to myself, I turned on the TV. It was just about time for the news.

Ding!

"Day after tomorrow, huh? Well, it's only about a twenty-minute walk, so not exactly far."

I got up from the bed and was heading for the fridge when I noticed a stack of mail slipped under the front door. Collection notices—electricity, water, gas, plus every other debt I owed. One of them in particular drew a weary sigh out of me.

"Whew... feels like just yesterday I was taking out loans to buy mana stone powder, all because I was desperate to awaken~"

Korea, unlike other countries, has outstanding public safety—but in exchange, the pay for anything C-rank and below is pretty miserable... It's more than what most civil servants or mid-tier corporate execs and office workers make, sure, but it's nowhere near enough to wipe out my debt overnight...

In this world, a hunter's prestige and social standing were absolute the higher the rank—but that only applied to the handful of powerhouses at B-rank and above. Up to C-rank, you were simply earning about 5% more than a large-corporation salary. Especially in developed nations like Korea, the US, Japan, and China, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the vast majority of hunters lived and died by government and Association economic policy.

And yet the idiots didn't emigrate, because most developing countries—along with impoverished regions in Latin America and Africa—couldn't control their gates. Monsters came pouring out of gate breaks, social infrastructure collapsed, and even now entire societies were crumbling into civil war, with vigilante militias looting each other and fighting localized gun battles across lawless zones that covered most of the map. Anyone E-rank or below, without so much as a drop of mana, could be killed by a dozen bullets fired by an ordinary civilian.

More than anything, even when you earned more, the services worth spending that money on were garbage—the infrastructure had been blown to pieces by monsters, after all. And moving to a developed country didn't help either, because when the nation backing your currency's value was itself on shaky ground, the exchange rate was bound to be a disaster. In short: gritting your teeth and swallowing the bitter medicine, clutching the citizens' lifelines while stuck on a pittance, unable to squeeze out a single extra won.

Just two days ago, some regional school got hit with a bill for 20% of its entire monthly budget—about a hundred million won—for a C-rank gate clear, and it made national headlines. Meanwhile parliament spewed on and on about drafting legislation to stop that kind of abuse. Ugh.

"Ugh. If you're gonna do something like that, at least don't get caught... I get screwed over by this shithole country's laws too, so this is gonna take a while..."

With a face like this, I could absolutely blow up as a streamer... but then there's that goddamn Hunter Tax Act. Seriously...