I Received Help
I started with something simple: making the butterflies move however I wanted.
It would’ve been nice if I could send them anywhere at a thought, but I’d only just begun to find the thread of it, and the fact that my classes were tangled together made it far harder than it should have been.
After mulling over one method after another, I finally managed to get the butterflies swarming about at my gesture.
"There’s still a long way to go."
My goal was to reach the point where, the instant I pictured something, I could not only move the butterflies but also change their shape.
In the game, you could instantly transform things into simple forms like swords or spears, but also into complicated, precise machinery like rocket engines or laser cannons.
Just how much practice would it take to reach that level?
When I checked the time, it was already late evening. I couldn’t stay here all night, so I’d have to head home for now.
After changing clothes and leaving the training room, I found that the instructor had already gone home. I wanted to thank them, but calling privately felt a little awkward, so I’d just have to do it when we met tomorrow.
As always, people’s eyes followed me on the way home. There were plenty of them around, but maybe because the crowd itself acted as a screen, I didn’t have to listen to people openly assessing me the way those high school girls had that morning.
The sidelong glances were still there, of course, but that was unavoidable.
Once I got home, I ate dinner, then called the butterflies back out and practiced moving them again.
Only, I changed my approach a little.
Rather than moving several at once, I figured it’d be better to control a single one with precision first, then gradually increase the number.
Unlike the training room, if something went wrong at home, cleaning up the mess would be a nightmare, so I had to keep that in mind as well.
In any case, I summoned one butterfly and practiced moving it with a gesture, and before long I fell asleep.
And then I dreamed.
The moment I realized it was a dream, I nearly jumped out of my skin.
If I collapsed from exhaustion again now, I was done for. A dual class was already enough to scramble my head—how was I supposed to handle it if I became a triple class?
But something was strange.
Both the first time and the second, whenever I dreamed, I’d been unable to move and had to lie somewhere without even twitching a finger. This time, though, there was none of that.
My fingers moved. My toes moved. My arms and legs moved freely, too.
What the hell? Was this not a spirit-sleep dream but just some random fever dream?
Around me was the same quiet beach I’d seen in the second dream.
I’d never been overseas, but it felt like some lonely coral reef tucked away at the end of the world.
Then, from somewhere nearby, I heard a sound—someone’s presence.
I turned on reflex, and what I saw made me jolt in alarm.
A woman with her hair in wild disarray, as if she’d wrapped her head in kelp or seaweed, was coming out of the ocean.
No, not a woman. A ghost. To be precise, a female ghost.
She bent over with her hands on her knees for a moment, breathing hard. Apparently walking out of the sea took a fair amount of effort.
After catching her breath for a bit, she lifted her head.
I couldn’t see her eyes through all that hair, but I could feel her gaze clearly enough.
I flinched and shrank back. I couldn’t help it. After what had happened in the last two spirit-sleep dreams, of course I’d react like this.
But the ghost pouted in obvious dissatisfaction at my reaction. Well, the only part of her face you could actually make out was her mouth. Even that was hard to see unless you looked closely.
She muttered under her breath for a while, then held out a hand. A butterfly appeared there—the same one I’d been playing with before I fell asleep.
I stared at her, wondering what she was up to, and she moved the butterfly around on her palm, then gestured for me to try it myself.
Was she... trying to help me?
At the very least, this didn’t seem to be about spirit-sleep for its own sake. Then again, last time had been excessive. More precisely, it had been my own fault for volunteering myself for it.
I summoned a butterfly as she’d shown me. Then the ghost took my hand with her other one.
Suddenly, a strange cold current seemed to flow from her hand, and a prickle shot down my spine.
Right after that, something flashed through me. Some principle, some logic I couldn’t put into words.
It felt as though a severed circuit had been reconnected, and the method for controlling the butterfly was carved directly into my brain.
Only then did the ghost let go of my hand and take a step back. She summoned butterflies around herself and moved them freely, as though telling me to copy her.
I did the same, calling butterflies out and trying to move them the way she did.
To my surprise, they moved as naturally as if they were extensions of my own hands and feet.
The ghost clapped as if I’d done well, then waved me off, clearly signaling that her business here was finished and I should get going.
But when it came time to actually leave, I felt oddly reluctant.
Come to think of it, up until now every time I’d met this ghost, we’d only ever hurried through the main event and then parted ways. We’d never done anything else.
No matter that she was a ghost and not a person—wasn’t it a little much to meet only for business and then immediately go our separate ways?
Especially when, for once, it was just the two of us on such a beautiful beach.
That thought came to me, and before I knew it I’d taken her hand and started walking ahead.
The ghost looked flustered, but even so she obediently followed where I led.
Just walking while listening to the crash of the waves somehow settled my mind a little.
After we’d strolled the beach for a while, I noticed a patch of shade beneath some trees and went into it.
When I turned back, I couldn’t help but startle. As soon as we’d stepped into the shade, I realized her clothes were soaked through, clinging so tightly that the curves of her body were plainly visible.
For some reason, it felt awkward to keep looking, so I pretended not to notice and turned away, heading toward a small hut nearby.
Once inside, I looked out at the rolling sea, and the ghost came in after me and leaned against the railing. Maybe she was out of shape, because even after that short walk, her breathing had grown rather rough.
Watching her from behind, the swells of her body showed even more clearly through her wet clothes.
Before I knew it, I swallowed hard.
Hearing that, she turned her head to look at me, tilting it slightly, then her face colored faintly red.
After that, she looked away as if she hadn’t noticed a thing, braced a hand against the wall, and lifted her skirt herself.
As the waterlogged fabric was slowly drawn upward, a pale thigh appeared first, and beyond it, the white curve of her ass.
Then, before long, the flesh between her legs, soaked through as well, was exposed too.
She didn’t show it on her face, but it seemed she’d been waiting for this too. More precisely, she must have been holding herself back all along.
I lowered my pants and set my already-stiff cock against the curve of her ass.
When she leaned deeper into the wall to make penetration easier, the bright red flesh between her legs was laid open before me more clearly.
Holding her hips like handles, I pushed in slowly, and her hot, heated flesh wrapped itself around my cock as if welcoming it.
It wasn’t the same devouring sensation as before, but the slow tightening was so thrilling it nearly made me shudder.
As I worked my hips slowly, a wet, squelching sound rose up and her body trembled. Every push and pull set her swaying, and the sight fed a strange, almost possessive sense of conquest inside me.
While the crash of the waves and the sound of wet skin meeting wet skin formed a strange harmony, the two of us took our time savoring each other’s flesh, and before long we reached the peak together.
After a while, she caught her breath with a soft, whimpering afterglow, then pulled away from me on her own and knelt down. Carefully, she took my cock in her mouth and cleaned it with slow licks, my seed and hers still soaking it.
Is this what they call cleanup fellatio?
The stimulation made my cock begin throbbing again, but she pulled away from it immediately and shook her head.
"Any more than this would be harmful to the body. Let’s stop here for today."
By then, the sun was setting. She stood with the glow of dusk at her back and looked at me quietly.
For some reason, it felt as though I was seeing her eyes for the first time today.
And with that image lingering in my mind, I woke up.
"..."
When I opened my eyes, it was still dawn.
Just in case, I checked my status window. Thankfully, the ghost hadn’t cosplayed this time, so no new class had appeared.
Relieved, I raised a hand and called forth the butterflies again.
As if they’d been waiting for it, butterflies sprang into being and began circling around me.
I increased the number, and controlling them felt noticeably easier than before. The lesson the ghost had given me in the dream seemed to be working perfectly.
At the moment I could only summon them and move them around, but once I grew more familiar with it, I’d probably be able to change their form and nature freely. If that happened, maybe the trouble caused by my dual class would finally be resolved.
I hesitated for a moment, then spoke into empty air.
"Thank you."
It felt embarrassing. It wasn’t as if she could hear me, anyway.
In a way, it was the classic case of causing the illness and then dispensing the medicine, but she’d still noticed that I was in trouble and moved to help me, and that was enough to be grateful for.
If I had no choice about the dual class, that was one thing—but the exhaustion had honestly been partly my own fault, too.
When I got to the Awakened Center in the morning, Deputy Manager Kim Jaehyun looked at me and said, "Seha, good timing. Do you have a minute?"
"What is it?"
"I’m really sorry, but we’re short on staff at a field site today. Would you be able to go out on an assignment?"
The fact that he was even asking an intern something like that was already better treatment than I had any right to expect. Usually they just issued orders, and there wasn’t any such thing as a right to refuse.
Even if I was having trouble with the dual class, I was still an Awakened, and once the problem was solved I’d be back as a promising candidate, so I supposed they were looking after me in their own way.
Then again, there were people who would only push you down harder. There were more people in this world chasing after things beyond imagination than you’d think. Compared to that, I was apparently pretty lucky when it came to people.
"Of course. Where should I go?"
After getting the details right away, I headed toward the parking lot.
"I’m from the Support Team."
I approached the people loading luggage onto a truck and said that, and one of them brightened up and asked me, "Lee Seha?"
"Yes."
"Good, you’re here. You heard the story, right? For now, please help us move the cargo."
"Understood."
My class might be tangled up, but my strength and stamina themselves hadn’t vanished. I rolled up my sleeves and lifted the bulky loads one after another, hauling them onto the truck, which drew shocked looks from the others.
"What is that? You’re an Awakened? You don’t look anything like one, but you’re crazy strong."
"I am an Awakened. There’s been a bit of a problem, so I’m working as an intern for the time being."
"I was wondering what the hell we were supposed to do today, but I guess the heavens haven’t abandoned us after all. You came at exactly the right time. I’ll buy you a drink when we’re done, so keep that strength coming."
"Yes, sir!"
Following the lead of the fleshy, broad-shouldered section chief, I kept lifting the cargo and loading it into the truck, then split into several vehicles and headed for the site.
When we arrived, we unloaded the cargo from the truck and brought it near the Gate entrance.
After I’d dropped everything off, the others unpacked it, set up tents, and installed various pieces of equipment. Since I didn’t really know much about those machines anyway, all I could do was help with the heavy lifting.
"Take a good look. There are all sorts of monitoring systems, but this one’s a makeshift server that converts combat data collected by drones into stats."
"Wouldn’t a guild usually handle something like this themselves?"
"If it’s a guild, then usually, yes. But for an individual party, it’s not easy to buy this sort of thing outright. That’s why the Association rents out the manpower and equipment."
"I see."
While helping with the setup and picking up bits and pieces of knowledge along the way, several new vehicles arrived before long. The party members who would be conducting the Gate exploration here today had finally arrived.