Virgin Hunter

My nape throbbed with a dull, lingering ache. My tongue had gone stiff, so rigid I couldn't even cough properly. It felt like someone had beaten the living hell out of me.

I'd never been strangled before. My vocal cords felt completely wrecked. My mouth was thick and pasty, but I didn't have the strength left for so much as a dry hack. Gathering every last ounce of energy I possessed, I pushed myself upright and lifted my head.

Is this heaven? No — if there's a place waiting for a bastard like me after death, hell would be the better fit. I cracked my eyes open and found a familiar ceiling. The ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cramped, low ceiling of my studio apartment.

"Whew. Thank god. I'm not dead."

I guess even a Hunter as half-assed as me has a body that's stupidly durable. Honestly, if this had happened before I raised my stats, I would have asphyxiated for sure. Sujin… I didn't have her pegged as the type, but she's surprisingly tough. Well, even that side of her is attractive.

The whole plan had been to screw Sujin. It had nearly turned into a suicide plan instead. Typical me. There's a reason my novels don't sell. I almost met the ending a pretentious idiot like me deserves.

Anyway, Sujin had nearly strangled me to death, so I supposed that made us even for the aphrodisiac. I looked at her sleeping beside me, breathing in soft, even little sighs, and smiled with deep satisfaction.

Dried semen and virgin blood ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clung to her glistening pussy. Even while I was blacking out, I'd still pumped it into her. I had to admire my own libido all over again.

I didn't feel the slightest urge to resent her. Honestly, the climax I'd felt while choking had been so incredible I wouldn't have traded it for my life. Do I have a masochistic streak too?

No.

I'm a sadist through and through. The pleasure of breath-play sex is just that intense — intense enough that I want to let her feel it once herself. As I was turning these thoughts over, a notification window suddenly bloomed inside my mind.

Notification windows stacked across my vision one after another. I didn't even get a chance to savor the afterglow before I was reading them all. And every last line was something that made me happy.

Ravishing Sujin hadn't just given me pleasure — it had paid out in real, tangible gains. I'd raked in a mountain of Bonus Points and a frankly absurd amount of Credits. On top of that, I'd gotten Random Item Coupons. Even factoring in the part where I'd nearly died, this was a profitable venture.

And I'd taken Sujin's virginity. I still couldn't quite believe it. I used to be a never-been. Now I was a been-there.

"So taking a virgin makes Power of Sex hit even harder? And if it hits harder… does that mean Sujin gets stronger too, not just me?"

I opened my status window. I wanted to see exactly how much my stats had climbed.

Strength, Agility, Intelligence, and Luck had all risen by ten. A single round of sex had bumped every stat by that much. Ten felt vaguely modest as a number, but the fact that my stats had gone up from nothing more than getting laid was still a beautiful thing.

"Come to think of it, Sujin overpowered me in Strength last night. Is a hundred not actually that high among Hunters?"

Granted, I had to factor in that she'd been halfway out of her mind at the time — but it still stung the pride.

My original Strength had been twenty-four. By the numbers alone, that made me roughly four times stronger than I used to be. Even an ordinary Hunter was several times stronger than a regular human, though, so by Hunter standards my current figures might be surprisingly average.

I figured I ought to push Strength a little higher. It had absolutely nothing to do with being pissed about last night. If I was going to become a Dungeon Hunter anyway, Strength mattered.

"Kehek—!"

I'm sorry, what? Ten Bonus Points? It just jacked the price up tenfold overnight?

That was an outrageous markup. I had over seven hundred Bonus Points, and by this math I could only raise a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠post-100 stat by seventy.

"Wait. Then gaining ten points across the board from sex was actually incredible."

This one encounter had raised every stat by ten. Strength and Intelligence were already over a hundred, so in Bonus Point terms a single round of sex had earned me the equivalent of two hundred and twenty points. That dwarfed most of the other rewards I'd seen. The first-experience bonus really did pay out fat.

"Even with this many Bonus Points, dumping them carelessly at ten-a-pop is a little rich for my blood. For now, maybe I should just push the other stats up to a hundred."

I shelved the idea of investing in Strength and poured Bonus Points into Agility and Luck instead — the two that hadn't hit a hundred yet.

If I'd raised both of those to a hundred ahead of time, a single round of sex ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠would have netted me four hundred points of value. Then again, you can't spend points on a future you don't know is coming, so there was no point blaming my past self.

"And what's this title?"

The sex had also given me a title: Virgin Hunter. It was an extremely vulgar name, but it had my interest.

I tapped the title field.

A title that padded the bonuses you got from a first time. Solid. Unambiguously good. It felt like a divine commandment to go around deflowering virgins left and right. Not that Sujin had seemed remotely virginal — especially not with that filthy way she rolled her hips. Was that all my doing?

"Come to think of it, I got items as a level-up reward too, didn't I?"

I checked my inventory. A coupon-shaped icon sat in the upper left. Unlike before, these were marked A-Rank, and beneath the icon it read ×5. Five of them, obviously.

"A-Rank coupons should mean better items than the last ones."

Last time I'd used a C-Rank coupon and pulled a B-Rank item. My working theory was that a C-Rank coupon rolled anything from D-Rank to B-Rank — B if you got lucky, D if you didn't, C if you landed in the middle. That felt like a very reasonable guess. Which would mean an A-Rank item coupon rolled everything from B-Rank to S-Rank?

I used an item coupon. A clichéd fanfare blared, and a new icon claimed a slot in my inventory.

A big eyeball-shaped icon. Pulling a B-Rank item off an A-Rank coupon. My luck didn't seem great. Then again, given the string of SSS-Rank skills I'd been handed, maybe I'd already burned through my fortune.

I checked the item's effect.

Oho. Perfect for a hidden camera. An item this valuable sitting at B-Rank? Same as the Succubus's Gift — even the lower-ranked items were turning out to be incredibly useful. I almost didn't want to think about what would happen if an S-Rank item actually dropped.

Nnngh…

Four B-Ranks in a row. Burning A-Rank coupons and getting nothing but B-Rank after B-Rank. I couldn't tell if my luck was garbage or if this was just a normal result. Maybe pulling those SSS-Rank abilities and skills had been foreshadowing for this exact drought.

I checked the effects. Birente's Holy Water was an item that instantly cleared status conditions. The Warrior's Brush was a brush that raised one's technique — so it made your calligraphy prettier? Not something I needed right now.

The Orange Potion restored HP. Potions were an extremely precious resource, so I was pretty glad to have it. Buying a potion with real-world money, even a cheap one, ran you hundreds of dollars. The potions Dungeon Hunters typically used went for over a thousand dollars a pop, and thinking about that made their income make a lot more sense. If you didn't earn that kind of money, the potion bill alone would bankrupt you.

I looked at the last remaining coupon icon and drew a long breath. Everything I'd pulled so far was excellent, but if I was going to be greedy, I wanted A-Rank — or something even higher. If B-Rank items were this useful, I could barely imagine what A-Rank or S-Rank would look like. Offering a fervent prayer to a god I wasn't even sure existed, I used the final Random Item Coupon.

Nice!

I did it. An S-Rank item. I checked it immediately.

I could tell it was an incredible item from the description alone.