Slave Merchant: Derick Walker - 1

After I earned my Dungeon Hunter license and finished exploring the Unix Vessel, a rather small change settled into my life. In another light, it was a pretty big one. One of those changes was that Sujin and I started living together.

Living together had plenty of advantages. The best of them, by far, was being able to have sex at home whenever we pleased — a magnificent perk for both of us, and one that more than cancelled out every other drawback.

The place we lived in was a cramped studio apartment, but a small place is actually better when a man and a woman are sharing it. The two of us stuck ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠together like glue anyway, moving as a single unit — especially in bed. So the tight quarters weren't a downside. They were a feature.

Sujin handed in her resignation at work and started the handover. Then she began preparing to become a Dungeon Hunter alongside me. "Preparing" was a generous word for it; for now, it was nothing more than some light exercise.

The real training, they said, would start in two weeks. New recruit training at the Hunter Association was conducted by branch, once a month. You became classmates with whoever had passed the Dungeon Hunter exam at the same time you did.

It varied by branch, but at the Seoul branch, only about five people registered in a given month. Surprisingly, Seoul's registration rate was actually lower than the other branches.

Anyway, during the waiting period I did some moderate physical conditioning and rolled around with Sujin to my heart's content. On the side, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I also started putting together a plan to fuck Lina.

Sujin's sex drive was so ferocious I had to wonder if there was a succubus somewhere in her family tree. At first I'd cooked her however I pleased, but these days her counterattacks were no joke. She was adapting to my Power of Sex.

Once eight o'clock hit, our "training" unfolded on the bed. We went at it like a pair of monkeys in heat. Normally, if you want to keep your appetites in check, at least one person has to tap the brakes ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠— but neither I nor Sujin showed the slightest inclination. If anything, she was the one stomping on the accelerator. The type who'd spread her ass and offer me her hole while I was slapping her cheeks and pounding her pussy. From where I sat I wanted to get up and dance, but a lifestyle with this little self-restraint probably needed some reining in.

"Nnghiiit~♥ Haaah~! Haaaaah~! Haaah~♥"

Plap. Plap. Plap. Plap.

Sujin's body rocked violently above me, up and down. She had an unusual fondness for cowgirl — said she liked being able to set the pace herself. She thrashed her hips on top of me like an enraged bull. For the record, my cock was currently buried in her ass.

And something I'd figured out over the past few days: I was a hardcore anal maniac. Pussy was great, sure, but the moment I saw that tight, puckered little hole I couldn't stop myself from wanting to shove my cock into it. Thanks to that, Sujin's ass had gone from an excretory organ to my personal lust-relief station. If you tallied up the piston strokes, my dick had gone in and out of that hole more times than her own shit ever had.

Hmm~

Watching Sujin pant and heave on top of me like this, I found myself wanting to claim Lina's ass too. A handsome, cool beauty like her would definitely have a spectacular one. And that was probably her weak spot.

The fact that a female teacher's or a tomboy's weakness is her ass is an eternal, unchanging truth handed down through the ages. Just picturing Lina winking her asshole open in front of me made my cock throb. Not that it wasn't already throbbing.

"Hnnngh~! Hnngh~! Haaah~♥ Haaaaah~! My asshole's squelching~! It feels so good~♪"

Sitting here with a woman dancing in ecstasy on top of me, and I was thinking about another woman. A sliver of guilt pricked at me. Even so, I was absolutely going to fuck Lina. A paltry little thing like guilt didn't stand a chance against my appetite.

Besides, this was also a means of getting stronger. The more I had sex, the stronger I became — and the same went for my partners.

Among Dungeon Hunters, a messy trail of women wasn't much of a stain. Nothing to brag about, obviously, but people tended to look the other way, the way they did with sports stars and rock stars.

It worked the other way too: female Hunters almost never ended up in the gossip mill over complicated relationships with men. I'd hardly ever seen a Dungeon Hunter make the news over a crime of passion. Abuse-of-power scandals hitting the national broadcast, on the other hand — I'd seen plenty of those.

It was a profession where you staked your life every time you went to work, so people seemed generous about letting off a healthy amount of steam. Hunters were even a group where polygamy was permitted. Not that many Hunters practiced open polygamy, but calling a few girls for an all-night orgy, or seeing several women at once, didn't even register as gossip.

A good environment from my point of view — except it cut both ways, which meant I needed to keep a tight leash. The thought of Sujin moaning under some other Dungeon Hunter was one I didn't even want to imagine.

Getting a tattoo stamped on her body that marked her as mine didn't sound like a bad idea. Sujin wouldn't refuse a request from me anyway. Or I could turn her into a private toilet that couldn't get off on anything but my cock. That one was already a work in progress.

"Haaaaah~! Haaah~! My body's buzzing! I'm gonna cum! I'm cumming! I'm cummiiing~♪"

She loosed a clear, piercing cry like an ocarina and arched her back like a drawn bow. Tart love-juice sprayed from her split in every direction.

I'd laid a waterproof sheet over the bed in advance, so I didn't care that her fluids were fountaining everywhere. Before we'd started using the sheet, doing the laundry had been a nightmare.

I gently stroked the hair of Sujin, who had collapsed in a heap on top of me. Watching her become more and more an incarnation of lust with each passing day, I couldn't have found her more adorable.

Living with Sujin was a pleasure, but another pleasure had presented itself as well: playing Solari World. Being able to pick up this entertaining game anytime, anywhere was an enormous blessing. The touch controls that had felt awkward at first were second nature now.

I played in part because the game itself was fun, but also because I wanted to understand RPG systems better. The power of the Unix Cube had been given to me in the form of an RPG — the status window, the skills, the inventory, the quests, all of it was evidence. I figured that playing RPGs would help me grasp that system more clearly.

I didn't get much out of that particular angle. Then again, it was ridiculous to think a little bit of gaming would let me fully comprehend the enormous power I'd been handed. Even so, the game was fun enough that I never once felt like I was wasting my time. I played without even noticing the hours slipping by.

Solari World was not an easy game. The difficulty walked a tightrope between hardcore and casual, and as someone who wasn't used to games, I died more times than I cared to count. It only got harder toward the end, and I threw everything I had into pushing toward the credits. Seeing the ending on my own game sense, though, was brutally difficult.

What came down to me like a lifeline from heaven, when I was stuck against a wall, was a strategy guide. I used the notification window to access a Solari World walkthrough cafe. The place was packed with optimized guides meant to save the countless souls who, like me, had been crushed by the game's difficulty.

Looking at a guide from the start takes half the fun out of a game. But when you're stuck, and a walkthrough smashes that wall to pieces, it feels like finally scratching an itch you couldn't reach. I checked the guides as I went and cleared every section that had stopped me cold. Having the answer key made the rest of the run almost easy.

There were all kinds of guides. Some a beginner like me could follow without trouble; some built for super-experts. There were even guides tailored to degenerate challenge runs — collecting specific characters, or clearing without support units. Game otaku really were a magnificent species.

I stuck to a straightforward beginner's walkthrough. After I pushed through every stretch that had once defeated me, I finally got to see the ending.

"Whew. So this is the ending, huh?"

I checked the clock. Two in the afternoon. Sujin was at work, so the studio felt pretty empty. The handover had her busier than before. I stretched, watching the screen the Unix Cube had conjured in front of me.

It had taken a long time. Honestly, on my own, I never would have beaten it no matter how many hours I poured in. The game was fun, but the difficulty was considerable and the clear conditions were fairly complicated. Without a strategy guide I never would have seen the ending — but I had one.

"Ugh... I'm completely drained. How many hours did I even play? I'm totally wiped..."

One way or another, I'd beaten the game all the way through. A tremendous lightness and a sense of accomplishment settled in my chest, along with a faint tinge of regret. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠couldn't even remember the last time I'd thrown myself into a game like this. Seeing the ending with a walkthrough in hand was a little disappointing, but it still beat slamming into a wall and quitting halfway. I dropped onto the bed.

Then, without warning, a notification window appeared in front of me.

A massive reward, just like that. Huh? What was this? That much just for seeing a game ending? The Unix Cube's mind was a mystery I'd never fully solve. Still, if it was handing out rewards, the polite thing was to take them gratefully. But as I was thinking that, another notification window appeared.

What was that supposed to mean? Worldline Transfer? A phrase I'd never seen before had just materialized in front of my eyes. This Unix Cube had a habit of throwing out statements with no context. I put my novelist's brain to work and tried to parse the window. Complete a world's ending, and you can travel to another world. That seemed to be what it was saying. And if it meant another world...

"Don't tell me. Solari World?"

I could go inside the game. Wasn't that what the Unix Cube was telling me? It was an incomplete guess, but if you followed the logic of the moment the window had appeared, it fit. Traveling into a game... I was so stunned I didn't know what to do with myself.

What should I do? Was I even right? If I transferred to another world, what happened after that? Why did the Unix Cube even have this kind of power? The whole thing was a wall of unknowns. Question after question piled up in my head.

"If I go to another world, can I come back? I should be able to come back, right? It'd be weird if I couldn't."

The notification window didn't answer. This thing's one real flaw was how unhelpful it was. Bad programming, maybe? I sank into a deep tangle of thought.

This wasn't a decision I could make lightly. The information I had was far too limited to know which choice to take. For all I knew, crossing into another world meant never coming back. And if that were true... I'd be saying goodbye forever to Sujin, whom I'd only just made mine. Could I live with that?

The Unix Cube was pressing me. Hmm... Come to think of it, this thing had never once dropped me into real danger. If anything, it had only ever been an advantage. It had never done me harm.

Of course, the fact that it had been that way so far didn't mean it always would be. If you could lock down the future with the facts of the past, you wouldn't be human. You'd be a god.

Two options flickered through my mind. Step into an unknown new world. Or ignore the window and leave it alone. Which one would bring me the greater gain, I had no way of knowing. I stared at the notification with bloodshot eyes, and I chose the side my heart was pulling toward.

An adventure into another world was the kind of experience anyone would dream of, novelist or not. A sudden conviction hit me: if I let this chance slip, a second one would never come.

"Hoo..."

I steadied my breathing. I decided to trust the Unix Cube. This thing had changed my life — and for the better. A decent little bastard like that wouldn't hand me a bad option. And even if I sat here hesitating, I doubted it was going to volunteer any useful information.

"Screw it. I'll give it a shot. It's not like I'll be stuck there forever, right?"

Vmmm!

The moment I gave my consent, a faint light leaked from my body. At the same time, my vision flickered to black. Aigoo, my head! I already had the feeling I'd made the wrong call.