Expanding the Party

After sending Yeonji into orbit, I even punched heat-addled Sujin a one-way ticket to heaven, then crawled straight into bed. Handling two women at once wasn't exactly easy — but it wasn't hard, either. The three of us slept like the dead, all the way through until lunch the next day.

The following afternoon we dragged ourselves up, still nuzzling and rubbing against each other, and filled our stomachs with the jelly donuts I'd bought the day before. Sex was training for us, so this kind of decadent living wasn't half bad.

"Nom nom. Good thing the last expedition wrapped up without a hitch. Got a dungeon in mind for the next one? We made a fucking killing off those Phantom Cores this time, so maybe we can afford to space things out a bit."

Yeonji asked about the next expedition schedule around a mouthful of mango donut. Somehow I'd ended up as the de facto party leader, so I was the one driving our expeditions.

Not that I minded. I was their master, after all — it felt right. That said, the sight of Yeonji swallowing donuts while white semen leaked from both her pussy and her ass was genuinely beautiful.

"Nothing lined up yet. Let's just take it easy for a couple of weeks. We made plenty of money."

"At this rate, we'll have the debt paid off in no time."

Sujin said it in a voice bright with excitement. The sooner we paid off the loan, the better. Unsecured loans aimed at Dungeon Hunters carried a staggering fifteen percent annual interest rate.

Those sons of bitches. I couldn't tell if they were a first-tier bank or a loan shark waving a kitchen knife. The one silver lining was that there was no early-repayment fee. The faster you paid, the more you saved.

The current plan was to clear the entire loan within six months. After that, we'd start outfitting ourselves with proper gear, piece by piece.

Right now we were clearing dungeons on raw ability power alone, but if we were thinking about the future, quality equipment needed to be stocked early. Armor, at the very least. The first piece of gear any Dungeon Hunter bought was armor.

Armor was a spare life. With proper armor, you could even take on dungeons a rank above your actual skill — and it protected you from injuries you never saw coming. In other words, armor was both an investment and an insurance policy. Considering the asset that insurance was protecting was your own life, buying armor was the most rational choice you could make.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

Honestly, we should have bought armor before the Party House. But the world didn't always let you play by the book. We'd simply chosen a house as the opportunity cost of armor. Pay off the debt fast, then buy the gear.

"Wow. These donuts are amazing. Where'd you get them?"

"Heh. So your taste buds are still working. Jelly Donut Tropical Variety. My all-time favorite snack. Back when things were rough, I'd eat these to pick myself up. A whole box for just 9,900 won. Incredible, right?"

"That's dirt cheap. Then again, it's not like money's something we have to worry about in this line of work. Hmm… except we are paying off a loan, so maybe it is?"

Yeonji seemed to like the donuts. Women really couldn't resist anything sweet. But even more appetizing than the donuts was Yeonji herself, sitting there with her legs crossed so elegantly, eating pastry and sipping coffee.

Ah…

Black stockings, white stockings — that was just science. Should I make it a house rule starting today? Inside the house, full nudity, no exceptions. The only things you were allowed to wear were stockings and socks. Eye contact meant penetration within three seconds. A legal code so magnificent even King Hammurabi would weep.

"Heh heh! I can see every dirty thought running through your head, Jaeseong."

Sujin giggled beside me. Her words hit me like a truck. I'd always thought I had a pretty decent poker face.

"That's just because you're used to me, isn't it? I'll have you know my acting's actually pretty good."

"Hmm~ Is that so? Maybe. You've punched through me so many times now that I feel like you and I are completely one."

Without warning, Sujin grabbed my cock. Then she started pumping it up and down like a joystick. Nngh. That soft hand was getting a reaction out of me.

"Honestly. I'm not one to talk, but you are a genuine lust monster, Jaeseong. If we'd just left you alone, how many women would you have raped out on the street by now? Just thinking about it is terrifying. Kihi!"

I honestly agreed. Devoured by the dirty novels I'd written just to scrape together a living as an author, I'd already become the ultimate sex-drive monster. If these two hadn't been regularly draining my lust, I'd already have become a Class 2 Demonic, hunted down by the Hunter Association. Sujin and Yeonji were as good as my saviors.

"Oh, right. Think it's about time we expanded the party a little?"

"The party? Three people isn't enough?"

Yeonji tilted her head, still chewing her donut. She had a point — and she didn't. I'd felt it in the last dungeon too: a party of at least five would be ideal.

More party members meant longer expeditions. Day trips were fine with three, but once you started doing long-term runs with overnight stays inside the dungeon, a three-man party ran into all kinds of problems. The biggest one was night watch.

Night watch was mandatory in a dungeon. There were Safe Areas — special zones monsters wouldn't enter — but not every dungeon had them, and they weren't sitting at every junction either. And staying in a Safe Area didn't mean you skipped night watch.

Typically, night watch was rotated among three or four people over the course of a night, so a three-man party on a long expedition meant every member stood watch every single night. Stamina burned through at an insane rate. That was why long-term expeditions practically required a party of five or more.

"If we add two more, they'd be damage dealers, right? Hmm. Should I look around on the app?"

Yeonji said it while pulling out her smartphone.

"I've actually got someone in mind already."

"Ah! Lina, right?"

To my surprise, Sujin nailed it. Or maybe it wasn't that surprising. The only Dungeon Hunters I knew were Sujin from the training institute and that dickhead. Come to think of it, what had happened to that dickhead? Still a piece of shit, no matter how I looked at it.

"Lina? Someone you two know?"

"Yeah. She was in our training class. Her ability is Chain Disaster. She's incredibly skilled. And Jaeseong was always staring at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠her with those filthy eyes."

"Urgh!? How did you know?"

Sujin's powers of observation…!

Genuinely impressive.

"You were always staring at Lina's ass with those horny eyes. How could I not notice? You were definitely thinking something like, 'I wonder what her pussy tastes like,' weren't you?"

"Urgh…! Direct hit."

I played dead. Had Lina noticed too? That would be a little inconvenient…

"Well, Lina's surprisingly dense about that kind of look, so I don't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think she noticed. She's a pretty straightforward, easygoing girl, despite how sharp she looks."

Lina's first impression had been a razor-edged, no-nonsense beauty who'd cut you just by looking at her — but in reality she was a refreshingly bold, tomboyish type. Anyway, I was glad she hadn't caught me staring. My first impression hadn't been great to begin with; stacking up more bad points would only make recruiting her harder.

"So that makes four with her. How do we find the last one?"

"Let me think on it for a bit."

There were conditions to becoming one of my party members. I planned to reveal part of my abilities to them. Honestly, if I wanted to use things like my inventory in a dungeon, I didn't have much choice.

So every party member had to be someone I could trust. And the best way to guarantee that was to make them all my slaves — just like Sujin and Yeonji, who were already slaves of my love.

Which naturally meant they had to be women. I didn't know if Power of Sex even worked on men. But even if it did, I had zero intention of using this ability on that dickhead. Women only — and beautiful ones, at that. Filtering that hard shrank the options fast. Well, nothing I could do about it.

"Let's just rest up for now. I'll handle the other party members myself."

I'd come through two dungeon expeditions without a scratch. I was itching to get back to Solari World and move the story forward. Fortunately, time in Solari World froze while I was here. Over there, I'd been in the middle of preparing for a dungeon expedition.

The dungeons in Solari World were different from the ones in reality. I knew everything about that place. The monsters that spawned in the dungeon I was heading to, the items they dropped, the clear rewards — all of it. Of course, there were probability elements involved, so I couldn't say I knew a fixed future, but I still had incomparably more detailed information than I did for dungeons in the real world.

On top of that, I'd gained actual experience from clearing real-world dungeons. I felt ready to tackle the ones over there. What I was after right now was the dungeon clear reward: the Dual Blades.

I wanted to power up Luna with those as soon as possible. Luna getting stronger was the same as me getting stronger. Luna was a woman more loyal to me than even Sujin or Yeonji.

I packed a few things into my ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠inventory. Anything from reality that went into the inventory could be brought to another worldline. The reverse was true as well, of course.

What I packed was emergency rations. The food in Solari World was pretty pathetic. Their idea of emergency rations was jerky black as coal, or hardtack so dense you'd believe it was a brick. Preservation and nutrition were fine, but they'd been made with zero consideration for taste, and I could barely get them down.

So I packed real-world emergency rations instead. The ones made for Dungeon Hunters fighting alone in dungeons had both taste and nutrition down pretty well. Sure, you'd get sick of them if you ate them too often, but they were still far better than anything in Solari World.

Items in the inventory weren't affected by time, so I could have packed regular meals, but regular food was hard to eat conveniently in a dungeon. The advantage of dungeon emergency rations wasn't just shelf life — they were easy enough to eat while walking.

I packed a few snacks too, chocolate and donuts, for when my mouth got bored. I considered bringing a flashlight, but there were already similar items in Solari World, so there was no need.

Once I'd packed everything, I transferred to Solari World. After the familiar experience of my vision flickering, I became a different person in a new world. From Hunter Baek Jaeseong to slave merchant Derick Walker. The sensation of a lean, muscle-honed body filling out with rolls of fat was still unpleasant.

"Buhihit! I'm back."

The laugh, perfectly suited to a pig, wasn't to my taste either, but regardless — I was back in Solari World. The moment I arrived in the new world, a notification window appeared before my eyes.

The new quest was a typical hunting quest.