Chapter 261: Unicorn
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 261: Unicorn
“Hah, hah, hah...”
Her light purple hair was disheveled, and a subtle tension clung to her pale skin.
Amidst her ragged breaths, her trembling violet eyes were fixed on me.
I stared at the woman straddling me, my mind racing.
‘...What in the world is happening now?’
To make sense of this chaotic situation, I needed to rewind a bit.
I had just left Professor Shin Minha's workshop and was walking down the hallway. There was no one around. It was better that way; walking through crowded areas would only draw unwanted attention.
I was strolling down the corridor without a particular thought in my head.
Whoosh—
Suddenly, the door to a classroom next to me flew open, and a formless energy pulled me inside.
I was surprised, but I could have easily resisted if I'd wanted to. I didn't.
Attacking a student in a Magic Tower run by a 7th Circle Mage?
At this point, I was just curious who the hell was behind this.
Of course, letting myself get dragged away without any information about my attacker was something the old me would have cursed myself for. A crazy move.
But what can I say?
I've become a mage who lives and dies by curiosity.
Dragged into the classroom, I was thrown to the floor.
Contrary to my expectation of a follow-up attack, an unexpected situation unfolded: a woman I’d never seen before climbed on top of me.
‘...Who is she?’
It was definitely my first time seeing her face, yet a nagging feeling of familiarity lingered in my mind.
But no matter how hard I wracked my brain, nothing came to mind.
It was unlikely she was a student at the Magic Tower.
With looks like these, there's no way I wouldn't remember her, even if we'd only passed by each other briefly.
[Would you like to use Unicorn's Gaze on the target?]
[Y/N]
‘Use it.’
[Y]
[Riyal Everhart
Status: Virgin]
Some things in this world are hard to comprehend with common sense.
This was one of them.
The moment the screen appeared before my eyes, I was at a loss for words.
Riyal Everhart?
Wasn't Riyal the name of Professor Shin Minha's familiar?
I collected my chaotic thoughts and looked at the woman on top of me. How had I not noticed it before? A small horn protruded from her forehead.
So, this woman was really Professor Shin Minha's bratty familiar?
“...How long are you going to stay like this?”
I decided to play dumb for now.
This was Professor Shin Minha's familiar, of all people. There had to be a reason she’d suddenly show up and act this way.
But that didn't excuse her for throwing me to the ground.
I decided to take this opportunity to teach her some manners on Professor Shin Minha's behalf and reached out.
But in that instant, something completely unexpected happened.
“Mmph?!”
Without any warning, Riyal grabbed me by the collar and pressed her lips against mine.
Smack!
I immediately pushed her away.
“Has this woman lost her mind?”
Wiping my lips with the back of my hand, I glared at Riyal. But she didn't answer.
Instead, the look in her eyes was strange.
“Hah, hah...”
Her pale cheeks were flushed, and her eyes were glazed over, as if she were on drugs.
No matter how I looked at it, this wasn't normal.
Do familiars do drugs these days?
“Hey, how are you going to deal with the consequences when you snap out of this?”
As expected, my voice didn't seem to reach her. She placed her hands on the floor and slowly crawled toward me.
A dry, disbelieving laugh escaped my lips.
This wasn't like a new bride trying to seduce her husband on their first night.
I was beginning to doubt if this was the same familiar who had secretly used telepathy to threaten me behind Professor Shin Minha's back.
Riyal caressed my face, then, without a hint of hesitation, she leaned in to kiss me again.
I debated whether to push her away, but seeing her hold me down with such strength, I simply parted my lips.
“Mmph, mm, slurp, chuu...♡”
As befitting a virgin, Riyal was clumsy with everything from tangling her tongue with mine to timing her breaths. She was like an animal moving on pure instinct. That was a compliment, by the way.
It meant she was being that much more aggressive.
About five minutes passed like that.
No matter how long I waited, Riyal showed no sign of pulling away. If anything, as if kissing wasn't enough, she started fumbling at my crotch.
Naturally, I had no intention of letting her go that far. Dealing with the aftermath would be a pain.
Taking advantage of her unguarded state, I struck the back of her head.
Of course, I didn't hit her to cause pain.
“Ugh?!”
Struck by the Buddhist palm meant to dispel worldly desires, Riyal's eyes looked much clearer than before.
Rubbing the back of her tingling head, Riyal looked around before her eyes met mine. A ripple of shock spread through her pupils.
“Are you back to your senses?” I asked casually, trying to lighten the mood.
“N-No way... For me to do that to a lowly human... Ugh!”
But Riyal's face immediately turned pale, and she started gagging. It was so absurd that I had to fight the urge to smack her on the back of the head again.
“And here I thought you were enjoying sucking face just a moment ago.”
“Sh-Shut... Urp!”
I had no idea why she was so angry.
From my perspective, wasn't I the victim here?
Besides, I even stopped her from throwing away her virginity. She should be on her knees thanking me, but instead, she was gagging at the sight of my face.
Is this why they say you shouldn't take in horned beasts?
“Sob, that was my first kiss...”
Leaving Riyal to her solitary muttering and sniffling, I pondered the cause of her recent behavior.
She clearly hadn't been in her right mind.
The first possibility that came to mind was that Professor Shin Minha had ordered her to do it, but that was the least plausible theory.
It wasn't as if a familiar had to unconditionally obey its contractor's every command. More importantly, if Professor Shin Minha had been confident she could win me over with her body, she would have tried to seduce me herself.
‘Then again, seeing as how she just feeds me cookies and gives me hugs, I doubt the thought of seducing someone with her body has ever even crossed her mind.’
Professor Shin Minha seemed, how should I put it, incredibly inept when it came to relationships between men and women.
It was probably because she'd dedicated her entire life to magic research. I wouldn't be surprised if she'd never even seen porn.
Anyway, I pushed aside my stray thoughts and looked at the still-sniffling Riyal. At that moment, the horn on her forehead caught my eye.
‘Could it be...?’
Suddenly, I remembered something I had forgotten.
Riyal isn't human. She's a polymorphed mythical beast.
“Hey.”
As expected, Riyal ignored me.
“Are you, by any chance, a unicorn?”
“?!”
But that one question made her head snap toward me. Her eyes, shaking as if an earthquake had struck, were fixed on me.
“H-How did you...?”
Her reaction, as if I'd hit the nail on the head, confirmed the hypothesis I had just formed.
Unicorn.
A creature considered a high-ranking species even in the vast world of mythical beasts. A fully grown unicorn was known to possess power rivaling that of an A-rank dungeon boss.
And not long ago, I had eaten the horn of a thousand-year-old unicorn.
[Millennium Deer Antler
Grade: Epic
The horn of a male unicorn that has lived for a thousand years. Consuming it allows you to seduce female unicorns.]
A dry laugh escaped my lips. It was just too ridiculous.
I ate the unicorn horn because I heard it was good for stamina, not because I had any intention of seducing female unicorns.
Sighing internally, I gave Riyal a rough explanation of the situation.
“...You ate a unicorn's horn?”
“I heard it was good for stamina. The reason you jumped me was probably a side effect(?) of me eating a male unicorn's horn.”
“...”
Riyal lowered her head, remaining unsettlingly silent.
I slowly got to my feet.
I didn't have time to dawdle with a unicorn who was like a ticking time bomb.
“Well, we can't turn back time. How about we just consider it an accident and move on?”
“...An accident?”
“Yeah, so...”
Flinch—
At that moment, an unidentifiable sense of dread tightened its grip on my chest.
“...Right, that wasn't my will. It was strange from the start, wasn't it? Me, the successor to the great blood of Everhart, pouncing on a mere human male? It makes no sense!”
Through countless real battles, there was one thing I had learned never to ignore.
The danger signal my instincts were screaming.
That was happening right now.
I left Riyal to her own little world and exited the classroom. I had no desire to spend another moment with a unicorn whose sanity was questionable.
*
Despite my concern that she might show up with a knife, Riyal thankfully didn't appear again before my last class ended.
She was a strange unicorn, but it seemed she wasn't so far gone that she couldn't understand words.
‘By the way, if a unicorn loses its first kiss, does it become a bicorn?’
I mulled it over but concluded that was probably not the case.
Unicorns like virgins; it's not a requirement for them to be virgins themselves.
If that were the case, they would have gone extinct long ago.
‘Anyway, Riyal Everhart... Is it a custom among mythical beasts to pass down surnames?’
The question piqued my curiosity, but not enough to make me run to the library.
I headed to the top floor of the Magic Tower to meet the Tower Lord. The female employee at the desk greeted me with a bright smile.
“What can I help you with... Oh, you're early today, Mr. Hyun-woo.”
“My class ended early.”
I saw the employee every Monday, so we'd gotten to know each other's faces, though I still didn't know her name.
I think she said she was a graduate of the Magic Tower.
“Could you please wait a moment? There's another guest who arrived before you.”
“A guest?”
“Yes, someone you probably know, Mr. Hyun-woo... Yes? Yes, Tower Lord.”
A faint trace of magic emanated from the employee as she spoke to the empty air.
It was telepathy, a high-level magic.
I didn't need to trace the magic to know the sender was the Tower Lord.
“Um, Mr. Hyun-woo?”
“Yes?”
“The Tower Lord says you may come in now.”
“Didn't you say there was another guest?”
“I know, right? She's not one to take her appointments with you lightly, of all people...”
The employee, who seemed to know a secret I didn't, saw me off as I headed to the workshop.
Just as she said, it wasn't in the Tower Lord's character to summon me without reason while another guest was present.
‘It's one of two things.’
Either to get rid of a troublesome guest, or...
Creeak—
...the guest was someone she intended to introduce me to from the start.
As I opened the door and stepped inside, a familiar silhouette came into view.
Gray hair, a black dress, and the lingering traces of an astonishingly powerful magic.
“Welcome.”
It was the Tower Lord, Han Lael.
And sitting across from her was someone I'd never seen before.
‘...Horns?’
Blue hair and yellow horns reminiscent of lightning bolts. Even from the back, I could tell she was a beast-kin.
To be honest, I had expected that anyone meeting directly with the Tower Lord wouldn't be an ordinary person.
But the moment the woman turned her head and looked at me, I couldn't help but be taken aback.
“Hello.”
With gently curved eyes and a soft smile, it was a face no man in South Korea could fail to recognize.
In fact, it might be hard to find someone in all of Asia who didn't know her.
“My name is Shin Yuna.”
Shin Yuna. She was a Hallyu star enjoying immense popularity worldwide, a top actress whose value was increasing by the day.
She was also the next head of the Cheonghae Shin Clan (靑海申家), one of the three great magic noble families of South Korea, alongside the Seongbuk Choi and Jinryu Han families.