The Drunkard's Offering
I waited in front of the bathroom, the torn stockings already replaced with a fresh pair. When Haemi noona stepped out, she gave my shoulder a light pat. I turned my gaze away from her as she hummed a little tune and took back the bag I had been holding for her.
Just moments ago she had been unconscious with a ruined face, yet the instant she came to, she acted like nothing had happened. For Haemi noona—who had been reborn as a Saintess to serve the owner of the mask—was this really no big deal at all?
We weren’t even lovers, and from her perspective I was the one who had rewritten her mind and body. Even if I hadn’t meant to, the truth was that I had kept enjoying her changed body afterward, so I had no right to say anything…
“...Wooju.”
“Ah, yes, noona.”
I was frowning, trying to shake off the self-loathing weighing on my shoulders, when her gentle voice pulled me back. I answered quickly.
“Do you have some time? Then could you lend me the mask for a bit?”
“What? Why all of a sudden?”
“Why? Because I have to offer a tribute, of course.”
I stared blankly at noona, who was looking up at me with bright, expectant eyes and holding out her hand. A tribute to the mask? What on earth did that mean?
But I had no choice right now. If I didn’t give her this so-called tribute, the mask might take something else from me again.
I glanced down the hallway to make sure no one was watching, then pulled the mask from the bag and handed it to her.
“Good. It’ll only take a moment, so wait just a little longer. Here we go… bueee…”
After receiving the mask, she gripped it with both hands, opened her mouth wide, and extended her tongue that sparkled with emerald light. Then she let the glowing mucus dripping from her tongue pour onto the back of the mask.
It was a shocking sight, but I definitely remembered seeing it somewhere before. This was exactly what I had witnessed back at the reading club. It was the same liquid noona had poured into the mask before turning Yunsol into a Saintess.
The mucus that had been trickling down now pooled until it sloshed, but the surface level dropped in an instant. After maybe three seconds, the back of the mask was completely dry, as if someone had used it like a bowl and drunk every last drop.
“Pwah! All done~ My work for today is finished!”
“...You’re done? Noona, what you just spat out… what was that?”
I asked as she stretched with a refreshed expression and wiped the corners of her mouth.
“Oh, that? I don’t know the exact details either… but it’s the mask’s favorite drink. A Saintess can make it using the Master’s semen she’s taken into her body. The process is too complicated to explain… Just think of it simply as liquor I brewed by rolling your cum around inside me in all sorts of ways.”
“That sticky stuff is liquor? And the mask drinks it?”
“Why? If you’re curious, do you want to try a sip too, Wooju? There’s still a little left~”
“No… You just said it was made from my semen. I’ll pass on that…”
I politely declined Haemi noona’s teasing offer as she opened her mouth wide and pointed at her own throat, laughing brightly. Then I looked down at the mask again.
The mask’s favorite drink. A Saintess who brews liquor and offers it to the mask. My semen as the ingredient… And on top of that, the mask’s voice that had rung inside my head earlier.
I felt like the screws in my brain were slowly tightening.
“Hehehe, just kidding. Anyway, Wooju. From now on, be careful. You understand what I mean… right?”
“...Yes. I just figured it out.”
The playfulness that had lingered on her face vanished. When she looked up at me with eyes full of worry, I nodded. The meaning of the warning that Haemi noona and the mask had personally engraved into my body—I had realized it just moments ago.
The foggy haze in my head, the headache that felt like boiling fever, and the nosebleed that had gushed out like a fountain. It was a warning that if I didn’t make the mask’s favorite drink—if I didn’t offer the tribute—I was unnecessary.
In other words, if I didn’t pour my lust into Saintesses like Haemi noona and Yunsol, I would die.
I had no idea how that was possible, but I had just experienced firsthand that I really could die at any moment.
“........”
I quietly stared down at the mask in my hand. Even though it had no decorations or patterns at all, I got the creepy feeling that it was glaring back at me.
How the hell did I end up picking this thing up…
“Mmm… ugh… Huh? What the… where am I…”
“You awake?”
“Uhek?! Choi Wooju… why are you here…?”
I stubbed out my cigarette as I watched Go-eun sit up on the bench with bleary eyes. Haemi noona had said she had plans and left first, and I still had plenty of time, so I could afford to look after her.
After finishing her lookout duty while I was busy with noona, Go-eun had immediately collapsed and fallen asleep. I had been flustered, but since she was only sleeping, I laid her down in the utility room while noona changed her dirty clothes, then brought her out here now…
“You look surprisingly fine. That’s a relief. Sorry about earlier.”
I apologized to Go-eun, who was blinking sleepily with messy bedhead.
It had been an emergency, but I still felt bad for using her like that.
“...Huh…? Earlier? If you mean earlier… Ah! Your nosebleed!! Did you go to the hospital?!”
“...Erase that from your memory. That’s an order.”
“...Ah— Yes… Understood…”
When the still-dazed Go-eun suddenly shouted, I gave her another command. The character engraved on her forehead glowed, and her eyes grew cloudy.
It couldn’t be helped. If the story that I wasn’t feeling well reached Jae-hyuk, Mom would naturally find out too. It was far better to do this than to make everyone around me worry for nothing.
I slipped a pack of cigarettes into the arms of Go-eun, who was staring blankly with drool dripping from the corner of her mouth. We’ll call it even with this…
“...Uhat?! Uh… what the… why does my head hurt so much…? Hey, Choi Wooju, did I zone out again?”
“...Aren’t you pretty tired? If you’ve got time, you can crash for a bit at our reading club before you go.”
I naturally continued from the end of her sentence as she frowned and rubbed her temples.
“...But why was I sleeping here?”
“Beats me. You said let’s smoke together and came out with me, then you just fell asleep. Didn’t you sleep last night?”
Go-eun looked around with half-lidded eyes. It really seemed like she remembered nothing. I was the one who had done it, but I never expected it would even erase memories.
I didn’t know exactly what the character engraved on Go-eun’s forehead meant, but I had figured out a few things.
First, only noona and I could see the character on Go-eun’s forehead. Other people couldn’t even perceive that something was written there.
It wasn’t certain, but if noona could see it, that probably meant Yunsol could too.
Second, just as the character Slave implied, she would obey any order I gave. She followed everything from simple errands to commands that went beyond common sense like “erase your memory.”
Moreover, it seemed she retained no memories of the time she spent in that Slave state after receiving my orders.
And the most important third point: Go-eun appeared to be a different case from Haemi noona and Yunsol.
It was true that she had changed after wearing the mask, but she was somehow different from the two who had become Saintesses.
Unlike Haemi noona and Yunsol, who after removing the mask would show an empty smile and go through a short “incubation period,” Go-eun immediately acted like nothing had happened. That was the first difference I noticed.
Even Haemi noona didn’t seem to know much about Go-eun’s condition. And when I remembered how the two Saintesses had shown me excessive goodwill, the way Go-eun treated me like usual made it clear she wasn’t a Saintess.
Well, just to be sure, let’s test it once…
“Hey, Choi Go-eun.”
“Hm?”
“I love you.”
“.........Ugh.”
A completely rotten expression. That confirmed Go-eun wasn’t a Saintess.
“Ah, seriously, why are you suddenly saying that?! You gave me goosebumps!!”
“I’d appreciate it if you understood that I didn’t say those words because I wanted to.”
I waved my hands defensively and stepped back as Go-eun dropped her cigarette and clutched her outer clothes tightly around herself.
Anyway, if Go-eun wasn’t a Saintess, I didn’t necessarily have to do it with her, which was good for me too. We used to bathe together when we were little, and she’s my cousin—doing something like that would be… physically impossible for me.
......But wait a second. If the goal is to make a lot of that liquor, why increase the number of Saintesses?
Of course, from the mask’s perspective, more Saintesses would be good, but then wouldn’t it also need to increase the number of “Masters” who provide the semen?
Why would it deliberately choose the inefficient route of having so many Saintesses under a single Master?
It was a question that suddenly crossed my mind… but how would I know what the mask was thinking? There was no way to find out right now anyway. It wasn’t like I could talk directly to the mask…
Want to?
“Ugh?!”
“Whoa, shit, you scared me!! What, what now?!”
I looked around, ignoring Go-eun who was yelling at me. The only ones nearby were me and Choi Go-eun. Which meant…
I turned my head toward my bag that I had set down beside the bench. The bag was shaking violently because of something wriggling inside it.
I pressed my lips together—my mouth had gone completely dry—walked over to the bag, and unzipped it the moment—
“What the hell is that? What did you put in your bag… ugeup?!”
“──?!”
The mask shot out from the narrow gap and flew straight at Go-eun’s face in an instant. I ran toward her as she struggled desperately to pull the mask off her face again, letting out muffled groans.
“Hey, Choi Go-eun?!”
“....Mmph, ugh......”
It was a sense of déjà vu. Without time to care about that, I grabbed the mask and yanked.
But this time it was different. Unlike before, the mask wouldn’t come off, and Go-eun lost strength immediately. Her body went limp while still wearing the mask, then she slowly lifted her head and looked straight into my eyes.
Even though the mask had no eye holes and her eyes were covered, I somehow felt like she was staring right at me.
“...You…”
“...This is the first time I’m speaking to you this way. Hello.”
The ‘mask’ standing in front of me used Go-eun’s voice and raised Go-eun’s hand to wave at me in greeting.