The Saintess Awakens
The soft warmth enveloped my entire body, so enveloping it felt like I was lying in a field of flowers. The sweet fragrance was so intoxicating it almost felt like an illusion. As the first red rays of the morning sun gently settled over my eyelids, a humming tune reached my ears.
"Mmm~"
"......"
I tossed and turned, forcing my heavy-lidded eyes open. At the edge of my tilted vision, I saw the back of a woman. She was sitting at a vanity in nothing but her underwear, gazing into the mirror as she applied lotion. Looking at that familiar silhouette, I finally remembered this wasn't my room.
Last night, when I'd passed out drunk in front of the convenience store, that bright, sunny smile had suddenly appeared before me. So this must be...
"...Haemi noona?"
"Ah, Wooju! You're awake?"
My voice came out hoarse. Noona, who had been tying her hair, turned around with a bright smile and stood up. I rubbed my throbbing temples from the hangover and slowly sat up. Before I knew it, she was right beside me, offering a glass of water.
"Here, drink this."
"Ah, thanks... But why am I sleeping here..."
The hazy memories I had left off at the point where I'd hugged her right before she fell asleep the other day. So why was I—the guy who'd passed out on the street—waking up in Yang Haemi's studio apartment?
"Aah~ Last night, Yunsol told me you looked really bad. I got worried, so I went looking for you everywhere! I stopped by your house and even went to school."
"...How did you know where I live?"
"I found out while talking to your cousin Go-eun at Jaehyeok's funeral yesterday."
I'd forgotten, but Yang Haemi had an insane talent for making friends. Rumors said she could even befriend the president, so finding out an address must have been child's play for her. The fact that she'd gone to my house probably meant she'd met my mom and dad too. No wonder I hadn't gotten any calls last night even though it was late...
"I searched for a long time but couldn't find you, so I combed the area near the station where you and Yunsol broke up. After wandering around for about thirty minutes, I found you sleeping in front of the convenience store."
"...Thank you. But did you carry me all the way here by yourself? How...?"
"Of course I carried you! Ah, but don't worry. You weren't that heavy."
"....."
A fully grown adult man, drunk out of his mind, had been carried piggyback by a woman all the way to her place? What must the passersby have thought seeing that? My face burned with shame.
"Sorry... I'm so sorry..."
"Huh? No, it's fine~ I told you, you really weren't heavy! Maybe because I'm a Saintess now, I didn't even break a sweat or feel any strain in my arms~"
I covered my bright red face with both hands and shook my head frantically. Seeing me like that, Haemi noona burst into laughter. Noa had said that a Saintess possessed physical abilities twice that of an adult male, so her claim that it wasn't difficult was probably true. Which somehow made it even less comforting.
I'd gotten drunk and slept in my senior's room. And not just any senior—she'd carried me here herself while I was unconscious, and now she was standing there in her underwear. My ears burned with embarrassment, but I finally lowered my hands.
"...Thank you so much, noona."
"...It's nothing. You went through a lot yesterday too. What happened to Jaehyeok is truly unfortunate... but it was absolutely not your fault. Jaehyeok said so himself, right? I heard everything."
"Huh...? How?"
The last conversation I'd had with my friend Park Jaehyeok—his advice to stop blaming myself. No matter how well-connected Haemi noona was, how could she possibly know about that final exchange between me and Jaehyeok?
"Hmm... It was about four days ago? I was talking with Jaehyeok and somehow your name came up. He said, 'That bastard Choi Wooju has this habit of getting all serious by himself,' and 'I wish he'd fix it, but he won't listen to me.' Then he asked me, 'So noona, could you help him out a bit?' So come on, Wooju! Cheer up! Jaehyeok's gonna curse you out again if you keep moping."
......
No tears came. I'd already cried them all out at the hospital when he ended up like that. It was just that the reality was finally sinking in now. My best friend since forever was truly gone from this world. A strange, sad feeling washed over me—like my chest was both aching and strangely clear at the same time. I quietly lowered my head.
Then I looked at my reflection rippling on the surface of the water in the cup I held with both hands before lifting my gaze again.
"...Noona, you had no morning classes today, right? I should get going first..."
If I just sat here any longer, I'd only sink deeper into this gloomy mood. There were things I had decided I needed to do right now. Finals were in a month. I'd been too busy to study lately, but I had to start today.
"Sure! You only have your suit, right? I brought some clothes from your house, so go wash up and change."
"You brought my clothes? From my house?"
While I downed the water in one gulp, Haemi noona rummaged through her closet. She'd gone to my house and gotten my clothes? What on earth had she said to my parents to make them hand over my clothes to someone they'd never met before...? All sorts of questions flashed through my mind, but I didn't voice any of them.
I left her humming cheerfully as she pulled clothes from the closet and neatly folded the blanket on the bed I'd just been lying in.
Clunk—
"Huh?"
Something fell from the closet with a dull thud, tumbling out from between my clothes onto the floor. It was the mask.
"Ah, right—your bag must still be at school... How are you going to carry this? I have a small bag I don't use anymore. Want me to put it in there? It should be in this closet too... Huh?"
Noona picked up the fallen mask and playfully shook it, but then she suddenly froze as if she'd seen something.
"No, it's fine. Just put it in a plastic bag. You don't have to worry about it."
"...Wooju, these letters on this mask... they're glowing? Can you read them...?"
"...What?"
The moment she finished speaking, I dashed to the closet in a single stride. Noona was staring at the back of the mask with a slightly surprised expression, pointing at one of the characters with her finger.
But the character she was pointing at wasn't glowing. And it was one I couldn't read anyway.
"It looks normal to me? You said it's glowing?"
"Yeah, you can't see it? It's sparkling so prettily..."
Thud—
"Wait, noona?!"
Her voice trailed off weakly as if all strength had left her. Before she could finish, Yang Haemi pressed the mask against her own face in an instant.
Only then did I remember what the mask had said.
'If you wish to confirm the change, place the mask on the Saintess named Haemi.'
Had it guided her into wearing it? What a meticulous bastard.
"Noona? Are you okay? Can you hear my voice?"
".........."
A familiar sense of déjà vu made cold sweat bead on my skin. The warmth in my body vanished in an instant, replaced by a chilling wave of goosebumps. Even though the human being called Yang Haemi stood right in front of me, I felt an eerie emptiness, as if I could see nothing at all.
Her hands had gone limp and hung loosely at her sides. Her legs gave out, collapsing backward onto the floor with a heavy thud. The memory of that day when she'd been squeezed until she passed out flashed through my mind, triggering her PTSD. I swallowed hard—
"...Gulp, gulp..."
"...Noona?"
Something was different from that day. A sound reached my ears. At first I'd mistaken it for myself swallowing, but Yang Haemi's throat was visibly working, bobbing up and down.
She was making wet swallowing noises as if drinking something. I called out to her, but she seemed entranced, continuing to drink whatever it was.
And it didn't take long to figure out exactly what that something was.
Splat. Splat...
The unpleasant sticky sound of something splattering onto the floor drew my gaze downward. Between Yang Haemi's cleavage and dripping onto the ground was a translucent, jade-colored liquid.
I knew exactly what that fluid streaming from the gap between her face and the mask, flowing down her chin, was.
"...'Alcohol'?"
It was the liquor brewed from human desire that the mask loved so much—the tribute a Saintess offered to the mask. The liquid that I thought no one could possibly drink was being gulped down greedily from inside the mask. Yang Haemi's body began to tremble little by little.
"Gulp... Mmmh♡ Haa..."
"Noona? Noo—!! Ugh?!"
The moment I called out to her as she writhed while letting out what sounded like pleasurable moans, my body was flung backward. A small, pure-white hand had shoved my chest. I knew a Saintess's strength far exceeded mine, but not to this degree.
My staggering body was thrown back onto the bed. When my spinning vision finally refocused, Yang Haemi was already straddling me.
"Mmmchuup...!♡ Gulp, gulp...! Slurp...!♡"
"N-Noona?! Are you okay?!"
I had no time to worry about the mucus dripping onto my chest. Unlike the first time she'd worn the mask, the convulsions wracking her entire body transmitted vividly to me. Sensing that something was seriously wrong, I used all my strength to sit up and reached for the mask covering her face—but my hand never touched it.
Squelch—!!
"Ugh?! Ah, what the hell is this...!"
Just before my fingers could reach the mask, a black tentacle snatched my wrist. The tentacle that had appeared from nowhere yanked my wrist down with tremendous force, pinning both my hands.
"Kuhp, ngh... Gulp...♡"
I tried to call her name again as her convulsions grew more intense, but the sight before me made me forget how to speak entirely.
The black tentacle that had bound my hands—its origin could be traced to behind Yang Haemi, where her waist was slightly arched. From the tailbone at the top of her buttocks, covered by black leggings, something had sprouted.
It wasn't a black tentacle.
It was a black tail.
A long, sleek, and incredibly soft tail had grown from a human—from Yang Haemi.
After that impossible transformation, her body began changing noticeably in real time. Her hips and breasts were swelling larger by the second. Her already large chest, which had fit perfectly in her crop top, looked like it would burst free at any moment.
And from her forehead, sharp, hard-looking horns were sprouting on both the right and left sides.
"Ugh... Gulp... Ngh...♡"
The speed of the changes gradually slowed, and Yang Haemi's convulsions began to subside as well. I should have asked if she was okay, but my voice still wouldn't come out. Why? Was I too shocked? No.
"Haa... Haa...!"
My head had been foggy for a while now. It wasn't from the hangover. It was because of the sweet scent that had been tickling my nose since earlier. The sweat dripping from Yang Haemi onto my chest and face smelled unbelievably good. It was like a pheromone that paralyzed a man's reason and inflamed his lust... an intoxicating fragrance that made my brain tingle...
When I came back to my senses, my cock had grown so hard it threatened to rip through my underwear. The crotch of the leggings Yang Haemi wore while straddling me was soaked to the point where the slickness was clearly visible.
"Mmm... Puha...♡ Aah, what was that... It felt so incredibly good..."
"N-Noo..."
At the same time, Yang Haemi placed her hand on the mask and peeled it off her face, radiating intense heat. Her pupils were indeed glowing with a jade light, but there was a striking change. Her irises had transformed into a black '+' shape that no human could possibly possess. The whites of her eyes had turned black, creating a reversed gaze. She smiled with pure sensuality.
"...Ahaha, Wooju! I feel so good right now♡ What is this? Why? I already liked you so much before, but now I like you so much I can't stand it...!♡ I wanted to give you everything, and now... I can make all of that come true...♡"
"Huu... Huu...!"
I couldn't speak properly. There was no time to talk. If I stopped breathing for even a second, it felt like my lungs would burn away.
"Hmm? Wooju...? Aah, is this why you're suffering...?♡ Noona will milk it out for you right away. My new body... will feel incredibly good...♡"
Her tail swayed gently as she narrowed her eyes. She licked her lips with her jade-colored tongue. Then she sharpened the tip of her tail and sliced through the fabric of her leggings and panties at her crotch, exposing her pussy.
"Wooju... my Owner♡ This Saintess's pussy will milk you dry right away♡ Ah, aah..."
Squelch—!
"Ugh?!"
"Aah, it's inside...♡ As expected, Wooju's is so huge! It reached my womb in one thrust...♡"
I'd had sex with her before. I'd had sex with a Saintess before. But the pleasure flowing through my nerves right now was something completely different, incomparable to anything prior. The way her insides squeezed me with impossible elasticity, the doubled sensitivity of my cock the instant it entered her, the irregular swirling of her vaginal walls like a spinning onahole, and her scorching body temperature.
"Ugh, khaaa...!!"
Spurt, spurt— I came the moment I was fully inside. Just from penetration alone. It felt like my entire body had become an erogenous zone. Every inch of me was hypersensitive. It felt way too good.
"Oh? You already came? Ehehe...♡ Did you like my new insides that much...? It's okay... You still look full of energy, Wooju, and I'm yours now, so you can use me anytime you want...?♡ And it looks like it'll be a while before those balls of yours are completely empty, so shall I keep squeezing you like this? Hehe...♡"
Yang Haemi licked the back of her hand covered in mucus, then began moving her hips before I could even respond.