A Blessing in Disguise
You again—
"Let's go, Harin."
I had no desire to stay in this room a second longer.
"Yeah, get the hell out, you son of a bitch!"
Kang Sera's venomous screams echoed down the corridor until the very moment the hospital room door swung shut.
—SLAM!
Only when the heavy door closed did the noise finally cut off. The Prometheus guild members guarding the hallway shot glances our way, but my expression must have been murderous enough that not a single one of them dared open his mouth.
We boarded the elevator in silence.
—Weeeeng.
As the elevator descended, only a heavy silence filled the cramped space. Harin kept her head bowed, saying nothing. On her white cheek, the red mark of a slap stood out vivid as a scar.
"......"
I quietly reached out and lifted her chin.
"L-Lee Hyun...?"
Harin's eyes wavered in flustered surprise. She forced a smile, trying to act as if she were fine, but the tears pooling at the corners of her eyes were impossible to hide.
"It hurts, doesn't it."
"N-no, I'm really fine. It's my fault for being inadequate..."
"Inadequate, my ass. You held back for my sake."
I gently brushed my thumb down her swollen cheek.
"You should have just dodged, silly. Or hit her back."
"If I had... it would have made things so much worse. I can't let you make enemies of those people, Lee Hyun."
Even now, all she worried about was me. She had been insulted and slapped across the face, and yet she had endured every ounce of that humiliation purely to keep me safe.
That devotion stabbed at my chest. And at the same time, my killing intent toward Kang Sera hardened into something colder and sharper.
"Harin."
"Yes...?"
"Don't ever do that again."
I bowed my head and drew close to her flushed lips.
—Mwah.
"Ah..."
"From now on, if anyone lays a hand on you, don't hold back. Put them half in the grave. I'll handle whatever comes after."
"Lee Hyun..."
"You're my woman. We have a contract, remember?"
At my firm words, Harin's face flushed crimson. Overcome, she threw herself into my arms, choking back sobs.
"Yes... yesss... I understand... sniff..."
Patting her trembling shoulders, I stared at the elevator doors with eyes gone cold and still.
Kang Sera. An arrogant, insolent woman drunk on her own sense of superiority.
At first, I'd felt guilty about what happened to her. Not anymore.
She didn't even know her own father had put her up for sale, and she'd kicked away the opportunity with her own two hands—then crossed a line that should never have been crossed.
'An apology? Comrades? Don't make me laugh.'
What she needed wasn't respect or consideration. It was utter destruction and submission. And ruin.
—Ding.
"Lee Hyun, so... what are you planning to do about Kang Sera? There's the Prometheus proposal and all..."
"The proposal, huh."
I'd already finished deciding what to do a moment ago.
"I'm going to accept it."
"What?! B-but, just now..."
Harin's eyes went wide with shock. After the way I'd been treated, she clearly couldn't understand why I would accept their offer.
"Don't misunderstand. It's not that I'm becoming their son-in-law like they want."
"..."
"What was that girl proudest of? Her position as heir to Prometheus—in other words, nothing more than the fact that her daddy runs the guild. That's all it ever was."
"I... suppose so...?"
"So I'm going to use it to grind her into the dirt. From the highest place possible, I'm going to drop her as low as she can possibly fall."
The plan was already taking shape in my head.
Use Kang Muhyuk to get close to Kang Sera. Strip away every ounce of power she held and snap that haughty pride of hers in two. And in the end... force that arrogant mouth of hers to beg Harin for forgiveness.
I'd braced myself for some form of retaliation—but laying a hand on Harin went far, far beyond any line. If she wanted to hit someone, she should have hit me. Who did she think she was, touching Harin of all people?
"Hehe... this is actually kind of nice. Usually I'm the one worrying about you, Lee Hyun, but it's not bad being the one worried over for once."
"If you like it that much, should I worry about you every day?"
"Fufu, no thank you. My poor heart wouldn't survive it."
Harin giggled and clung to my arm. The way she forced herself to act bright and cheerful for my sake only made my heart ache more.
"Oh my, look at the time. The others must be waiting for us."
"Want to come along too, Harin?"
"Hmm... who's fighting against whom today?"
Racking my memory: on paper, it was supposed to be Arang against Jinyul, and Seolhwi against Yuryeon. Everyone should be capable of winning their first two matches, so there shouldn't be any major problems.
"I might end up facing Jinyul."
"Then of course I'm coming!"
Harin bounced up and down in excitement. As a result, her enormous breasts swayed a full beat behind her.
"Harin, the button... the button...!"
The last remaining button let out a scream. It was heroic enough that it had endured that much tension at all, but holding out against the bouncing was clearly beyond its limits.
"Oh dear."
Thankfully, Harin's mood seemed to have lifted considerably. We set off on foot toward the Academy's main stadium.
For some reason, I felt like walking today. Strolling hand in hand with Harin under the warm sunlight was, in its own way, a kind of healing.
But that peace didn't last long.
"Move!! Out of the way!!"
An urgent shout erupted from the direction of the main stadium.
"Emergency patient! Please clear the path!"
Medical staff were sprinting toward us carrying a stretcher. Injuries during practical evaluations were common enough, but the condition of the girl on the stretcher was anything but normal.
"Haaaah... aaahn! C-can't... cumming...❤️"
"......"
"......"
Harin and I froze mid-step at the same time.
On the stretcher, the girl was writhing and squirming, her eyes glazed over. From beneath her cadet uniform skirt, a ceaseless stream of love juices was soaking through the bedding, and from her mouth burst not screams of pain but cries pitched high with pleasure.
"Nghaaahn! Again... I'm coming agaaain...❤️"
"Wh-what is that..."
Harin couldn't close her mouth. It was a carbon copy of what Kang Sera had shown us a few days ago. No—if anything, it looked even worse.
"What now? It's happening again?"
"Who is it this time? Isn't that Kim Sujeong, the first-year?"
"Damn, that's insane..."
The students around us murmured and whispered among themselves.
I walked into the arena carrying that uneasy feeling, and right on cue, the broadcast announcing my match rang out.
| Arena 7! First-year cadet Hwan Yihyeon versus first-year cadet Park Minji! |
"Oh, good timing. I'll be right back."
"Go get 'em, Lee Hyun! And don't get hurt!"
With Harin's cheers at my back, I headed to my assigned spot.
Across from me stood a short-haired girl... and her condition was a little off.
"......"
The moment she saw me, she began trembling like a leaf in the wind. Her face was deathly pale, her eyes flooded with such terror that she couldn't even look at me straight on.
"Ready?"
As soon as the referee asked, her hand shot up.
"I-I forfeit!!"
"Huh?"
"I forfeit! I, I don't... I don't want to end up like Kang Sera! Waaaah..."
Sobbing, Park Minji fled the ring as if running for her life.
'Does she think I did that to Kang Sera on purpose?'
Given the circumstances, there was no way to explain myself. Thanks to that, I advanced to the next round on a walkover without lifting so much as a finger.
And when I returned to the waiting room, I received some unexpected news.
"What? Jinyul did what?"
"Yes. That girl who was carried out earlier—apparently she was Jinyul's opponent."
Cheonghwa showed me the tablet with a troubled expression.
"Uuuooh!!! Ohohhoot...!!"
On the screen, the girl who had been sparring with Jinyul suddenly lost all strength in her legs and collapsed, then—just like Kang Sera—climaxing like a madwoman and spraying her juices, all of it captured in graphic detail.
Worse still, for some reason she hadn't been wearing any underwear, so even the way her pussy quivered from behind had been caught on camera in full.
"How did this even happen?"
"It seems Jinyul... got nervous and lost control of her strength."
Cheonghwa's explanation went like this: the pressure of an actual combat match had caused Jinyul's control to slip, just as mine had once done, and the Black Tortoise's pure Yin Qi had struck her opponent dead-on.
"So that girl... ended up just like Kang Sera?"
"Yes. Apparently the male student who faced her before that... also fainted while ejaculating nonstop."
"Why on earth wasn't she wearing underwear?"
"I'm not wearing any either."
With that, Cheonghwa hiked up her skirt and proudly pressed a V-sign up to her eye.
"...And why, exactly, are you doing that."
"It makes it easier for Master to mount me, doesn't it?"
"..."
It seemed the girls' collective sense of chastity had gone completely off the rails.
A short while later, I found Jinyul sulking in the corner of the waiting room, being scolded by Yuryeon and Seolhwi.
"Hey, what are we gonna do if you pull this too? There's already enough talk because of Lee Hyun."
"You should have thought about Master's position. How could you spray it everywhere with zero control like that?"
"Wuuu... I'm sorry... I couldn't help it..."
Jinyul hung her head, on the verge of tears, unable to lift her face.
But ironically, this incident took an entirely unexpected turn.
"Hey, did you see? She did it too?"
"Then doesn't that mean Kang Sera losing it wasn't just because of Hwan Yihyeon?"
"Good point. Could something be wrong with the artifacts?"
A new line of thinking had emerged: that Kang Sera's 'public climax show' might not have been my doing alone, but rather some phenomenon or side effect spreading through the Academy itself.
"It's fortunate that it turned out to be a blessing in disguise."
Cheonghwa murmured, pushing up her glasses.
"It wasn't intentional, but thanks to Jinyul, the public criticism directed at Master has been diluted considerably."
"I'm... not sure 'fortunate' is the word I'd use."
I smiled bitterly and prepared for my next match. My next opponent was none other than that walking disaster, Jinyul herself.