Divine Seat
Ending the recreation.
Back in reality, I did what I always did — I picked up my smartphone.
Let's see… the points I earned this time…
About the usual.
The surprising part was the level. I'd expected to hit level 80 this time, but it looked like I'd come up a little short on experience. A bit disappointing, but there was nothing to be done about it.
These points go into my stats.
The points vanished in an instant.
I felt my body grow lighter. It wouldn't be long now until every single stat hit 100.
I haven't tested it properly yet, so I can't say for sure… but with stats like these, my physical capabilities should be on par with an A-Class Hunter.
On the lower end of A-Class, most likely. From A-Class on up, physical ability varied wildly from person to person. Some hunters had outstanding physiques but lacked mana. Naturally, the reverse existed too — and there were those who possessed both physical prowess and mana in abundance.
I can raise my physical stats gradually. Time is on my side anyway, and from everyone else's perspective, it'll look like I'm growing like some kind of monster.
I now had the physical specs to hold my own even as an A-Class Hunter without being looked down on. The problem was that my track record was still nowhere near enough to actually get promoted to A-Class.
To build up my record…
I'd have to clear dungeons and take on Association commissions. But when it came right down to it, the whole thing felt like a hassle. Clearing dungeons and completing commissions would get me money and items with special powers, sure… but knowing I could obtain far better gear from other worlds than anything this one had to offer, I just couldn't muster any real enthusiasm.
Still, if I want to become an A-Class Hunter and throw my weight around, I'll need to steadily rack up performance points. First things first — I should meet up with Han Harin.
I figured we'd clear some decent dungeon together. She needed performance points to reach A-Class just as much as I did, so she wouldn't turn me down.
No sooner had the thought crossed my mind than I headed straight for Han Harin's place. Living close by had its perks. If I had something to say, I could just drop by without bothering to call. And of course, the fact that I could meet up quickly whenever I wanted sex was a benefit I couldn't leave out.
I punched in the front door code and walked inside. Han Harin was home. She was in her room, packing a suitcase.
"A suitcase? Where are you going, Noona?"
"…Could you stop barging in out of nowhere for once?"
Han Harin, mid-way through stuffing a black set of underwear into the suitcase, scowled and glared at me. It was the same thing she always said, so I just shrugged.
"Overseas trip?"
"The guild took a commission. I'm being dispatched to Japan. I leave tomorrow."
Tomorrow.
At those words, my eyes drifted unbidden to the calendar on the wall. Today was Thursday, June 10th, 2021 — which made tomorrow Friday.
"You're leaving on a Friday night? We were supposed to do a hotel staycation together."
"We never agreed to that. Don't make things up."
Han Harin snorted.
"Make things up? I'm joking. Just joking. But your guild takes commissions from Japan too?"
"It's Suwol Guild. When a guild's well-known, commissions come in from overseas. Korean guilds work abroad often enough that they're pretty famous worldwide."
Korea had a disproportionately large number of hunters relative to its population and land area, so it was common for hunters to go on overseas expeditions.
"Still, Japan commissioning Korea's Suwol Guild is a bit unexpected."
"It's not that special. It's happened from time to time for years."
"What are you doing there? When do you get back?"
"Clearing an Erosion Dungeon. That's all it is — an A-Class Erosion Dungeon that appeared in Hokkaido. Best case, two days. Worst case, I'll be back within a week."
I quietly clicked my tongue. I wanted to go with her, but I had no justification. I belonged to Seventier Guild; she belonged to Suwol Guild.
"You've got time until tomorrow, right? It's evening now — want to grab dinner out? I found a restaurant that was on TV. Apparently their noodles are incredible."
"I have to be at the airport at dawn, so no."
I wrapped my arms around Han Harin from behind.
"Then we've still got time."
"…Let go."
"Come on, don't pull away. We won't see each other for a while. I'll give you a massage."
She flinched at the word "massage," then let out a small sigh. A sigh of surrender.
I laid Han Harin down on the massage bed and worked both hands over that voluptuous body of hers. No matter how many times I touched it, it was an absurdly arousing figure.
Before long, our bodies were tangled together until dawn.
Before she left, Han Harin showered and finished all her preparations. I drove her to Incheon Airport myself.
Watching the plane bound for Japan, I felt a strange, restless melancholy. In the recreation worlds, the woman I'd been with the most was Yuria. But limited to the real world, the woman I'd had sex with the most was Han Harin.
The attachment had already piled up as deep as it could go.
The next day.
I went with Park Suho to visit his younger sister, Park Gain, in the hospital. It was one of our regular visits. We talked with Park Gain before she fell asleep, then Suho and I planned to grab dinner together.
"What's going on? You look awful today. Something wrong?"
I asked Park Suho. He'd managed his expression fine while we were with Park Gain, but the moment we parted ways with her, he completely lost the ability to keep a straight face. Part of it was that he was comfortable around me, sure — but sitting across from someone wearing a funeral face the whole meal was hard to ignore.
"It's not anything serious… it's just, it's kind of a ridiculous story to tell someone else…"
"Saying that just makes me more curious. What is it already?"
Park Suho scooped up a spoonful of budae-jjigae and ate it. His face looked like death, but his appetite was intact.
"I've been having weird dreams lately. Some woman appears and tells me the world is in danger."
"A woman dream, huh. What's she look like?"
"Uh… she's surrounded by light, so I can't really tell. I just somehow get the sense she's a woman, so I've been thinking of her as one."
"You said 'lately' — so you've been having the same dream over and over?"
"Yeah. About a week now."
I scratched my head and sank into thought.
Having the exact same dream for a full week was never a good sign. This world had magic, and it had curses.
"A curse?"
"That's what I thought at first. With Gain's situation and all. So I went straight back to the hospital… but they said it wasn't any kind of curse."
"Could be a ghost."
"I may not look like it, but I'm a hunter who can handle mana."
Anyone who could wield mana could hunt ghost-type monsters too.
Just writing it off as a random nightmare felt wrong — Park Suho was special. He had the ability to travel to another world. For all I knew, some entity from that other world was sending him a message.
"Tell me exactly what that woman said."
"She said the world was in danger, and then… uh… sorry. My memory's too fuzzy."
"Well, that happens. If you have the same dream again tonight, write down what she says the second you wake up."
"Okay. I will. This isn't anything serious, right?"
"If it were serious, it wouldn't have stayed a dream."
I clinked my soju glass against his. Budae-jjigae with soju was outstanding.
Afterward, we headed to a club for round two.
It had been a while since I'd been to a club, and even on a Friday night, the selection looked rough.
…No. My standards have just gotten higher.
The place was crawling with women who couldn't hold a candle to Han Harin. Even eighty percent of her looks would have been fine, but somehow there wasn't a single beauty in sight tonight.
I hung out with Park Suho for a bit, then we split up.
Thanks to my absolute spirit and virility stats — or maybe just mana — I wasn't the least bit drunk even without purging the alcohol. Park Suho, on the other hand, was dead drunk and being dragged around by some orc of a woman.
Before we parted, I took a photo of Park Suho and the woman. She was desperately covering her face with makeup, but she couldn't fool my eyes. Definitely an orc. Just the calves visible below her skirt were thicker than my fist.
"Heh heh… Matilda…"
"Oh my, what's wrong with this oppa? Do you like me that much?"
Park Suho and the orc woman were clinging to each other. For the record, Matilda was a woman who ran a flower shop in the Tattoo World. One of my regular lays — a fact Park Suho was completely unaware of.
Click. Click.
I'll use this photo to mess with Park Suho later.
And the next morning, Park Suho called.
"H-Hyung! There's some random woman in my house! What do I do?"
"The one you were with last night? What do you mean, what do you do? Figure it out yourself. You're not a kid."
"Th-The thing is, this woman wants me to date her! She says we slept together so we should go out! Fuck! This woman even took pictures!"
Park Suho's swearing came through the line. He'd clearly seen her face without makeup. This guy always acted like he didn't care, but he was ridiculously picky about women's looks.
"Just tell her you're not interested and to get lost."
I hung up.
Five minutes later, a message came through.
I felt zero envy toward Park Suho. Having sex with an orc like that… if anything, I felt sorry for him. For about five seconds.
Ten minutes later, another message came in.
It was a photo of dead-drunk Park Suho and a heavily made-up woman linking arms like the best of friends. That picture alone was more than enough proof it hadn't been rape.
Park Suho called back three hours later. He lamented that he'd only managed to recover 1.5 million of the three million won.
That afternoon, I got a call from Baek Jieun for the first time in a while.
There was talk that she might go from A-Class to S-Class Hunter at a young age. She was under the Absolute Hypnosis sticker, believing me to be her childhood friend and sex partner. She'd recently become an executive at the Korean Hunter Association, but as a junior member she was extremely busy and had little real authority.
"You need performance points, right? Help me out with Association work for a while. I'll make sure you get proper credit."
"Oh. Jieun. So you haven't forgotten about me! With how little you've been in touch lately, I thought you'd written me off."
"I've been busy. Busy. And look, I'm helping you rack up performance points like this."
"It's not hard work, is it?"
"Hmm. A little? One of my subordinates is laid up in the hospital, so we're short-staffed. Just help out for about a week."
"Alright. Just make sure you lock in those performance points."
"I'll take care of that for sure! Just trust your Noona!"