The Eight-Foot Ghost

The ghost exorcisms were finished.

Not completely finished, of course. According to the original setting, far more ghosts still lurked in this neighborhood. The ones I had banished were only a fraction of them.

Still, I cleaned out every ghost I could handle easily.

Exorcising every last spirit in the district in a single day was impossible even for me. Finding them in the first place was the hard part. The ones I had dealt with at school today had simply been the kind that were relatively easy to encounter.

You couldn't just wander around and expect ghosts to show up. Spirits like the Kokkuri-san ghost or the piano ghost only appeared under specific conditions of time and environment.

I've lowered the Ghost Qi Degree a fair bit… so the heroines' power should have weakened some as well. Time to start conquering them?

I walked home late at night, lost in thought.

Damn it. Being able to retry after a failure is nice, but why the hell is there no save function?

In the original game, a save system let you progress at your leisure. You could save before a choice, click through the options one by one, and play without any real pressure. I had none of that luxury now. Fail, and I went all the way back to the beginning — which meant redoing today's entire round of exorcisms from scratch.

I can't afford to fail.

I was still steeling myself with that resolve when I felt a chill at a fork in the road — the same kind of aura I had sensed when I summoned the Kokkuri-san ghost.

Looks like there's a ghost nearby.

I studied the options in silence, rifling through my memory for anything similar. Nothing came up. Whether I had simply forgotten or the choice had never existed in the first place, I couldn't say. I trusted my memory well enough that it was probably the latter.

The left path leads straight home… so let's try the unfamiliar right path.

The moment I selected it, my body veered down the right path of its own accord.

It was past midnight, but the street was empty to an unnatural degree.

"……."

Straight ahead, about ten meters away, a long, thin shape stood waiting. It was roughly human in outline, but stretched far too tall to pass for a person. White clothes. A hat.

An Eight-Foot Ghost this time.

In the original game, the Eight-Foot Ghost had been even more of a pain than the Red Mask. The items required for a proper exorcism weren't one or two — they were a whole shopping list. I had none of them.

But I do have the exorcism rod.

I shook the rod and walked toward the Eight-Foot Ghost the same way I had approached the Red Mask. This wasn't a game. Even without the prescribed items, I could beat the thing to death with the rod and be done with it.

The Eight-Foot Ghost coiled its body into a grotesque crouch, then came charging at me.

Five minutes later, a familiar notification window appeared.

One in the morning.

I made it home without further incident. Standing before the door, I tensed. There was a real chance my underclassman Ji Dahye was already inside.

Meeting a beautiful junior at home in the dead of night — that should be a good thing, right?

It would have been, if the junior in question weren't Ji Dahye.

She's already diverged from the original, so I have no idea how she'll react… She might attack the second I walk in…

Ji Dahye was a heroine. I couldn't just beat her down the way I did ghosts. Still wound tight, I opened the front door and stepped inside. I checked every room. Empty. No trace of a ghost either.

There was, however, a pot of curry sitting on the dining table. After the drugged bread from that morning, the idea that this might also be laced with sleeping pills made it hard to touch.

No choice window popping up… so maybe it isn't spiked?

What to do.

After a moment's thought, I decided to take a single spoonful. Not because the curry looked good, and certainly not out of any respect for Ji Dahye's cooking. Purely for verification.

If the curry also contained sleeping pills… then conquering Ji Dahye would require an entirely different approach from the original method.

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I took a bite.

Cold curry tasted terrible.

No sleeping pills.

I showered, climbed into bed, and slept.

A welcome notification greeted me.

Checkpoint.

That single word told me everything I needed to know. Even if I hit a bad ending from here on, I wouldn't have to start from day one — I'd resume from this checkpoint instead.

Good. Means I won't have to redo all that tedious work.

Out of habit, I reached for my phone.

10:21 a.m.

I was late.

I'd forgotten to set an alarm and slept in the way I usually did. I got up slowly. Being late to school wasn't going to end the world.

I skimmed the pile of messages. Most were from Shin Ojeong, with a few from the three heroines as well. A couple from the teacher for good measure. I only replied to the heroines. Shin Ojeong and the teacher could wait.

I washed at my leisure and ordered delivery for brunch.

Ah, damn. Ordered wrong. This is disgusting. The ingredients aren't even fresh.

I'd gotten pork soup rice, and it was awful. I would bet money this restaurant wouldn't last a few months before shutting down.

Outside, I headed not for school but for a nearby luxury residence — Ji Dahye's house from the original. I ignored the front gate and vaulted the wall. The moment my feet hit the yard, a thick wave of ghostly energy pressed in.

The front door was locked, so I smashed the living-room terrace window and climbed through.

"……."

I froze the second I was inside.

A man and a woman sat crouching on the floor, shackled and chained. Gags sealed their mouths. All they could do was stare blankly at a home-shopping program blaring from the TV.

"Mmph! Mmmph!"

"Mmph-mmph!"

They thrashed and cried out the moment they noticed me. I couldn't make out the words, but the meaning was obvious enough — let us go.

"Shut up."

I kicked the man. He toppled and writhed on the floor like a worm. I looked at the woman beside him. Her face had gone deathly pale. Whatever hope she had felt at the sight of me vanished in an instant — the expression of someone dropped from heaven straight into hell.

I searched the house.

Aside from a few odd items, it was an ordinary home. On the surface.

Dog collars, puppy pads, dog food… They don't even keep a dog, yet the place is full of pet supplies. Or rather — they are keeping dogs.

My gaze settled on Ji Dahye's parents, still bound in the living room. Judging by the state of them, they had been locked up for roughly three days. Under normal circumstances, coworkers, friends, or relatives would have come looking by now…

But Ji Dahye is possessed by an earthbound spirit. A powerful one. With a ghost's power, most of those problems would solve themselves.

Twisting a person's perception was nothing to a spirit.

Ordinary people can't handle ghosts. There's a reason exorcists exist.

I pulled a cola from the fridge, drank it, and looked back at Ji Dahye's parents.

The reason she had been possessed in the first place was them. They had treated her like property and tried to control every aspect of her life. The stress that piled up year after year had become a perfect well of resentment for a ghost to answer.

Of course, the original Ji Dahye never locked her parents up like this. She only used the ghost's power to make their lives miserable.

In the original, you conquered her by helping improve her relationship with her parents through conversation…

This Ji Dahye had restrained and imprisoned them. For at least three days already. Could conversation alone fix that? I didn't think so.

More importantly, the original Ji Dahye and this world's Ji Dahye were not the same person. She had zero interest in reconciling with her parents. The original route simply wouldn't work.

"…Hmm."

I sat on the sofa and studied Ji Dahye's mother. True to a dating-sim world, the heroine's mother was strikingly beautiful. As Ji Dahye's real mother she had to be at least in her forties, yet her appearance could pass for late twenties without much trouble.

Long pink hair fell past her chest, braided and draped over one shoulder. Her breasts were even fuller than Ji Dahye's. Age had given them a slight ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠sag — and that was a turn-on all its own.

A soft little roll of belly fat at the waist, and a generous ass. Childbearing hips. Overall, a lush, meaty milf type.

I can't pass this up.

I reached for Ji Dahye's mother and stripped her bare — underwear included.

"Mmph, mmmph…!"

"Mmph! Mmmph-mmph!"

Terror flooded her face. Her husband glared at me with bloodshot eyes, murder written all over him.

"You insolent bastard. Looking at me like that?"

Fortunately, I was an expert in this sort of thing. I fetched a kitchen knife and severed his pinky finger. That ended his resistance. He dropped his gaze.

"That was your last chance. Act up one more time and I'll cut off every finger and shove them down your throat. Sit there quietly and cry."

I ran my hands over Ji Dahye's mother's body. None of the taut firmness of youth remained — but there was a ripe, mature softness in its place. Her large, slightly drooping breasts carried thick nipples, more brown than crimson from years of pigmentation. In size and shape they put fake nubs to shame.

I cupped a breast and took it into my mouth, chewing and sucking on the nipple. No milk came, of course — but the sheer size of it made me feel like an infant again.

Next I moved lower. She had a thick thatch of pubic hair. Apparently once a woman became a housewife, grooming down there fell completely off the priority list.

"Mmph! Mmmph!"

I ignored her struggles, gripped her plump thighs, and spread them wide. A slightly sagging pussy that looked like an abalone greeted me — along with a strong, concentrated smell.

That's pretty ripe. She hasn't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been washing them since locking them up, has she.

Oral was out of the question. Not that I had planned on it from the start.

I worked the aged pussy with my fingers. Given the situation, her body didn't heat up easily — but under my persistent attention it gradually grew wet.

Squish. Squish.

"Ohhh. Auntie. From the outside this pussy looks like a total slut's… but inside it's almost virgin-tight. Been a while since you last had sex, hasn't it?"

"……."

She squeezed her eyes shut and wept.

I glanced at her husband. He was staring at his severed pinky, sniveling. His wife was an afterthought; all he cared about was his own hide. Men like him were common enough that it barely registered.

I dropped my pants, freed my cock, and drove it deep into that wet abalone of a pussy.