Huh, It's Gone!!

"Ugh? Did I pass out…?"

A familiar, musty reek of mildew stabbed at my nose. A chill crawled up my spine. When I finally forced my heavy eyelids open, pitch-black darkness flooded my vision.

Where the hell am I? Did the breaker trip…?

Only then did the moments before come back to me. The blinding flash that had erupted from the monitor like an explosion. And the bone-chilling cackle of the child spirit Saeal-i ringing in my ears. As those shattered fragments of memory finally locked into place, I felt an instinctive wrongness.

This wasn't my room… was it?

When I pressed my hand to the floor, it was cold, damp stone. My heart dropped straight into my stomach.

Th-then where the hell is this!?

C-calm down. Composure is a shaman's most basic virtue. Right.

In that instant, a face flashed through my mind like lightning. It was the character I had created in the game—the one that, at the very end, had looked straight at me and curled its lips into a smile. I still remembered it perfectly.

And from that, I managed a fairly plausible guess.

No way. Did I get pulled into the game? Possession?

Accepting that the kind of absurd plot twist you only ever saw in web novels had just happened to me didn't take long. I swallowed hard and carefully muttered under my breath.

Status window? You there?

The instant the words formed—

Ding—!

A translucent blue panel bloomed across my vision as if projected straight onto my retinas, accompanied by a cheerful chime.

"……It's actually there?"

I stared blankly at the panel floating in midair. This was, without a doubt, the status window from the game I'd been playing. But something was off.

Shaman……?

Even after burning hundreds—no, thousands—of hours into Crimson Mirage, I had never seen this class. Had my real-world profession been ported over wholesale when I got possessed into the game? Wait—did this game even have a shaman class?

Actually, knowing this game, it was possible. The base was a medieval fantasy romance setting with magic, but it was also a complete mishmash that threw in robots, mechs, and even laser beams straight out of sci-fi. A shaman class in a Korean-made game wasn't that strange.

And then there was a stat I'd never seen before.

Merit? Merit is a stat?

My thoughts tangled into a mess under the sheer absurdity of the situation. I let out a hollow laugh before I could stop myself and muttered under my breath.

"Oh, for fuck's sake—could you at least tell me what any of this means? No tutorial?"

That was when it hit.

Beep-beep—!

A sharp mechanical tone bored into my skull as a blood-red warning window slammed over my vision.

"……What?"

I went completely blank at the ridiculous system alert. One swear word and my stats dropped? In this game, raising a single stat point without bone-grinding training was a nightmare. And I'd just lost one for a single remark?

"You little sh—"

I swallowed the rest before it could leave my mouth. As I stared at the cruelly reduced numbers, my eyes snagged on a single word in the status window.

[Gender: Female]

"……?????"

Female?

Woman?

Like a broken doll, I creaked my head downward. What entered my field of view was a filthy, rough-textured rag of a robe. And then, with trembling hands, I carefully reached toward my crotch.

"……."

My lifelong companion. The comrade who greeted me every morning with a vigorous salute. My junior.

"……Huh? It's gone?"

All my fingertips found was a smooth, flat surface. Unable to accept reality, I started slapping and groping around with both hands.

"Wh-what the hell is this!? Huh? It's gone!! It's not there!! Where's my dick!!!"

My desperate scream echoed through the dark underground dungeon. And right on cue, the merciless system chime slammed into my ears again.

Beep-beep—!

"No!! You son of a biiii— mph!!"

I clamped both hands over my mouth. If I spat out another string of curses here, my stats would truly hit rock bottom—and who knew what kind of curse I'd eat for it. Tears prickled at the corners of my eyes. Twenty-five years of living as a red-blooded man, and overnight I'd become a eunuch… no, a woman.

My heart rate spiked like crazy. My hands and feet started shaking. So this was what that trembling middle-aged lady at the shrine had felt like.

Calm down, Han Do-gyeong. You're a professional shaman. Lose your head and a vengeful spirit will swallow you whole in a heartbeat. Breathe. Breathe.

I squeezed my eyes shut, sat cross-legged, and drew a deep breath. To steady myself, I began silently reciting the foundational shamanic scripture I always used at the shrine to drive out stray ghosts and purify body and mind—the Sutra of the Purified Heart.

Great Supreme Pure One, Lord of the Ultimate Dao… Left and right, the judges of the Pure Heart Dharma Realm…

As the mystical shamanic mantra circled through my mind, my thrashing heart settled with almost unnatural ease. Whether it was the Spiritual Efficacy trait or my high Mind stat, the calm came faster and deeper than it ever had when I chanted at the fortune shop.

Haa… All right. I'm good. First, figure out exactly what happened to my body.

I lowered the hands that had been covering my mouth and began examining myself carefully. The skin revealed beneath the ragged robe was so pale it seemed to glow faintly even in the pitch dark, without a single blemish. My fingers were long and slender; when I touched my face, the jawline was sharp enough to cut, and the skin was insanely soft.

This is… my body?

A strange sense of déjà vu hit me. When I looked down toward my chest, two full, heavy mounds rose where my pectorals should have been, their presence so bold that even the robe couldn't hide them.

"!!!!"

This… this is the body I custom-made!!

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

If I'd known, damn it—if I'd known, I would've built a muscle-bound alpha-male tank of a guy!

A pointless hypothetical. Who the hell expects to get gender-bent?

A wave of resentment crashed over me—but at the same time, a man's baser instincts quietly raised their head. Looking down, I could see the fantastical cleavage I had poured my very soul into sculpting.

Maybe it's not so bad…?

I swallowed hard. It's my body, right? Touching my own body isn't a crime, right?

As if possessed, I stretched both trembling hands toward my chest.

J-just once… just once. Only the feel of it. Just to check the texture…

Beep-beep—!!

"Are you insane!! I only thought about it! I didn't even touch them—how the hell do you dock points for thinking!!!"

This system was completely unhinged. If I'd actually grabbed them, at least I wouldn't feel so wronged!!

In the end, I had no choice but to freeze my hands midair, trembling, just short of clutching my chest. If my Merit dropped any further, there was no telling what would happen. Though I could guess. A shaman whose Merit was being stripped away meant she had taken on impurity. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠And taking on impurity meant…

Haa, fuck… Hold it in. I can't exactly let a stray ghost eat me, can I?

I forced down the boiling male instincts by reciting scripture, and only then turned my attention past the darkness that had been filling ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my vision. Whether it was my high Spiritual Power or the Spirit Eyes trait, the outlines of objects began to resolve clearly even through the dense black.

When I looked around, I flinched.

I wasn't alone. This was a massive underground dungeon lined with iron bars—and on the cold stone floor, dozens of people in the same ragged robes as mine lay sprawled, trembling. All of them seemed barely able to move, huddled like animals, stifling their quiet sobs.

"Wh-what the hell?"

I needed answers, and fast. I stood and carefully approached the woman nearest me—the one who looked, relatively speaking, the most intact, still curled up on the ground.

"Excuse me."

The moment I lightly touched her shoulder, she jerked her head up in terror. A face smeared with tears and dust, eyes wide with pure fear, locked onto me.

"Eek! P-please spare me…! Please…"

"Please calm down. I only just woke up here myself. Do you… happen to know where we are?"

In a voice that shook so hard it nearly broke, she answered.

"Y-you don't know? Hic… sob… Of all places to be dragged to… why did it have to be here…"

"What do you mean, 'here'?"

"Th-this place is… a temple of the black mages…"

What? A temple of the black ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mages?!

Anyone who had chewed through, torn apart, and savored every last scrap of Crimson Mirage knew that name. In the game, black magic was taboo—the main story was about fighting it, after all. The black mages of this world worshipped the Seven Deadly Sins, the classic fantasy staples.

Which raised an important question.

Which demon are they serving?

This mattered. A lot. Your entire approach changed depending on which of the Seven they followed.

That was when it started. From beyond the bars, from the far end of the dark corridor, a wet, sticky noise began to drift closer.

"Hah! Nngh— haaah!! Haa, aaah!! Kyaaaaaaaah!!"

It was a scream soaked in pain, yet also steeped in pleasure—raw, lewd, and utterly unrestrained. The sound crawled along the dungeon walls in a way that made the skin crawl.

Startled, I urgently asked the woman,

"Wh-what is that sound!? Don't tell me…"

She squeezed her eyes shut in resignation and whispered in despair.

"What else… sob. Those are the moans. They take the people offered as sacrifices… violate them like that, corrupt them, and turn them into slaves…"

"You've got to be kidding me…"

I understood then. This was a temple dedicated to Asmodeus—the one who ruled over Lust.

"Soon enough… they'll call for us too. We'll be subjected to that horrible violation… until our minds shatter…"

The woman, sunk in hopelessness, suddenly lifted her head and stared straight at my face. Even through the dark, her eyes flashed with shock at a beauty that refused to be hidden.

"B-by the way…"

"You're… so beautiful. Someone as lovely as you will probably catch their eye first… and end up suffering something far worse…"

I sucked in a sharp breath at her words.

Fuck.

I should have sculpted an alpha-male character. Hell, at the very least I should have made an ordinary-looking woman. This ultra-gorgeous beauty I had poured my heart and soul into crafting was, in a temple of Lust, the absolute worst kind of aggro magnet.

The moment she finished speaking, a heavy iron door groaned open at the end of the corridor. Footsteps of black mages with gleaming eyes began to approach the cells.

Creeeak—!

Bang—!

Thud.

Thud.

……Barely fifteen minutes after being gender-bent into a woman, I found myself in a life-or-death crisis—about to lose a virginity I didn't even have to a pack of cultist fanatics.