Person of Interest (2)
The sharp scrape of a chair, then silence.
The spot where Lee Seonho had been standing lay empty. Baek Young-ui watched him go with an expressionless gaze, staring blankly as he kept glancing back at her until the very last moment he slipped through the door.
And a short while later, her slender fingers settled onto the laptop keyboard and resumed writing the documentation of everything that had transpired beneath that counterfeit building.
Awakener with a mental interference–type ability. A suspicious individual, but no indication he is affiliated with Black Moon leadership. Presumed to maintain deep personal ties with top-ranked students. Premature expulsion risks provoking significant backlash.
Clinical. Detached. Yet composed with the quiet confidence of someone who could act at any moment she chose. Baek Young-ui's hollow eyes, as vacant as they ever were when she studied a person, remained fixed impassively on the laptop screen.
Her assignment of a supervising professor to track his suspicious movements and place him under surveillance. The way he hadn't so much as flinched when she deliberately misdirected him—mentioning human traffickers instead of the terrorist organization. Beyond that, she had wrung every last drop of information from the brief exchange: his eyes, his hand gestures, even the rhythm of his breathing.
A disposition suggesting a desire for sexual relations with attractive women. Believed to disregard physical age so long as aesthetic standards are met.
...Even the fact that he occasionally harbored lecherous desires toward her herself.
Baek Young-ui had already vaguely suspected that the owner of the sleazy stare she'd felt at her back during the entrance ceremony was Lee Seonho.
Currently a beneficial individual to the Academy. Disposition deferred.
With that single closing line appended to his personnel evaluation, Baek Young-ui chose, for now, to look the other way.
He was presumed to be pulling suspicious stunts here and there—unusual for a student admitted into the Combat Support Department—but it was merely that, and nothing more. Besides, it was simply her nature: whenever one of his suspicious schemes ended up benefiting her or the Academy, disposition could wait.
"……"
Operating under the alias Yoon Selena. Believed to have begun active contact with Black Moon following the admission of Kim Isabel. Relationship with Lee Seonho: unknown. Presumed to hold either hostility, affection—or both simultaneously.
As if she refused to let a shred of personal sentiment color the page, Baek Young-ui moved on to the next name with the same placid indifference.
Dangerous individual. Disposition currently impossible due to membership in the Church of Life. Preparations required to ensure she may be disposed of at any time.
Disposition target. Maintain continuous observation until disposal conditions are secured. Update personnel evaluations on a recurring basis, centered on her relationship with Kim Isabel and with Lee Seonho.
An evaluation that amounted to nothing less than a countdown to her execution—yet Baek Young-ui committed it to the record with the same blank, unreadable eyes as ever.
...Coming out of a one-on-one meeting with Baek Young-ui first thing in the morning left every drop of energy drained from my body.
I filled out the paperwork she handed me, submitted it at the office on the first floor of Cheonmu Hall, and about ten minutes later, the subjugation bounty for Jung Seokhoon landed in my bank account.
₩475,000,000
XX Bank — Electronic Transfer
Leave it to Cheonmu Academy—when it came to paperwork, they were terrifyingly fast.
The Hunter Bureau hadn't even finished processing the official bounty yet, so seeing the money arrive this quickly, the only sensible conclusion was that the Academy had calculated the payout amount in advance and fronted the funds itself.
On top of that, the sum didn't just cover Jung Seokhoon—they'd settled the bounty hanging over his underling henchman in the same lump payment.
'When she deliberately didn't bring it up, I assumed the Academy planned to pocket the mage's bounty for itself.'
Or maybe she simply hadn't wanted to admit there were two bountied targets in the first place. Either way, I hadn't lost a single won over it, so there was nothing worth dwelling on. Cheonmu Academy really is reliable when it comes to this sort of thing.
Of course, a little over 500 million wasn't all going into my pocket. Once I split the shares owed to Park Cheonho, Cha Eunju, and Kim Isabel, what remained would be a bit over 200 million.
Factor in the operating costs of hunter activity and Cheonmu Academy's tuition, and it was more than a little ironic that this wasn't quite the life-changing fortune it sounded like.
...I'd need to toss Yoon Selena that bitch a token one or two million on paper, too.
'I'm planning on tapping that ass going forward anyway, so I'll just call it compensation for services rendered.'
If I split the bounty with Kim Isabel and left Yoon Selena out in the cold, there was real risk of friction down the line. Keep her fed just enough that she has nothing to complain about, and she'd remain plenty useful. That was the correct call.
'Monopolizing all the main events really does keep the wallet comfortable.'
It had also caught Baek Young-ui's eye when it really didn't need to, putting my future activities on slightly shakier footing.
But I couldn't just step away from the main-story events I'd already waded into, so there was nothing to do but shoulder the risk. The original protagonist, Seo Woojin, had degenerated into far too much of a cripple to handle the original events anyway—and I had zero intention of handing harem events back to that bastard.
A soft, deliberate press against my arm.
"S-Seonho! I-I just missed the professor's notes... C-Could you maybe show me your notebook for a second?"
A tighter, warmer squeeze.
"S-Seonho? Th-There was a part of the professor's explanation I didn't quite follow, so I was hoping I could, um, ask you a q-question or two..."
Today, as always, Cha Eunju and Kim Isabel had claimed the seats on either side of me, each commandeering one of my arms and putting on their own peculiar brand of appeal. Even in the middle of class, something of mine kept lifting its head beneath the desk only to be pressed back down again.
Experience this kind of happiness every day and there's genuinely no going back to normal—by any measure. All the more so when the two of them are the reigning contenders for first and second place in the heroine chest rankings.
Why they found it necessary to thrust their chests out to ask for lecture notes or pose a question—that question, I shall graciously decline to examine. It was a trivial matter that I already knew the answer to, and so did they.
"Tch. Seriously."
"...Hmph."
And what, exactly, was the point of those two deliberately relocating to the seats behind me only to crane their heads around, glower at me and my heroines, and click their tongues?
Cha Eunju and Kim Isabel alike were so locked onto me, so single-mindedly devoted to advertising their own figures, that they never even noticed the glares burning into them—and so I didn't bother noticing either.
Press, squeeze.
After all, there was really no reason to care.
Whether Baek Young-ui was watching me, or whether more and more people were starting to care about the women clustering around me—none of it changed what I had to do. Keep rolling around with the heroines like always, and keep running my conditioning. Simple as that.
"Eunju, once you're fully undressed, bend over the desk for me. Like usual."
"Y-yeessh..."
An ordinary Tuesday afternoon—a private tryst between the two of us, squeezed into a free period between classes.
By now Cha Eunju would follow any instruction I gave her, sweetly and obediently, without a trace of hypnosis. Today she obeyed my command just as she always did, and her naked body stood shamelessly, completely bare before my eyes.
...Honestly, every single time I look, I'm reminded all over again—her body is unfairly, criminally arousing.
That enormous chest and those hips in particular were straight-up cheating. She was bent over a desk and yet those mounds of flesh spilled out past her sides, entirely unhidden.
Her short stature, her timid personality, her catastrophically bad fashion sense—her figure was more than enough to erase every one of her flaws from existence.
"You're already soaked, Eunju."
"Hnngh—!"
"You were looking forward to this too, weren't you?"
"Y-yeah... I-it's with Seonho, so... a little..."
"Just a little? I've been waiting for today all week long, you know."
"N-no way! I-I was too, I mean—"
I'd only teased her lightly, and she jolted in a panic, scrambling to take back her own words.
The textbook image of a girlfriend so thoroughly gaslit by her boyfriend that she'd hand over her liver and kidneys without blinking. In practice, the difference was probably negligible—no matter how many other heroines I conquered, Cha Eunju occupied the position of my very first girlfriend.
...Not that the news would please her much, given how many more girlfriend-slash-pets I intended to add to that roster going forward.
*Smack!*
"Mmph, hnnngh?!"
There was simply a great big ass right in front of me, so I grabbed a handful as my heart dictated—and her whole body quivered in response.
She buried her face against the desk as if she couldn't bear to let me see her indecent expression, letting out nothing but muffled moans—and somehow that only made her more adorable.
"When did you get this dirty, Eunju? You're like a total pervert now."
"Haaah... l-like a pervert... I-I'm sorry..."
"No, that's exactly why I love it. Perverted Eunju is my favorite Eunju."
*Slick.*
"Nnh, hnnnnnngh...!!"
I murmured something deliberately embarrassing into her ear and slipped a finger inside, and she shuddered with the sweetest little voice. I churned my finger around inside her soaked folds a few times, stroking her gently, just like always.
*Slick.*
"Haaah, hnnnnh...!"
*Slick, slick.*
"Hnnngh, hyaahhn...!! Hnnngh...!!"
Folds every bit as soft as her chest clung and squelched around my finger, and her adorable moans—somehow carrying an oddly innocent, childlike charm—kept tickling at my ears.
That was a charm unique to Cha Eunju, something I could rarely find in the other heroines.
Judging purely by the number of times we'd been physically intimate, she dwarfed every other heroine by a landslide... well, leaving aside those villainess bitches, she was effectively the only heroine I'd actually gone all the way with—yet every time, she still blushed and reacted exactly as if it were her first.
Hoping she'd never lose that side of herself, I gave her a suitably tender round of caresses, then slowly drew my fingers out of her body.
*Squelch.*
"HyaaahhAAAH?!"
Not that I spread her open with a quick parting flick purely on a whim—I did it because I wanted to see this exact reaction on the way out.
"Haaah... hoo, hoooooh... nnh..."
Whether it was the embarrassment, the shame, or the pleasure still echoing through her even now, Cha Eunju lay sprawled across the desk, breathing lewd, ragged little pants.
Watching indecent fluid trickle down from below her in long, glistening strands only made me want to torment her more.
'Maybe it's time I treated her to a round of cunnilingus. I've even got the perfect pretext ready.'
Just pounding into her out of nowhere every time was starting to feel a little stale.
And besides—I'd never gone down on her while she was conscious and unsuggested, not like now.
"Eunju."
"Nn, hnnnnh..."
"Thank you for coming to help yesterday, the second I called."
"H-hwaah?!"
"If you hadn't shown up yesterday, things could've gotten really dangerous. Cheonho and I both would've been in trouble, and Isabel might've gotten carried off by those bastards."
"O-of course I would... i-if Seonho calls, then obviously I have to come..."
Probably not the kind of conversation you're supposed to have while finger-flicking a girl you've ordered to strip naked and bend over a desk—but that hardly mattered.
Honestly, bringing this up in the first place was nothing but a flimsy excuse, a transparent pretext for wanting to lick Cha Eunju's pussy, so it changed nothing at all.
"Don't be ridiculous—of course you'd say that. A favor is still a favor."
"Mmmh..."
"So here's the thing, Eunju. I'm grateful to you, and I'd like to give you a little reward in return."
"...A r-reward...?"
"Mm. Something nice. So be a good girl and spread your pussy open for me a little, okay, Eunju?"
"……"
At my rather direct turn of phrase, Cha Eunju flushed scarlet all the way to her ears and answered with silence.
Then, wordlessly, instead of replying, she drew both of her arms down toward her hips.
*Shhhk.*
"Ha, haanh..."
*Parted wide.*
"H-haaaah, ah...!"
Right before my eyes, her drenched, fever-flushed pussy spread open to either side, glistening with excitement.