Episode 1. Tutorial.
"My name even changes. And the effect of combat skills increases with vitality, while Technique gets stronger as mental power goes up. The thing that gets consumed is stamina, though, and the scaling depends on vitality and mental power. Is that a bit of a design flaw?"
Like any guy in his twenties, Jaeseok was interested in games, and he immediately understood the skill description. This system called [Technique] didn't change the runes themselves; it added a new facet to them.
Looking closely, the activation method and general direction were similar, in that both consumed stamina.
"So in other places—for example, on Earth or in combat zones—it raises your defense, while in a place like this Sex Dungeon, it raises Pleasure Receptivity or whatever it's called."
There was one unusual thing, though.
"Stamina, fine, but it consumes sexual desire? If you lose when you ejaculate, wouldn't having no sex drive be an advantage? No, this probably isn't such a simplistic system. The atmosphere was very much 'fail to get it up and die,' too."
Having more or less grasped the idea, Jaeseok picked up the rune. For a brief moment, he wondered if a better rune might show up later, but the drop rate made it seem highly unlikely before the tutorial ended, so he finally made his choice.
The instructions were simple. Thinking that he would use it, he tightened his grip, and the hard object in his hand crumbled in an instant.
[Technique Rune. Equipping Endurance (Common)!]
[Removing an equipped rune requires the same amount of experience needed to enhance it. The equipped rune will be destroyed!]
"I can't really feel a difference yet, but at least there's a path forward. And, more importantly... the Exploration Journal."
Flarrr!
He opened the Exploration Journal floating in midair.
[Runes Owned (1/1 slot).]
1. Endurance (Common)★Technique★.
When he looked closely at the rune entry, its details appeared.
[Enhancement requirements for Endurance (Common).]
1. One identical rune.
2. Endure damage or a status effect worth at least 50 points through a rune effect (0/100 times).
3. 100 experience points.
"Rune enhancement. They've got everything you'd expect to find in a game."
He'd grumbled about it, but...
Even without a rune, he had been getting better and better at enduring pleasure. At first, just getting licked on the outside had been enough to make him last five seconds. But at the end, even after being swallowed and sucked, he'd lasted a full thirty seconds. That was proof enough. Sure, that still didn't mean he wasn't a premature ejaculator, but at least he was fully aware of the situation.
'Let's see.'
Jaeseok had an idea, so he relaxed the tension he always kept up and listened to his surroundings.
-That bitch. I wanna see her pinned down like a dog, yipping away.
-Haa... bitch... fucking whore... acting all high and mighty...
He could hear voices.
But their intensity was on a completely different level from before. The lewd chatter that used to sound as if dozens, even hundreds, of people were yammering in his ears had dwindled astonishingly, leaving no more than a handful.
"So I wasn't imagining it."
Jaeseok realized.
"The voices disappear whenever I have sex. Ha. They disappear because I have sex and satisfy them? Because they're desires? I can't believe there was a way to do this."
As the desires that had shaken his mind were relieved, the weight of those emotions—which had been crushing even his strong mind and forcing groans from him—grew lighter by the moment. The sensation of his mind waking up, after always being dull and hazy, was so new and thrilling that it felt like being born again.
"And something else. It even feels different from when I was on Earth. There's something strange about it..."
It was at that moment, as he focused his mind on the unidentifiable sensation.
Pop!
Like when the garbage bags had opened, the scenery around him changed in an instant. Jaeseok jumped in surprise and assumed a defensive stance, but there wasn't a single enemy around.
All he could see were the garbage bags he'd seen in Amy's bed.
".......A Garbage Dump??"
Just as he'd said, it looked like nothing but a Garbage Dump. The place was roughly the size of a school playground, with thousands—or perhaps tens of thousands—of garbage bags piled up to the height of a five-story building. Somehow, the space within a two-meter radius was clear, so he'd avoided getting buried under the bags.
"How do I get out?"
Pop!
The moment he thought about it, he was back in reality. He closed his eyes and focused again.
Pop!
Once more, he was in the Garbage Dump.
After repeating the experiment a few times, Jaeseok figured out what was happening.
"So it's like a world of consciousness."
It sounded incredibly fantastical, but the labyrinth he'd been dragged into was already a fantastical place. He hesitated for a moment, then walked over and touched the nearest garbage bag.
For an instant, an image of an obese man holding a figurine appeared in one corner of his consciousness—
-I got rejected again. Sigh. If only this Kiana-chan were human.
"!!"
He yanked his hand away in surprise.
".......This is..."
It was a phenomenon Jaeseok knew all too well.
[The Voice].
"The voices I've always heard... They were all that pile of garbage! They'd piled up so high that when they reached me, they started affecting me. Ha! And I had to come to some bizarre place like this to figure that out?"
That was the source of the pain and confusion he'd endured his entire life. What were these voices? Why did all these countless desires and pains—belonging to no one he could identify—have to crush and shake him?
"What are they? What are these voices, and what the hell is this labyrinth?"
As a child, the voices had been all sorts of things: hunger, sleepiness, loneliness, sadness, anger. But at some point, they all became sexual desire. Maybe that was because he could manage every other emotion, but couldn't get his sexual desire under control.
Those voices had made his school years hell, and even after he grew up, they'd kept him from having a proper social life.
When he saw a woman, hundreds or thousands of voices inside him poured out every kind of desire—and even influenced him. How could he possibly live a normal life?
Perhaps the fact he'd managed to stay sane all this time was proof of his natural resilience.
[50 minutes have passed since the mission began.]
[Hurry! If you fail to complete the mission before the time limit, your death will be confirmed!]
The text appeared again, urging him on.
"......Right. I'd better start with this tutorial or whatever it is."
Steeling himself, Jaeseok gathered the pile of shields again and headed back into the corridor.
[The rapidly accumulated moans spread far and wide!]
"There weren't any moans."
Whether he grumbled or not, the situation proceeded exactly the same way.
[Bad Event triggered!]
[3 Prostitutes have appeared!]
"Oh my! Is this the customer they say has such incredible stamina?"
"Hehe, this should be fun today."
"I can't believe he called three of us."
With exactly the same lines as before, Kay, the slender woman, and A appeared.
Their overall features were the same, but their appearances were subtly different this time, too. They looked like avatars generated by changing variable values in a game.
'Well, whatever.'
The garbage bags vanished, and the desires shouting at him had dwindled considerably.
And more importantly, he now had a Characteristic Rune equipped!
Just as before, Jaeseok threw the pile of shields onto the sofa and gritted his teeth.
'This time, I'll endure to the end!!'
It started just like the previous room.
[You yielded the first move!]
[Prostitute's turn.]
But what came next was different.
[Technique: Activating Endurance (Common)!]
'Hup.'
Jaeseok flinched at the feeling of his strength abruptly draining away. He was already half lying down, so it didn't cause any problems, but he could feel his breathing growing rough in an instant.
His sexual desire had diminished, so his arousal had eased a little, but that didn't matter. Right now, he was practically the embodiment of sexual desire.
But stamina was another matter.
'Come to think of it... I'm not in great shape, am I?'
Now 27 years old, he was 193 centimeters tall and weighed 140 kilograms.
Of course, he was morbidly obese.
He was tall, sure, but there was no defending that weight. He was a fat slob. Since he'd spent most of his days at the mercy of the desires in those voices and avoided going outside whenever possible, maybe it was only natural he'd put on weight.
'Ah, damn it. I should've exercised or something.'
Whether she knew about his regret or not, Kay, the blonde, opened her mouth wide and swallowed his glans. Deep throat was impossible. Jaeseok's Afkill was so huge that there was no way she could get it down her throat.
Even so, the sensation of her mouth wrapping around his glans and the feeling of her tongue flicking over it were dizzyingly blissful. As she moved her head back and forth, stimulating the sensitive spot behind his glans, it alone made his spine feel like it was stiffening.
"Wow. She can barely take any of it."
"It really is huge..."
As the slender woman and A murmured, they crept closer. The slender woman slipped off the slip dress she'd been wearing off one shoulder, revealing her full breasts. She rubbed them against Jaeseok's body and licked his neck, while A began licking his nipples.
Meanwhile, Jaeseok was feeling something completely different from before.
[Endurance training has increased.]
[0/100 times -> 1/100 times]