Even Blank Paper Is Better Lifted by Two
Gong Ryun lay unconscious on the construction-site floor.
And standing over him, looking down, was the Succubus Boss.
…What the hell even is this guy?
It was beyond absurd. No—absurd didn’t begin to cover it.
Even if it had only been an imitation, he had fired a Heavenly Demon Death Beam. With a body still in the Hyeon-gyeong? Was that even possible?
And a Sangongdok dantian on top of that? Things like that actually existed?
…
She had plenty of questions, but first things first: she had to purge the Jami Star residue from Gong Ryun’s brain.
Right now he had spent every last scrap of power and was completely out of commission. This was the perfect window to cut the thing out.
The Boss scanned his body with her inner sight.
Around the brain, the Jami Star’s tentacles were packed in tight.
This is going to be rough…
Gong Ryun had collapsed, but the conch tentacles still had their wits about them.
Worse, they were steadily digging in and making themselves at home in his brain.
Putting down roots, digging in for a siege—as if they had no intention of leaving quietly.
Talk about a nightmare tenant.
She was going to lose her mind.
The Succubus Boss pressed a hand to her forehead.
This was going to be anything but an easy procedure.
She lifted her tail and began prepping for surgery.
It had to come out right here, right now.
But before she started…
“I’m about to operate~, so… any business with me~~~?”
The Boss called out toward a shadow in the alley beyond the construction site.
A gaze had been fixed on them from there. It had been watching for a while now.
—Step. Step.
A man emerged from the alley and walked out into the open.
Light-brown hair that recalled the Martial God himself.
Namgung Hyeong.
So it really was the Namgung Clan. The Namgung Clan, on a backwater planet like this…
The Succubus Boss had lived a long time and wandered all over the galaxy, so she had run into Namgung people before. She could tell at a glance that the man belonged to the Namgung family.
Namgung Hyeong, scion of the Namgung Clan, opened his mouth at once.
“The tentacles of the conch are exceedingly slippery, I say.”
“…?”
A question mark practically floated over the Succubus’s head.
He paid it no mind and kept dumping information.
“Upon the surface of a Jami Star tentacle is secreted a viscous lubricant—the single most efficacious natural lubricant known to exist in the galaxy, I say. However, when it meets certain substances, it becomes a bioglue of suspiciously outstanding performance and clings to living flesh without mercy.”
“…???”
“Furthermore, at the tips of those tentacles, micro-scale bundles of fine filaments may grow. Each of those micro-tentacles can be controlled individually, which makes them extraordinarily well suited to seizing control of the nervous system, I say.”
“……???”
“By combining the lubricant with those micro-tentacles, the Jami Star’s conch is able to drive its tendrils into a human brain and pilot it while inflicting the least possible damage. In severe cases, it enters the brain proper and roots itself at the micro scale. Miss the golden hour, and the lubricant undergoes a chemical reaction with the cerebrospinal fluid, locking the micro-tentacles permanently into the brain tissue, I say.”
“….”
“I shall assist with the procedure.”
Namgung Hyeong crossed the construction site and came to stand beside Gong Ryun.
“…Hmm… I appreciate the thought, but this isn’t something you can do without micro-scale tools and the control to use them?”
“I am a specialist in telekinetic object control, I say. I shall assist with ultra-precise telekinesis. My proficiency allows multi-target control at the micro scale.”
“…Well, the Namgung Clan is the house of telekinesis, true enough. Still, without precise knowledge of the brain, you could poke the wrong thing and—”
“As it happens, I possess expert-level knowledge of neuroscience, brain structure, and cerebral medical technique, I say.”
“Why would you even have—never mind, you’re a Namgung, so of course you might. You people are monsters… I mean, elites. Even so, I’m going to use my tail as the surgical instrument, so you’d need at least some understanding of a Succubus’s—”
“Fortunate news, I say. I am familiar with the Succubus’s external nano-neural tail. I have a grasp of its detailed usage, operating principles, range of motion, and the like. I have even watched related footage, so assisting should present no difficulty.”
“How the hell do you know that?? That’s racial classified intel!”
“…I saw it in the family encyclopedia, I say.”
Namgung Hyeong’s eyes slid sideways as he answered.
This insane clan. The Succubus shuddered. Then she accepted it.
If it was the Namgung Clan—those record-obsessed freaks—nothing they logged was really surprising. If anything in this galaxy came closest to the Akashic Records, it was the Namgung Clan’s knowledge vault.
For all that they were called the foremost clan in the galaxy, they had no great hunger for money or power. But when it came to recording knowledge, they were greedier than a swarm of space locusts.
“…Fine. Then… lend me a hand.”
“Leave it to me, I say!”
And so the surgery began.
Operating on a construction-site floor would have looked thoroughly unhinged to anyone who didn’t know better—but they had already used air-purifying and sterilizing martial arts to turn the immediate area into a dustless, sterile zone, and sealed off the wind with telekinesis, so it was fine.
—…
—…
The surgery was silent.
They spoke not aloud but through sound transmission. Real-time telepathic exchange, matching each other’s every move from moment to moment, until the joint procedure ran as if they were a single body.
Namgung Hyeong restrained the tentacles’ thrashing with ultra-ultra-precise telekinesis, while the Succubus fed the fine filaments of her tail organ in through Gong Ryun’s ear and, one by one, severed or peeled away the micro-tentacles inside his brain.
And after a while—
—Twitch. Twitch.
At the tip of the Succubus’s tail, the conch tentacle dangled in midair.
Extraction complete. Surgery successful.
The tentacle writhed as if furious. Whether it was actually furious was anyone’s guess. Communication wasn’t exactly an option.
“Hey. Mad about it? Ahahaha!”
The Boss’s mouth curled up in open delight.
Thwap. Thwap. She flicked it with her finger, teasing it. Each time, the tentacle jerked hard and thrashed in a fit.
Even if it was only a fragment, tormenting a piece of a star like this felt amazing. Of course the star’s true body could kill her a dozen times over with a casual flick of a single tentacle—the gulf in power was that vast. That was exactly what made it so thrilling. The fact that Succubi and the Jami Star Cult had always been on terrible terms only made the mood better.
“My word! That was truly exhausting, I say! And yet how fulfilling! Today, too, I have performed a righteous deed of chivalry!”
Namgung Hyeong wiped the beads of sweat from his brow, looking thoroughly satisfied.
“This ‘Tang Clan friend’ of ours need only go to a hospital for a bit of aftercare now, I say! A few days’ admission should suffice. The surgery went well, so there should be no lasting aftereffects—fortunate indeed!”
At that, the Succubus Boss turned to stare at him.
“…Tang Clan friend?”
“Indeed, I say! Well, we are not truly friends—I only happened to see him once—but still! I personally witnessed him fighting a life-or-death duel!”
“No, no. I mean the ‘Tang Clan’ part.”
“Ah! This fellow is of the Sichuan Tang Clan, I say! A poison master of the Tang Clan! The training regimen was so brutal he abandoned it midway, left the family, and has been living in seclusion on this rural planet! Did you not already know? Well—it is the sort of thing one might reasonably hide, I suppose.”
“Ah. Mm.”
“Just in case, I looked into him a little, and sure enough—three years ago he arrived on this planet by unknown means, forged a new identity, and began living here, I say. I searched reasonably hard for records from before this planet, and none exist. That seals it, I say. He is from the Sichuan Tang Clan—the galaxy’s foremost experts at erasing information.”
“Mm. Mm… mmm~~. Right~~ I had kind of figured that out already~ ;;”
“Well, the only place in this galaxy that uses poison is the Sichuan Tang Clan, so it was not a difficult deduction, I say.”
“….”
Of course, the Succubus Boss knew Gong Ryun had lived on a Slave Planet. The last time he had come into the shop in a depressive spiral and eaten carbonara, she had overheard enough of the context to put it together.
But there was no particular need to correct the young master of the Namgung Clan’s misunderstanding.
“Khuh!”
Suddenly Namgung Hyeong’s emotions surged. The Succubus looked at him with a face that said, What is wrong with this guy?
“And yet he was once a child who walked the path of the Orthodox Faction…! For his heart to have broken so completely…!”
“What are you even talking about…?”
“How wounded and lost must he have been… to fall for a low-grade hypnosis like a mere conch, I say!!!”
“Ah.”
“To be caught by a hypnotic technique that even a little mental-defense martial arts would have blocked!! Surely he was tormented by guilt over abandoning the Sichuan Tang Clan, his spirit worn down and hollowed out, I say!! And in that weakened state, with his mental barriers lowered, the hypnosis took hold!”
“….”
He had just been a total amateur and gotten caught. That was all.
But the premise of the conversation was already that he was from the Sichuan Tang Clan. If he were from a great house, he would have received elite training from childhood—so of course he would have learned mental defense, right?
“Even so… I respect his choice, I say… joining the Demonic Sect, that is…”
“You understand?”
“One can grow thoroughly sick of the Orthodox Faction… If, disappointed in orthodoxy, he defected to the Demonic Sect, what right do I have to pass judgment…?”
“Ehhh.”
“So that was it. The reason he joined the Jami Star Cult of all places was the same, was it not? They are the extremists most eager to clash with the Orthodox Faction, so he went to them, I say! And then, off his guard, he fell to hypnosis! That is what happened! Khuh!!!”
Namgung Hyeong struck his own chest.
O ancestor Namgung Hwe! He could not lift his head for shame.
Where was the chivalry of this galaxy going?