Telling the Family
It was far too real to dismiss as someone's prank. When she gingerly touched the hair and gave it a tug, the pain told her these were genuinely her own.
"What… what is this…?"
After staring at it for a long while, she pinched one of those beard-like hairs and yanked it out. The pain was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
"Ngh!"
A coarse, short pubic hair was pinched between her fingertips. To her astonishment, it wasn't fake. It was real.
Real pubic hair.
Pain made her shove her pelvis forward, then she crumpled into a crouch.
"What is this…"
Unable to believe what she was seeing no matter how long she looked, she plucked one of the crimson hairs as well. It hurt just as badly.
"Aagh!"
With pretty eyes slightly misted with tears, she examined the curly strand. Surprisingly, the root was black. She could confirm it had changed as if someone had dyed it. The crimson wasn't natural — it looked alien, out of place.
Only after studying her discolored skin and the suddenly dense thicket of pubic hair for a long time did she have no choice but to accept that it was real.
"This… this is real…?"
What kind of bolt from the blue was this, to wake up to something like this?
She couldn't tell whether the tears now welling were from the pain of pulling the hairs, or from the shock and fear of the situation itself.
No matter how many times she brushed over it or tugged at it, it was real.
After a little time had passed, she finally managed to collect herself.
I need to figure out what's going on.
First she searched the internet for anyone who had experienced similar symptoms. Naturally, there was nothing. Just perverted posts and age-restricted stories blocked from search.
She sighed and, just in case, checked her status window, trying to soothe an unidentifiable anxiety as she did.
But her HP was strange. It had originally been 12, and now it was 36 even though she wasn't wearing any equipment. And what on earth was that times-three supposed to mean?
She had to stare at the HP value for a long time, just as she had stared at her crotch.
Then, belatedly checking her equipment window, she discovered a new slot she had never seen before.
"…What's this now?"
It wasn't shaped like a normal equipment window. As if possessed, Jia tapped it to take a closer look.
◈ HP ×3
"What the hell is this…"
One thing was certain: she could confirm that the change to her crotch was because of this equipment. The shift in the equipment window was so intuitive it made the time she'd spent searching the internet feel like a waste. She was speechless.
But the words Unique Equipment were strange too — and "Target," and "Virginity Protection." The whole thing was overflowing with perverted text.
"Virginity Protection…?"
She pressed her throbbing temples for a moment, then kept looking.
It was going from bad to worse. The moment she checked the equipment window, an alert she had never seen before appeared before her eyes.
Every time you climb 5 floors of the Tower, information on the crafter who designated you as a target will appear.
Floors currently climbed: (13). Two pieces of information will appear.
Info 1: Biological male
Info 2: Korean by current nationality
"Ah."
At least she hadn't caught a disease or been struck by some natural disaster. There was clearly a being who had created this pubic hair, and she had just learned that the person doing this was, by current standards, a Korean man.
If you identify the crafter, a method for removing the equipment will be revealed.
And she instinctively understood that she had to keep climbing the Tower.
Did the person who had put this equipment on her know about this information too? If they knew, was there a reason they were doing this anyway?
It was a situation that raised all sorts of thoughts.
The cause didn't matter. Her crotch had already been changed, and this bastard was a criminal who had laid hands on her while she was just minding her own business. She had no idea how they had remotely forced equipment like this onto her, but she was the victim either way.
Moreover, Jia wasn't the type to suffer and agonize alone in a situation like this.
Trying her best to ignore the stinging, she pulled her panties and pajama pants back up. Looking at this state of affairs any longer would shake even a sound mind.
"Hahh."
After organizing her thoughts, she immediately called her parents and told them the truth. She grasped right away that this wasn't something she could solve alone, nor something she should try to handle that way. On top of that, there was the fear of not knowing what other changes might come — so increasing the number of people who shared the secret was the most important thing.
"Mom. Can you talk? Something pretty serious has come up."
She tried her best to stay calm and convey only the facts. Her parents were startled at first by her unusual reaction, then listened carefully to what she had to say.
"When I woke up, a weird equipment slot had appeared on my status window. And the crafter who created that slot… I don't know the reason or the method, but it looks like they can remotely force-equip me with gear they made. And it's not just regular equipment — it seems to be some kind of ability that modifies my body."
"Modify? What are you talking about?"
Her parents, startled by the word "modify," found it hard to believe at first, wondering what on earth she meant. They wondered if she was playing some kind of prank, but they knew she wasn't the type to joke about something like this, and they could tell from her tone and the way the conversation was unfolding that something was off. Naturally, as parents, they were worried — but her daughter's serious, composed voice kept them from panicking, and they decided to hurry home.
"Your dad and I will head home first, so just wait for us. Have you told your father yet?"
"Okay. Sorry for making you worry, Mom. I'll call Dad now."
Her parents were home in less than an hour.
While waiting, Jia had put on going-out clothes just in case she needed to leave — though the stinging in her crotch meant she had to wear sweatpants. It was just an ordinary white short-sleeved T-shirt and black sweatpants, but with her pretty looks, it suited her well.
They couldn't show each other their status windows, but there were various ways to prove this problem. She could go to a guild office or a hunter hospital later and use a verification device to show the increased stats and the situation. Judging that showing the most intuitive change would be fastest, she brought her mother into her room.
And she showed her crotch only to her mother, who had gone to the bathhouse with her two months ago and knew what her body looked like.
"Oh my… what is this hideous… what on earth happened?"
Naturally, her mother knew exactly what her daughter's crotch had originally looked like, and seeing it transformed into such a vulgar state, she immediately grasped the gravity of the situation.
Jia felt her head burning with shame, even though she hadn't dyed or trimmed anything herself.
"I… I didn't do this, you know that, right? It changed overnight."
"I know perfectly well our daughter wouldn't do something like this. This… are you sure you don't need to go to the hospital?"
"Well, the status window appeared, and it doesn't seem like there's a physical problem… honestly, I don't really know either."
She pulled her pants back up and paced in circles around the room.
Even if she went to a hospital, what was she supposed to say while showing them this pubic hair? If she said she'd woken up and her hair had grown denser and changed as if it had been dyed, they might just see her as a pervert. And Jia didn't have the confidence to show this hair to a doctor — even though it wasn't a problem with her genitals themselves, just the shape of the hair growing above them.
She'd already explained it in advance and was merely showing the symptoms, the same as showing symptoms to a doctor — and yet the revulsion the appearance itself provoked was enormous. The bristly, beard-like pubic hair and the ghastly heart-shaped grooming were enough to make a person shrink into themselves. And even showing it to her parents was this humiliating.
"Alright, I understand. We'll have to tell your father too. Catch your breath for a moment and come out."
"Okay, Mom."
She stayed in the room alone and thought for a moment. When something like this happened to her, would hiding it from her family and searching alone have been the right call?
"Hahh."
She barely steeled herself. Still, they were her parents, so telling them was the right thing. It was better than watching their daughter fall apart without even knowing what was happening. It felt like choosing the lesser of two evils.
The fact that they believed this absurd situation at all might only have been possible because she'd spoken up while the change was still small. Once things got bigger, no one might believe her. She had to make it certain.
There were devices that could display stats through examination, so the abnormal increase could be proven — but whether she was originally a woman with this kind of body hair, or whether it was really because of Unique Equipment, that couldn't have been proven.
She wondered if she should take a nude photo capturing her relatively better current appearance, then decided it was pointless and stopped.
What mattered now was the culprit behind this. Finding the person who held the solution.
She checked her pubic hair one more time for no particular reason, then pulled her clothes back up.
No matter how many times she looked, the pubic hair was a shock.
