Chapter 42: Is It Wrong to Seek an Erotic Situation in a Dungeon? (11)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 42: Is It Wrong to Seek an Erotic Situation in a Dungeon? (11)
This was no time for that.
Slap, slap!
I lightly tapped my cheeks to clear the distracting thoughts from my head.
Only a single sliver of magic remained on the stone slab.
I immediately placed my hand on it.
The magic flowed up my arm, embedding the final passage deep into my mind.
“Soon, a path shall open. Reach the end of that path. Do so, and a new way shall be revealed.”
The moment I absorbed all the magic from the slab, it suddenly slid backward.
Rumble…
A hole had appeared where the slab had been, revealing a staircase that seemed to beckon me down.
"So I'm supposed to take this path to the very end..."
Ah, this was making me a little nervous.
I couldn't remember the last time I tried to clear a dungeon with absolutely no information like this.
My heart pounded with pleasant excitement.
Letting the tension build just right, I stepped onto the stairs and descended.
It wasn't as deep as I thought.
After about forty steps, my feet finally touched the bottom.
Before me was nothing but pitch-black darkness.
I immediately gathered my magic.
「Light.」
Light seeped into the heavy darkness, revealing what had been hidden.
It was a long corridor, wide enough for about two adults to walk side-by-side.
The walls were covered in the same Unknown Text I'd seen on the slab, along with streaks of magic.
"What the hell is this?"
All my energy suddenly drained away.
I was expecting it to be swarming with goblins at the very least, but all I found was a corridor.
I checked for traps, but as far as I could see, there wasn't a single trace of one.
"...Guess I'll just keep going."
The last passage on the slab definitely said a new path would open when I reached the end of this one.
In that case, this might just be a simple passageway.
Fixing the light source above my head, I walked down the path.
Finally, I came across the first inscription.
I immediately absorbed the magic it contained.
"I am Kallashu, a goblin from the Demon Realm...?"
The Demon Realm. Was it talking about a world like in fantasy novels, where demon kings and their kind live?
I continued on, reading the next inscription a few steps ahead.
"One year after my birth, I realized I was different from the others..."
The third, the fourth.
"Born with an abnormal intelligence, I was ostracized by everyone... The one who saved me was a succubus passing by...?"
A succubus.
I'd never met one, but I'd heard of them.
They were said to seduce men with their gentle voices and furious curves, sucking their essence dry. A truly dangerous foe for men, but funnily enough, they held the unshakable #1 spot on the "Monsters Male Hunters Most Want to Subjugate" ranking. The most powerful demon in history.
Why the most powerful? Because not a single man had ever managed to capture one.
Every all-male party, ten out of ten, a hundred out of a hundred, would emerge with their essence sucked so dry they were on the verge of becoming mummies.
That's why dungeons with succubi were supposedly cleared by all-female parties.
"Hah, a succubus..."
Back when everyone was buzzing about succubi, I felt nothing.
Why?
Because I had a human succubus right next to me back then.
The young Han Ju-hee was a woman as passionate as her fiery red hair.
You know what they say about getting a taste of forbidden fruit?
We were each other's first, and from that moment on, we became addicted to the pleasure of sex, sleeping together countless times.
Hunters, in particular, get into a state of extreme excitement while clearing dungeons. Whenever we came out with that feeling still lingering, we'd head straight to a hotel and spend all night fucking until morning.
"Those were the days."
Young and passionate. Those times were truly great.
"No, that's not it."
How far am I going to get sidetracked by a single mention of a succubus?
"Get a grip, man. Get a grip."
These memories are meaningless now.
Besides, aren't I just as happy now as I was back then?
I have the Ajumma, and I have Shin Yu-jeong to conquer in the future.
I even have my youth back, right?
"Just gotta do well from now on. That's all that matters."
The past is just there to serve as a cautionary tale.
I've done my best up to this point.
Our dear Fake Si-woo will take care of the rest, I'm sure.
I believe in you, Fake Si-woo!
Offering my thanks to the man who left me this brilliant life, I started walking again.
The remaining inscriptions were mostly the same.
They detailed the life of the goblin Kallashu, step by step.
It was a long, rambling story about how Kallashu, saved by the succubus, became her apprentice and learned alchemy and magic from her.
"As our time together grew longer, I began to feel love for Lady Succubus... Huh?"
The mood suddenly shifted to a love story.
Piling up the questions filling my head, I silently continued reading to grasp the overall story.
"Lady Succubus is a demon who feeds on the essence of men. I confessed that I would offer her my essence... but I was rejected."
Oof, tough break.
"Lady Succubus said she didn't see me as a man. My race as a goblin was holding me back..."
I see.
"One day, I got completely drunk and clung to her, begging. Please, take my essence... But I was rejected again. She insisted it was something she could never do."
This is surprisingly immersive.
After all, aren't watching a fire, a fight, and someone else's love affair the best spectator sports?
Of course, the key word there is "someone else's."
From a distance, it's a comedy; up close, it's a tragedy.
Watching it happen to others is fun, but when it happens to you, there's nothing that feels worse.
So, what happens next?
"After months of deliberation, I came to a conclusion. I could never give up on Lady Succubus..."
This bastard's got some grit.
Is this the start of his real courtship?
I'm dying to know.
Where's the next inscription...
"Huh? What's this?"
A large door had suddenly appeared before me.
I quickly looked around and realized I had reached the end of the path.
"So this is the last one?"
The final inscription, written on the large door.
Something feels off.
It feels like there should be a lot more to the story. Why is this the end?
Feeling uneasy, I reached out my hand toward the final inscription.
And then, the final part of the story began to flow in.
"I thought to myself. If Lady Succubus cannot take my essence of her own free will... then shouldn't I create a situation where she has no choice but to take it?"
“……”
That was an unexpected conclusion.
When the last inscription said he couldn't give up on her, I was expecting a story about him trying again and again until he finally won her love.
"Instead of a romance, a horror story just popped out."
Feeling creeped out, I gently pulled my hand away from the door.
As I did, the iron door began to open with a loud groan.
Just as the slab had described.
The door opened to reveal another path.
The difference this time was that the path split in two, and between the forks stood another stone slab with more text.
"I have no idea what's going on..."
Ever since reading that last inscription, something has felt wrong.
The succubus, who thought of Kallashu as a son, said she couldn't take his essence. But he couldn't accept that and vowed to create a situation where she'd have no choice.
“……”
Suddenly, the air around me felt thick and sticky.
A thought flashed through my mind... Could it be...?
"Nah, no way."
Shaking off the embarrassing thought, I stood before the stone slab at the fork in the road.
This was the real final text.
What kind of story would it hold?
"Here goes nothing!"
Shaking off the uneasy feeling, I bravely reached out my hand.
A considerable amount of text from the slab flowed into my mind.
“……”
After learning the rest of the story, I was left speechless.
Kallashu the goblin.
The fragments of his life story I'd read pieced themselves together in my head.
The path he walked after being rejected by the succubus he had loved his entire life was seared into my memory.
He was a brilliant alchemist and a great archmage.
Though he could have secured a high position anywhere, the path he chose was one of romance.
Instead of a stable and comfortable life, he chose a thorny path overflowing with love and romance!
"Waaah!"
Ah.
Tears started streaming down my face before I even realized it.
"It existed..."
When I was young, after losing my parents, I lived in an orphanage.
I think I was around sixteen.
Back then, my friends and I were obsessed with reading manga.
Shonen manga full of dreams and hope, thrilling action manga, hilarious comedy manga...
But among them all, the one that got us the most fired up was R-18 manga.
The manga from Porn Nation Japan, which didn't just stimulate a teenager's sexual curiosity but made it explode.
What people often call doujinshi—Japan's pride and joy, a collection of every arousing situation imaginable.
We knew we shouldn't be looking, but we couldn't help but lose ourselves in them.
Sometimes, my roommates and I would lie under the covers and talk.
'Out of everything you've seen, what's the hottest scenario?'
And every time, I always chose this one scenario as my number one.
A place where a man and a woman, even total strangers, couldn't leave once they stepped inside.
In my imagination, I'd thrown countless pretty celebrities from TV into that place.
But because it was a place that could never exist in reality, I naturally forgot about it as I got older.
"But it existed..."
As if to prove that the word "never" has no place in this world, it appeared right before me.
My childhood dream.
The place I had so desperately wished to enter, just once.
"I found iiiiiit!!"
I had finally found it.