121. My Buff is a Drug
August 6 (Monday) 2:32 PM
Choi Hye-yong's Room
"Hrrrrrnngh......!!"
It might have sounded like sobbing, but it was the sound of a stretch.
With the chaos well behind him, stretching leisurely in his room felt exceptionally sweet.
Bwee-ree-reek!
He'd just gotten back from a raid and planned to take a leisurely nap until the Eunha Group got in touch, but the moment he lay down, his terminal rang.
What, already?
[ Mina : Congratulations on defeating the Virus, Creator! ]
Mina : (emoticon of a blonde female character blowing a party horn)
'Oh. So it's her.'
[ Choi Hye-yong : It was nothing special. ]
[ Mina : You're amazing, Creator! ]
[ Mina : I think we can settle the rewards right away from this defeat. ]
[ Mina : I'll invite you to my inner world, so let me know when you're ready. ]
That was welcome news.
He'd thought it would take a while to get his reward, like last time.
What ability would he get this time?
[ Choi Hye-yong : Call me in. ]
The moment he sent the message, the world seemed to crumple, and then he was inside Mina's inner world.
A room filled entirely with pink rabbit dolls.
Today, Mina was dressed in a bunny girl outfit that emphasized cuteness over sexiness.
Still, with such a great figure, she couldn't completely hide the sexy vibe.
"Why's the reward settlement so fast today?"
"Because the reward is ultimately connected to the Seeds of Recognition."
So the stacks are just right, huh.
"What's the reward?"
"Just a moment......!!"
Mina snapped her fingers and a TV appeared.
"Ta-da! This time's reward is an enhancement to the Inner World Intrusion Buff!"
The words [ Inner World Intrusion Buff Enhancement! ] slid across the screen and then settled in large letters in the center.
It looked just like a cheap PowerPoint presentation.
"Inner World Intrusion enhancement? What exactly gets enhanced?"
"Until now, there were a lot of inconveniences, or no real chance to use it properly, right? It only worked when there was intense emotional agitation, like love or great fear."
"Yeah, that's true."
"Now we've loosened the conditions a bit. Even if the Seed of Recognition is small or the emotional agitation is weak, as long as you, Creator, are at the center of that character's psyche, you'll be able to intervene in their inner world. And before, you had to be somewhat close to apply the buff, but now you'll be able to cast the Inner World Intrusion Buff even from a distance."
He didn't know the exact conditions, but this wasn't bad.
'Honestly, even when I was turning Lanfang into a pet, it would've been tough without borrowing the power of the inner world.'
Just as the Virus could infiltrate a character's inner world and exert influence, Hye-yong could do the same.
So if those conditions were eased?
It meant he could cause even more havoc in this world.
"This isn't randomly blooming your ability, Creator; I'm personally enhancing it for you. If you can use the same power, I thought this way would be far more useful."
"Oh, but you said that kind of thing consumes your own flesh, so you couldn't do it?"
"Yes! Since the Virus retreated, I'm giving this to you by shaving off my own flesh. Right now, increasing what you can do helps me, too!"
Hm.
For once, he felt a bit proud of her.
"Ah, and there's one more thing."
"There's more?"
"Yes. There's a power the Virus left behind. I reclaimed a fragment of my world that it had swallowed and then threw up."
Mina smiled brightly and pointed both hands at the screen.
"Ta-da!"
[ Heart-Pounding Trait Draw! ]
Under that title, a card with no design slowly rotated.
"What's this now?"
The format was extremely familiar.
It was exactly the same as the trait gacha design inside his modpack.
Though it was just that design ripped straight from a famous game that crossed over from Japan to Korea and slapped into his modpack.
"You can obtain one trait from here! It's unstable though, so it's random. I tried my best to turn it into a form you'd be familiar with, Creator!"
"So there's this too."
Had the Virus swallowed even things like this?
Maybe it was granting strength to its hosts by bestowing traits this way.
"Alright! Press the card on the screen and you'll find out what trait you get. Go ahead, try it!"
"I'm a little excited."
What trait would come out?
Feeling a fair amount of tension, Hye-yong touched the card on the screen.
The card began to be coated in gold.
'Oh? That's the effect for pulling A-rank or higher gear or traits, isn't it?'
Was something really good about to appear?
With that hope in mind, the trait turned out to be.......
[ Mysterious Charm ]
A mysterious charm dwells within you.
Charm stat +7 levels
'Huh? This is kinda iffy.'
Is this A-rank or above?
Something felt off, so he asked Mina.
"Gold is the effect they use when you pull something really amazing, though......."
"Oh? Is that so? I just put it in to make you feel good?"
Yeah, figures.
It didn't seem like a particularly good trait.
'Well, it does seem useful, I guess.'
He figured it was like permanently wearing a buff equivalent to about 7 levels of Charm.
"Did I get something not so good?"
"Well, it's okay, but it doesn't quite live up to expectations."
"Still, if it's usable, that's a relief! The power is pretty unstable, maybe because it fell off from the Virus. Ah! But don't worry, it's safe."
He wasn't even thinking about it, but look at her sweating it.
Still, it wasn't entirely useless.
Just as people tend to feel more favorable toward good-looking people no matter what, raising his Charm should help him collect Seeds of Recognition a little more easily.
Of course, it wasn't like his face would change just because his Charm stat went up.
What changed was his atmosphere.
That atmosphere merely gave the other person the illusion that he 'looked especially handsome today.'
'It's nothing I couldn't do by using a buff around Charm level 7, but I guess I should appreciate the fact that it's a passive that applies without me having to think about it. Since it's convenient.'
Well, all things considered, he was satisfied.
A man should know how to be satisfied.
More importantly, he wanted to try out the enhanced Inner World Intrusion as soon as possible.
Was there a suitable candidate?
'Hmm...... Lanfang and Kwon Jin-ah are already wide open. Seong Yu-ran feels ambiguous. Park Yuri, maybe?'
Originally, the inner world didn't have much use besides entering and tormenting someone.
So people like Na Hee-yeon and Choi Ah-young were excluded from the start.
At least Park Yuri was worth a shot.
'She's pretty ambiguous too, but I should at least try.'
With that thought, he said goodbye to Mina.
"Then I'll be off, Mina."
"Yes! Just one last thing before you go!"
"What do you want to talk about?"
"The Virus isn't going to just take this lying down. I think it might adopt a different stance before long. Just like it changed its attack method from dominating a single person's inner world to manipulating the world itself. I can't predict how it'll come at us next. So you need to be careful......!!"
"Okay, got it."
He left Mina's inner world, taking her advice with him.
'A different stance, huh. It's only natural to change methods after a few failed attempts.'
The way to prepare was still to increase and grow the Seeds of Recognition.
The reason Mina had shaved off her own flesh to enhance his Inner World Intrusion was also a message telling him to take this and start building up seeds diligently.
He looked forward to tonight.
Bwee-ree-reek!
'Oh? It's ringing again.'
Less than thirty minutes after being contacted by Mina, his terminal rang again.
This time it was probably a message from Yoon Eun-ha's side.
[ Han Chae-hyun : You said now works, right? ]
[ Han Chae-hyun : I'm in front of the male dorm, can you come out? ]
It was a hassle, but since he'd said he would, he had to go.
'Come to think of it, pissing her off could also help build a relationship.'
What kind of reaction would he get if he went all out verifying his abilities and then said he wasn't joining?
With that thought in mind, he left the dorm.
-
"Alright, this way."
The place Han Chae-hyun guided him to was the Club Village.
That wasn't its official name, just what the students called it.
The Club Village was where club buildings made by students were clustered together.
Looking at it, it almost felt like a tiny city.
Amidst that, he spotted a white building whose size and splendor were on a completely different level.
All the other club buildings had the same form, but this one reeked of being specially constructed.
"You could call this building the Eunha Group's base of operations."
"I see. It's pretty huge."
"It's even bigger inside. They're utilizing the Otherworld Crystal."
So the Otherworld was being used even for everyday things.
The interior was quite grand, but there were hardly any people.
'It feels a bit like a waste of money.'
It wasn't like there were zero students passing through, but he had no idea what they were doing here.
He simply kept his mouth shut and followed behind Han Chae-hyun.
The door she opened led to a small room in an area marked "Authorized Personnel Only."
Inside, a single Otherworld Crystal sat alone, glowing.
"Miss Eun-ha is waiting inside. Let's go."
He'd heard that maintaining a portal like that required using new materials and cost a fair bit to keep up.
They really did have a lot of money.
Thinking that, he walked toward the Otherworld Crystal.
Inside was a cleanly designed sparring ground.
And a structure with small spectator seats.
"You made it, student Choi Hye-yong."
A quiet, unhurried voice.
He found himself turning his head.
'Whoa, she's pretty. Is that Miss Eun-ha?'
The thought came naturally.
Would you call that color blonde?
The texture of her slightly bright platinum-blonde hair looked very soft.
And those gentle-looking green eyes gave off a drowsy vibe, while also making her seem calm and self-assured.
Hye-yong's standards had been massively inflated from seeing nothing but women of a certain level of beauty, yet this was an appearance that, at first glance, made him feel she was 'prettier than the others.'
With her petite build, she was exactly the sort of person who fit the title "young lady."
For a moment, he found himself curious about what it would feel like to go one round against someone like her.
'So even in a world like this, looks really do have tiers. Is she even Korean?'
He had apparently been staring blankly without realizing it.
The girl with ash-grey hair standing next to Yoon Eun-ha growled at him.
"Don't stare at the young lady with such impure eyes."
"Ah, yes."
Geez, a guy can look.
She was being seriously prickly.
He subtly read her gaze and could feel intense disgust directed at him.
'Kinda obnoxious. What did I even do?'
She gave off the feeling of a fanatically loyal follower attending Yoon Eun-ha.
Was he supposed to view that as loyalty, too?
No matter how he looked at it, it seemed personal.
'Look at that, still glaring at me. Pretty, but that's all she's got.'
She wasn't on Yoon Eun-ha's level, but the girl next to her was plenty pretty, too.
Her ash-grey hair, as if black dye had faded, gave her a somewhat mysterious aura.
Most of all, she was tall and had long legs.
She gave the impression of a cool, slender beauty who seemed to be over 170 centimeters.
"What are you still staring at? It's unpleasant. Take your eyes off me."
But it seemed her personality wasn't very cool, unlike her appearance.
"I understand, but don't be too hard on him, Se-rin. He could end up being our colleague."
Yoon Eun-ha, apparently not pleased that Se-rin was radiating an obvious dislike for Hye-yong, gave her a chiding remark in a gently scolding tone.
"I'm sorry, my lady. I overstepped."
Ahn Se-rin bowed her head in apology.
Hye-yong's favorability toward Yoon Eun-ha rose slightly.
'But she's not apologizing to me?'
He glared at her with that thought, but Ahn Se-rin, sensing his gaze, simply glared right back.
She clearly had no intention of offering him any apology.
'Huh? That's annoying. I'd love to show her the spicy taste of my dick.'
This was the first time either of them had seen the other, so what on earth had he done wrong for her to act like that?
Her justification was that he had 'stared blatantly at her lady,' but...
No matter how he looked at it, that didn't seem to be it.
'Seriously, I've never heard anyone say my face was unlikable anywhere before.'
The Inner World Intrusion had better work on a girl like that!
Hye-yong clicked his tongue inwardly.
Someday, if he got the chance, without fail!
He didn't know who said it, but there was a famous quote.
If someone hates your guts for no goddamn reason, give them a goddamn reason to hate your guts.
*
'That guy, his eyes are.......'
Ahn Se-rin detested the existence of men.
More precisely, the type of men who went around spraying their lust with their eyes.
Men who only saw women as objects of sexual desire.
At some point, Ahn Se-rin had gained the ability to distinguish that kind of gaze.
She didn't know how it had become possible.
Was it something she should call trauma?
It seemed a particular incident had created a new sensory organ in her.
From what Ahn Se-rin could see, that man named Choi Hye-yong was full of ulterior motives.
Toward herself, and even toward the young lady she served, Yoon Eun-ha.
He was probably looking at them thoroughly as women, imagining violating them.
Her intuition was so accurate it wasn't a stretch to call it an ability.
In fact, Hye-yong was pretending not to, but deep down he was thinking exactly that.
'That bastard is too low. I can't let him get close to the young lady.'
She would definitely cut Choi Hye-yong down.
She made a firm resolution.