53. Ranfang (5)
53. Ranfang (5)
June 19, 7:32 AM
Lanfang's Room
"Hngh...!"
The moment she woke, Lanfang shuddered with a stifled moan.
She'd felt it, unmistakably, for the past two days or so.
Something was strange about her body.
'Again today. Sticky and soaked again. Every day it's like this.'
Could she have caught some sort of illness?
'I really don't want to go to the hospital if I can help it....'
Awakened didn't generally get minor ailments.
Unless they had practically no talent, the mana in their bodies would simply burn away any harmful germs or viruses.
Because of that, patients at the Awakened Facility hospital were mostly people suffering from fevers caused by temporary mana disruptions or those injured in accidents.
Going in for an exam and saying, 'Strange stuff comes out of me down there every night,' was embarrassing, and more importantly, it probably wasn't covered by insurance.
'Even if my body feels weird, I still have to go to class....'
Lanfang stood and moved to climb over the bed frame to change clothes.
But as she climbed over without thinking, her foot slipped, and her groin dragged right across one of the rounded, protruding sections.
"Hngh!"
Her eyes flew open; her body seized.
The sensation was far too sensitive, too intense, to simply be the bed frame brushing past the spot where she peed.
'Just now... what was that....'
Until now she'd dismissed it as a strange mood, but this time Lanfang felt it clearly.
It felt good.
Lanfang stood up and, once more, pressed her groin against that round, hard section.
The pleasure that came back was unmistakable.
The correlation was obvious.
If she rubbed here,
"Hnghaaa...."
It felt good.
This was weird.
She knew it was weird.
But the sensation was so unbearably sensitive, and it felt so good.
Swish. Swish.
Before she knew it, Lanfang had climbed onto the bed frame, placed her most precious spot against the flat surface, and started moving her hips.
A sticky fluid seeped past her panties and soaked into her pajamas. Her eyes grew hazier and hazier.
Shrrrk.
The sound of her pajamas rubbing against the bed frame was no longer a soft rustle; it grew sticky and wet.
As her breathing quickened, an uncontrollable sensation began creeping up on her.
'No. I have to stop. It's coming. Something's coming. I'm scaaared...!'
She thought she should stop, but her hips refused to stop.
"Mm, mm, ah, ah! Ah, ah...!"
A pleasure so terrifyingly foreign—yet somehow deeply familiar—engulfed Lanfang.
"Nnnnaaaaaah—!"
She couldn't hold it in and screamed.
"Huhh, huhh. What is this, what is thiiis...."
One more time....
The thought surfaced, but Lanfang had calmed down just enough to stop the act she'd never, ever performed before.
Her parents had drilled into her that a woman must never let anyone casually touch her body unless it was the man she loved, that a woman should not flaunt her body as if on display. She'd received that ideological education, yet she'd never properly learned about masturbation, nor had she ever felt the urge to try.
Having finally discovered sexual pleasure for the first time, Lanfang began her shower with a heart that was both elated and deeply uneasy.
SHAAAAAA—!
Maybe it was because of what had just happened.
Or maybe because her body had grown so sensitive.
Even the streams of water from the showerhead felt unnervingly intense.
'Ah....'
Eyes narrowed, staring at the showerhead blasting out hot water, a single thought took hold of Lanfang's mind.
'What would happen... if I put that... down there....'
The curiosity right after such a discovery is a terrifying thing.
Even as something deep inside her screamed at her not to do it, Lanfang lifted the showerhead and slowly brought it downward.
The voice in her heart telling her she was curious was far, far louder.
SHAAAAAA—!
At last, the hot, powerful jet of water pounded mercilessly against the place that made Lanfang feel good.
"Hiyaah...!"
Her hips involuntarily jerked back from the pleasure.
She knew it was dangerous, but she pressed it back again.
The water forced its way in, parting the inner flesh, battering the little bud.
The hand holding the showerhead trembled.
And at the same time, almost on pure instinct, Lanfang brought her idle left hand to her sex.
As her fingers swept up across the smooth, red inner flesh, a pleasure wholly different from rubbing against the bed frame reverberated through her mucous membranes.
'No. No. It feels good. Why? I've never felt anything this good before...!'
At some point she'd set the showerhead down, and now, as if in heat, she was using one hand to spread herself open and the other to touch.
The upper part throbbed desperately, aching as if begging to be touched. Without even understanding what it was, Lanfang began to stimulate her clitoris.
"Hnghaa...! This is wr—, it feels so gooood...."
The pleasure was so strong her ass started bouncing.
But then, this time, a throbbing ache spread from her chest.
Specifically, her nipples.
With her head already hazy with pleasure, Lanfang shut out every thought except the impulse to touch herself. She pinched her nipple with her right hand.
Just like Hye-yong had done that time.
"Wah, hgh! Hic, hiit!"
Dangerous.
Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous!
'Touching my nipples while rubbing down there is too dangerouuus...!'
Fondling her thoroughly developed nipples and clitoris all at once—just as she'd been trained in the inner world—Lanfang raced full-throttle toward climax.
"Hnngggggggghhh—!!"
SHAAAAAA—!
"Hoo— haa— hooo—."
As the violent pleasure began to fade, the forgotten sound of rushing water reached her ears.
Right. I was in the middle of a shower....
With that thought, Lanfang put the showerhead back in its holder and began washing her hair.
'My body... it's turned into something strange.'
She'd thought it felt good, but she was terrified of what would come next.
June 19, 8:28 AM
1st Year, Lecture Room 3
"Yaaawn."
"What's up? You're looking kinda rough."
When Hye-yong let out a huge yawn, Choi Ah-young, sitting next to him, asked.
"Hm? Ah. Didn't sleep well."
"Getting good sleep is important too. For people who have to keep a regular schedule every day, a messed-up rhythm hits especially hard."
Choi Ah-young, it seemed, was the type who started nagging people once she thought she'd gotten close enough to them.
Like a long-suffering wife, she'd try to correct every little thing she saw them doing wrong.
He didn't hate it, but it could get annoying.
'I did go pretty hard last night....'
Lanfang's sensitivity was climbing day by day.
Part of it was obviously the buffs' effect, but he suspected it was also because this was her inner world.
In any case, since she responded so well, he'd gotten carried away and tormented her for hours.
He'd put up a stamina buff and dumped load after load inside her—six shots in total.
Five rounds from just sex alone.
'Lanfang will probably figure out things like masturbating on her own. By now, she must be starting to notice her sensitivity has gone through the roof.'
Lately, though, he'd avoided tormenting her in person.
Her resentment level had stayed almost the same, but her depression had visibly decreased.
'I should try waking her up while I'm doing it soon.'
Even if she knew it was a dream, something like that would make her resentment skyrocket in an instant.
Once it hit around 85 or so, his plan was to stop tormenting her in reality and help her—wholeheartedly, both materially and emotionally—so she could get back on her feet, even as she lay mired in helplessness.
'And while I do that, if I keep tormenting her in her dreams, it'll cause some kind of cognitive dissonance or split perception.'
That's what the sensitivity development was for.
Simply treating her nicely might not be enough to quell the resentment.
At the very least, he wanted to plant the perception that Hye-yong's acts of sexually tormenting her had been something overwhelmingly pleasurable.
'And then make her believe I'm the only one who can give her that pleasure....'
He wanted to make her lean on him and depend on him in daily life, beyond just the sexual pleasure.
Hye-yong's ultimate goal was complete corruption: to make her an unconditionally loyal ally.
'I need allies if I'm going to live in this world with any real peace of mind. Not just people who like me, but people who are completely on my side... Allies I can trust enough to raise and invest in, who'll follow whatever I say no matter what I do.'
At this moment, allies he could raise with complete peace of mind seemed more crucial to Hye-yong than anything else.
The biggest threat Hye-yong perceived was none other than the people living in this world.
Inside the Academy, he might be relatively safe, but the situation in the outside world was unlikely to be anything close to safe.
The setting itself looked peaceful on the surface, yet all sorts of villains teemed underneath. A great many people simply vanished without a sound or a trace; the stories just never rose to the surface.
Growing stronger to protect himself was all well and good, but at the end of the day, he was still only human.
A completely ordinary human with an attention span that would never put him above average.
If someone truly set out to target him, a gap would inevitably appear.
Unless he could keep an absolute invincibility buff running twenty-four hours a day, anyway.
Hadn't there been Awakened who were considered top-tier, only to be sniped dead by Baek Yun-seo, who wasn't even an Awakened herself?
No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't do this alone.
He needed people who would grow strong through growth buffs and protect him.
He wanted, desperately, people who would protect him—not out of money or obligation, but out of loyalty that welled up from the depths of their hearts.
The cornerstone, the prototype, was Lanfang.
Lanfang was someone weak-willed, with a faint sense of self-assertion and a fragile heart.
On top of that, Hye-yong held her weaknesses in his grasp. She was the easiest and most suitable talent to turn into an ally through training.
He didn't yet have an exact plan for how to completely break her.
It might not even work.
Which was precisely why he was pouring so much care into the attempt.
'First, I'll check her condition today. I'll touch her a bit in reality, and if she shows a sensitive reaction, I'll execute the plan today.'
With these thoughts, he waited for the next class to begin.
-
"That's it! My class ends here. Everyone move to your next required class."
Lee Ji-eun, the homeroom teacher for Room 3, snapped her book shut and strode out of the classroom with surgical precision.
Even though it was the lecture season, they didn't spend most of the day in class.
The only mandatory classes were the regular curriculum: official announcements, basic knowledge all Awakened should know, the types and patterns of heteromorphic species, and the traits and skill categories of Awakened.
What had just ended was the regular curriculum.
Now it was time for the elective lectures they had signed up for.
These weren't strictly required, but pretty much everyone attended the lectures related to their own traits.
Hye-yong, too, had registered for the Blessing Mage class led by Instructor Yoo Ji-ah and was diligently attending.
'I don't care about the rest, but I have to keep going to the Blessing Mage classes.'
For Hye-yong, the Blessing Mage class's lectures were immensely valuable simply because they taught him the types of blessings that existed.
Moreover, they taught things like the mechanisms of Divine Power, ways to raise and wrap Divine Power around the body for defense, and methods to strengthen a blessing by pouring in more Divine Power. All of it seemed extremely useful.
'Blessing strengthening is tough, so I haven't managed it yet, but it might come in handy someday.'
Trait-related lectures were held by most instructors once in the morning and once in the afternoon.
The morning and afternoon classes covered the exact same material so that students who wanted to attend wouldn't miss out.
If a mandatory class overlapped with a lecture you'd wanted to take, the idea was to take the mandatory one in the morning and the elective in the afternoon.
'Though I do wonder how many people besides Choi Ah-young burn with that much academic passion....'
Once the lectures were all done, it was free time.
Even if it was called free time, it was still a continuous cycle of self-improvement, just like during the off-season.
Train, earn money, get stronger.
The classes were merely an additional device to teach them how to train and grow strong efficiently.
These days, the routine was to confer with his party members during the remaining free time and go on raids.
Hye-yong's day ended like this: attend regular curriculum, attend the morning Blessing Mage class, eat lunch, go raid with the party, rest a bit, eat dinner, and then go run his ass off at 8 PM.
It was fun and fulfilling in its own way.
For now, at least.
Let's hurry and finish the raid so I can go check on Lanfang.