73. My Buff is a Drug
73. My Buff is a Drug
July 2nd (Wed) 9:01 PM
Physical Training Room
"Um, we're doing this again today?"
"Is that a no?"
"It's not a no, but...."
Choi Ah-young immediately blushed and made a gesture as if covering her armpits with both hands.
"You can't lick places like my armpits like yesterday...."
Damn. That was hot as hell.
Hye-yong swallowed his disappointment and pulled Ah-yeong into an embrace.
Even though it was the second time, it still felt as good as the first.
"Ah-yeong, are you staying late again tonight to finish your workout?"
"Yeah. These days, if I skip it, I actually feel kind of stiff and off."
He decided not to say something like, I hope I'm not being a distraction.
"Good work!"
"Yeah, see you tomorrow!"
After saying that, he stepped out of the physical training room first.
Hye-yong was quite pleased with his utterly debauched lifestyle lately.
'Come to think of it, Park Yuri's around too, isn't she...?'
Park Yuri might have a weird personality, but she was definitely pretty.
Her vibe gave him a strong urge to try something with her at least once, so Saturday was shaping up to be something he was looking forward to.
'I wish time would hurry up and pass.'
Hye-yong walked toward the dorms with a cheerful heart.
-
10:10 PM.
Ah-yeong, thinking it would be a bit odd to stay any later, tidied up and left the physical training room.
"Hooo...."
She wiped her sweat-soaked body with a towel as she walked toward the dorms. Someone walking behind her flinched sharply and stopped in her tracks.
'Wh-What is this smell...?'
Kwon Jin-ah didn't know what this smell was.
But it was a scent that felt incredibly intense and seemed to stir up excitement.
Unknowingly, she began to follow the scent.
—That's the smell of sex. The scent of a man and woman being intimate....
Someone whispered that inside her head.
Ah, so that's what this is.
So that's what it was.
'I want to kill her. No. I want to strangle her to death. But I can't. I've held back until now. But still, I want to kill her.'
Why are you doing this, Kwon Jin-ah!
You've never once in your life thought about killing a person.
Why, why, why, why!?
......I don't know.
She asked herself that, but something kept clouding her mind, driving her onward.
Someone was deliberately dominating her thoughts.
Half out of her mind, Kwon Jin-ah stalked behind the female student.
It was the path leading to the dorms, practically the only dark and deserted stretch of road.
The female student, having finished wiping off all her sweat, began to fix her hair.
'Ah....'
Seeing that, Kwon Jin-ah let out a sigh of lament.
Her hands started to tremble.
'I want to kill her. Aah, how ecstatic would it feel to wrap my hands around that girl's neck and strangle her to death.'
Please, don't sweep your hair up.
Don't show me your neck.
If you do that, I'll really....
Swish.
Her prayer went unanswered.
Unaware that anyone was behind her, the female student swept up her sweat-slicked, glistening hair, revealing her pure white neck.
In that instant, reason snapped.
She lunged forward, seizing the neck of the female student who gave off that irresistible scent.
"Hak!?"
Thud!
The female student collapsed to the ground before she could even properly cry out.
Kwon Jin-ah pinned her down and strangled her with all her might, pressing her thumb hard against the girl's throat.
"Gk, gak, keuk, keu, hak. Gah...."
Thra-thra-thrash!
Pinned to the ground and strangled, the female student kicked her legs wildly in agony.
It was exactly the reaction she had so desperately hoped for.
It felt like electricity sparked from her fingertips and swept through her entire body.
'Struggle a little more, a little more.'
'Show me more of that face twisted in pain!'
'Aah, so good. Her face turned bright red, it's so incredibly pretty....'
It felt like swimming wildly in a sea of pleasure chemicals flooding her brain.
"Gk, geuk, ghhak...."
The eyes of the female student, unable to breathe, gradually lost focus and rolled upward.
A sense of anticipation incomparable to anything before welled up.
'She's dying? She's dying? Strangled to death, by me?'
Snap!
She heard it.
Others might not have heard it at all, but to Kwon Jin-ah, it was unmistakable.
The sound of the female student's life—snap—being cut off.
Soon, the female student went completely limp and stopped moving.
The drool and snot trickling down were the only signs that she had been alive just moments ago.
"Aah, aah! Aaaaaah...."
Kwon Jin-ah wrapped her arms around herself and shuddered in the cascading waves of ecstasy.
I finally killed her, with these hands, strangled her to death!!
Looking at the dead female student's face made sexual arousal boil up inside her.
"Hut, hut, hoo...."
The faint sound of water and stifled moans echoed through the silent night air.
-
—Creator!
"Mmh...."
—Creatooooor!!
"Ah...."
Hye-yong was having a bad dream.
A dream where a mosquito was disturbing his deep sleep.
In the room Hye-yong originally lived in, there was a wall right next to him.
Thinking a mosquito had conveniently landed on that wall, Hye-yong swung his palm at the wall with all his strength.
SMACK!!
"Hyeok!!"
At the satisfying impact and the accompanying scream, Hye-yong jolted awake from his bed.
A blonde woman in a suit was collapsed on the floor, clutching her face and trembling.
"M-Mina?"
"Y-yesh... it's Mina."
Mina answered with a clear handprint on her face, tears welling up in her eyes.
Hye-yong was simply bewildered.
"What the? When did you call me into the inner world?"
"I didn't call you. I came here."
What was that supposed to mean?
"We are currently inside the inner world of someone infected by the Virus."
For a second, Hye-yong thought he'd misheard.
His half-asleep brain struggling to process that, he reached one conclusion.
"So the inner world swallowed up reality?"
Mina nodded her head.
"If it's the Virus, it could definitely do such a thing."
Things had been pretty quiet lately, hadn't they.
Hye-yong picked up his clothes and put them on, grabbing the Burst Wolf and its magazines.
"Ugh, I didn't even get a proper sleep. My shoulders are all stiff."
He started asking questions while stretching his shoulders.
"What happens in this case? Up until now, the inner world has been inside someone's mind, not reality."
"Right?"
"If reality's been swallowed, does dying here mean really dying?"
"Not that. If it's you, Creator, you would wake up right here in this bed."
"What about other people, not me?"
"They do die, but they don't actually die—they remain here in a suspended death state. If we find and eliminate the Virus, they'll wake up with no memory of it. But if we fail to eliminate it...."
"What happens then?"
"We'd have to abandon this foundation and move to a new one, living with the mindset of eventually eliminating it someday. If we keep getting pushed back like that, I'll get pushed back too, and then the world will be ruined...!!"
So I just have to kill it, then.
Having grown somewhat accustomed to the entity called the Virus, Hye-yong felt confident.
"Shall we head out first?"
"The source of the Virus is nearby. Let's go together."
He moved toward the female dormitory with Mina.
A secluded path that seemed completely deserted.
It wasn't exactly an alleyway, but in a corner of a place close to one, a girl was collapsed on the ground.
"Ch-Choi Ah-young...!?"
Recognizing her in an instant, he rushed over, rested her head on his knees, and checked her condition.
Her eyes were open, but they held no focus at all, and her heart wasn't beating.
To anyone who looked, Choi Ah-young was dead.
'There are strangulation marks on her neck....'
Just a few hours ago, they'd been blushing and tangling their bodies together as close friends. Seeing her now as a cold corpse hit Hye-yong with considerable shock.
"Hey, M-Mina. She'll come back to life once we deal with the Virus, right?"
"Yes! She's in a suspended death state. It seems the inner world manifestation began during the process of this character being murdered. It looks like this entire facility is currently covered by the inner world."
The entire facility?
The scale seemed a lot bigger than I thought...?
'Either way, I won't forgive this!'
Judging from the blood on her legs, scraped raw from dragging against the dirt ground, Choi Ah-young had clearly struggled fiercely.
Imagining the sight of Choi Ah-young dying by strangulation made his head spin with rage.
He would make sure to repay this crime in full.
"What should we do first?"
"First, let's look around and search for clues."
It would be wise to follow Mina's words here.
Hye-yong walked along the perimeter of the female dormitory.
Then, in the faint light leaking from the dorm building, he caught sight of a person's shoes.
Shoes dangling in midair.
Wondering why those were visible in the empty air, he raised his gaze—and saw someone who had hung themselves, dead.
"Kek...."
The sound slipped out involuntarily.
It looked exactly like someone had been hanged.
Actually seeing a person—a girl, no less—dead by hanging wasn't exactly pleasant, but he looked closely to figure out what was going on.
'The rope is just hanging in the air?'
There was nothing supporting the rope that was strangling the female student.
To support a person's body weight, you'd need a pillar or something, but she had been hung and killed in the empty air with nothing at all.
An anomaly, a sense of disconnect, something that shouldn't be there.
The trifecta.
'Well, at least it's definitely not a suicide.'
Since the proportion of female Awakened was overwhelmingly high, the girls' dormitory was much larger.
Hye-yong looked around a bit more.
Dangle, dangle....
Everywhere he went, he saw hanged corpses, reminiscent of an execution ground.
'Ugh, fucking horrifying.'
Even though he'd seen Mina die grotesquely multiple times, it still made him frown instinctively.
There wasn't the brutality of splattered blood and flesh, but the bizarre atmosphere radiated by the fact that limp corpses were scattered around like normal decorations was no joke.
'What about the others? What's Lanfang doing right now?'
Hye-yong called out to Lanfang first.
[ Choi Hye-yong : Lanfang! ]
[ Lanfang : Yes? ]
[ Choi Hye-yong : What are you doing? ]
[ Lanfang : I was thinking about you, Master! ]
Lanfang had gotten incredibly good at acting cute.
Day by day, she was becoming more lovable....
Wait, no, that's not the point.
[ Choi Hye-yong : Wait in your room. I'll come to you. ]
While he was at it, he decided to contact the other kids too.
[ Choi Hye-yong : Ha-yoon, what are you doing? ]
There was no answer from Seo Ha-yoon.
Ominously.
[ Choi Hye-yong : Hee-yeon. What are you doing right now? ]
[ Na Hee-yeon : Huh? I was just getting ready for bed? ]
[ Choi Hye-yong : Don't sleep yet, just wait. I'll come to your room. ]
[ Na Hee-yeon : Ah, okay. Got it. ]
Fortunately, Na Hee-yeon answered.
Now, what about Chae Hwa-ra?
[ Choi Hye-yong : Hwa-ra? ]
There was no answer from Chae Hwa-ra either.
If she just hasn't seen it, I hope she sees it soon and answers.
First, Lanfang's room was closer, so he headed that way.
From talking before, he at least knew her room number.
'Ugh. There are corpses in the hallway too... What the hell came through here?'
It was hard to gauge the Virus's true nature.
Why had Choi Ah-young alone been killed in that manner?
First, he opened the door to Lanfang's room.
"Master!"
She must have been waiting right at the door, because she threw herself at him the moment she saw his face.
He held her, spun her around once, then set her down.
"I'm happy to see you too, but now's not the time. Something terrible happened."
"Something terrible?"
Hye-yong brought Lanfang outside and pointed to the place where the hanging corpse was.
"H-H-Hiiyaaak!!"
Seeing the vivid corpse, Lanfang nearly fainted dead away.
"M-M-Mas-Master, th-that's...!!"
Lanfang knew nothing about the Virus.
There was no way she'd understand if he told her.
So Hye-yong decided to reuse the same thing he'd used on Geum Na-rin.
"It's an evil spirit!"
"Evil spirit...?"
"Yes. We've fallen into something like a nightmare. If you want to live, we have to find the evil spirit somehow and get rid of it!"
Lanfang, who had nearly collapsed and was caught by Hye-yong, awkwardly steadied her stance and stood up.
"I, I don't really know what's going on... but if my Master says so, I'll follow you no matter what."
That's it! Lanfang!
That's my pet dog!!
"Heh, you two seem incredibly close?"
Seeing the untimely skit, Mina grinned—"shik"—with a smile.
Hye-yong shot her a look that said be quiet, and Mina played dumb.
Taking Lanfang with him, he headed toward Na Hee-yeon's room.
But on the way, he encountered a familiar face.
'Chae Hwa-ra....'
Lying dead.
At least she'd died with her eyes closed, making it look slightly less horrific, but it was a tragic loss.
'Kgh, I'll definitely save you! Just stay like that for a little while!'
The students who had been in their rooms trying to sleep seemed fine, while the ones who had been wandering outside appeared to have met with misfortune.
Hye-yong burned with a desire for revenge as he headed for Na Hee-yeon's room.
Knock knock knock!
"Hee-yeon!"
He knocked on the door, but when there was no response, he yanked it open with enough force to break it down if necessary.
Whether she'd left it open on purpose or not, the door swung right open despite being an electronic lock.
Right there in front of him, he saw Na Hee-yeon wearing nothing but her underwear and writhing around.
"You came...."
Na Hee-yeon spoke while glancing slyly at him with a coy expression.
"No matter what, this is way too sudden. For a girl, mood is also important... Huh?"
Na Hee-yeon, who had been continuing her sentence, discovered Hye-yong and Lanfang staring blankly at her and a question mark practically floated above her head.
"Hweh?"
"Uh, Hee-yeon... put some clothes on, clothes...."
"...."
Na Hee-yeon's already slightly flushed face turned as bright red as a tin kettle heated over a fire.
"J-Just wait a minute!!!!!!!!!"
SLAM!!
"Hah, good grief."
A hollow laugh escaped him involuntarily.