Chapter 177 - [Tower of Lust, 42nd Floor] My Friend's Mom Is an Evil Executive

A full hour after that. For all I knew it was pitch-black night outside the Tower — I'd only just dozed off when a thunderous shout ripped me out of sleep.

The deafening shellfire that had been hammering our ramparts was now streaming outward. Which meant one thing: the succubus empire that had been pressing its one-sided offensive was finally being pushed back.

About time for me to head out, I suppose. Yawning, I stepped out of the barracks, and the change from before was plain to see. Someone had pulled god-knew-what with the map, and the air hung thick with musty moisture. Wiping the damp from around my mouth with my palm, I climbed up onto the ramparts.

"Ooooh!!"

"Tanks, push forward! Don't let the front line scatter!"

"Use your defensive skills without sparing a thing! Any kill-chasing bastards can get the hell to the back!"

"Don't steal kills! Our own party members are mixed in there, you idiots!!"

"Brainwashed soldiers spotted in Unit A!"

"Retrieval team, take the ones who got hit and fall all the way back to floor one! And reinforcements! The mist is thinning — spray more antidote!"

"Stay sharp! Plenty of them are still hiding in the rear trenches!"

"What do those bitches think they are, moles!?"

"Why the hell are succubi fighting like the Viet Cong!!"

"Don't panic! Once we free the captives, the rest will sort itself out!"

"Don't hold out until your aura's bone dry — the second you feel danger, rotate out right then and there!!"

"Anyone bending over to grab loot gets clobbered from behind!!"

"Items get collected in bulk and distributed later! Got it? No getting greedy!"

"Spray the agent! Spray! Spray!"

"CHAAAAARGE!!!!!"

Like so many Ghost ○usters, they'd strapped packs to their backs and were blasting away through hose-type sprayers.

The liquid they sprayed spread across the battlefield like a clammy haze, dealing massive damage to the brainwashed succubi — clad in the exact same outfits slingshots as the legion of evil.

"Aaaaagh!!!"

"Nyagh!?"

"Fall back! Fall back! Fall back!"

"Everybody run!"

"Don't touch the moisture! Every single girl we worked so hard to brainwash and bring here will go right back to normal!"

"And it doesn't just undo the brainwashing!"

"Uooooh~!? What IS this!? It barely grazed me and I feel like I'm gonna climaaaax!!!"

"No, I have to run, but the smell is just too goooood…!"

"Don't sniff the mist!!!"

"I don't know what on earth those humans are spraying, but it's luring us in!"

"Kyaaaaagh!!"

"Here I gooo~♡ The scent's taking me awaaay~♡"

"Hweeeeh~♡"

………

Every last succubus reached a hand toward the mist hanging in the air, moronic expressions plastered across their faces. Just as a cat goes loopy over a whiff of silvervine, so did they.

Well, of course — what the hunters were spraying was [Semen Potion], brewed from my very own seed….

What the hell are they even doing, carting my cum around like that?

The succubi lost all strength the moment they touched moisture laced with my bodily fluids, and the brainwashed humans snapped back to their old selves the instant the mist grazed them.

By all rights it should have been a towering war achievement — instead, it was a grand catastrophe I could never brag about to a living soul.

"Chang-ki! You were still here~!"

Yeonyeong ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠came jogging over.

"Look! With the potion you gave us, we took out every last one of those girls in a single sweep!"

"That stuff — it's all made from my… 'you-know-what'… right?"

Yeonyeong giggled like nothing in the world had ever delighted her more, and my face curdled on the spot.

I hacked furiously at the musty film of moisture lingering around my mouth with the edge of my hand. It showed no sign whatsoever of coming off, so I vented my aura and blasted every drop of the stuff around me away in one burst.

I mean, it was a "goddamn" potion whose own maker — the very guy producing its raw ingredients — refused to touch it.

"Chang-ki~?"

"Ah — it's nothing. Anyway, how's the schedule on your end looking?"

"We're going to push this front all the way through, flatten every trench, and climb up to the 42nd floor around lunchtime tomorrow~!"

Which meant my party and Ian wouldn't be crossing paths until tomorrow. For reasons she never gave, she'd said this was a situation she couldn't let other people see — so for Ian, that had to be welcome news.

"We've cleared the road for you! Come on, get a move on~!"

Sure enough, just as I'd seen demonstrated earlier, only the ground Ian had passed over stood empty. The remaining trenches had been filled in, there wasn't a single enemy wall left standing — all that remained was to press forward.

"If I find Suni, I'll get word to you through the guild."

"Yes sir! Our directionally-challenged Guild Master — we're counting on youuu~!"

With Yeonyeong's crisp salute at my back, I sprang skyward from the top of the wall.

The moisture was already trying to cling to every inch of me, and before I knew it I'd flared my violet aura to a full one hundred percent.

…Huh?

That part wasn't intentional. I'd only vented aura in the hope that this filthy moisture wouldn't touch my body.

But with the aura still pouring out unchecked, I started pulsing it beneath my feet — blast, cut, blast, cut — and….

Wait. Isn't this that martial art from D○agon Ball?

…I flew.

No wings, no skills — I was genuinely soaring through the open sky.

Running on nothing but a single burning conviction: "I refuse to touch my own spunk."

A miracle born of pure disgust — a new technique.

Wow. That raving lunatic. What in the hell has she been doing down here?

In that state — polishing my new technique along the way — I flew on across the wilderness.

For all that we were inside the Tower, this was a world with no ceiling, so I adjusted my altitude as I pleased and swept my gaze over the ground below — and what a sight it was.

Every inch of this map's surface was pocked with holes. Like the skin of some celestial body cratered by meteor strikes. Or like clay beaten hollow under a hammer.

Did Ian do all of this?

Look closely and the traces were there, just like on the 41st floor — every kind of war machine hauled in to blunt the enemy's advance. The trenches the succubi had dug, the tanks, the brainwashing guns — even the base bearing the idiotic name [Brainwashing Pussy Empire] — all of it lay in blasted ruins.

The fighting was apparently still going, too — the bombardment rolled endlessly from the far side of the map, growing louder every time I drew closer.

Before ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠long, with the bombardment ringing out right in front of my nose, a voice I knew well threaded into the roar.

A monster with a grand total of 985 copies of one and the same skill.

"AAAAAAGH!!!!"

"She's reloading agaaain!!"

"Just how many skills does that monsteeer have~!?"

"Run! Crawl into the treeeenches!!!!"

"We can't take this! That madwoman — the second we start crawling into the trenches—!?"

Dozens of E- and D-rank skills, fired all at once.

The sky bloomed with fire and ice, then hammered the ground below.

The succubi had charged with plenty of swagger at first, but one look at the deluge pouring down from above turned them white as corpses, and they stampeded back the way they'd come.

Just as on the 41st floor, their lovingly dug trenches had given the hunters no end of grief — but cheap tricks like that meant nothing to a witch.

"Hiiyaaagh!!!"

"Get out of there!"

"Further back! I said don't dive into the holes — run BACKWARD!!!"

"You'll end up a skewer!!!!"

"Gkkhaaaagh!!!"

Spikes of stone erupting from the earth filled the trenches in, escorting the enemy into a land of fire and ice.

The succubi battered by the endless hail of ice froze solid before they could even scream; those caught by the flames shrieked under the ceaseless rain of fireballs and dissolved into smoke.

Literally a bomber on two legs.

The reason every stretch of ground she'd ever crossed was cratered now stood in plain view.

"!"

…I'd been spotted.

The woman down below, giddy as anything while she machine-gunned skills into the ground, raised a hand and waved this way.

Well, naturally — a man looping through the sky wrapped head to toe in violet aura would be hard to miss.

Okay. How the hell do I land this thing?

The flight itself had been a triumph, but I descended slowly, jetting spurts of aura, terrified of botching it and snapping a leg. Very, very carefully — the way Iron Man handles his first test flight in the suit….

Watching me, Ian doubled over laughing.

"Hah… you really are something. I don't know where you picked it up, but word does say your hobby is staging bizarre spectacles, Chang-ki — and now you can fly through the sky, if nothing else?"

"Tell me about it. Even I don't know how I ended up as this kind of freak."

Perhaps because I'd finally become aware of my new soul, my aura had swelled yet again. Thanks to that, I'm well on my way to becoming a "perfect superhuman" who settles everything with aura alone — no skills required.

"Heh heh. Word is you shoot beams or something out of your hands too? Don't tell me they come out of your eyes as well?"

There was no way on earth I could admit they really did.

She'd only cackle if I said so, so I shook my head and looked around instead. Smoke still rose here and there, and barely any succubi remained on this floor. That shattered base I'd passed on the way in must have been the whole of the 42nd floor.

"Hehehehe. Why won't you say? Do beams really come out of your eyes?"

"Forget the beams. I was in the middle of a date before I came sprinting over here because you sounded worried, you know? Get to the point — what exactly did you need saving from?"

"What, were you scared I might actually lose? That I'd end up like the girls downstairs — stuffed into pervert outfits, screaming 'All hail the Brainwashing Pussy Empire!' like a lunatic?"

"Hey. You asked me to come save you, so obviously I worried. Or should I head back? Seriously — want me to go?"

"Hehe… kidding, kidding. Thanks for worrying about me."

With that she dusted off her clothes in a few brisk slaps and beamed, bright and easy. She looked tired, but not dangerously so. She could withdraw whenever she pleased, and for the life of me I couldn't fathom why she'd needed to call me here.

"The people on the 41st floor… they're still pushing up through there, right?"

"You said the floor below was a war zone, but apparently they'll be up around lunchtime tomorrow."

"Ha, what a relief~! Really, really, REALLY glad to hear it! I did ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠not want anyone else seeing me in this sorry state~!!"

…This sorry state? No matter how I looked at her, Ian seemed perfectly fine. There wasn't a trace of brainwashing on her, either — not like some of the people down below.

"So what exactly is the problem? What is it you don't want anyone seeing, huh?"

"Well… the thing is, the reason I called only you is…."

She was still hemming and hawing, trying to get the answer out, when—

A laugh drifting in from somewhere made me scowl. I'd been drowning in stress lately as it was, and now some disembodied voice was butting in — my temper spiked white-hot.

"Now what!? Who the hell are you, you punk!"

At my bellow, a pale, translucent screen unfurled across the sky. Stretched gigantic over the whole floor, visible from any corner of the 42nd to any eye at all — and beyond that ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠display, the owner of the laughter showed herself.

………

"…Oh, come on."

Ian buried her face in both hands. Her face burned scarlet with shame. Beside her, my own anger evaporated as if it had never existed, and I stood staring blankly up at the sky.

Beyond the display, the beauty who had introduced herself as "PussySlaya" laughed in a way that didn't match her appearance one bit. A married woman with kind, narrow eyes and side-tied hair draped over her right shoulder — the very picture of gentle refinement. Her figure was full and luscious, the kind of scandalous beauty who'd draw every man's gaze just strolling down the street… and yet….

…all of it utterly mismatched with her age and the character she was playing… a black leotard sheathing an enormous chest, its middle cut away to bare her belly outright… coffee-brown stockings that set off her thick thighs… a skull-decorated beret perched on her head….

The literal image of an "evil executive" straight out of a tokusatsu hero show….

Her makeup, too, was caked on in deep purple… pointlessly leaning into how "wicked" she was meant to be, and somehow leaving her looking worse than the stock villainess she was imitating….

"…Ian?"

"Don't… you can see it for yourself…."

"See what… that poor woman over there… don't tell me…."

I must have been staring with zero control over my own face, because she answered in a voice a hair's breadth from sobbing.

"Don't you dare call her pitiful! Even looking like that… even having sunk to something like this… she was my mom — the mom I was always proud of!!"

And Ian burst into loud, honking sobs.

Having become an evil executive (married, with a daughter), of all things….

………

…The sheer absurdity of it left me dumbfounded, and my disbelieving laughter simply wouldn't stop.