Chapter 184 - [50th Floor Gate Trial] How to Turn a Married Woman into a Cum-Covered Mess
The conversation didn't last long. The tale of me and Suni was a subject of zero interest to the Knight of Pure Love — romance stories were far more his speed. Before I knew it we'd drifted away from my own affairs and into "so what do you get up to these days?" territory, and the whole latter half dissolved into idle chitchat.
"What did you two talk about?"
"Beats me."
Ian gave me a strange look, but that genuinely was the best I had.
He'd asked whether Seres and I were getting along well, probed me about Brigitte and Rhea too, and when it came to Seongyeon he pestered me to an outright clingy degree — until Ian finally barked, "Give it a rest and just date her already!!!"
He wasn't even her father-in-law; the way he seemed ready to die of frustration over where the two of us stood was beyond absurd.
"You really didn't talk about anything important? You could have asked about the 50th floor gate."
"He said exactly one thing about that."
"What was it?"
"I asked him whether we could actually clear the 50th floor."
To my dead-serious question, he'd answered through a yawn, as if nothing outside romance talk could possibly hold his interest:
"Hm?"
"You'll clear it, obviously."
"You've got insurance, Comrade — it'll be suu~per easy, won't it?"
...I couldn't tell whether he'd said it because it was actually true or simply because he was too bored to answer properly.
Here I was wound tight as a drum, and he'd even snickered at me in that dopey voice of his — 'Couldn't you clear it while picking your nose?'
God, I hoped it was true.
"You really think it'll be that easy? That's my mom we're talking about."
"That constellation has done far too much for me already for doubt to even be an option."
If the Knight of Pure Love told me tomorrow to go die, I'd best start drafting my will. His attitude was a running joke, but setting that aside, he was a constellation you could trust to exactly that degree.
"Anything else?"
"Nothing constructive got exchanged. That's not really his style."
There was one thing, though.
"Ah, right. Comrade. I very nearly forgot to give you this."
With that, he abruptly handed over the [White Switch] — an uncanny ringer for a nuclear missile button.
"You've been run ragged by surface business of late, haven't you?"
"Just in case — should anything happen to you, press this."
"Then, myself or otherwise, comrades with time on their hands will appear and lend their aid."
I asked whether constellations were even allowed to meddle in surface affairs; he just gave a smug little shrug.
"The residential zones where the hunters live are inside the Tower to begin with."
"Early on we couldn't descend — needed to feel out the situation — but that was then."
"There's no reason we can't come down now, is there?"
He was the kind of knight who would commit, brazen-faced and utterly serene, the very offenses that would earn him a dressing-down from the Tower Lord.
"An item that summons a constellation? Wha— where are you keeping it!?"
"In my item pouch. Didn't want to press it by accident."
"Seriously impressive. Why are they so good to you of all people?"
"A cleared Tower is good news for them, after all. If I die, it becomes their problem too — so I figure I'm something like a safety buzzer?"
"For now, I suppose that's the only reason there is."
From the sound of it, Ian hadn't turned up anything seriously off about the 49th floor either.
In the end, we boarded the train without a single real gain, leaving them behind us. Far off, the knights erupted in cheers yet again — Best of luck on the 50th floor! — and it felt like nothing so much as a weight.
"What if we lose after all this?"
"We'll think about that when it happens."
Having come this far, there was no other way. All we could do was put our faith in the Knight of Pure Love and charge — if only so the former Rank 1 wouldn't disgrace herself any further than she already had.
The moment we settled into our seats, the locomotive was off.
WHOOOOOOOO-!!!
It blared a colossal whistle, as though the machine found all of this simply hilarious. Crossing bridges and blue meadows once again, we hurtled toward the pillar of light.
...From here on out, it was the real thing.
Tower of Lust — 50th Floor
My vision bleeds white. When I came to, Ian and I were standing on a brand-new platform. The black gate erected directly before the station glowered with an ominous light, and in place of the white scenery we'd just left, a black castle loomed behind it, welcoming us as its backdrop.
"Isn't that exactly the thing?"
"The image that pops into your head the moment someone says 'demon lord's castle'?"
"Yeah. That one."
"But those guys have some serious nerve. How does anyone build a forward operating base right at the enemy's doorstep?"
Marvelling at the sheer audacity the Constellation of Pure Love had pulled off, I drank in the scene before the gate.
Succubi stood in ranks before the gate as it spewed off a sinister black aura. To a woman they wore black combat helmets and V-slingshot outfits, standing rigidly at attention with a path cleared down the middle. And of course, at the center of that cleared path stood the lady in question, entirely without shame.
"Ohohohoho!!!"
An awkward laugh that fit the character not at all swept over us. Making her grand entrance: the Evil Queen who would paint this world in darkness, with brainwashed soldiers for underlings.
"Welcome, welcome, to our [Brainwashing Pussy Empire]-!"
Thus appeared Mrs. Lee Soyeon — a married woman with a daughter — in full cosplay. A squint-eyed beauty whose warm, kindly face radiated good nature from every angle. A pretty married woman with her hair tied back and draped over one shoulder, the very picture of gentle domesticity. Left standing there like a normal person she'd have passed for a genuine stunner, which made the Evil Queen costume all the more jarring.
"Ha... I seriously want to die... Who on earth made someone else's mother put on those clothes?"
"The longer I look, the more I think it actually works?"
"Hey."
"Kidding."
"Kidding my ass. Don't pop a boner over my mom. I will seriously get mad?"
Ignoring the half-hearted threat, I engraved her outfit into my memory one more time. A black leotard baring her belly and chest wide open, topped with a skull-adorned beret. Her plentiful tits wobbled with every step, and my eye kept snagging on abs that were unexpectedly pretty. Her thighs were thick, too — the figure of a woman who could carry one more child without missing a beat.
"Why no answer? Or... could it be that the lowly creatures are frightened at the sight of me?"
She seemed genuinely puzzled by our whispering. We'd simply shut our mouths for lack of anything to say, but she was choosing to take it in the most flattering direction possible.
Click, clack. And so she advanced across the red carpet. Perhaps because heels were unfamiliar to her, her gait wobbled to an almost alarming degree.
"Fear not, humans. The Queen of the Brainwashing Pussy Empire and ruler of this place, the great Lady Omankoros, is personally deigning to praise you — so rest assured, you shall not be devo-"
Wobble!
"-mphk!"
CRASH!
Sure enough, her ankle folded under the towering heel and she pitched forward face-first. Her forehead smacked squarely into the floor, and in the same instant her coffee-colored stockings tore open with a great RIIIP-!
............
...Every gaze in the place locked onto her pretty white ass, now gaping wide open to the air.
"Hey."
"That one wasn't my fault."
I tilted my head away from Ian's glare. The succubi swarmed toward the fallen Mrs. Lee Soyeon.
"Our Queeeen~!!!"
"Uuu... owwiiiie..."
Only with their support did she struggle upright, and someone swapped out the broken heel in the blink of an eye. Unless it was my imagination, this was hardly her first or second tumble — the whole scene had the air of a standby crew that had been waiting for exactly this from the start.
"Like I said earlier, my mom's hopeless in heels..."
"So even brainwashing can't scrub out the (klutz), huh..."
Seeing her coffee-colored stockings gaping open at the rear, my heart grew noticeably lighter. If this was the caliber of opposition, then just as the Knight of Pure Love promised, maybe things really would work out.
"My, my. What a fine attack...! Right in the middle of my lines... To think you'd stoop to such cowardice...!"
While we braced ourselves for the battle to come, Mrs. Lee Soyeon was blubbering. She caressed her reddened forehead, lips quivering.
"I, the Queen, personally deigned to praise your noble fighting spirit!! And you lot — claiming to champion justice — have you no shame!?"
She raged on with both hands wrapped around behind her to shield her rear. The torn stocking was apparently the true wound to her dignity.
'So... we're supposed to play along with your mom?'
'Beats me. Even I've never seen this song and dance in front of a gate...'
The longer we stayed silent, the deeper her face — already flushed crimson — burned.
"Kgh — so you're the lackeys of the Pure Love faction after all! The fault was mine for ever trusting you!"
"Pure Love faction my ass — you're the one who just fe-"
"-SILENCE!"
Her prettily lined slits of eyes flinched as if they might well up — she was fighting for her life to bury what had just happened. There was nothing to gain from pressing further, so I simply folded my arms and kept my mouth shut. Brawling outside the gate would win us nothing, and frankly I was curious to see where this little performance would go when—
"Enough! You there — the witch!"
—Out of nowhere, she jabbed a finger at Ian. Her own daughter.
"Me?"
"Yes, precisely you! Yours is a face I seem to know! What is your name!"
The evil executive — a married woman — demanding her own daughter's name out of nowhere.
'...Is she doing this on purpose?'
'She's your mother. Don't ask me — you handle it.'
I shoved her bare shoulders, and she shuffled awkwardly forward. Her mother was disgracing herself in front of a friend who might as well be family, and had now roped her into some bizarre stage play on top of it. Ian's brows knitted in pure exasperation — just how the hell was she supposed to respond to this?
"H-hohohoho~! Hohoho!!"
Oblivious to Ian's suffering, the other side had already forgotten her earlier mortification, laughing away with her hands still cupped over her exposed rear.
"I ask again! What is your name!"
"Oho~! Lee Ian! How utterly wondrous! Why, it's the very same name as the daughter I lost long, long ago in the Tower!"
"...Am I, by any chance, written up as an orphan?"
"Shh."
I murmured for her to just let the woman play it out her way, and the Queen pressed on in an even giddier voice.
"And how old might you be?"
"Twenty-seven..."
"Are your parents, perchance, still living?"
"Of course they are... one of them is standing right in front of me, shamelessly half-dressed as we speak..."
This time it was Ian's face that flared scarlet, but her opponent was beyond hearing. As if reciting from a script prepared well in advance, Mrs. Lee Soyeon peeled her hands off her rear and flung both arms wide.
"Hohohoho! Yes — you knew all along, didn't you! ...That's right! The Queen of the Brainwashing Pussy Empire, Omankoros herself, is! none other than your mother~!!"
"Ohohohoho!!!"
"Ohohohoho!!!"
That thunderous laughter — as though she'd just disclosed some momentous truth — deflated Ian and me on the spot. The succubi stationed around her, ever eager to curry favor, chimed in with rehearsed gasps of shock. Judging by their faces, though, even the succubi found this farce exhausting; every last one looked like she'd chewed a lemon.
"Haa..."
Naturally, the ones absorbing the heaviest mental damage were on our side. Every fresh burst of laughter from Mrs. Lee Soyeon gouged another chunk out of Ian's sanity. And still, either blind to it or simply past caring, the self-styled Evil Queen beamed and made her pitch.
"—Now do you see? The same wicked blood as mine runs within your veins! Come, child — don't linger there, come to me! Pledge your loyalty to the Empire, unshackle the power of darkness slumbering deep in your heart, and rule the surface at my side!"
"Um... Mom... Empire or no Empire, you're not D*** V****, you know..."
So that's where I'd seen this template before — it was S*** Wars all along.
Ian, looking half-dead from mortification, trembled violently behind her covered face, but the Queen registered none of it.
"Fufu. I even had a costume prepared for you to wear with me~!? Ta-daaa~!"
From who-knows-where she whipped out a black leotard set identical to her own and waved it about. She must have had her daughter's measurements memorized cold — one glance said the thing was engineered to hug Ian's frame perfectly. It was even more exposing than the original, no less, trimmed with fishnet stockings, fishnet gloves, and every other garnish designed to scream available.
"Well? I just knew sexy would suit our darling girl, so I placed a special order~! Enlist right now and you'll be appointed on the spot — Imperial Legion Commander, Brainwashing Pussy General~!?"
Flap, flap!
Flap, flap!
Mrs. Lee Soyeon smiled on, peddling an outfit that made my face burn just to look at. Her mother wasn't content merely to disgrace herself — now she was recruiting her own daughter into the whole sordid show.
"Brainwashing... Pussy... General... plus an ero costume... Aaaaah, that's it, I can't take this...!!"
At last, Ian's composure detonated. Her broomstick snapped out, skills loaded.
"...Uh, uhh? W-wait just a moment!?"
"Designate! [Wind Blaster (D)] × 20! [Wind Ball (E)] × 10!"
"D-daughter~!? S-stop-!?"
"UWAAAAAAH!!! ———Fire!!!!"
"-HUEEEEEEK!!!!!"
The gale blasting from the tip of the broom caught Mrs. Lee Soyeon dead-on. She clearly hadn't expected to be ambushed mid-monologue, because she went sprawling with almost insulting ease. And she didn't even stop there — she rolled clean across the ground and straight into the gate standing at her back.
'Ah. We're fucked.'
A gate trial that opens with Mrs. Lee Soyeon tumbling through its doors. And thus began the fiercest mother-daughter brawl the surface has ever seen.