[50th Floor Gate Trial] How to Turn a Married Woman into a Cum-Drenched Mess

Lee Soyeon hit the floor with a strangled kughk, and the instant she did, all hell broke loose.

Ka-chunk!

The black gate that had been standing there with its mouth agape yawned even wider and began to swallow us whole.

"Goddammit— no matter how pissed off you are, that's still your MOTHER! You're supposed to at least try talking first before you start blasting skills into her, you crazy bitch!!!"

"You're the one who said you'd handle ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠it! And! If we left her alone, mother and daughter were about to become a matching set of evil executives—what exactly was I supposed to dooooo!!!"

"Yeah, well, you still give us time to sort our feelings out before we throw down inside the gate—"

My words never got to finish.

Shwooop!

Like dust caught in a vacuum cleaner, Ian and I were sucked in without the slightest resistance.

Apparently, the gatekeeper herself—Lee Soyeon—stepping through the gate had been the trigger.

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"Commencing the 50th Floor Gate Trial."

"As for this gate's theme... there isn't really one."

"The Tower Lord brainwashed the former Rank 1, you see, saying it was to torment you all..."

The one reciting the gate's contents was neither a constellation nor the gatekeeper.

It was one of the succubi who'd been standing at the entrance attending the brainwashed Queen—and her voice was far more worn down than I'd expected.

"Um... hello?"

"I know we really shouldn't be saying this, but please, PLEASE take that woman away with you."

"It's been quite a while since she installed herself on the 50th floor calling herself our Queen."

"She's honestly so hard to watch... or maybe I should say she doesn't suit us..."

"No—to put it bluntly, she's just pitiful..."

"........."

And that was her own comrade talking. A succubus, no less.

Three years was apparently long enough for grievances to pile up; they'd made their plea half-choked with emotion.

"If she were an actual constellation, fine—but some parachute appointee suddenly playing at Queen just puts us in a bind..."

"The Tower Lord's brainwashing was so half-assed that the only thing she can actually do is go 'Ohohoho.'"

"Every so often the Jet-Black Knights come up and start picking at her."

"And do you know how little wariness that woman has? She actually tries to just follow them!"

"If we hadn't stopped her, she might have ended up badly hurt..."

"Honestly, just watching her is nerve-racking..."

So she really could have fallen into the hands of that trio of idiots.

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I couldn't help marveling that a woman that careless had somehow preserved her chastity for three whole years.

"Brainwashed or not, my mom's still the same underneath."

"Works for me, then. Sounds like she'll be showing us plenty of openings. Let's wrap this up quick."

The objective of this gate was to secure—or defeat—Lee Soyeon.

A battle, no less, that even the succubi here—and above them, the constellations—were fully behind.

Ian and I squared up with plenty of spirit, while Lee Soyeon, who had sprawled flat on her back, finally managed to rise.

"Aiya-yaya. What on earth are you all chattering about... Hoo. I am Omankoros, the Invincible Queen! The supreme being who shall drown the world above in the darkness of lust and bring every man alive under my dominion! And what, pray tell, do you intend to do about me?!"

The gate blazed bright.

System windows popped up, announcing the opening of the battle.

Back when we fought the Gumiho, the arena had been some cramped little cave; this time, even the sheer expanse was on another level.

We faced the former Rank 1 in the courtyard of that demon castle we'd glimpsed as scenery earlier, the dark night sky and moonlight at our backs.

"My daughter, Lee Ian! Before we cross blades, I ask you one final time! Do you truly mean to say you will not follow your mother and conquer the world?!"

"Ughhhh~! AAAAAAARGH!! Please, just SHUT UP! Please! Please! PLEASE! I'm literally begging you! Every single word out of your mouth makes me cringe so hard my teeth chatter!!!

As Ian writhed in place, squirming with secondhand embarrassment, her mother made one truly final offer.

"Even if I granted you half the world, you'd still refuse?!"

"Just managing ONE tower already has me pulling all-nighters—what half of the world, you clueless ajummaAAAAAARGH—!!!"

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It was a rebuttal anyone would have judged completely fair.

The torment of overwork, carved into her very bones, drove her onward.

Ian loaded up her skills, and Lee Soyeon—apparently done entertaining this farce—settled into her stance as well.

Not that it amounted to much: an awkward, half-hearted pose from a woman who couldn't even properly run in those towering heels...

Don't you dare forget.

In raw aura and sheer skill alike, this was a woman who had stood at the very top of the world.

Whatever awkwardness her stance had? Irrelevant. She was a monster.

"Then I suppose I have no choice! Time I taught you the difference in our strength! —HAAAH!!"

"Changki!"

At Ian's shout, she broke left and I broke right.

A heartbeat later—tzzjejejejejak!!!

With a hideous screech like ice shearing apart, everything directly in front of Lee Soyeon—the ground we'd just been standing on—turned to stone.

'Holy shit. She really does have zero windup—just slams an instant-kill straight into whatever she's looking at.'

That was the Petrification Evil Eye.

The very same one she'd supposedly fired off to save Uhwudong.

"Changki! You remember the plan, right?! Don't panic—we do it exactly as planned!!"

"Roger thaaat~~~!!!"

The two of us split off to opposite flanks.

Ian had told me: to use an evil eye, the target needs to be within her line of sight.

But a neck—and a head—there's physically only one of each.

If we stood on opposite sides with her at the center, she'd have no choice but to keep turning her head.

"Ohohoho! And what do you imagine you'll accomplish with that? What a positively adorable little trick!"

One of Lee Soyeon's eyes slid open.

Her black pupil bleached to gray, and a razor-sharp gaze locked onto Ian.

"So my so-called daughter has actually been using her head! But if merely knowing about my evil eyes were enough to counter them, I would hardly be standing here at all!!"

Tzzjejejejejak!!!

"...Kgh!?"

No windup. No tell.

The instant the activation notice appeared, petrification swallowed the entire world.

"Fast...! She's fast...!!"

It happened in less time than a single blink.

Everything Lee Soyeon had been looking at turned into heaps of stone.

Which meant not only her target, Ian—even the scenery behind her had frozen solid, wall to wall.

"Ghhh—uuuughhk~!"

"Ohohoho~!"

The moment Ian realized she was in the eyes' path, she'd thrown herself out of the line of sight.

She'd known her mother would look, and her reaction had been swift—but even so, half her body petrified mid-sprint, locking her into her running pose.

"What did you imagine would come of splitting in two? How naive. Even divided to opposite sides, subduing one of you takes me less than a second. Unless you can fundamentally do something about my evil eyes, your countermeasures are meaningless."

Swish!

Still channeling [Petrification Evil Eye], she turned her gaze on me.

"Next, the man! You—the one latched onto my daughter—!!"

"—Like hell you will!"

Before her eyes could land on me, I hurled the potion I'd prepared in advance at Ian.

The vial arced over the flank opposite Lee Soyeon and shattered against Ian's petrified half with a crisp clink.

"I know not what trickery you're attempting... but you, too, shall turn to stone!!"

"Go right ahead and try, if you can!"

I drew out a fresh potion and made a big show of raising it high above my head.

The instant I finished, the evil eye took effect.

"HAAAAH!!"

Tzzjejejejejejak!!!!

'Shit—I'm hardening!'

My vision went black in an instant.

I'd meant to do what I always did—sheathe my whole body in aura and block the petrification—but instead the stone swallowed my aura whole, sealing it around me like a shell.

"………!!"

Thanks to that, my eyes and nose went unharmed, but I couldn't see a thing.

It felt like being shut inside a stone coffin cast in a mold of my exact body.

"All your clever little tricks, and this is all you amount to! You split up thinking you could slip past the curse of I, Omankoros—but a thousand times, no! A Queen's evil eyes devour every scheme!!"

She jeered like a proper villainess.

Going by appearances, Ian and I had been petrified at the same time.

We'd split to opposite flanks to dodge the evil eyes, but apparently it had never crossed her mind that we might have planned for being picked off one by one.

"Hohoho. Yes, that's right! You there, covered head to toe in burns! You're that troublemaker the Jet-Black Knights spoke of, aren't you?! An obstacle who storms the tower as you please and meddles with us! No wonder my daughter refuses to heed me—it must be your doing!!"

Clack, clack.Clack, clack.

This time she was approaching carefully, mindful not to fall.

Having my body turn to stone was terrifying, but I wasn't drowning in fear.

I knew the woman bearing down on me was hopelessly clumsy on her feet. And it wasn't as though we'd come without a plan.

"First, I shall relieve you of that arm! Once my naive daughter hears you scream, surely her heart will come back around!"

'Is it the brainwashing? She says the most chilling things like they're nothing.'

In an atmosphere where one wrong step meant genuinely getting sliced apart—

Krrjak—!

Right on schedule came the sound of stone splitting.

"Designate! [Rogue's Smoke Bomb (E)] ×23!"

"...What the—!?"

Over a series of muffled pops came Omanko... no, Lee Soyeon's flustered voice.

The petrification hadn't fully worn off, so I still couldn't see—but I knew exactly what my partner had pulled.

"The petrification I struck you with at full power—Uhwudong herself couldn't unravel it! How did you escape that state?!"

"You think we'd come to take down our own mom without any countermeasures ready? We've got a few ideas of our own!"

I watched for my timing amid Ian's swaggering.

Lee Soyeon's footsteps halted.

Blind, she floundered about, drumming the ground with her heels—tak, tak, tak—and in that gap, Ian laid down her next move.

"Designate! [Rogue's Smoke Bomb (E)] ×23!"

Fwooo—BANG!

Something burst, and a ghostly haze billowed out.

The smoke was so thick that even I, sightless as I was, could feel it—packing the gate to the brim.

"Gwahk!? Kghk-kghk! Kehk! You—you wicked little brat! To blind your own mother, you deliberately took my attack just to buy the timing for your smoke—!?"

"—Changki!"

As though even a single beat spent answering would be a waste, Ian called my name.

That was the signal: her 'eyes'—her evil eyes—had been blocked.

'I should've kept my eyes on Ian the whole way through! Then I could've reacted before the smoke bomb even went off!'

I clenched my fist and crushed the potion I'd been holding aloft since before the petrification took hold.

Crimson liquid ran down my hand and over my hair, and the stone shell entombing me crumbled into gray fragments and vanished.

"Kghk, kghk-kghk! Ngh!? You broke free over there too!?"

She was thoroughly rattled.

She'd assumed we split in two to counter the evil eyes, but the truth was a little different.

The whole point of dividing was to hand Ian her opening to blanket the field in smoke like this.

"I heard your evil eyes carry a whole lineup of instant-kill moves. And you know it yourself—which is why you've got a habit of always opening with petrification, right?"

"AAAAARGH!! You knew all along, and you targeted it on purpose!?"

She fired the skill toward the spot I'd occupied only moments before.

[Severance Evil Eye]—the one she'd only just loaded.

By its name, an ability that cleaves things apart—but no matter how it raked and slashed at the air, I simply wasn't there.

"Changki! You okay?! Tell me it didn't hit you!"

"Didn't hit me, so quit worrying!"

Thanks to the skill-made smoke, we couldn't see each other's positions either—which suited me just fine.

With a fog this dense, there was no way she could pin us down.

"Ghk!? T-to clear this smoke, I shall first deploy the [Wind Evil Eye] to—!?"

And true to Ian's word, she panicked at the drop of a hat.

Had she been able to deploy her evil eyes instantly to match the situation, she'd have been truly terrifying—but there was at least a five-second window.

Before she could sweep the smoke away with [Wind Evil Eye], I shouted in a rush.

"Lee Soyeon! Starting now, we're going to save you! It may feel a little unpleasant, so please bear with it for just a moment!"

"Kgh—what manner of nonsense is that! Save ME?! Enough riddles—will you not show yourselves this instant!?"

'Not a chance. Like I'd let a golden opportunity like this slip away.'

I pulled the semen potion from inside my jacket and wound up like a pitcher on the mound.

I scattered aura across the soles of my feet and pinpointed Lee Soyeon's exact position, the way a submarine sweeps for a target on radar.

Anchored in place by those high heels, unable to move a single step—she made the perfect bull's-eye.

"Here it comes! Wrap aura around your head so it doesn't crack open!!"

"Which is exactly what I am asking—what do you mea—"

"—FURYAAAAH!!!"

With every ounce of strength I had—

the [Semen Potion] clenched in my hand—

I hurled it straight at Lee Soyeon's face.