The Ignorant yet Ambiguous Terminator, Erkwi

Chapter 72

Squish.

Though she was a terrorist who had tried to slaughter tens of thousands, the sensation of holding this sexy, decadent beauty against my side—

Well.

Honestly, this is fucking amazing.

It was exactly that kind of feeling.

When I firmly pressed the pink nipple deep inside her breast, where milk still flowed,

"Ahhn..."

The moan that escaped her was strangely erotic.

Her usually cold expression had cracked slightly, revealing a face so bewitching it was sinful.

"Ngh, ah, hng—"

Had she not been a mass murderer, I would've thrown her to the ground right then and there, pumping her womb full of cum until it swelled. She was that perfect of a woman.

Alas, I had to pay my respects to basic human decency.

No matter what circumstances she had, she was still a criminal.

And forgiving her so easily wouldn't just be disrespectful to Park Se-eun—it'd be an insult to all the people she'd hurt.

Even if I'd personally benefited from her actions.

Still.

Throb—

As a man, I couldn't help but feel regret.

So I made do by thoroughly enjoying the feel of her firm breasts in my hands.

Squeeze.

At some point, a petty frustration made me accidentally pinch and twist her nipple, or roughly knead the soft flesh beneath.

"...Hhng...?"

Every time her pale breasts were crushed in my grip, Tirpe's throat trembled violently.

She seemed to be holding back, but lewd, nasal whimpers escaped against her will.

"Ah, ngh—"

Eventually, even delicate moans slipped past her slightly parted lips.

When I shot her a questioning look, Tirpe averted her eyes awkwardly. Her cheeks flushed crimson as she bit her lip.

After a brief hesitation,

she finally spoke up, voice tense.

"...Y-Your ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠hands... aren't they a little perverted?"

"Medical treatment is inherently perverse by nature."

Stung by her blunt accusation, I reflexively snapped back in formal speech.

Squish squish.

".......I-Is that so?"

She gave me a slightly dubious look, but lacked the resolve to actually call me out on it.

Honestly, this girl was ridiculously timid.

And though I was groping her breasts like a pervert, she seemed to understand she had no choice in the matter.

『Tirpe's 「Outer Dimension Circuit」 is severely damaged. Immediate action is required.』

The broken Mana Circuit was located in her heart.

And the closer I got to the affected area, the more effective the treatment would be.

Before arriving in the Outer Dimension,

Tirpe had used 「Fallen Angelization」, a technique rooted in 「Chaos」.

It seemed like a skill chain acquired over multiple playthroughs—carving several skills into her Status Window in a short span, then combining them in complex ways. Naturally, the strain had been immense.

It was a power meant to be used only after achieving stability. Attempting it with her current specs had been reckless.

Not that I couldn't understand her desperation to take me down quickly, but it was still a kamikaze move.

As a result,

Tirpe's circuits collapsed before she could even properly control the power.

She'd been dragged into the Outer Dimension with her Fallen Angelization only half undone.

Had she not possessed circuits closely tied to the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Outer Dimension's Chaos back then?

The dimensional pressure would've reduced her to dust, sending her straight to heaven.

'Talk about bad luck that somehow worked out.'

Which was why, right now—

『「შემობრუნდი (Reverse, Turn Back) ⅓」 has been activated.』

『Tirpe has activated 「შემობრუნდი (Reverse, Turn Back) ⅔」.』

—I was synchronizing my abilities with Tirpe's.

「Reverse」 was temporarily operating at full capacity.

'My ability alone would've made recovery sluggish, but stacking Tirpe's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠power on top has sped things up considerably. This level of regeneration is rare in the early stages.'

Thanks to this, Tirpe had escaped her near-death state, looking less like a half-dead mouse now.

Her complexion was steadily improving.

'With abilities like these, no wonder she was revered as a saint.'

Her power was so immense it'd be weirder if she hadn't been.

"Hhih—?"

Every time I kneaded her breasts, Tirpe squirmed against me with pitiful whimpers.

Ding—

The earlier message reappeared.

『「Read」 has encountered signs of an 「Alteration」.』

Alteration.

A phenomenon normally only possible in the mid-to-late stages of the game.

A hidden piece that strengthened the 「abilities」 woven into the world's very foundation.

"This is popping up now...?"

The trigger was vivid enough to be unforgettable.

Using Read to deeply decipher Tirpe's emotions and empathize with her.

That was all it had taken.

'No way to figure out the other conditions, huh.'

I wondered if there was a loophole—some way to Read the <Conditions for Alteration> itself—but, unsurprisingly, I couldn't Read the Read skill.

'Disappointing, but this was always a matter of luck anyway.'

Alteration was something you just stumbled upon in the weirdest ways.

Even in the game, players had pooled their collective intelligence, but figuring it out had been a nightmare.

'But right now, my ability isn't even Conquer.'

Meaning, I had zero leads on my current abilities.

'For now, let's leave Read's Alteration alone.'

Surviving the Outer Dimension was hard enough as it was—this could wait.

I lifted my gaze from the ground and looked ahead.

Uuuuuuu...

Cloud-like stepping stones stretched before us, mist seeping from their surfaces.

Maybe it was the unsettling currents that made even the slightest touch feel wrong—Tirpe's shoulders trembled faintly.

...Wait, no. That was because I'd accidentally brushed against her nipple. It was such a clean shade of pink, I'd done it without thinking...

Tirpe shot me a look, equal parts suspicious and displeased.

"Haa... Nghh, seriously... Is there even a way out of here...?"

"Depends on how you look at it—easy for some, hard for others. But really, you don't know? How many times have you even been to the Outer Dimension...?"

When I chided her, Tirpe gave a bitter smile.

"...This is... my fourth time."

"Huh? What...? You're a total newbie."

"Excuse me? A... newbie?"

"...Uh, yeah. That's a thing."

I'd miscalculated.

The Outer Dimension in reality was nothing like the game.

What I'd just said was practically poking at Tirpe's PTSD.

"......?"

Luckily, Tirpe didn't seem to know what "newbie" meant—her eyes just glazed over in confusion.

'I fell into the Outer Dimension hundreds of times in the game. But even then, reality's version must be worse.'

The Outer Dimension wasn't a place you ended up in by accident—but if you knew the way, you could cross it.

The problem was... being here meant—

『Park Si-hyun's Mana - [G-/G-]』

—your MP drained steadily, like damage-over-time.

Unless you were in the mid-to-late game with a fat MP pool, this place was unmanageable.

If neither of us had these unusual Mana Circuits, we'd have burned through our MP by now, becoming one with the ground—a one-way ticket to heaven.

"The way out is simple, but also complicated."

I met her gloomy eyes with a serious look.

"We have to find a Wanderer."

A cold wind brushed past us.

"..."

Tirpe, already morose, had never looked more horrified.

* * *

"......."

Her already-shadowed eyes seemed to drop a few more degrees in temperature.

She stared at me like I'd just betrayed her, like she couldn't process the shock.

"A... W-W-Wanderer...?!"

I wasn't sure why she'd suddenly started stuttering, but the way her brow twitched was terrifying.

"...Yeah. A Wanderer. What about it?"

"W-Wanderers are..."

Her lips trembled all the way to her eyelids as she trailed off.

—...Are you... insane...?

Well, I understood Tirpe's fear.

Wanderers.

Those who couldn't enter the Tower, left to drift the Outer Dimension.

'Those freaks are even weirder than ghosts, honestly.'

The Outer Dimension didn't permit life—or even the concept of existence.

Its fundamental nature was Yin, negative (-), closer to the realm of imaginary numbers—the power of Black Magic.

But even Black Magic wasn't pure nothingness.

Void. Paradox. Chaos.

The Outer Dimension embodied those traits.

A place where existence itself was impossible.

And yet, it had its own inhabitants.

The lost ones—the Wanderers.

Beings who had shed their original selves, no longer "alive" in any real sense, merely existing.

'Well, it makes sense to be wary of them.'

Wanderers had no clear patterns of behavior.

Their personalities shifted as often as they swayed in place.

Having lost their original forms, they would suddenly appear beside you, stare blankly, then attack without warning.

They were ambiguous—neither reliable allies nor clear-cut enemies.

In the game, NPCs would say this about them:

"They say the Lord of Corpses personally guides lost souls to the underworld to prevent more Wanderers from being born. Hmph. Anyone who knows that woman's true nature wouldn't believe such nonsense. Surely you don't buy into those baseless rumors, do you?"

The Tower's purpose was simple.

Like throwing venomous insects into a jar of poison and making them fight until only the strongest remained,

it sought to create the purest possible result.

To achieve that, it ruthlessly discarded all unnecessary excess.

What was cast aside in that process, accumulating over countless years outside the Tower, became the Outer Dimension.

The Outer Dimension was essentially the Tower's dumping ground for discarded realities.

Layer upon layer, these cast-off remnants piled up beyond the Tower until, before anyone realized it, the Outer Dimension had reached a density capable of threatening the Tower itself.

And yet—

'The Tower kept dumping unnecessary elements into the Outer Dimension.'

As if the Tower wanted to be threatened by the Outer Dimension.

Or perhaps as if it wanted something to be born from it.

The result?

Entities that devoured the Outer Dimension, disasters far beyond the likes of mere Wanderers, were born.

Those things...

'If we run into them now, we're dead. No way around it. We have to avoid those freaks at all costs. Even if all my stats were S-rank, it wouldn't matter.'

Later, Park Ha-rin would exterminate most of them, but right now, they weren't just surviving—they were running rampant.

'Better to just stick to Wanderers and quietly find a way back to Earth.'

Just as I finished organizing my thoughts—

Twitch.

Tirpe's body shuddered violently. Her circuits trembled urgently, as if reacting to something.

"!"

I, too, belatedly sensed the disturbance and whipped my head around.

Tirpe's scream, muffled behind her hands, didn't even reach my ears.

Because far in the distance—no, beyond distance—

CRACKKKKKKK!

A massive fissure split open.

A black crevice carved across the entire Outer Dimension.

Its interior was so dark, so unfathomable, that it was impossible to gauge its depth.

The only thing I could guess was that something was inside.

And that if it got any closer, we would die without a chance to resist.

"..."

Even though I knew that, my body wouldn't move.

CRACKKKKKKK!

Even though what I was seeing was just a fragment of the calamity, my soul froze in terror.

Danger signals screamed through my nerves, but the air of the Outer Dimension had stiffened, trapping me in place.

No—maybe I had already given up.

In that delusion, the calamity moved.

OOOOOOOOH—

The world itself halted at the presence of that one being.

Slowly, hands—no, things too vast to be called hands—burst from the fissure.

Tearing through the clinging darkness of the rift with sheer force, the opaque appendages emerged.

Each one bore an indistinct, shifting form—

No, they kept changing: one moment a fox's claws, the next a human hand, then a fin, never pausing.

UUUUUUUUUUH—

A reverberation, like the tolling of doom, spread outward.

At the same time, the grotesque hands seized the edges of the closing rift and ripped it wider.

KRRRRRRRRRRRR—!

Like an overturned sack, the world inside-out inverted. The entire dimension shook, storms erupting—only to be silenced by the calamity's mere movement.

From the gaping tear, an incomprehensible giant surged forth.

A body that seemed to liquefy the cosmos itself.

Yet every time I looked at it, its face shifted—one moment vulpine, the next avian, then like living flame.

Translucent shoulders bore the spectacle of supernovas, stars detonating like divine wrath.

A cosmic monstrosity, a jumbled amalgamation of every conceivable form.

The Outer Dimension's distorted cross-section couldn't even contain its full body—only its upper half was visible beyond the horizon.

And yet, space itself expanded under the pressure of its presence.

All the while, I stared dumbly at its profile.

『The Ignorant ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠yet Ambiguous Terminator, Erkwi.』

A myth-class disaster that devours the Outer Dimension without discrimination.

One of the Turbid Throne's sovereigns.

And at the same time—

『Unique Skill 「Mind of the Strange Sage」 is active.』

'Why is she here?'

My heroine.

『「Optimal Progression」 is active.』