The Wife Who Shed Her Suit
The direction Minjun pointed toward was an alley where two half-collapsed wrecks of houses slumped together. The detector readings were still low, but the distance was closing steadily.
Jia took the lead without a word, angling her spear across her body. Her black suit caught the sunlight, and with every step the lines of her ass and thighs rippled in sharp, liquid relief. Sweat had glued the fabric so tightly to her skin that it hid nothing of the spring and give of her flesh.
Minjun followed behind her with the grenade launcher slung across his back. Wherever his eyes settled, Jia's explosively firm ass swayed with a hypnotic, meaty allure in time with her sharp, efficient stride. The thick curves standing out against the black latex had seized his gaze completely.
The two of them moved along the shadows of the ruined houses, keeping even their footsteps to a whisper. When they rounded the corner of the alley, the monster came into view.
Minjun and Jia slipped quietly into the underbrush so it wouldn't notice them.
It was a bipedal creature standing a little taller than a man, its skin a dull, lifeless gray. The arms were unnaturally long, black claws extending from the tips of its fingers. There wasn't a single hair on its body, and the hide looked as thick as cured leather. Pitch-black pupils, vertically slit nostrils, a mouth bristling with needle teeth, pointed ears. It was a grotesque, unpleasant shape far too alien to belong in the waking world — the kind of thing you would only meet in a nightmare.
The monsters were moving slowly among the rubble, sniffing at something. Low-end C-Rank — not particularly threatening as individuals. The problem was that there wasn't just one of them.
The moment they entered the field of view, the numbers on the detector jumped. Minjun checked the reading and held up three fingers to Jia. At roughly that figure, there would be about three of them. That was his estimate.
Jia gave a short nod, then gripped her spear with both hands and poured her mana into it.
A sharp crackle split the air. As the mana flowed, blue lightning leapt from the tip of the blade with a faint hiss. Thanks to Jia's ability, the mana converted into a lightning attribute, lending lethal weight to the spearhead.
"Grrrk?!"
The instant the first monster turned its head, Jia kicked off the ground and shot forward like a bullet. The black suit only further emphasized the voluptuous curves of her body as she moved through the air. Her huge breasts bounced violently, her waist arched like a drawn bow, and her thick, heavy ass shook with elastic force. Her long hair streamed behind her, fluttering like a banner in the wind.
The monster seemed to register her for a fraction of a second, but Jia's attack was faster.
The spear she swung from midair sank precisely into the creature's neck and discharged its lightning. The special-alloy blade nearly severed the head in a single stroke. Bizarre black tar-like fluid sprayed into the air. At the same time, with a short bursting crackle, electricity wrapped the monster's entire body. Even with its head gone it didn't die instantly — it thrashed with tremendous vitality before the current charred it black from end to end and it collapsed. Even at C-Rank, a monster's life force was stubborn. To think it could last that long with its neck cut through.
"Kiiiieeet!"
"Kreeeeeet!"
When the first one fell, the second and third reacted at once. They whipped their heads toward Jia, peeled their mouths open to bare unnervingly sharp teeth, and shrieked. Blade-like claws came up, and they moved on her without a second's delay.
Minjun instinctively raised the grenade launcher. But his finger hesitated in front of the trigger.
One shot of this... and a good chunk of the bounty we'd get for a C-Rank goes up in smoke.
The launcher was loaded with special anti-monster armor-piercing rounds. They punched through thick hide and detonated inside, pulverizing organs. A C-Rank would go down in a single hit. That much was true. But the special rounds were extremely expensive, and Minjun couldn't easily bring himself to spend one.
In that brief hesitation, Jia dropped low and spun — a movement as sharp as it was fluid, like a dance. The shaft of her spear smashed into the second monster's knee, then swept upward and punched through its chest. She poured lightning through the wound in the same motion, and the second one went down just as easily.
The moment the third charged in swinging its claws, Jia was already putting distance between them, kicking up a gust of wind. She wasn't merely fast and precise. Her tactical sense in the middle of a fight was outstanding as well.
Her spear moved so quickly it was barely visible, looking as if lightning itself were drawing circles in the air. The monster tried to resist, slashing with those razor claws, but it couldn't land a single hit on her — it only carved empty space. Jia, for her part, picked out every opening and delivered precise, lethal blows one after another.
In the end Minjun didn't fire a single shot, and he couldn't bring himself to lower the launcher either. While Jia cleaned up all three by herself, he just stood there, ready to provide covering fire.
Before her skill, the monsters went down in an instant.
When the fighting was over, the alley was left with nothing but the smell of char and the thick, fishy stench of monster fluid. Jia flicked her spear to shake off what clung to it and caught her breath.
The black suit was stained with sweat and dust, but the fabric over her chest and ass had been pulled even tighter by the violence of combat. It stood out so sharply you could make out the outline of her nipples. She looked back at Minjun.
"Next."
Her voice was as cold as ever. Minjun checked the detector again and nodded.
Once again, I'm the only one who can't do a damn thing...
He forced the thought down and moved on, following the next reading.
Minjun handled search and reconnaissance, plus standing watch with the launcher against the chance of a surprise attack. Jia took on the actual fighting. It was a team of only two, but as a husband-and-wife hunter pair they had put together an effective division of labor.
The detector chirped again, a thin, insistent beep.
"Watch it. There's more."
Minjun called the warning to Jia, who hadn't let her guard down. Two more emerged from deeper in the alley — similar low-end C-Rank specimens to the ones before.
Jia raised her spear again without even a moment to catch her breath. A short dash that seemed to split the wind, and she swept the blade in a circle. Lightning poured from the tip in a chain of crackling arcs that wrapped the surrounding space. The two monsters collapsed one after another without managing a single proper counterattack.
Minjun just watched with the launcher trained. Once again, the chance to pull the trigger never came.
Jia shook off her spear and scanned the surroundings.
"Looks like this area's done."
Minjun cranked the detector to maximum sensitivity and slowly scanned the lot. The reaction readings dropped steadily, then stopped responding altogether.
"Yeah. No residual readings. This zone is clear."
"Hahh. So it's over. I'm going to rest."
Jia let out a short sigh and started walking toward the vacant lot where the van was parked. Minjun followed behind, marking the positions of the fallen monsters as he went.
The moment they reached the lot, Jia unlocked her suit without the slightest hesitation. Sweat had already soaked the inside so thoroughly she couldn't stand it another second. Despite the considerable heat, peeling the suit off let the trapped sweat meet the outside air, and a cool sensation washed over her skin. She smiled with relief.
The zipper came down in a long, wet rasp. Sweat-drenched skin was laid bare. Jia's slick body gleamed healthily in the sunlight, the glittering light only further emphasizing every seductive line. As the black, taut fabric peeled away, the curves of her huge breasts, her waist, and her ass — compressed tight throughout the entire fight — sprang free as if liberated, bouncing and swaying. Beads of sweat rolled down her collarbone and soaked the valley between her breasts. The insides of her thighs glistened, damp and slick. Her nipples, long crushed inside the suit, were still slightly stiff and tinged a flushed pink.
Faced with his wife's goddess-like figure, Minjun swallowed without realizing it. Jia stripping out of the suit and standing naked had a different kind of allure from when she wore it.
"It's so damn hot... Let's wrap this up and head back."
She stripped the suit off completely and stood naked, wiping the sweat away with a damp towel. She wanted a shower, but the van had no such facilities. In an abandoned rural area it was questionable whether even the water supply would work, let alone the electricity. The sight of Jia wiping herself down was casual and yet blatantly explicit — under her arms, beneath her huge breasts, along the cleft of her ass and between her thighs. The places where sweat collected most had to be wiped thoroughly, which meant shaking those heavy masses of flesh as she cleaned them.
Minjun stared, lost, for a moment. Then he snapped back to himself and pulled the dismantling knife from his belt. The truth was he wanted to keep staring blankly at her. But if he worked like that, they would never finish on time.
In a large guild, support staff or a specialized dismantling team would handle this. In a small two-person private team like theirs, they had to do the work themselves.
Minjun boosted his power with his physical enhancement ability. His muscles swelled like balloons. In that state he swung the thick knife, splitting the monster's hide and digging into its guts. Even a creature that tough could be torn apart without much difficulty, but as the fluids and entrails spilled out, a nauseating stench filled the air around him. Dismantling was filthy and exhausting, and because you had to take apart potentially toxic bodies with sharp equipment, it was never easy work. But Minjun had, against his will, accumulated considerable experience in this field. He quickly and accurately extracted the parts where mana stones had formed, along with the marketable claws and teeth.
After changing clothes, Jia watched the scene from a distance as she tended to her spear. Whether it was the heat or a quiet exhaustion, she said nothing.
Even as he worked, Minjun kept seeing Jia's sweat-slicked naked body from moments ago overlapping with the voluptuous figure that had fought in the suit. Black monster fluid dripped from his fingertips, but his head was filled entirely with the scent and curves of his wife's body.
Hahh... don't think about that stuff.
He clenched his teeth and reached for the next carcass.
I'm digging through monster guts right now and thinking about my wife's naked body.
The couple had naturally divided the work according to their abilities. But unlike Jia's job of fighting and taking down monsters in spectacular fashion, Minjun was inevitably left with nothing but the dirty, exhausting labor.
A division of labor that puts the difference in ability to use in the right places, huh...
He understood the situation. Even so, he couldn't help feeling a quiet unease about his own place in it.