Chapter 23
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Translator: MadScientist
Chapter: 23
Chapter Title: How the Dumb Underclassman I Bullied in Grad School Turned Out to Be Something Like a Goddess
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Wake up.
"Mmm..."
Wake up.
"Huh...?"
What is this? Is it morning already...? There's no way I'd be the last one to wake up. Even if that were the case, no one would wake me so gently...
"...Huh?"
"Did you wake up?"
"Wh... who are you?"
Rubbing my eyes and barely sitting up, there in front of me sat someone I could never have imagined.
"Hmm... who knows."
More precisely, it was someone I'd never laid eyes on before.
'...Is she even human?'
I'd seen all sorts of bizarre phenomena since falling into this place, but nothing like this.
For starters, I had no idea what this place even was. All sorts of objects were floating in midair, and even the bed I was lying on was drifting about.
Not believing it, I peered underneath. Nothing was there.
Just a pitch-black abyss gaping open, ready to swallow everything whole.
And the woman before me was sitting calmly on a chair floating in the air, gazing at me as if this were all perfectly normal.
Truth be told, I didn't even have time to worry about that—her face was changing by the second. As if trying to evade my recognition, her eyes, nose, and mouth were shifting ever so subtly, constantly in flux.
"Instead of wondering who I am, shouldn't you be thinking about why you're here right now?"
"Th-that's..."
How the hell should I know? I went to sleep and woke up to this woman.
"Hmm, even now?"
"...You?"
The woman's ever-shifting face suddenly fixed in place. And that face—it was one I knew all too well.
Light brown bobbed hair that I'd told her to chop off because it was getting in the way of experiments. A plain face made subtly cute with light makeup.
...And the culprit behind my constant headaches, thanks to that empty head contrasting so sharply with her ample chest.
"...Kim A-hyeon?"
It all came flooding back. Who I had been in my previous life. How I'd ended up in this insane world.
"You've turned out pretty cute, Senior. Hehe..."
I'd been scolding this utterly useless, damnable underclassman and had turned my back to continue the experiment when a flask of sulfuric acid suddenly poured down on me, sending me straight here.
"You—you. What the hell are you?"
Realizing that, what surged through me wasn't anger, but fear.
A fear I'd been conditioned to feel. An instinctive defense mechanism born from what Ju Hana and the others had put me through.
"...You're no fun. Not when you react like that."
"What the hell are you?!"
Kim A-hyeon leisurely lifted her teacup.
"Who knows? The rage of an underclassman fed up with her senior's nagging? Or the wounded pride of a woman ignored by a man for the first time in her life? Or maybe..."
She tilted the cup slightly and took a sip, a smile curling on her lips.
"...the resentment of a pretty goddess who wandered off to another world out of boredom, only to get stuck in some graduate lab and turned into a slave?"
"...Bullshit."
"Oh my, you shouldn't use such naughty words with such a cute face."
"Shut up...!"
No matter what I said, Kim A-hyeon remained utterly composed.
"Don't worry. I have no intention of fucking you, Senior."
"...Then why?"
Honestly, that was the real question. If anything, hearing her say that only made me more uneasy.
"Because the audience would get mad."
"...Audience?"
What the—?
"Yes. There are viewers out there with very refined tastes who love watching you get fucked like a dog and roll around helplessly."
It was a shocking statement. Not because perverts existed who enjoyed that sort of thing, but because someone had been watching me all along.
"...Perverted tastes, huh?"
"We have to respect tastes."
"...Did you nerf something else when you restored my intelligence?"
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
"As you know, Senior, this world imposes a lot of restrictions on men. Their bodies weaken, their minds regress, and their intelligence drops."
"...And?"
"Well, there's no real need to mess with the body, but for a normal conversation, we need a mature mind and intelligence, right?"
So that's why my head felt so clear right now.
"...Why impose those restrictions in the first place?"
"Hmm, first off, for the sake of this world?"
"...What?"
"Mana is a primal force. Closer to beasts than to humans."
Kim A-hyeon waved her hand, drawing out strands of blue energy like thread.
"If you can wield it masterfully, it's no problem. Everything evolves rather than devolves."
But she clenched her fist, snuffing out the mana.
"Wielding it crudely is the issue. Strength increases, but everything else regresses. In simple terms, you turn into a gorilla with nothing but brute power. Physically stronger and more beautiful, sure—but with only instincts left in that head."
"And what happens then?"
"To put it simply: muscle-bound lumps driven solely by lust roam the streets day and night, raping any woman they see without a care for laws or anything else."
"......?"
Isn't that the exact opposite of my situation?
"But that's not hot at all."
"?"
"You need a clear villain conquering all the women of the world, or a hero saving them and building his harem. A proper genre. Mindless gang rape just doesn't do it, no matter how you slice it."
...Am I hearing this right?
"It's not even pure love or NTR. Just beasts that look kinda like us filming their own version of Animal Planet. Our viewers don't want that."
"So we limited men's power first. No mana, or if they have it, immature bodies useless in combat. Oh, and we neutered their sex drives while we were at it."
A secret I really wish I hadn't learned.
"...Then why the intelligence drop?"
"That's purely a matter of taste. What can a man do against a woman who's half-feral with power but ruled by instinct?"
I knew this one. Femme fatale... or cock snake, maybe?
"Exactly. Unlike men who spread their seed far and wide, once a woman gets pregnant and is certain of it, her breeding urge pauses. Maternal instincts kick in, family bonds form."
"And there are plenty of women who want men. With physical strength neutered, men's numbers dwindle naturally, making them rare. Smart men charm hordes of women and keep them under their thumb."
"...Isn't that fine?"
"I told you—it's a matter of taste. Living high off just a dick with no real power? Fans of that have already gone elsewhere."
"So we had to switch it up. That's why we neutered intelligence. No thoughts of exploiting women even crossing their minds."
That seemed a bit excessive.
"The mental regression happened naturally from there. Immature bodies, low intelligence—you wouldn't call that an adult, right?"
"...Shouldn't we call that a side effect?"
"Eh, a side effect that doesn't matter anyway."
Doesn't matter my ass. Just thinking about what I've been through...
"But here's the problem."
"Most people would think it's normal."
If you're gonna mess with all humanity like that, at least hypothesize first or run some tests.
I had no clue what she really was, but she seemed pretty damn stupid.
"...That's exactly the attitude that made me drag you here, Senior."
Kim A-hyeon frowned and continued her explanation.
"Men can't ejaculate anymore. They perceive arousal and pleasure as pain, developing defenses against seed theft. Cause... unknown."
So that's why I could get hard every day but never cum.
"Population's dropping daily. At this rate, global war's on the horizon. Our cherished reverse-rape harem-training obsession pure-love daily-life tale is about to sail off into the sunset."
"...Did I hear that right?"
What kind of word choices are those?
"So I grabbed someone from another world to test if it'd be the same. That was you, Senior."
"You crazy bitch..."
"But you're the same. What's the cause?"
How the hell should I know? I'm not a biologist.
"You were a perfect test subject, though. Cocky enough, smart enough... but not too interested in women."
"Making my brain dumb is what caused the problem, no?"
And where'd you get "not interested in women" from?
"Eh? But if you liked women, you wouldn't have done that to me..."
"That's 'cause you were such a blockhead I didn't see you as a woman worth considering."
I regretted spitting it out the moment I did, but whatever—might as well go all in since it was already fucked.
"...Yeah, I should just lock you in this world forever."
"That was the plan anyway."
"True. Things might've been different if you'd played nice."
"......"
Convinced she'd won, Kim A-hyeon let out a snort.
"Anyway, that's why I'm here with a proposal for you, Senior."
"......What?"
Her eyes curved into crescent moons.
"Get raped even more actively from now on."
"...What the fuck."
"All the groundwork's already in place."
"Huff... huff..."
"M-monster bitch..."
"Hand him over."
"Wh-what are you talking about...?"
B-Rank Awakener Wang Mei Lin desperately asked the monster before her. No matter that she was a great power's mighty Awakener and this monster bitch was trash from some insignificant backwater nation.
Right now, her own life mattered more.
"Do-yun. Hand him over."
"Wh-who's that...?"
For her to treat me like this. Mei Lin had never seen or heard that name before.
"You don't know either?"
"N-no..."
"Then die."
"Wai—!"
Slash. A shadow shot out, slicing Mei Lin's throat, and Ju Hana's ragged breathing eased.
"...What about over there?"
"They don't know either."
"Same here."
Seong Ha-neul emerged from the left, Han Yu-rim from the right. What they had in common: blood dripping from their hands, drop by drop.
And the cold, emotionless glint in their eyes. Any third party here would've collapsed, legs giving out from the sheer aura.
"Does this make any sense?"
Ju Hana, who'd grown unusually talkative lately, spat out her rage. It clashed with her usual calm composure, but that was only natural.
"Where the hell is he?"
The man she cherished and adored most had vanished without a trace. From the one place she'd deemed safest, no less.
"Do-yun..."
It had been two whole months since Sado Yun disappeared.
Ju Hana, Seong Ha-neul, Han Yu-rim—they were on the verge of losing their minds.
"...Ah."
"?!?!"
The boy they'd longed for appeared right before their eyes.
"Si-Sisters. Could you help me out a bit?"
Up until he said that.