To Gangnam.
To Gangnam.
[Notice! Season 1 'Tutorial' has ended. As of today, Season 2 'Collapsed World' begins. Players, we wish you the best of luck.]
[Patch Notes: Zombie population increased. Mutant entity list expanded. Flora and fauna corruption rate significantly increased.]
....
"The time has finally come."
I muttered quietly and sprang up from the sofa.
I swiped away the wall of text floating in the notification window and looked at the women.
Ha Hui-ryeong and Kim Ha-yoon were sleeping cozily huddled together, while Jeong Ji-min had rolled onto the floor and was drooling.
Kang Ha-rin was sleeping in the dining area with her younger siblings, so she wasn't here right now.
"Hehe..."
Jeong Ji-min was talking in her sleep, scratching her stomach, lost in some ridiculously easygoing dream.
I nudged her awake with my foot.
"Mmm... what is it...?"
"What do you think? It's your Master."
"...Is it already morning?"
"Would I be waking you if it wasn't morning?"
Jeong Ji-min scratched her messy hair and rubbed her eyelids.
And as if she still wasn't quite awake, she stared blankly into space with a dazed face.
"Haaaaahm...."
She even added a huge, wide-open yawn on top of it.
Mmm... every time she does that, I get this boiling urge to just thump her on the head.
I don't know why, but she had a demonic charm that provoked my sadistic side.
Was it because she looked so satisfying to hit?
Even the most useless little thing she did made me want to grab onto it as an excuse to make her cry her eyes out.
In the end, I couldn't hold back and raised my fist.
"Eeek!? W-why, why are you hitting me!?"
"Just because."
"W-wow...! That's so mean! Seriously so mean, first thing in the morning!"
The moment I rapped her on the head, I got a genuinely satisfying reaction.
She flinched, shedding a few tears, and appealed to her sense of injustice with dewy eyes.
A contented smile on my lips, I gifted her one more hit.
"Aaaang! You hit me again...! In the same spot...! Heeeeng...!"
"Ah, what... what's all the noise about?"
"...Agreed."
As Jeong Ji-min began to wail loudly, the other two woke up from the commotion.
"L-listen, sisters...! This guy, this guy he...!"
"Listen to what? Didn't you just get hit for doing something stupid again?"
"N-no! This time, he seriously just hit me out of nowhere the moment I got up! This is totally wrong!"
"...Stop making a fuss. Quiet. You're giving me a headache."
Kim Ha-yoon pressed firmly on her temples as if her skull was ringing and got up.
At her cold reaction, Jeong Ji-min froze stiff as a statue.
But only for a moment; tears welled up in her eyes as she glared at me sharply.
"What. Why. What."
"Nooothing...! Nothing at aaaaall...!?"
She clearly wanted to argue, but she was trying to swallow her resentment somehow, knowing she couldn't handle the consequences later.
Only her eyes, her reproachful gaze, held a murky light, as if vowing to repay this debt someday.
Of course, to me, it was simply laughable.
What's there to fear when the worst she could do was maybe steal some of my food at mealtime?
"More importantly, hurry up and get ready. We're leaving this place now."
"Finally?"
Ha Hui-ryeong stretched and asked me.
I nodded lightly.
"Yeah. We've gathered enough coins, so it's time to slowly start looking for another vending machine."
Current balance: 3451 coins.
I raked in a lot from selling water.
Plus, the newly added contraceptives and stamina enhancers were also bringing in profit every now and then.
They didn't sell much since they were pricey at 5 coins and 20 coins each, but with various mutant entities being added starting today, those with coins to spare would definitely show interest.
"And Ji-min. You said you could make cars with your trait too, right? Can you do something like a camper van?"
"Ah... yes. It takes a lot of coins and parts, but it is possible."
Jeong Ji-min answered my sudden question with a rather bewildered expression.
That was good enough.
First, let's head into the city and ditch that damn Bongo truck.
"Are we taking Kang Ha-rin and her younger siblings too?"
"For now? I don't know about anything else, but her driving skills are considerable, so she'll be helpful."
Though the catch was having to drag along her baggage as a bonus.
Even considering that, the advantages the woman named Kang Ha-rin possessed were quite a merit.
Her driving ability, allowing her to blaze through rough roads in one go, wasn't something you could find easily anywhere.
"If possible, I'd like to get my original car back too... but who knows if it's still in decent shape."
"It's probably been looted by now, don't you think? You stashed it in the shopping complex basement, but a lot of time has passed. Someone might have found it and cleaned it out."
"Probably..."
It was a shame.
But I wasn't particularly attached.
It was an old shitbox with years on it anyway.
Even if it held some memories... I try not to care about that kind of thing anymore.
"Well, first things first: Ha-yoon, go bring Kang Ha-rin over here."
"You heard him? Go and bring her."
Upon hearing my words, Kim Ha-yoon immediately ordered Jeong Ji-min.
It was a perfectly natural passing of the baton.
"Ha-yoon unnie is so mean too... heeng."
With a dispirited look, Jeong Ji-min started trudging toward the dining area with her shoulders slumped.
I watched her walk away with an incredulous gaze.
"Wow, Ha-yoon. You're really pulling rank so naturally, aren't you? You've got tight discipline."
"Is that... a problem?"
Kim Ha-yoon asked me cautiously, as if reading my mood.
The gaze looking up at me couldn't have been more earnest.
It was like a child asking for permission.
"No. Do whatever you want. Honestly, I don't intend to meddle in how you guys sort out your relationships."
Whether they established a horizontal relationship or a vertical one was none of my business.
As long as there wasn't excessive discord.
If anything, if Kim Ha-yoon stepped up to enforce discipline like this, it meant less management work for me, which was far more convenient.
"That's a relief. My position here will be secure, then."
At this, Kim Ha-yoon placed her hands on her hips with a smug expression.
It was a truly trivial and cute sight.
"As long as you don't cause any major trouble."
"Would I ever do that? I don't know about that woman Jeong Ji-min, but me?"
Indeed, the always sharp Kim Ha-yoon didn't seem likely to cause trouble.
But then again, saying something like that tends to be a flag in itself...
"Kids who say that kind of thing always end up causing a huge disaster. Like some kind of jinx."
Sure enough, Ha Hui-ryeong chided her, having apparently had a similar thought to mine.
"Regrettably, that doesn't apply to me. I am thorough."
"Everyone says that. They all said that, and not long after, they crashed and burned. Hardly any exceptions."
"Then I'll just have to prove I'm one of those exceptions."
"Hmph, all talk."
The two bickered, as always.
At this point, wasn't this just how they showed affection?
Of course, if I voiced that aloud, the target would probably shift to me, so I decided to just keep quiet.
"Heek... wow, why are these Squirt brats so heavy?"
"...You're just weak. What's so heavy about kids not even ten years old?"
"One wouldn't make me complain, you know! But it's two of them, two!"
Meanwhile, Kang Ha-rin and Jeong Ji-min came out from the back of the dining area, carrying the little worms slung over them.
The identity of the worms was Kang Ha-jun and the two little ones, bound in ropes.
Kang Ha-rin asked me.
"So, we're leaving this place?"
"Yeah. You heard the gist from Ji-min, right? We're heading to the city center. And taking you all with us."
"...Couldn't you just leave us here and go?"
"Don't be ridiculous. We're a community bound by fate now, aren't we? Your hole is mine to use exclusively now. Don't try to run away."
Chuckling, I casually placed my hand on Kang Ha-rin's butt.
At this, Kang Ha-jun, who was hopping on bound feet while being supported by Kang Ha-rin, thrashed his body.
With a ferocious gaze that could drown a man, to boot.
"Haha, now that's what I call a perfect match, isn't it?"
It was utterly pathetic.
Trussed up from head to toe with a gag in his mouth, that was the extent of what he could do.
"Ha, Ha-jun! Stay still! You're going to fall over like that...!"
"Mmmph...! Mmph...!"
Thud.
And so, he finally lost his balance and rolled on the floor.
"Ha-jun!"
Kang Ha-rin's face went pale.
She hurriedly crouched down and checked every inch of her younger brother's body to see if he was hurt anywhere.
"A-are you okay, Ha-jun...? Did you get hurt anywhere?"
"Hey, he can't even talk anyway, so what's the point of asking? Enough. Just move him to the truck already."
"...You."
What's glaring at me going to achieve?
I snorted and then abruptly reached out and groped her chest.
Then I pinched and pulled on her perky, cute nipple.
"Kyaaaah...!! W-what are you doing, all of a sudden!?"
"Mmmmmph...! Mmph...!"
"W-why are you acting like that, Ha-jun. It's okay, I'm okay, so just calm down...!"
His fierce glare only lasted a moment; Kang Ha-rin's face turned deeply flustered as Kang Ha-jun started convulsing and thrashing again.
Even a worm squirms if you step on it, they say?
The saying was certainly true.
But still, a worm was only a worm. Nothing more than a useless, feeble resistance.
"Instant results, huh? I don't know why you do this, knowing full well how it'll end."
"That's obvious. Seeing it firsthand is completely different."
The one who answered my question was Kim Ha-yoon, who had been watching.
She continued in a calm tone.
"Just like a stimulus is sharper when you see it with your own eyes rather than just imagining it. Even if you vaguely guess it, seeing something like that right in front of you... there's no way you wouldn't get excited."
"Oh yeah? Then I'd better excite him some more."
"...Huh?"
I grabbed Kim Ha-yoon's wrist as her brow furrowed in confusion and pulled her toward me.
It was so sudden that she was dragged over without resistance, and I immediately overlapped my lips with hers.
"...!"
Our tongues intertwined beyond the joined mucous membranes.
Kim Ha-yoon was briefly flustered by my tongue barging in, but soon began to accept it naturally.
In the middle of the deep kiss, the corners of my eyes curved into crescents.
Kang Ha-jun, who witnessed this, stopped thrashing and stared blankly at the two of us.
The dazed, lost expression on his face was an absolute spectacle.
"Puh-ha...!"
A moment later, our lips parted, and a thin thread of tangled saliva connected us.
I had forced myself on her mouth, but no words of reproach were spoken.
Kim Ha-yoon simply stared at Kang Ha-jun with a sour expression before turning her head away sharply.
"What? He doesn't look excited. Doesn't that prove your theory wrong?"
"...I wonder. I'm not so sure myself."
Chuckling, I said to Kang Ha-rin,
"He's calmed down now, so move him already."
"...Okay."
After that, things progressed quickly.
The earlier resistance was dismissed as a minor hiccup, and we loaded all the necessary luggage onto the truck.
That's when Ha Hui-ryeong tapped me on the shoulder.
"You're really something, you know that? Showing that off right in front of him?"
"What?"
"You were straight-up sucking face. It was pretty obvious the two of them had some history before, you know."
I knew.
I was well aware that the emotional line between Kim Ha-yoon and Kang Ha-jun was somewhat complicated.
And that very fact was partly why I did it.
"Why? It's fun. Didn't you think so?"
"Kh-kh, honestly, it was a bit funny. Especially that blank, dumbfounded look on his face."
Ha Hui-ryeong laughed empty-heartedly, saying it was utterly ridiculous.
But was it just my imagination that she seemed a little different from before?
Not long ago, she would have absolutely flipped out if I kissed Kim Ha-yoon or something like that.
So why was she so calm these days?
"Hey. I want to ask you something. Don't you feel any dissatisfaction about me increasing the number of women?"
"Huh? What? You want me to be jealous or something?"
"No, it's not that... it's just, lately you've been so composed that it feels a bit off."
At my words, Ha Hui-ryeong paused for a moment.
She seemed to be thinking deeply about something, then finally spoke.
"Well... I was a bit annoyed at first, to be honest. Here I am, only looking at this one bastard, and this motherfucker's just flinging his dick around however he pleases? Oh, that pisses me off? Thoughts like that crossed my mind."
"...."
I have nothing to say to that.
Because from the start, increasing the number of women was all due to my own selfish stubbornness.
"But as time went on, I just stopped caring. For some reason, as the group got bigger, the liveliness felt... kind of okay. I guess you could say I didn't want to interfere with even that."
"Wow, what a truly exemplary mindset. As expected of the one and only wife."
"Wife my ass. Anyway, just because I said this, don't go totally out of control. Adding more recklessly beyond this is a different story."
Yeah, right.
She talks like this now, but once things actually happen, she'll just sigh as if it can't be helped and accept it.
"We're leaving now! Hurry up and get on─!"
Amidst all that, Kang Ha-rin's shout rang out from the driver's seat.
She seemed to be in a markedly uncomfortable mood, as if worried about her younger brother who was out of it like a doll.
"Alright. I heard you, so stop rushing me."
I climbed onto the truck bed and smirked, extending my hand.
"Hui-ryeong, shall we go?"
"Yeah. Let's go all the way to Gangnam."
And she smiled back, grabbing my hand.