Recruiting the Black Market Expedition
Lee Hoon downed the whiskey in one gulp like a true man after I handed him the bottle.
That was the last shred of his manhood.
“Ugh...”
Palus had passed out after a single sip, but Lee Hoon managed to stay on his feet. I figured it was because his body was already wrecked from training; the alcohol had knocked him out rather than the gender-swap effect itself.
Still, his body began to change.
“Graaah!”
The muscle-bound gym rat shrank in height. His muscles melted away at an alarming rate, and his lower body slimmed down dramatically. In their place, his chest swelled outward. His hair grew rapidly, transforming him into an unmistakably feminine figure.
“Ah...”
“How does it feel to be a woman?”
“Down there... it’s so light... You... you!!! I’ll never forgive you... Never... never!”
Lee Hoon glared at me with tear-filled eyes. His face, half-hidden behind the new long hair, looked strikingly girlish.
I shook the whiskey bottle at him.
“Oh? One more glass and you turn back into a man. Don’t want it?”
“I’m sorry.”
The moment he saw the remaining liquor, his face went deathly pale. He immediately slammed his forehead against the table and apologized.
How dare a slave glare at his master? Unacceptable.
‘Of course... I have no intention of turning him back. The whiskey’s too precious for that.’
Lee Hoon would live clinging to that tiny hope. That was enough. If he kept living as a woman, he would eventually get used to it. To help him adjust faster, I decided to give him a new name.
“From now on, your name isn’t Lee Hoon.”
“Th-then...”
“From now on, you’re... hmm... Lee Hyun-ah. Yeah, Lee Hyun-ah. Got it?”
“Yes...”
“When people ask, introduce yourself as Lee Hyun-ah. If you ever tell Palus or anyone else that you drank the whiskey, I won’t forgive you. You’re going to quietly become Eun-ha’s friend. No refusals. Answer.”
“Yes. I understand... Um... You’ll really turn me back into a man later, right?”
“Of course. Do I look that heartless to you?”
“N-no... It’s just... I heard that woman, Kang Eun-jung, was actually a man too...”
“That bastard came here to kill me, so he got what he deserved. Besides, Kang Eun-jung’s been looking pretty lively lately, hasn’t she?”
“Ah...”
Kang Eun-jung had become a complete slave to the male organ. The sight of her surrounded by multiple men had been shocking. These days, the Ha brothers could barely approach her, as if she had turned into some kind of black widow spider.
“I already gave Jin-sung a rough explanation, so he’ll find you something new to do. Go see him.”
“Yes...”
At my dismissal, Lee Hyun-ah clumsily tied up her now-loose clothes and trudged outside. Her back looked utterly bleak, yet it also carried an unyielding resolve.
I quietly offered a prayer for the departed Lee Hoon.
******
“So, we need to decide who’s coming with me to the black market.”
I gathered the women and laid it out. We had to go to the black market to save Cheshire. The journey could drag on indefinitely and would be extremely dangerous.
Even though my girls adored me, I doubted anyone would blindly follow me into a situation where they might die. Actually... most of them probably would.
Anyway, I decided to hear their opinions this time. Whenever I consulted them instead of deciding alone, we got better results. Honestly, I wasn’t particularly clever, so pooling everyone’s ideas seemed like the smarter move.
“Um... It’s probably going to be really dark down there, right?”
I nodded at Eun-ji’s question. The black market was already underground, so it would be pitch black. Not a single ray of light. Cheshire had mentioned it would be tough to navigate without a light source.
“Yeah, it’ll be pitch black.”
“Oh... Then my and Oppa’s skills should come in handy...”
Eun-ji was already setting up her pitch to join. She brought up my altered vision skill and her own ability to see through darkness. But Ha-rin cut in before she could finish.
“Wait, unni.”
“Huh? Ha-rin... why?”
“I’m good at moving in the dark too.”
“Oh... really?”
“Yeah. And my senses are sharper than yours... Master! Take me with you!”
Ha-rin wagged her tail and threw herself at me. A vein popped on Eun-ji’s forehead. Mer grabbed Ha-rin by the scruff of her neck like a puppy, sat her back down, and voiced her own opinion.
“Hold on. Since there are supposed to be a lot of the Two-Legged, shouldn’t someone with high Willpower go? For example... me?”
Mer had a point. Unless you were a special case like me, Willpower would heavily influence how well you could handle the Two-Legged. But I had an item that surpassed stats.
“Mer, you don’t have to worry about that.”
I pulled the Perception Interference Goggles out of my bag and showed them. The peddler had sold them to me before the Jeonyul Mansion raid, just in case we needed them. Wearing these would protect your mind even if you encountered enemies that attacked mentally.
As an apostle of evil gods, I could talk to or even meet the eyes of the Two-Legged without issue, but other players apparently lost mental strength just from seeing them.
That was exactly why Bai Yu had needed the Memory Eraser Wine—he’d been mentally shocked by the sight of them and couldn’t perform at his best.
“Anyone who comes with me can wear these to protect their mind to some degree.”
“Oh...!”
“Still, it’s going to be incredibly dangerous... There’ll probably be a ton of demon kinds crawling around...”
At the word “demon,” A-ram, who had been yawning sleepily, suddenly perked up.
“Demons...?”
“Yeah. From what I heard, Cheshire seems to have her soul mortgaged to a demon.”
“I see... Then I should go.”
“Right. Demons are your specialty, after all...”
A-ram, the designated demon-slayer, grinned and chewed her gum. She reached over and patted her sleeping little sister Ah-reum’s head.
Ah-reum had been training like crazy with Palus lately, so she slept whenever she got a spare moment. I never planned to bring her along anyway—she was already suffering enough under Palus’s hellish regimen—so I left her to sleep.
The path of the Sword Master was long and harsh.
“Hmm, yeah. A-ram does seem like the right choice.”
Lee Hee-sun, who had fallen to the back of the line after the Forest of the Missing expedition, nodded without objection.
“I think that’s best too. Even if I went with you, I probably wouldn’t be much help.”
“Me too.”
Ju-ha and Eun-ha, who had been trimming sweet potato stems nearby, agreed as well.
“By the way, Ju-ha... sorry to change the subject, but is dinner tonight sweet potato rice and sweet potato stem stir-fry again?”
“What else would it be? If you don’t like it, just say so.”
“Oh... no. Your cooking is always delicious... haha...”
Ju-ha had been learning to cook from Lee Hee-sun and was completely hooked. Farming and cooking as hobbies didn’t exactly scream “twenty-something woman,” but she seemed genuinely content.
Especially after Ha Jin-sung brought her flour, potato starch, and corn flour—she’d been thrilled. She even cooked me some North Korean-style dishes that were a bit bland but still homemade. While her sister Eun-ha had zero interest in cooking, Ju-ha, as the eldest daughter, was quite skilled.
Having grown up in North Korea with scarce ingredients, she could whip up surprisingly creative meals from almost nothing. Her cooking skill seemed even higher than Lee Hee-sun’s.
Still, eating nothing but sweet potatoes every day was starting to wear on me.
‘This is all my fault for bringing those seeds back...’
The reason sweet potatoes appeared on the table three times a day was because of me.
I’d given Lee Hee-sun the random seed pouch I bought from the peddler, and that had been the root of the problem. It contained sweet potato seeds from another world, not Earth. Ju In-hye, the Plant Farmer, had grown them successfully in just a few days, and now sweet potatoes showed up at every meal.
Today, Druid Lee Hee-sun, Plant Farmer Ju In-hye, and the farming-obsessed gumiho Ju-ha were all out working hard on the sweet potato fields. The crops grew ridiculously well, so our food supply was stable...
Sweet potatoes in March felt seasonally off, but they were growing fine, so I couldn’t complain. In this hellish world, being able to eat this well was something to be grateful for.
Just then, Hwa-young, who had been quietly listening, spoke up with obvious disappointment.
“Tch. Of all things, demons. What a shame. I really wanted to go with you this time.”
“Hehe. Sorry. Let’s go together next time, Hwa-young.”
“Promise. When we go to the bottom of the abyss or meet the Demon King, you have to take me. Promise.”
“Yeah... promise.”
As a vampire, Hwa-young had no connection to demons, so she linked pinkies with me and reluctantly accepted the delay. She looked gloomy, but brightened up the moment I patted her head.
“Ye-won, do you have any thoughts? Anything you want to say?”
The discussion was winding down, so I turned to Ye-won, who had been quietly petting Helgen in the corner. She was the type who responded better when approached first.
“I’m fine, Oppa. Just... come back safe and sound, okay? And quickly?”
“Yeah. I’ll try to be back as fast as I can.”
“Hehe... That’s enough for me...”
Ye-won really was too kind. Lately she’d been completely absorbed in raising Helgen, who had become almost like a cat, carrying the dragon around everywhere.
By the way, she was the one wearing Lagal’s seal—the one that let her transform into a dragon—around her neck. I’d told her to use it if things got dangerous while I was gone. She hadn’t used it yet, but the day would probably come.
“Alright, then this expedition will be me and A-ram...”
“Uh... w-wait! I can also exorcise evil beings!”
Sora suddenly raised her hand. A-ram shot her a sharp glare, but Sora casually brushed it off.
All the Japanese people who had joined our group supported Sora. She was basically the head of the Japanese gang.
Of course, in front of A-ram, who wielded a superior conversational tool with one hand, she was just a reed in the wind. Still, riding on her confidence as the Japanese leader, Sora dared to challenge A-ram.
I was in an awkward position—I couldn’t openly side with either of them. If I got involved in their politics or power struggles, it would only cause a bloodbath. So I had no choice but to mediate and keep them from fighting.
“Uh... Sora...”
“Oppa! I can set up barriers too! I can make light! I can heal! I’m useful!”
“Uh... Sora. Also, grammatically, you shouldn’t mix ‘eyo’ and ‘da’ at the end of sentences like that...”
“Hmm... Jun. Can I take this as Nanase challenging me? Yeah. That’s right. The strongest among us should go. I’ll accept the challenge.”
“Wait. A-ram. Calm down first. She’s still young. We can’t let this turn into a real fight... right? Whoa whoa! Mer! Sit. No. Mer, don’t bring the scythe. Wait.”
I frantically tried to stop Sora and A-ram before they could start a duel.
But the atmosphere had already shifted. Everyone started saying that whoever won a duel could go with me. Eun-ji, Hwa-young, and even the usually docile Mer pulled out their weapons and prepared for battle.
“You all learned a few tricks from that one-armed girl and now you want to challenge me? How bold.”
“Mer unni, you shouldn’t be so overconfident. We won’t go down as easily as before...”
“U-um... I’m just a support though...?”
“Nanase, stay out of this!”
The situation had spiraled. What started as a peaceful discussion had suddenly caught fire. The girls who had been training under Palus had been harboring competitive feelings toward Mer, who always acted like the strongest. When Mer picked up her scythe as if ready to use force, everyone’s fighting spirit ignited.
‘Shit... what do I do...’
While I stood there flustered, the principal’s office door burst open and the gem merchant Eila rushed in.
“Hey, Jo-jun. This... huh? Everyone’s gathered here.”
“Ah...! Eila...!”
I clung to the lifeless doll. She listened to my explanation, nodded, and answered.
“Hmm. You can settle the duel among yourselves. As for the underground floor of the black market... I need to go too.”
“Huh?”
“Didn’t you say you were looking for a soul?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you’ll definitely need me.”
At Eila’s words, A-ram and Mer, who had assumed they would be going, raised their weapons again. In that instant, a blue crystal formed in Eila’s hand and scattered their mana.
“Both of you, calm down. If I turn off my power... I’m treated as an object. You can just carry me in a bag with the power off.”
“Wh-what? That works?”
“It’s a loophole. Only two people are allowed entry, but I’m half an object, so it should be fine. I’ve been to the black market plenty of times, and I know Cheshire too.”
“Then...”
If Eila didn’t count toward the headcount when powered off...
That meant, with this loophole, three people including Eila and me could enter the black market.
Mer and A-ram headed up the mountain behind the school. They seemed determined to settle things with a fight.
* * *