Chapter 173: Assemble 1
Chapter 173: Assemble 1
Without some novel-style event to shake things up,
human life just keeps rolling along in its profoundly monotonous cycle.
Wake in the morning, eat dinner, go to sleep—
the same faces, the same loop, day after day.
Plenty of people find that loop maddening,
but I'm the type who welcomes an uneventful day.
'Beats having nuclear missiles screaming overhead or radioactive mutants lunging at you in the subway.'
The people bored with their routines probably want
some grand adventure out of a fairy tale,
not the nuclear-apocalypse kind of adventure
where you can't even wash yourself inside a subway tunnel.
Mornings, I half-listen to Lee Ha-rin's reports.
Around lunch, I wander the Academy with Han Ye-ji on the pretext of mentoring cadets.
After dinner, I step into the dream city and help Kim Ha-eun.
...I know it sounds like I'm playing favorites, but Han Ye-ji is my First Incarnation.
'Would Lee Ha-rin or Kim Ha-eun even interpret any of that as a date?'
Should I call it dependence, or subservience?
Either way, the other two Incarnations have been leaning harder that way lately—
if I suggested a date, they'd probably offer a walk instead.
Didn't one of them openly shove a leash at me?
Anyway, the longer that routine holds,
certain faces start looking familiar simply from seeing them over and over.
Mainly the mages, the dormitory guards, and the Academy cadets.
The mage whose hair glows rainbow from alchemy reagents—
the Beastman guard so massively built her chest is just as imposing—
"Constellation, today's... shall I explain later?"
"No, go ahead. If there's something to discuss, tell me now."
The female disciple who got voyeurism branded onto her soul because of me—
and the Imperial Guards who've started hunting for a black mage keep crossing my path.
They loiter around so often they steal my attention,
and sharp-eyed Lee Ha-rin caught on immediately.
"Yes. Ellis says she'll build a fortification in the ward where the patients are gathered."
'Don't these bastards have anything better to do?'
My mind wanders while Lee Ha-rin is still talking.
Ellis, obviously, I can understand.
I'm the only one who can meddle with an Origin,
so I'm the only one who can give her back her human senses.
There's also the fact that the dueling scene I set off has grown far too large.
The knights and martial artists who've declared for the Academy from every continent—
headcount-wise, they're past a hundred and closing in on a thousand.
Naturally, Ellis's priests have swarmed in alongside them.
But those two have no reason to be at the Academy, do they?
The Sword That Severs the Yoke's female disciple.
An odd case: a swordswoman who never signed an Incarnation contract,
instead forming an old-fashioned master-disciple bond steeped in martial-arts lore.
A murim Constellation who endured the world's destruction
and publicly declared this Incarnation the continent's finest sword talent.
So no, she probably isn't here to learn anything.
As for the female disciple, I slipped up there—it just makes things a little awkward.
The Incinerating Tyrant's blond Imperial Guard? I simply hate seeing his face.
It keeps conjuring up that expression of his while he was ramming the Exiled Serpent from behind.
'Worse than those lunatics who'd pop chems and charge a mutant.'
He isn't actively joining the spars with some goal in mind—
I just keep glimpsing his face when I pass by, which makes it even more unsettling.
Not that I can demand to know why he's at the Academy.
The whole sprawling campus isn't my private property.
Unless, that is, they walk right in like this.
※
Snow-white nakedness kneeling neatly on the carpet,
a leash draped between her breasts and trailing down her thigh.
The kind of image that exists only in countless men's fantasies.
I'd been feeling lately that I'd been fussing over Han Ye-ji too much,
so I'd resolved to look after Lee Ha-rin and Kim Ha-eun as well.
If not for the uninvited guest in the wardrobe, I'd have pounced immediately.
'What the hell is this situation.'
Even when I focus my mana, I catch no breath—no heartbeat.
Nor do I sense any accidental leakage of aura,
the way unconscious killing intent flows from The Sword That Severs the Yoke's side.
Only a jumbled torrent of feelings spills out—
anticipation, sexual excitement, guilt, all stirred together.
So, while I'm putting on a sexual display for Lee Ha-rin,
the female disciple got permission from her to come watch.
Lee Ha-rin wouldn't be unaware of her presence.
That girl's talent is sword talent, not stealth.
A murim type can suppress her presence with inner power or martial arts, sure,
but she couldn't fool the dormitory's magical barriers and the Beastman guards.
"Then, if you'll excuse me."
Oblivious to my complicated mood,
Lee Ha-rin quietly takes hold of my trousers and tugs them down.
As always, she extends her touch with deferential poise, still kneeling.
Setting aside the dense emotional vortex I can feel inside the wardrobe—
a naked beauty on a leash is moving her hand so gently—
what man wouldn't feel the blood rush downward?
Unlike my tangled thoughts, my body's response is laughably simple and immediate.
My cock lifts stiffly toward my navel.
Lee Ha-rin strokes it tenderly with her fingers, readying the foreplay.
And the instant my length is exposed, from inside the wardrobe
the female disciple's emotions erupt in a violent surge.
'Seriously, what is this situation.'
Not a man peeping—why is a woman doing it?
Right. Is this because the world runs on reversed gender roles?
Or maybe what's engraved on her Origin is the mark of a dream demon—me—
so it isn't just anyone she's spying on; maybe she specifically came to spy on me.
A soft, lewd kissing sound—schllp—scatters my tangled thoughts
clean away under the warmth settling at the tip of my glans.
I drop my gaze at that heat and look at Lee Ha-rin.
Both hands wrapped around the shaft,
pressing her lips to its tip while gazing up at me.
But her gently curved eyes held a different intent.
"Still, this part of you hasn't changed."
Our eyes meet, and she flicks hers briefly toward the wardrobe.
When I lock my gaze hard onto the wardrobe, Lee Ha-rin offers a soft, quiet smile.
Then, as if resuming the kiss, she dips her head in the faintest nod.
At that, my mind threatens to tangle all over again.
If she isn't even trying to hide this from me, what is she planning?
Though honestly, it'd be stranger if Lee Ha-rin hid things from me.
Did she somehow read my wandering thoughts?
With a metallic clink, the leash lightly taps the area below my knee.
She's sucking me with her mouth while using the motion of her body to nudge the leash handle toward me.
...She's getting seriously proficient at some bizarre techniques.
"Fuu. Will you remain standing, or shall we use that chair?"
As if the foreplay hadn't even started yet,
she teases me maddeningly and then asks in a perfectly level voice.
I glance at the chair she indicated, and the picture snaps into focus at once.
If I sit in that large chair and spread my legs,
Lee Ha-rin will crawl into the space between them.
At an angle that shows the wardrobe our entire profile.
All sorts of idle thoughts storm my head again, but men are simple creatures.
The faint pleasure Lee Ha-rin showed me with those few kisses—
the mere anticipation of the real pleasure to follow—
was enough to stop every random thought from surfacing again.
"I'll hear the explanation later. Do whatever you want."
The female disciple can probably hear a voice at this volume.
Thinking that, I slump into the chair, leash still in hand.
It must be a little shorter than last time, because Lee Ha-rin gets tugged right along.
She lets out a small cough—kehk—as if her breath caught for a second,
but as though it's nothing, she flashes another faint eye-smile
and parts those red lips to take my length fully inside her mouth.
Schllp, schllp—the obscene sound fills the room.
The woman's small, finely shaped face and delicate lips
are swallowing a man's huge organ down into her throat.
Hot body heat and sticky viscosity against the mucous membrane.
I pull the leash to feel that pleasure even a fraction deeper.
Again, a keohk— and a blissful pressure with it.
'Looks like she's got no intention of hiding either.'
At the same moment, a loud hhoooh— breath escapes.
It can't be from Lee Ha-rin, who's taken me deep into her throat.
Which leaves only one source: the female disciple in the wardrobe.
When I slide my gaze over, I catch the wardrobe door open just a crack.
The room's lighting seems a shade dimmer than usual,
and with my body's senses not particularly enhanced, I can't make out her eyes.
Still, probably because of my connection to her Origin, I'm absolutely certain she's in there.
My mana is carved into her Origin at a level that won't easily fade.
That voyeurism of hers seems to be the work of dream-demon mana.
Staring openly at the wardrobe,
I let the strength drain from my lower back as the urge to climax builds.
Throb-throb—a sharp, electric rush of bliss as semen pulses out.
And alongside it, the sensation of her mouth drawing it in, schllp— drinking it down.
"Phaat—shall I give the explanation first, or continue my service?"
"Start with the explanation."
Having taken the entire long release, Lee Ha-rin asks in a composed voice.
My mana meddled with the female disciple's Origin.
I understand that's why she developed voyeurism,
but I don't understand why she's hiding in a wardrobe to spy on me.
In this gender-role-reversed world, letting a woman peep on a man is strange to begin with.
The female Beastman guards at the entrance, for instance,
aren't even allowed to face the dormitory interior because I'm a male Constellation; they have to keep their backs turned.
Her voice settles that question the instant it leaves her mouth.
A pleasant, measured, easy-to-listen-to voice—
calmly states something absurd.
"When The Sword That Severs the Yoke permitted her to leave the mountain, she dispatched her to our side to experience the world."
Along with a familiar Incarnation contract.