Succubus Kim Rina
“Jungmin, wake up! Jungmin!”
I woke to Keira’s voice.
Her face filled my vision, worry and relief tangled together across her features.
“…Keira?”
“Thank god. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
She pulled me into a tight hug. I still had no idea what was going on, but I stroked her trembling back anyway.
(I’m truly relieved as well.)
Elena was there too. She let out the same long breath of relief as Keira.
“What happened? What’s going on?”
(It was a succubus.)
“A succubus? Ah… right. The succubus!”
The dream came flooding back. I’d gone round after round with the succubus and, in the end… yeah, I’d lost. Fair and square. Prostate stimulation was just dirty fighting.
But then some unknown power had surged up inside me, and I’d managed to grab the fleeing succubus for a moment. Looking back, it had to have been the power of my Last Shot. I’d thought it only helped during sex. Never expected it to work like that.
Well. Technically it still counted as sex.
Why had the succubus tried to run, though? Given enough time I would’ve lost again anyway.
“What happened to the succubus? Is everyone okay?”
(I’m fine. Just a little tired.)
“I’m okay too.”
Keira still hadn’t left my arms. Moments like this reminded me how easily she got scared.
(Most of the others seem fine as well. They’re just sleeping.)
I looked around. Bodies lay scattered everywhere. Originally it should have been only the four of us—me, Keira, Elena, and Garam—but more than a dozen people were sprawled out now. Reinforcements must have shown up and gotten hit the same way.
Nayeon and Nari were among them.
“When did everyone get here? The leader came too? And where did the succubus go?”
The ogre’s corpse was still there, but no trace of the succubus remained.
(About that…)
Elena trailed off.
“What? You said everyone was okay.”
(There’s a problem with the leader. It looks like she finished the succubus off, but…)
“Ugh… where…?”
Nayeon’s voice cut in. She was starting to wake.
(I’ll explain properly once Lady Nayeon is fully awake.)
One by one the others began to stir, starting with Nayeon. Crew members filed in from outside the cave to match—everyone except Chaeryeong and Hansarang.
Elena and Keira’s presence got exposed by force of circumstance, but most people barely reacted. Right now the leader’s condition mattered more.
“A succubus is a demon that can nest inside another person’s mind,” Keira told the group. “From the evidence, the leader landed the final blow. The badly wounded succubus then fled into the leader’s mind. That’s why she won’t wake up.”
“So what happens now? Is she never going to wake up?”
Nayeon asked, gripping Nari’s hand tightly.
“Once the succubus absorbs enough of the leader’s essence to heal, she’ll wake. The succubus will wake with her.”
“Absorbs her essence? Does that mean… she dies?”
“Depending on the case. But I won’t let that happen. All of us—myself included—would have died today without the leader. So we will save her. No matter what.”
Keira’s calm tone somehow carried iron resolve. Everyone felt it, not just me. Even Nayeon, who should have been frantic over her sister, steadied herself at those words.
“Okay. I trust you. What do we do now?”
“First we leave the Gate. We’ll start at the crew house.”
And just like that, our long Gate expedition came to a temporary close.
Without solving a single real problem.
“First I’m drawing a life-force recovery magic circle. So she won’t die even if her essence gets drained.”
Keira painted the circle across the training room on the tenth floor of the crew house. She drew so much of her own blood to do it that I wondered if she was okay. No one tried to stop her. Her resolve was already set; what good would arguing do?
“The circle needs someone to supply life force. Unnie, this part has to be you.”
“Me? What do I have to do?”
When Nayeon stepped forward, Keira pointed to an empty space on the left side of the circle.
“Just sit there. You’ll be exhausted to the point of death, but you won’t actually die.”
“I’d die for my sister if I had to.”
They laid Leader Kim Nari in the center of the circle. She looked peaceful on the outside, but she still wouldn’t wake.
“Activating the circle.”
Light erupted from the magic circle and flooded the training room. Nari and Nayeon looked like they were trapped inside a prison of light.
“…Is that it?”
“Phase one is done. The leader won’t die no matter how long the succubus takes to recover.”
“And the succubus? Won’t it just come out alive?”
“Elena will handle the demon.”
Elena stood at the training room entrance, fully geared up.
“Lena unnie? Can you do it?”
(Don’t worry. I am the thirteenth sword of Lu—a holy knight. I never lose to demons.)
For someone who said that, she’d gone down pretty easily inside the Gate. Elena had always been reliable, but right now I honestly wasn’t sure. And holy knight or not, she didn’t have any divine power at the moment.
She must have read the doubt in my eyes, because she added,
(I’ll also set up a magic circle that suppresses every power except divine energy. In a pure contest of strength, I have the advantage. Inside the Gate we walked straight into the succubus’s nest, so we got hit hard. Here in the crew house I can win. She’s not some higher being I couldn’t handle. If she were, she would have come at us head-on instead of laying traps.)
That… made sense. If she’d been confident she could take down Elena—our strongest—she wouldn’t have waited in a cave preparing magic.
“So we’re good? Unnie won’t die, and Elena unnie handles the demon?”
A faint smile returned to Nayeon’s face. Seeing a clear outcome seemed to ease her a little.
But would it really be that simple?
A more fundamental question hit me.
“What if the succubus just never comes out?”
“No need to worry about that. After three days even a succubus can’t maintain its mind.”
Keira explained it like she’d simply forgotten to mention it earlier.
“Entering someone else’s mind means dropping your own mental barriers. And that place isn’t your domain. Almost no one can hold onto their identity for long in there. Anything that can is basically a god. Of course the leader’s mind wouldn’t stay intact either… but if it comes to that, we’ll use another method.”
Typical mage. She answered my question like she’d already thought it through ages ago.
This whole thing would probably work out as long as we trusted Keira and Elena.
But there was one more variable even they hadn’t predicted.
Two days later.
“…Why isn’t it coming out?”
No one answered me. Keira and Elena were deep in conversation with each other, and Nayeon didn’t know anything either.
Keira had said the succubus would heal and emerge within a day. Two days later the leader was still locked in sleep.
“Nayeon noona, are you okay? Sitting there means your life force is getting drained, right?”
“Me? I’m fine. A little tired, but that’s just from pulling two all-nighters…”
She really didn’t look much different from two days ago. Staying in one spot for two nights without falling apart was weird in itself, but still.
“…What’s happening with unnie? Something should be happening by now, right?”
Nayeon was getting restless again. At first it had seemed like Keira and Elena’s plan was working, but now everything felt stuck in place.
I was worried too. Three days and the succubus would lose its identity—and the leader’s mind would get contaminated.
From where I stood, it was time for a different approach.
Keira and Elena seemed to have reached the same conclusion. They’d been trading ideas nonstop for the past hour.
Their talk finally seemed to be wrapping up. Keira turned to Nayeon.
“Unnie, has the leader ever dated a man?”
“…Does that matter right now?”
“I’ll explain later. Right now we need the facts.”
“Not that I know of.”
“Have you ever seen the leader masturbate?”
“…”
Nayeon glanced at me, then back at Keira.
“…Hah. I’ve never seen it. She probably doesn’t. Unnie’s been weirdly uninterested in that stuff since we were kids. Doesn’t mean she likes women either, though.”
“Got it. I think I understand the situation.”
“How does that help?”
“It does. Thanks for the info.”
Then Keira and Elena started talking again. They were using translation magic just between themselves, speaking in each other’s languages, so Nayeon couldn’t hear. I could hear, but I still had no idea what they were saying.
“…Jungmin.”
“Yes, noona.”
“You know not to go around talking about this, right?”
“…About what? What did you just say?”
“Right? Yeah. I didn’t say anything.”
Even that exchange couldn’t wipe the anxiety from Nayeon’s eyes. For any of this to mean anything, the leader still had to wake up.
“…Huuuh.”
“…Haaah.”
Nayeon and I waited in silence and sighs for the two of them to finish. There was nothing two clueless people like us could do.
About five minutes later their conversation finally ended.
“We need to change methods. We’re going into the leader’s mind from this side.”
“…Is that okay? You said entering someone else’s mind is dangerous. And is there even anyone who can fight a succubus in a mental world?”
We’d talked about this on day one. I’d asked if Elena could just go into the leader’s mind. Elena had said she could enter, but she’d lose once she was inside. The one familiar with mental worlds wasn’t Elena—it was the succubus.
“We still have to. If we waste any more time the leader’s mind will start breaking down. The succubus would disappear with her, but we need the leader intact, don’t we?”
“That’s true.”
“So we’re going in. And the one going in is you.”
“…Me? Not Elena?”
My eyes went to Elena automatically. She was nodding.
(Without divine power, I’m at a disadvantage. Jungmin, who still has divine power, will have the edge.)
“No, that still doesn’t make sense. I’m only D-class.”
(Mental worlds aren’t decided by stats. And if it’s a succubus’s mental world, you’re basically S-class.)
I was S-class in a mental world? Sounded like a light novel title, but it wasn’t hard to understand. A succubus’s mental world was basically my specialty.
“Still… can I really take on a demon?”
“Don’t worry. The demon’s already badly weakened. And it hasn’t recovered.”
“Why hasn’t it recovered? It’s been two whole days.”
“Think of it the other way around—it can’t come out because it hasn’t recovered. It absorbed far less essence than expected. That’s largely because of the leader’s constitution. Putting Nayeon unnie’s words together with the current situation, the leader is almost certainly asexual.”
Asexual?
Honestly I still didn’t get why that suddenly mattered. I’d need more explanation before it clicked.
What was certain right now was that the decision had been made: I was going into the leader’s mental world. If that was the conclusion Keira and Elena had reached after putting their heads together, there was no reason to refuse. I trusted them.
“…All right. So how do I get in?”
“Sex.”
Keira’s voice was so casual I thought I’d misheard. Nayeon’s reaction confirmed I hadn’t.
“…What?”
Nayeon shot to her feet, but Keira drove the nail in again.
“Jungmin and the leader have to have sex. Right now that’s our best option.”
Hmm… looking at it this way, my other self seemed to get used for a lot of things besides pleasure. Same with Keira and Elena, same when I went rounds with the succubus, and now this…
And why did I have the sinking feeling this was going to keep happening from now on?