July's Summer Escape
July.
Even though he had become a hero, Kang-jun’s daily routine remained no different from before. On weekdays he poured himself into team training by day and tumbled around with the women by night. Weekends meant visiting the Jang family, sparring with Jang Hwa-young, and spending the night with Jang Hye-yeon. The days spun round and round like a hamster wheel.
Monsters appeared roughly every other day, yet unless it was a Class-1 emergency, D-class heroes were never included in the summons, so at a glance his life looked little different from an ordinary civilian’s. Of course he could join a subjugation if he wanted and scrape together a few contribution points, but there was no need for that kind of effort just yet. …It still wasn’t time.
The sun no longer offered the gentle warmth of spring; it now hammered the skin with a prickling, merciless glare. The amount of bare skin on the streets had swollen dramatically, giving him plenty of eye candy. Long before anyone started talking about summer getaways, people were already living the season.
After the group lectures ended, Kang-jun took a quiet moment to comb through his plans for any leaking holes. …That was when Barbara Olson floated into his mind. He had told her to contact him sometime, yet not a single message had arrived.
Using a casual check-in as his excuse, he dialed the training instructor at the 41st Branch. Once the conversation had warmed up a little, he brought up Barbara Olson.
“Ah, that girl.”
“Any news on her?”
“She probably joined another dungeon team. …She asked about you a few times, though.”
“Really?”
“Looks like she felt pressured. You got famous overnight, after all.”
She clearly hadn’t wanted to look like the kind of opportunist who only called after someone hit the big time. Kang-jun felt a mild pang of regret—Barbara’s talent was a little too good to waste—but she was growing just fine on another team, so there was no real reason to snatch her away.
Raising someone from scratch takes a ton of hands-on work anyway.
Once they looked fully grown, you just had to coax them gently and swallow them whole. Talent-poaching was one of the core strategies among dungeon teams. A single high-performing recruit could launch a squad overnight, so the scramble for capable people was a bloodless war in every sense.
Retired heroes sat at the very top of every recruitment list. Even a B-class would draw scouts from the top-ten teams and spark full-blown bidding wars. Even D-class talent stayed popular.
In any case, he set Barbara aside for the moment. Plenty of other recommended members were already coming in. The instructor tossed out two more names this time.
“Yoshimura Masato and Maria Silva. Solid training scores, real talent.”
“Positions?”
“Both dealers.”
Not the guards he needed right away, but he filed the names away just in case.
“If a usable guard shows up, let me know. …Even better if she’s a woman.”
“Got it. …But why don’t you drop by sometime? Bring gifts, you punk.”
“You know how busy I am these days. I’ve got to start actual hero work soon.”
“How busy can a D-class possibly be?”
“I need to raise my points a bit. They’re riding me hard to participate more.”
It wasn’t an excuse—it was the truth. The hero branch was openly pressuring D-class personnel into voluntary activity. Kang-jun, who had done absolutely nothing so far, had been marked as a special person of interest.
“Fine, you punk. Just show your face next time.”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
The call cut off. Kang-jun scrubbed a hand around his mouth and let out a long sigh. Ever since becoming a hero he had been busy enough to forget what free time felt like. Even the weekends that used to be his alone now belonged to Jang Hwa-young, and also…
I need to start planning this month’s exploration soon.
June had been completely wiped out by the group lectures, so July especially could not be skipped. …Kang-jun’s head was a tangled mess.
These bastards had nothing but sex in their heads. Kang-jun cleanly ignored the chat window, stepped out into the living room, and called the team together. It was time to plan the July dungeon run. Because it was a rare free weekend, everyone lounged on the sofa in comfortable clothes.
“This exploration, we’re heading to the 21st Zone Dungeon.”
“The 21st Zone? …Wait, that’s Death Valley, right? Correct?”
“How’d you know?”
“Ahem, I’ve been studying!”
Hye-mi crowed happily at getting the answer right. When Kang-jun shot her a meaningful look that promised a reward later, she grew shy and tucked her hair behind her ear.
Kang-jun gave a brief rundown of the dungeon commonly known as Death Valley.
It was a Class-3 dungeon, but on the higher end of difficulty. Being an older labyrinth, dozens of areas had already been mapped. The average level in the deepest reaches sat around 250, yet it fell outside the seven-day ranking conditions, and so on.
“Schedule’s the third week. We’ve still got a week, so there’s time to prep. If you need to shop, use today and tomorrow….”
“Yes!”
“Dismissed.”
The team scattered back to their rooms. Before returning to hers, Hye-mi cast Kang-jun a suggestive glance. He slipped into her room without knocking. Hye-mi, half-reclined on the bed, looked up at him and swallowed hard.
Kang-jun stood silently by the bed. She crawled down on trembling knees, knelt in front of him, and pulled his pants down with both hands. The already rigid length sprang free with a heavy slap, thick with a lewd scent. Hye-mi swallowed it deep in one go.
They soon began their private act. Hye-mi’s entrance was nicely wet and easy to enter. He fucked her roughly from behind while she stayed on all fours like a dog. Already hypersensitive, she moaned as if she were dying within moments.
Kang-jun emptied every drop of thick white seed into her mouth. Each time, Hye-mi squeezed her eyes shut, gulped it down, then opened wide with an “Ahh” to show him. He shoved his fingers inside and roughly rubbed her tongue. Ghk, ghk. The deep intrusion made her gag several times. Her eyes watered and quickly turned bloodshot.
“Haa… haa… Senior….”
Lying on the bed and calling him so sweetly looked rather nice. Kang-jun crooked a grin, told her to rest well, pulled his clothes back on, and left. Zixu was standing in the kitchen. When she saw him emerge from Hye-mi’s room, a flicker of fluster crossed her eyes.
He stepped up behind her as she turned toward the sink and pressed his crotch flush against her.
“Open your mouth.”
He slid his fingers into the open mouth of the woman who had turned around.
“These were inside Hye-mi’s mouth.”
Then he thoroughly violated her tongue. Her breathing roughened at once.
“How’s it taste?”
“G-good….”
“Your nipples are hard.”
Zixu couldn’t answer. He dragged her into his room and shoved her roughly onto the bed. Ah. The eyes that looked up at him turned hazy.
Because she was wearing a gray dress, simply lifting the skirt revealed her panties. He yanked them down, rolled them into a ball, and stuffed them into her mouth. Aahm.
“These were inside Hye-mi earlier too.”
With that he thrust straight in. Hahk. Her neck snapped back like a harpooned fish before returning to normal. The expression of gazing at him dreamily with lace panties still filling her mouth was pure art.
“When are you going to tell Hye-mi about us, hmm?”
Kang-jun whispered while slamming into her with wet, heavy smacks. Even while being fucked senseless, Zixu seemed to decide that was the one thing she couldn’t allow; she shook her head frantically.
“Then you’re just going to keep getting fucked by me? Hmm? You like this?”
Zixu slowly nodded. Kang-jun’s lips curled into a smirk. He drove into her so hard their flesh slapped together with sharp, brutal cracks. Mmph, mmph, mmph. Tendons stood out on her neck.
This time he came across her face. Mmph! Thick ropes painted every corner of her features. He pulled the spit-soaked panties from her mouth, scraped the seed off her face, and rubbed it onto her tongue. Zixu accepted it without resistance.
Huu. Only then did the tightness in Kang-jun’s chest ease a little. He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment to catch his breath. Once she had composed herself, Zixu quietly encouraged him.
“Everyone knows how hard you’re working, Team Leader. You don’t have to push yourself so much.”
He patted the back of the hand that had come to rest on his shoulder.
“Yeah… thanks for noticing.”
Zixu smiled faintly—a rare sight.
She rose with the wet panties rolled in her fist. The bare, explicit line of her ass showed clearly through the gray dress. Kang-jun caught her again as she tried to leave. Aah…! She braced her hands against the wall and was fucked hard from behind.
“This time it’s your fault for tempting me. Right?”
“Y-yes… I’m sorry….”
Ass raised high, she slid forward and collapsed while panting sweet breaths and begging forgiveness. He spanked her bare cheeks several times with sharp, meaty cracks. Ah, ah. Bright red handprints bloomed on her skin.
…All weekend long Kang-jun cheerfully fucked both women’s holes and worked off the stress that had piled up.
The exploration of the 21st Zone Dungeon—Death Valley—proceeded exactly on schedule. The team members, whose skills had improved dramatically, handled the monsters far better than expected. Kang-jun checked both women’s status windows. The stats needed for their first Awakening were almost there. Two or three more dungeon runs and it looked possible.
Once both completed their first Awakening, even Class-2 dungeons would be worth attempting. To outsiders it would look like an unbelievable growth rate.
After safely finishing the run and returning to the lodging, Kang-jun’s team carried themselves with far more confidence than before. Kang-jun was especially surprised by Zixu’s improvement.
He had known her talent well, yet the speed of her growth exceeded expectations. Truly worthy of a supporting character to the original protagonist. Her control over fire magic had grown more precise, and her situational judgment far more skilled. Considering how difficult fire magic was to master, her genius was fully proven.
…And so the grueling third week of July passed, and the fourth week arrived.
Day by day the sun grew hotter. Between disaster news segments, commercials pushed nothing but summer vacation gear. Roads shimmering with heat haze carried only cars racing off on holiday. Blue, cool things became desperately longed for.
Ocean, sandy beach, parasols, bikinis. …Summer vacation—!
“Senior! Let’s go to the beach too!”
Hye-mi, apparently struck by something while watching commercials in the living room, dashed over and shouted. The beach? …The beach. Kang-jun looked at her face for a moment and fell into thought.
After the hard dungeon work of the third week, coldly refusing them a vacation felt a little too harsh. Spending three or four days looking at the blue sea and shaking off stress would do them good. Kang-jun himself had been whipping them nonstop for so long that he was mentally nearing his limit.
“Alright. Let’s go.”
Hye-mi’s eyes went wide at how easily permission fell; she threw her arms around him and bounced up and down.
“We’re going to the beach, we’re going to the beach!”
She immediately ran to Zixu and sang that they were going to the sea. She even barged into Ogre-nam and Troll-nyeo’s room and raised hell. Seeing her that happy made him wonder if they should have gone sooner.
Of course heroes had to report when leaving their assigned zone, so Kang-jun promptly contacted the officer in charge and declared the schedule. Fortunately D-class didn’t need to use formal leave. In return, if a Class-1 emergency broke out they had to return within twenty-four hours.
…And that information reached the ears of one of the Four Princesses. Naturally the private chat for the Four Princesses exploded.
Belita flung her phone onto the bed and buried her face in a pillow. She chewed her lip hard.
…Nartica Beach. That was definitely what they said.