The Shop Raid Incident (1)
"Have you cried it all out yet?"
"......"
Yoo Dahui wiped at her tears, still sniffling. I had barely managed to drag her back from her attempt to flee and plant her on the sofa, where I was now trying to calm her down.
"I wonder what's gotten into our Dahui all of a sudden."
I already knew the reason, but I asked in a sly, teasing tone. I knew she wouldn't tell me, but not asking would have felt even more unnatural.
"Looks like you're not planning to say anything. Then I won't ask."
"......"
My half-joking remark seemed to have dealt her a pretty heavy mental blow. Taking Elena's suggestion to heart, I had acted out a kiss between loving partners as a sort of preview. Nothing more.
"...Damn it..."
Yoo Dahui glanced down at her wrist. Then she grumbled in clear irritation. On her wrist was the mark of the vow I had given her. If the pattern vanished, it meant my heart had changed. If it remained, the vow was still being upheld.
The tears had mostly stopped. Her emotions had simply surged for a moment; it wasn't pure sadness.
"...Kiss."
Yoo Dahui pouted her lips and mumbled.
Chu-.
I leaned in and planted a light kiss on her cheek.
"...Hand."
Her hand crept up shyly. I placed mine over her palm and held it gently. But Yoo Dahui wasn't satisfied with a simple hold. She laced our fingers together tightly, as if binding us to each other.
"...I'll stop here."
"It's fine if you want to go further."
"No. I won't."
The next steps would have been a real kiss and sex. That's what I'd been expecting, but Yoo Dahui had cut it short. She probably thought we'd get caught if we went any further. It didn't seem to have occurred to her that Elena had already sold her out.
Still, I asked one more time.
"Why were you crying?"
"...I had a nightmare. That's all."
"Really?"
It was a terrible excuse. No one would have bought it, but I pretended to believe her.
"I'm leaving."
As Yoo Dahui headed for the door, I casually tossed out a single line.
"I love you."
"......"
Yoo Dahui let out a small huff of laughter and stepped outside.
"Whew..."
Her core personality wasn't all that different from the one in the novel. Setting aside her intense obsession, Yoo Dahui was still Yoo Dahui. I just hadn't expected her sexual tastes to run toward netorase or netorare. The fact that she was a total masochist caught me slightly off guard.
Or is she not a masochist?
Up until now, nothing she'd done in bed had given off that kind of vibe. She had always tried to devour me instead of being devoured. Of course, that might simply be because I hadn't used my sex techniques on her yet. Once those took hold, anyone would end up crawling and begging beneath my cock. Would Yoo Dahui really be any different?
I spent the rest of the day like that, and morning arrived. Yoo Dahui seemed relatively back to normal as well.
"You're going to train, right?"
"There's nothing else to do."
There were two options: sparring with players or hunting monsters. But I had far too many coins already, so the latter wasn't urgent. Choosing the more effective PK route or sparring made the most sense.
PK. After turning the idea over and over in my head, I ultimately settled on that path.
Wearing a mask while doing PK was the most efficient method.
I need to raise my black magic level anyway.
I planned to hunt solo so I could toy with my black magic skills in the process.
"I'll be back around sunset."
I waved goodbye to Yoo Dahui and Elena before heading out. That bitch Isilia hadn't even shown her face.
Once I was far enough away, I pulled out the mask and put it on. It fit my face perfectly, like slipping on an entirely different persona.
Crunch-.
I hadn't gone far before a monster appeared.
A Walking Tree. They were ambulatory tree bastards, not particularly strong. It depended on the matchup.
"Gross."
Walking Trees were disgusting in a completely different way from Green Worms. They slid more than they walked, and the sight of those root sections never failed to send a shiver down my spine.
Pluto's Hand
My increased strength made every strike from the black hands heavy and powerful. Weak monsters like this couldn't even catch their breath.
Bam-! Pow-pow-pow-!
Countless punches rained down, and the Walking Tree collapsed without me having to take a single step.
Calculating combat results...
3,000 Coins Acquired
Since Yoo Dahui was holding on to my coins, everything I earned from hunting was purely pocket money for me. Of course, I could take some back whenever I needed it.
"Tsk... Not bad."
I continued downward, taking out every monster I saw until I reached the point where players should have appeared.
Not a single one.
The players had hidden themselves away completely. Not even a strand of hair was visible.
This is annoying.
Isilia's tyranny had made them all cower. They were terrified of being killed, so everyone was lying low.
This is the worst.
It looked like I'd be heading back with nothing but coins. I kept moving anyway, searching for players as I descended endlessly. I felt like a hiker who had reached the summit only to start the long trek back down.
"A village?"
I discovered a village before finding any of the rat-like hiding players. A pathetic little settlement that barely marked its territory with a fence so flimsy a single kick would shatter it.
I strode confidently into the village. There were no guards, and the place felt suspiciously empty. It was clearly one of the more backward settlements in terms of development.
"Oh?"
There was one massive building right in the center. It wasn't a simple cabin; it looked more like a large warehouse or factory. Less a house and more a temporary shelter. This wasn't a village that had fallen behind in development; it had simply given up on developing at all. With a building like that, there was no need to expand outward.
Theoretically, constructing a building like this wasn't a bad idea. The entire wide area would register as a safe zone, allowing for a much more comfortable life. Of course, the owner of that building would become king. The true landlord. If a decent person owned it, everyone would be fine. If it was run by trash, the place would be hell.
"What brings you to our village?"
While I was looking around, a man suddenly appeared. It was the same guy from yesterday. The pyrokinetic wearing a military uniform who had fired off flames. The man who had declared the opening of war by saying he needed to "eat ice." For some reason, the Korean combat fatigues made me feel a strange sense of kinship.
"There was a strange-looking building, so I stopped by on my way through."
"By yourself?"
I nodded. The man didn't look entirely convinced, but he didn't show any open hostility either. Not a bad first impression.
"How long have you been on the second floor?"
"About a month."
"I'm curious why you wear that mask everywhere..."
"To hide my face, obviously. There's no deep story behind it."
Our casual conversation continued. The man lit a cigarette with a snap of his fingers.
"Which dimension are you from?"
"One without mana, superpowers, martial arts, or cyborgs."
"...How the hell did you survive?"
The man stared at me with genuine surprise. There were five types of humans. Or more precisely, humans existed in five different dimensions. The setting always made it sound like there were countless dimensions, but in reality players were summoned from roughly ten. The mana-based fantasy world, the superpower-filled hero society, the internal-energy murim world, the machine-dominated sci-fi future, and the modern society where Yoo Dahui had been born.
Humans came from these five. And among them, the weakest were those from modern society.
Survival is nearly impossible... the absolute bottom tier.
Honestly, anyone from modern society aside from me would struggle. Goblins, gnolls, and kobolds could be killed as easily as twisting a child's finger. The man's eyes now held a hint of wariness. My origin seemed to have readjusted his evaluation of me from ordinary to something more unusual.
"Do you want to come into our village? I can give you a tour."
Thanks to that, I received an interesting offer.
"I'd appreciate it."
"...Hang on. Let me finish this cigarette first."
He took a deep drag and exhaled. Back in the military, we'd always gone to the smoking area for chats like this. My eyes naturally drifted to his uniform. Name: Park Seong-jin. He was Korean.
"You're Korean?"
"Yes."
"I'm Korean too."
His rank was sergeant. In hero society, men who awakened superpowers were conscripted as officers. Stupid conscription was the same no matter the dimension.
"I was discharged recently."
I pulled my own discharge uniform out of my inventory and showed it to him. Seeing it, Park Seong-jin let out a small laugh.
"I can barely remember when I got out."
He spoke jokingly, then dropped the cigarette butt and crushed it under his boot.
"Let's head inside. Whether the boss accepts you into the group isn't up to me..."
I followed Park Seong-jin into the building. For something so enormous, the door was pathetically small. A wider door wouldn't have been useful anyway, but the proportions still looked ridiculous. It was like stripping a massive musclebound pig and discovering it had a tiny dick.
The interior was spacious and comfortable. The high ceiling probably meant terrible soundproofing, but overall they weren't living too badly.
"Seong-jin? Who's that guy with you?"
"He was looking around outside the village, so I brought him in."
"Isn't that dangerous? He's wearing a mask..."
"Compared to dragons or other races, another human isn't exactly high on the danger scale. We're short on people right now anyway. It'll be fine."
Park Seong-jin seemed to be viewing me in a positive light. Or at least trying to.
"Short on people... yeah... but still..."
"The boss will decide. And since no one can cause harm inside this building anyway, it doesn't really matter."
People died every day, so they were constantly short-handed. In that sense, bringing me in probably had a slight undertone of wanting to bolster their numbers.
This could be fun.
Maybe I should play around in this village under a second identity. I followed Park Seong-jin deeper inside, looking around as I went. The haphazard partitions created makeshift paths, and signs marked out personal spaces. The names written on them made for a strangely fascinating setup.
After showing me around various areas, Park Seong-jin headed for a corner of the building. The maze of paths disappeared, opening into the widest space yet. One person was monopolizing nearly a quarter of the entire structure.
"Boss, I brought someone."
"A person?"
No. A woman. A single woman was occupying twenty-five percent of the building all by herself. She had a luxurious bed, an enormous sofa, and every kind of furniture imaginable. The woman who had been rolling around on the bed sat up abruptly and stared at me. Her outfit marked her clearly as someone from the murim world. A cheongsam. Qipao. Holy shit.
"Why's he wearing a mask?"
"He says he wants to cover his face. Claims there's no special story."
"Mysterious type, huh?"
"Seems that way."
The woman walked over to me. The scent that washed over me was distinctly seductive and stimulating.
"Hey. You interested in our village?"
"Yes. If you'll have me..."
"I'm the type who believes in mutual trust. Covering your face makes that a little... So here's the deal."
She grinned.
"Take off the mask or drop your pants. Pick one. If I don't like what I see, you're out."
"I'll drop my pants."
I yanked my pants down immediately. Thanks to the way the cheongsam accentuated her breasts and the exposed lines of her legs, I was already fully erect. The moment my pants came down, my cock sprang out, bouncing heavily.
The woman actually stepped back in surprise.
"...You've got every right to be confident."
She kept glancing up and down at me as she spoke. Park Seong-jin looked at me like I was insane.
"Pull your pants up."
"Yes."
I quickly yanked them back up. Until my cock disappeared from view, the woman's eyes stayed glued to my lower body.
Gulp-.
She quickly composed herself. After swallowing once, her expression returned to what it had been when we first met.
"Not bad. Fine. You can stay if you want. But you'll have to participate in tomorrow's job as one of our comrades."
Her face was deadly serious. It was clear she was planning something big for tomorrow.
"Can I hear what the job is first?"
"Seong-jin, explain it to him."
She immediately dumped the explanation on Park Seong-jin. He gave it as if he'd done so many times before. To summarize, it wasn't complicated.
"So we're robbing a shop."
"Quick on the uptake."
The woman laughed brightly.
"Scared? If you're scared, leave right now. We don't have room for cowards."
"Scared? Not even a little."
This sounds like it'll be a lot of fun.
"Where's my spot?"