Half (Part 2)
No one could find the first words.
Elena clung tightly to Elish, sobbing bitterly while I watched in silence. “......” Even I, who knew regression was possible, felt a twinge of surprise.
“Elena Captain, I’m fine. Really, ah, it hurts...!”
“Kueugh, sorry. I’m so sorry...”
“Kyaaa! My nose is running! Even an elf captain like you shouldn’t be this clingy!”
Elisha gently wiped Elena’s face with her sleeve. Even though she had seen the memories, the impact on Elena seemed far lighter than the real thing.
Observing the twins’ tearful embrace, Yoo Dahui drifted closer to my side.
“Honestly, what do you think? What could have caused Elena to suddenly regress?”
“...I have a guess...”
Only one possibility.
Elena had personally inscribed the Submission Oath. Not Pluto’s. Mine.
This is seriously creepy. Is the entire world really revolving around me?
The thought sent a chill through me. My self-awareness felt like it might explode. Even as a middle-schooler, I had never felt this intense.
“Don’t hide it. Spit it out already.”
Seeing me hesitate, Yoo Dahui urged me on.
She knew the Submission Oath had been canceled and then renewed, but how the hell was I supposed to explain that?
If she watched the video, she already knows...
Even if she knew, it was awkward for me to bring it up. Yoo Dahui still believed she had kept her true preferences hidden.
Still, I should just tell the truth.
Adding one more regressor was a crucial piece of information that could accelerate the Tower of Struggle’s clearance.
“It’s probably because of the Submission Oath.”
“...The Submission Oath?”
Yoo Dahui pretended not to understand.
“The Submission Oath doesn’t have anything to do with it, right? You just eat my semen, and it only passes on a little skinship memory to whoever consumes it.”
“I’m not completely sure... But in the previous cycle, that was the only change.”
Yoo Dahui’s eyes narrowed sharply. Not a good look.
I instinctively covered my crotch.
“...You think I’m the kind of guy who suddenly grabs a woman’s balls for blackmail? Don’t be scared for no reason. I’ll be the weird one here instead.”
Yoo Dahui patted my shoulder lightly, a silent reassurance.
“R-Really? H-Haha.”
I slowly lowered my hand. Suspicion like this could ruin someone’s mood.
“Hey.”
“Eek... You... you...”
But Yoo Dahui betrayed my expectation.
Her hand slipped in through the gap in a flash and wrapped around my cock.
Squish—
“Hup...”
“Kim Jinwoo, explain everything you did with Elena right now. Immediately.”
“You believed me... Yoo Dahui, you believed me...”
Her grip tightened slowly, squeezing my heavy cock with her tiny hand.
“Faster.”
Gradually, my cock began to harden.
The scent of Yoo Dahui, the touch itself, it reacted on its own like Pavlov’s dog.
“Pervert.”
Yoo Dahui stroked my cock while murmuring. She looked satisfied.
“Say it quickly. Confirm it and move on.”
Yoo Dahui’s hand withdrew.
She had let go of my balls and brother.
Why did that feel like a shame?
I must have gone completely crazy.
I took a deep breath and opened my mouth. I summarized it carefully.
“Hah... Haa...”
Whispering it made Yoo Dahui’s cheeks flush red. With her netorare tendencies, she must have been getting excited just hearing it.
“So, your Submission Oath could become the key that lets someone regress.”
Her mood shifted instantly back to normal.
“Then the more Submission Oaths spread, the faster we can clear the Tower of Struggle. If just five of us like Elena... we could reach the seventh floor in one go and start conquering the next layer.”
With regressors not fearing death, a party made entirely of them would become the ultimate raiding team.
“But to inscribe a Submission Oath, the other person has to genuinely consent.”
That was the problem. Even if we forced consent, the subconscious would reject it, and the oath couldn’t be formed. Of course, there was a way to provoke an unavoidable situation like Pluto’s, but I hadn’t actually tried it yet.
“Right now, it’s only Elena. Isilia...”
“She’d probably run away the moment Pluto’s oath is lifted.”
“The other women don’t seem interested in the Submission Oath either...”
A Submission Oath wasn’t like a slave contract. It was far crueler, so no one would accept it.
Elena was the abnormal case.
“Let’s move then.”
We headed to First City with the elves.
The elf knights and scholars, along with Elish, twitched and showed complicated expressions. After eating together as a group, the friendship would grow stronger.
We passed First City and arrived at Third City in no time. Then, right in front of the 1st-floor boss monster golem, we struck.
With one clean slash, we reached the 2nd floor.
“...Huh?”
Icilia wasn’t around where she should have been rampaging.
Pluto’s Slave has been detected within range.
Pluto’s curse had confirmed Icilia’s presence. She was hiding somewhere, refusing to follow me.
Understandable. You got your virginity taken, after all.
Dealing with Wang Gohan’s gang would take almost no time at all.
“Let’s go up.”
We headed toward the shop with the group.
We wanted to finish everything today and rest comfortably, so we rushed as fast as possible.
Wang Gohan’s gang was still holding the shop.
“What the hell are you people?!”
The guard who spotted us on duty reacted with swirling, sinister eyes.
Elisha, Elena, Yoo Dahui — beautiful women who didn’t deserve the label of ‘inferior.’
Pluto’s Hand
“Kueugh...!”
“Dong-shik! These bastards...!”
Blackhand strangled the man’s neck.
The terrifying grip lifted him into the air with ease.
There were only six guards.
Rip—!
One by one, their necks snapped.
Because I had grown far too strong, there were no more worthy opponents.
I strode boldly into the shop.
Right now, I felt I could take on Wang Gohan himself.
Thud! Boom!
“Aaaang! Ah! Ang!”
“You bitches, you let your husband go and came here? Huh?”
“This... it couldn’t be helped...”
“Shut your mouths! If you’ve got time to open them, shove something in and shut up!”
Squish! Squish!
Inside the shop, chaos reigned.
If Icilia didn’t attack, the Wang Gohan gang would kidnap women from around the area and rape them all day long.
How envious I am.
My kind of orgy was fake. The real kind meant one woman and many men taking turns on her. That was an orgy. In other words, group sex.
But I didn’t want to treat the women I had shared emotions with so roughly.
I wasn’t the kind of man who matched Yoo Dahui’s tastes.
Life Force Absorption
Effect:Sucking life force from all around
Duration:Ongoing
Life force flooded in from every direction.
Black magic at 50 levels could even drain the life force of normal players.
Of course, I couldn’t touch Elena or Yoo Dahui.
It meant I was still too weak.
“What...?”
“Intruders! We have intruders!”
One burly man pointed at me while dangling his shrunken cock.
“You bastards, do you even know where you are...!”
Weapon-wielding men rushed in from all sides.
Pluto’s Hand
Even after thinking about it, no black magic is more efficient than this. The power conversion is free, and efficiency is unmatched for life force consumed.
I had no reason to use anything else besides Blackhand.
Thud! Thud!
The men’s heads burst open.
Most couldn’t withstand my strength.
Blood was sprayed inside the shop, but it evaporated instantly.
Corpse the same. Except the safe zone — the shop still enjoyed the system’s protection.
Wang Gohan stood up from his seat.
Mindset of “finish what you started.”
Yellow semen oozed from the pussy of the woman he had been fucking.
“When you’re eating women, you don’t even touch the dogs? If you’re a man yourself, you should know how it feels.”
“Yeah, I know.”
I nodded.
It was terrifying to imagine being interrupted while fucking someone senseless.
“Then do it in the safe zone. Why rape here and make a scene?”
If you just did it quietly at home, no one would bother you.
“If you’re going to have sex in public, you should at least consider the surroundings.”
Basic manners.
One of the values I held most important.
“Hahaha, public place? This shop is mine. My space. It’s your fault for intruding.”
“Yeah, starting today, it isn’t.”
I extended Blackhand.
Black hands stretched out in all directions and seized the men’s bodies.
Crunch!
“Let go! You, shit-eating bastards!”
The men thrashed desperately as they died.
It was a brutal slaughter, even by my standards.
“You’ve become terrifyingly strong.”
Yoo Dahui stared at me in amazement.
Her sword lay unused in her hand.
Output itself is different.
50-level black magic was power that even players in this section couldn’t handle.
It worked at the 4th floor as well.
The King Slime raid that ended in vain would have been enough with this.
Ryan could probably handle it too.
No problem.
A 50-level skill carried that much weight.
Wang Gohan died without a sound.
I didn’t even let him beg for his life. I just killed him.
I roughly dispatched the elf knights and scholars, then looted Wang Gohan’s house.
Reclaiming Safe Zone #215.
Natural migration of Seol-ah’s group. Children are plenty, so it’s gone smoothly.
And the sun set.
Darkness fell. Only the bonfires scattered around the zone lit up the outside.
We gathered in Safe Zone #215.
Icilia-nim isn’t coming after all...
Three-person meeting.
Yoo Dahui, me, and Elena.
“Hmm, let’s start with the talk.”
Yoo Dahui opened the conversation. Elena’s eyes trembled violently.
Something was bothering her.
“Elena.”
“Yes, Dahui-nim.”
“...You’re regressing, right?”
Elena hesitated. Normally, she would reject the very idea of regression, but now she accepted it without protest.
Elena understood and accepted the word.
“I don’t know what kind of phenomenon it is... but yes, I remember what happened yesterday.”
Elena glanced at me. Then, with a satisfied smile, she turned her gaze to Yoo Dahui.
“After I was with Kim Jinwoo and completed the Submission Oath, I even saw Princess Elish kill herself. I remember all of it vividly.”
Her eyelashes fluttered.
“I still don’t understand... How is this even possible...”
“We don’t know the exact principle either. We just use what we’re given.”
It was the same in ancient times. Fire appeared, so we cooked food with it. At that moment, we didn’t think about fire’s properties or the dangers of reproduction.
“Then since when have you been regressing?”
A lot. Elena might not remember, but...
“...Memories feel detached from reality as well?”
“Yes. The ones from the previous cycle. Most of them involve my relationship with Kim Jinwoo.”
Elena pondered, nodding.
She absorbed the regression information one by one.
“...I think we can now conquer the 7th floor.”
Elena muttered quietly after hearing about regression.
Without fear of death, conquering the Tower of Struggle wasn’t difficult.
It just took time.
“We’re doing this for the Tower of Struggle’s clearance too. I think we can do it in about three years.”
“...Three years...”
Yoo Dahui had said three years, but Elena didn’t seem to think so.
More than three.
“It’s impossible.”
Decisive.
“Right now, the Tower of Struggle’s clearance is blocked at the 7th floor. For four years, even with all those powerful players dying, no one has broken through.”
“Ah...”
“In the end, a regressor has to clear the 7th floor. The three of us have to break through it.”
Elena decisively revised Yoo Dahui’s plan.
“Unless more regressors appear, the three of us... will have to spend at least ten years, or even more, locked inside the Tower of Struggle.”