Underground Floor 3 (Part 2). Underground Floor 3.
I gave Titania every single command I could think of. If it had been a proper **Submission Oath**, she wouldn't have been able to refuse all of them. This dependency thing was something else entirely.
"This dependency crap isn't worth squat."
"You say that like you're able to refuse everything I throw at you."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
My commands didn't work on her. Titania was perfectly fine even without obeying a single one.
*What kind of dependency is this?* I couldn't wrap my head around it no matter how I looked at it. If I had to hand over my essence just to keep her alive like this, wasn't it basically parasitism? Was a succubus queen literally a parasite?
"Dependency, huh? I guess it doesn't mean much after all."
"Yeah. I had no idea either."
From the very first time we met, Titania had treated her virginity like something sacred. She acted like she wouldn't give it to just anyone, no matter how much she loved you.
The reason turned out to be nothing more than dependency, and now it made perfect sense. I felt a weird kind of relief.
"I'm hungry again."
"Don't bullshit me."
I read her thoughts with Mind Reading. This succubus queen was treating my essence like a snack. Since her mouth was empty, she wanted to suck on my dick. Just thinking about it made me hard, but I had zero intention of letting her.
"Completely useless."
"Submission Oath? Did you even try it once?"
"I didn't ask because I figured it wouldn't work anyway."
Elena reminded me about the **Submission Oath**.
Once you completed it, you became a regressor from that very moment. Plus, you couldn't disobey my orders, so I could use it on anyone. No downside.
"Alright, let's do it."
I used the **Submission Oath** on Titania.
She stared at me with a blank face.
"What is this?"
"Dependency upgrade."
"You want my consent?"
"It would be good if you did."
Titania violently shook her head.
"I don't want to. Why me?"
Her expression screamed pure hatred.
"Why should I throw away my freedom just because I'm under you? What's the reason I have to crawl beneath you?"
"Reason? None. If you feel like it, submit. If you don't, refuse."
"Refuse! Refuse! I reject it!"
[Player 'Titania Secusris' has rejected the **Submission Oath**.]
She rejected it without hesitation, like it was the most natural thing in the world. The **Submission Oath** was too easy to undo.
"Seriously... this succubus queen is useless."
"What the hell? You cocky bastard, you just got your dick sucked and you're talking like this?"
Before Titania could move closer, Elena blocked her path. The **Submission Oath** was shining brilliantly.
"Yeah, that's exactly why it's so satisfying."
The fact that someone was watching out for me felt good.
Titania screamed at Elena in pure frustration.
"Eek...! Why the hell is such a strong elf like you standing next to this piece of trash? Is it because of some **Submission Oath**? Why accept and engrave it on yourself? I just can't understand...!"
"I don't plan on making you understand. I don't understand it myself, so how could I expect you to? I just did what my heart told me. Mmm... speaking of which, if you touch my ass..."
I squeezed Elena's soft, plump ass. It felt incredibly good to grope.
Elena obediently offered her rear while continuing to speak.
"Anyway, behave properly."
"What...?"
"To survive, you need my essence, right? But since you didn't get the **Submission Oath** engraved, Jinwoo has no proper way to control you."
The reason she lets Isilia get away with her bratty behavior is because the **Submission Oath** is on her. It's only half-finished, but it gives me a powerful restraint against her.
Titania doesn't have that. The dependency doesn't mean anything without the oath. There's no reason for me to forgive her every time she acts like a slut.
Elena raised her fist.
"If you don't want to be erased by this fist, listen up. Keep your harem rank in line and stop acting like a little shit."
"Harem rank? I don't want to be in some trashy harem!"
"Oh? Then starve to death. Figure it out yourself."
Ever since dependency kicked in, Titania could only live thanks to my essence. Not metaphorically—just literally. She could only survive off my cum.
Titania's eyes rolled back. I could see all kinds of calculations spinning through her mind.
"...So what happens to the harem rank...?"
"Yu Dahui-nim, Isilia-nim. That's the order. You're last."
"If it's Yu Dahui, she's human. Why am I below a human?"
Titania resented her ranking. It was clear she couldn't accept being the lowest.
"Without the **Submission Oath**, you're just here to suck on essence. Where does that put you in the harem but last?"
"...Above humans..."
"You wanna climb above me?"
"That's not what I meant!"
Titania couldn't fight back against Elena. The fist was clearly more persuasive than words. I felt satisfied watching it.
"You're nothing but a walking pussy. A pocket-sized snack that Jinwoo occasionally visits for when he's bored. Understand your body's true value and act accordingly."
"...That's way too harsh... I was still a virgin just a moment ago. But this guy...!"
"This guy?"
"Y-You, Kim Jinwoo, forced me..."
She corrected her words under the pressure of Elena's glare. Little by little, moisture gathered in her eyes. The humiliation of getting beaten by Elena felt incredibly unjust.
"That's none of your business."
Her firm words made Titania's big, pitiful tears start to fall. She looked like a tragic heroine, crying so sadly.
I read her inner thoughts with Mind Reading. The rebellious thoughts still shot at me like machine-gun fire. Pretending to be pitiful, acting fragile. A succubus queen was playing with a man's heart.
*I should remember this.*
Sniff, sniff. Titania wiped her tears. Even though her thoughts had weakened under Mind Reading, I still wanted to comfort her. She was truly the succubus queen. Not a normal whore.
"At this point, Titania should have gotten the message."
"Ah, I get it. I'll do well, so please don't abandon me..."
Right now, Titania was cursing me in her mind. She had nothing but a dick, yet she was using an elf to become the one being taken care of. From the outside, she looked like a pure, innocent nun begging for mercy, but...
"Go back."
"...Go back? Where?"
"Your home. Orde's Mansion is your home, isn't it?"
Titania wasn't part of our guild. There was no need to keep her. To control this bitch, the first thing was to make her starve.
She'd been stuffed full of my essence in the underground dungeon, so right now she wasn't in any immediate danger.
"You're not going?"
"...I'll go."
She draped herself in a black veil and stared at me intensely. Her eyes carried a pitiful look.
I waved the rules away.
*'I don't usually use rules on women.'*
Once Elena's ranking was settled, we entered the guild house.
"Mom! Ally!"
Fren, who had finally recovered, was hugging Ally and sobbing loudly. He must still remember how he became a cripple.
The guild house had turned into a sea of tears.
"How pitiful."
He got cucked by a succubus and turned into a moron. Thinking about it, there couldn't be a funnier way to die.
I sat down in a casual spot. Yu Dahui and Isilia were nowhere to be seen. Where were they off to?
I ate a simple dinner and waited for Yu Dahui.
Ding—
Yu Dahui and Isilia entered happily.
"Kim Jinwoo, what's up? Were you waiting for me?"
"I have something to say."
When she saw me, Yu Dahui plopped down next to me. Judging by her thick scent, she must have been playing around a lot.
"What is it?"
"We need to start the conquest. I don't know how long we'll be on floor 3, but..."
"Oh. Right."
"I also need to awaken. Do you know how it works?"
The awakening trial on floor 3 could be done on underground floor 3. Passing it would automatically awaken you to 4-star, but it was a pretty tough difficulty.
*'Stirs up old trauma.'*
Sodahui had failed the awakening trial for a very long time. No matter how many times she challenged it, the cozy air of modern society broke her.
"I heard from Titania. It's best to challenge the floor 3 awakening as much as possible."
"Titania said that?"
"Yeah. Since mental strength can't be trained no matter how hard you train, experiencing it once is way more efficient."
Yu Dahui nodded after hearing me.
"Clashing with it isn't a bad idea either. We can just start over."
Aggressively using regression, there was nothing you couldn't do. Boss monster hunts became easy, and gear preparation was simple. Of course, the floor 3 awakening was an entirely different matter.
Sodahui, who had gone through the awakening trial, said it was different.
She wanted to go back so badly. Even if it was just a dream, she begged and cried to be sent back.
The men who tried to comfort her suffered a lot.
"So? Should we go down tomorrow?"
"That's my thought."
There was nothing else to do. My level wasn't enough to beat the boss monster, the Demon King Slime, so I planned to handle what I could first.
"Pre-awakening will make things easier later."
"You're right. Then, let's go down tomorrow. All three of us—me, you, and Isilia—awakening together sounds good."
Yu Dahui didn't seem particularly worried about the awakening trial. Being a regressor, it already diluted a lot of the fear. It felt completely different, but she didn't say anything else.
I was a first-timer too, so I couldn't explain. I just stared at Elena.
Elena, feeling my gaze, spoke up.
"Yu Dahui-nim, the floor 3 awakening is a bit difficult. It's much harder than floor 2..."
"Because the floors are different, right? I've prepared for it to some extent."
"That's not the case."
Yu Dahui looked at Elena. Elena briefly met her eyes before continuing.
"...From what I felt, it's harder than floor 4."
"Really?"
"It can't be overcome with stats. You have to use your mental strength and your original power, like Yu Dahui-nim. That's why the difficulty is high."
"Mental strength?"
"Yes. In higher floors, there are quite a few players who couldn't overcome the floor 3 trial. If they break, it takes a long time to recover. They just give up and keep climbing the tower."
Elena was giving Yu Dahui a gentle warning. She needed to stay tense.
"...If Elena says it like that, it means I can't take it lightly."
Yu Dahui's face became serious. Compared to earlier, she was fine. Isilia was still being curt, though.
"Can you tell me about the trial content?"
"Trial content..."
Elena was lost in thought after my question. She was probably thinking about the past.
The trial Sodahui experienced was a story from the past. A life she never experienced because she wasn't summoned to the **Tower of Struggle**—a normal university student life, falling in love, having children...
If she faced the truth without being buried in the dream, she could reach awakening.
"It differs from person to person, so I can't explain it. Still, I can tell you about the trial I went through. It won't help, but..."
"Alright. I want to hear it."
We sat around casually and brought drinks. The surroundings were noisy, but the voices came through clearly.
"...The trial mostly tries to break players. Mentally pressuring them. In my case, it was loneliness. I hadn't met my own kind up to floor 3, and because of the **Submission Oath**, my sexual desire was also piling up..."
She dies at the hands of a monster or gets killed by a player. In the **Tower of Struggle**, suicide cases were common too.
"In the old days, I showed the time when I was serving in the Alvheim Central Knight Order. Blessed by the World Tree, I protected the future with the Queen's sword."
Elena's trial was ordinary. An overly ordinary dream of a knight commander. Slaying monsters, teaching successors.
"Well, then one day I suddenly realized something. I remembered the forgotten feelings and the grudge toward Pluto."
"Is that possible?"
"The **Submission Oath** was still in effect. Though it wasn't confirmed. I lost my sexual desire and lived as if it was completely erased from my mind, but when I saw something like that by chance..."
It was a trigger. A key to overcoming the trial that you could only face if lucky.
Most people didn't discover the trigger and broke down. When they woke up, they had to stand again, and it took quite a long time.
"There's only one sure thing. The moment you realize what a trial is, awakening happens there."
Elena's advice ended there. After all, there was nothing more she could tell.