January 1st
Yerin halted the hand she'd been reaching toward me and pulled it back.
"...What is it? You're killing the mood."
I hesitated for a moment. I almost let it go, but it had been caught in my throat for a while now.
"Suyeon."
Yerin's expression shifted slightly.
"Suyeon?"
"The healer who joined last year. The one who used to run around with Jaehyuk. She's been missing for about a month, apparently. Went out on a party with the Longmen and never came back."
"...First I'm hearing of it."
The playfulness had drained completely from Yerin's voice.
"Missing? Was it officially reported?"
"No. From what I can tell, Jaehyuk only heard it as a rumor himself. I don't know exactly what happened. Just that... she didn't come back."
"And why the hell didn't that bastard Choi Jaehyuk report it..."
"You know what Jaehyuk's like, Yerin... He probably just didn't want to report it."
Yerin bit her lip, her face going thoughtful for a moment.
"Hajun. This... this might not be about Suyeon alone."
"What do you mean?"
"There've been strange rumors going around about the Longmen lately. Word is, more than a few people who've partied with them and never come back. At first I assumed they were just accidents. But it's happening way too often. No bodies turn up for supposedly dying to demon beasts, and there are even stories that only their magic stones and equipment got recovered."
"...Are you saying the Longmen are kidnapping people?"
"I don't know. But if they are—"
Yerin spoke slowly.
"—then it's been going on for a long time. Why would they even need foreign party members in the first place?"
No way. An actual kidnapping?
To be fair, that suspicion had crossed my mind early on too, but no matter how reckless the Longmen were, luring in members of other guilds to abduct them...
A guild wasn't some criminal organization. However untrustworthy the Chinese might be, I couldn't imagine them running around doing something like that.
"That's not all."
Yerin continued.
"A while back, the Yakumo guild master came here in person."
"Satoshi came all the way here?"
"Yeah. He came so quietly and left without saying much that you wouldn't have known. Went on about some Korea-Japan guild alliance or whatever... but that wasn't the real reason he came. His girlfriend went missing near Khorn. And the problem is, Longmen guild members were sighted in the area around the same time."
"Misaki's missing too...?"
"Yeah... Even I've never seen Satoshi so restless. Him, of all people—that stone-faced bastard."
Yerin furrowed her brow.
"And then he asked me whether Baekho had experienced anything similar. At the time I had nothing to point to, so I said I didn't know... but hearing what you just told me."
Suyeon. And Misaki too.
All of it was tangled up with the Longmen.
"...So there really is something going on."
"There must be, or Satoshi wouldn't have moved himself. That man never steps forward unless he's certain. He's probably been going around confirming with the other guilds too."
Yerin let out a sigh.
"But here's the strange part. Even so, he never said what he actually intended to do. Just asked me to tell him if anything like that ever happened to us, and that was it—"
And that was when it happened.
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
Someone hammered frantically on the office door.
Before Yerin could even answer, the door burst open. A Baekho guild member stumbled in, gasping for breath.
"Guild Master! Urgent news!"
"If you're going to slam the door open, why bother knocking. What is it?"
"Ah—my apologies. The Japanese guild, Yakumo, they..."
The guild member caught his breath.
"They've just filed a Verdict! There's a notice up across the entire Royal Capital, and the announcement board has the Verdict posted!"
A Verdict.
The otherworld's own brand of trial—a way of settling disputes that the law couldn't touch, resolved through violence.
"Unbelievable."
Yerin rose from her seat and asked,
"...Don't tell me the target is the Longmen."
"How did you know?"
The air in the office froze.
"The filer is the Yakumo guild master, Satoshi. The claim is—"
The guild member swallowed.
"Kidnapping and murder of the missing Yakumo guild member Misaki, committed by the Longmen. The date is set for two weeks from now."
At those words, Yerin's face hardened.
"A Verdict over a kidnapping and murder claim... why now, in the middle of all this chaos with the newcomers—"
She stopped mid-sentence, then turned to the guild member who'd brought the report.
"Who's their champion?"
"Sakuragi Yuko."
Watching the guild member hand Yerin a copy of the posted notice as he answered, I spoke up.
"So Satoshi can't fight anymore now that he's Awakened, so he's put up a champion instead. But Sakuragi... why does that name sound familiar..."
"Yakumo's swordswoman. You've obviously heard the name before too, Hajun."
Yerin passed the paper to me.
"Remember the Black Wolf Colony raid two years ago? A horde of demon beasts came pouring out of eastern Khorn, and a guild coalition held the line."
"I remember. Our ranks were still low back then—we took quite a few casualties."
"The one who held that collapsing eastern defense line was Sakuragi Yuko. She cut into the heart of the colony all by herself and carved out a path. That's what bought the rear personnel time to retreat. And the key point is—she did it without even being Awakened."
She fell silent for a moment, then nodded slowly and went on.
"...Now I finally get it. What Satoshi's playing at."
I looked down at the name written on the paper.
Sakuragi Yuko. Verdict champion.
Under Verdict rules, Awakened were barred from participating—there were so few of them even among espers, and it would be unfair—so Satoshi had played the strongest card he had available.
But why today, of all days?
"I get that Satoshi is confident enough the Longmen are guilty to file a Verdict, but why post the notice today of all days? The Japanese side should be swamped with their own newcomers too."
"It had to be today."
Yerin answered with her arms crossed.
"Because that's what makes it easiest to turn public opinion his way."
"...Turn public opinion his way?"
"Think about it."
Yerin unfolded one finger.
"Satoshi came to us a few days ago, asking whether anything similar had happened to us. That was step one. If we'd had such an incident, we'd be inclined to back him up; if we hadn't, we'd start suspecting the Longmen of being involved anyway. Either way, it costs Satoshi nothing."
"...Huh. That's true."
Yerin unfolded a second finger.
"And while he was at it, he let slip that Misaki had gone missing. At the time I thought he'd just come to check on the victim. Looking at it now, no. He already had the Verdict in mind and was going around pre-selling his justification to the other guilds. So when the Verdict suddenly drops today, everyone goes, 'Ah, the Misaki case,' and immediately understands."
"He laid the groundwork in advance."
"Third."
Yerin unfolded her last finger.
"Just as the other guilds start murmuring—today, of all days. January 1st. The day newcomers who know nothing about this world cross the Dimensional Gate."
"..."
"He shoves the Verdict news straight into the faces of those blank-slate kids on day one. The very first big news they hear after crossing into this world is all the commotion about the Longmen kidnapping people. He's planting the image of the Longmen in the minds of everyone who'll be living here from now on—on their very first day."
I was momentarily at a loss for words.
If Yerin was right, then Satoshi was deliberately steering public sentiment against the Longmen with all the resolve of a man burning his bridges.
Most espers were already accustomed to the hardened power structure between guilds. They knew better than to poke the Longmen carelessly, so even when ugly rumors circulated, the prevailing attitude was to hush it all up.
People going missing to demon beasts was entirely possible, after all, and there was nothing to gain from spreading baseless gossip about the Longmen abducting people.
But the hundreds of newcomers who'd poured in today were different.
They had no such calculations. In those blank-slate minds, the Longmen were highly likely to be engraved from the very start as a pack of trash who kidnapped human beings.
"The newcomers are probably running around excitedly asking what a Verdict even is. And that's not all."
Yerin lowered her gaze to the paper with the notice copied onto it.
"The two weeks mean something too. Under Verdict rules, a minimum of one week is all that's required. But Satoshi deliberately set the date two weeks out."
"Right, why give them extra time?"
She pressed her fingertip against the paper.
"He wants the news to spread far and wide, so he's giving it plenty of time on purpose. And... if Misaki is still alive, he's telling them to return her quietly. That much could be read as an opening for negotiation—hand her back, and he'll call the whole thing off."
She turned her gaze toward the window.
"He never said any of it out loud... but those two weeks are the message. Typical Japanese—this weird, roundabout way of speaking."
"...The Longmen must be having a headache over this."
"They're probably in chaos right now. A Verdict is no small thing. There's a public notice across the entire Royal Capital, and it's held in open view. If Sakuragi Yuko were to kill the Longmen's champion in front of a crowd of gathered espers... for the Longmen, it would be an incredible humiliation."
The board was coming into view.
Refusing meant defeat by default—swallowing the entire compensation claim whole, and beyond that, effectively a confession of kidnapping.
But accepting meant facing Sakuragi Yuko.
Satoshi had sealed off every escape route the Longmen had and dragged them onto the ring.
He'd stacked his justification, drawn his card, and even calculated the timing.
This wasn't a strike born of rage.
It was a move laid out with cold deliberation, piece by piece.
"That's Satoshi for you."
Kidnapping and murder of the missing Yakumo guild member Misaki, committed by the Longmen—
I stared at the name on the paper for a long time. Misaki.
Suyeon's face kept overlapping with it in my mind.
Was Misaki still alive?
What had happened to Suyeon?
My head was spinning.
"...Um, Guild Master?"
The guild member who'd brought the news stood there, watching us warily.
"Good work. Report to me the moment any more Verdict-related intel comes in. You can go for now."
"Yes, sir."
As the guild member turned to leave, Yerin added,
"Oh—and until I call for you, no one knocks on this door. Tell them I'm in an important meeting."
An important meeting? Was there something they needed to discuss about the Verdict?
Somehow the atmosphere didn't feel like it, though.
The guild member's eyes darted between me and Yerin, then—apparently deciding he understood something—he quietly closed the door behind him.
Once the footsteps had faded, Yerin walked over and locked the door herself.
Click.
The sound of the lock turning rang out with unusual clarity.
"...An important meeting? About the Verdict?"
"No. A different kind of meeting."
Yerin turned and approached me slowly.
Before I realized it, I'd taken a half step back toward the desk.
Yerin watched that reaction like it amused her, closing the distance one leisurely step at a time.
"What's wrong?"
She smiled, her eyes narrowing.
"Afraid I'll eat you up?"
"...No."
"The Verdict isn't for two weeks anyway..."
Yerin reached out and hooked her fingers onto the waistband of my pants—light as a talon, neither pulling nor letting go.
"It's meeting time right now, isn't it? Your Guild Master wants to hold a meeting... and Hajun isn't going to cooperate?"
"...What's this meeting about, exactly."
"Hmm."
When Yerin tugged lightly on her fingers, I was pulled a step closer.
"Come here. Let's talk up close."
I can't win against this woman.
Yerin lifted my chin with her fingertip, playful eyes sparkling as they looked up at me.
"Hajun."
"...What."
"Someone who worked hard since the crack of dawn deserves a reward. Right?"
The faint scent drifting from Yerin's hair stirred through my head—enough to make the Verdict, and Suyeon, and everything else blur for a moment.
"I mean... shouldn't we... think about this a bit more... Shouldn't we tell Satoshi about Suyeon first?"
"That can wait. Right now..."
Yerin let the words trail off and gave those hooked fingers another pull.
Ah, it's that again, isn't it.
Still, I didn't exactly hate it.
I knew perfectly well that refusing was pointless anyway. It was always like that—resistance was meaningless.
Yerin laid her palm on my chest and slowly stroked downward along its contours.
"Our puppy worked hard today, so I'll do it with my hand."
Her body had somehow pressed itself flush against mine, rubbing softly, subtly against me.
Her soft hand traveled slowly down my body, and her fingers slipped beneath my waistband.
"...You're really going to?"
"What do you mean? You don't want to?"
As if no answer were needed, the moment her hand dragged my pants down, cold air grazed my bare skin.
She wrapped her soft palm around my cock, already standing stiff and hard.
"Ah, haah... Yerin."
"Shh. Just stay still, okay ♥"
Yerin whispered into my ear, then tilted her head down and spat a bead of saliva directly onto my cock.
Schlick.
The moment the sticky spit landed, her hand swept over it, quickly smearing the slick wetness all around me.
"Haahk..."
Before long, Yerin began working my cock up and down with a skillful, mischievous motion—like handling a toy she truly loved, rubbing the tip gently with her thumb while her palm glided softly down along the base.
Squelch, squelch.
My cock, drenched in her spit, made wet, obscene sounds that filled the quiet office.
I clenched my jaw, but my hips twitched on their own.
Yerin savored every reaction I gave, sometimes tightening slowly, sometimes sweeping up quickly, playing me with expert rhythm.
If we were doing this anyway, might as well try pushing my luck.
It wasn't something I'd normally have the nerve to say, but for some reason, today I wanted to try. Using just her hand clearly wasn't enough.
"...Yerin."
"Mm?"
I gathered my courage and asked, my voice trembling.
"Could we... today... put it in? We've never once—"
Her hand stopped instantly.
Mischief bloomed full in her eyes as she looked at me, that same ever-present smile still curling at the corners of her lips.
Her look said it all: that again?
"Nope ♥"
A soft, sweet voice.
"Why...?"
Yerin slowly squeezed me back to full hardness and whispered into my ear.
"Not yet, Hajun. We only *suspect* pregnancy's impossible here. And if I got pregnant, would you even be able to keep being Guild Master? Besides, you love it best when I do this to you anyway ♥ And honestly, so do I."
Her hand picked up speed.
Wrapping her whole palm around me, sliding from top to bottom, adjusting the pressure with gentle precision. Between strokes, she dripped more saliva to make her hand even slicker.
Squelch, squelch, squelch.
The sounds filling the room grew more and more vivid.
"Haahk... Yerin, seriously..."
"Cute ♥"
Yerin licked up my neck with her tongue while moving her hand even faster.
"Haahng. Our Hajun's going to hold out well today too, aren't you ♥"
Squelch, squelch, squelch.
With her chest pressed and heaped against mine, her lips traced up from my neck and she began sucking on my ear.
"Does it feel good, Hajun? Look at you already leaking precum everywhere ♥"
"Haah... Yerin..."
It couldn't have been five minutes.
My hips bucked on their own and my legs started trembling.
I bit down hard, but in the end I couldn't hold out.
"Yerin... I...!"
Yerin whispered and moved her hand harder, faster.
"That's it, our puppy, come, come for me ♥"
Urging me to hurry and finish, her hand kept ratcheting up its speed, and the moment it did—
"Ah... aahhk...!"
Gulp... gulp...
I shuddered and came in her hand.
My semen pumped out again and again, spilling over between her fingers.
Yerin didn't let go until the very end, rubbing slowly as if to wring out the last drop.
"Good boy, such a good puppy ♥"
She rested her chin on my heaving chest, smiling down at me with narrow, adoring eyes.
"And under five minutes again ♥"
There was a trace of teasing in her tone, but her voice was so tender it almost hurt.
"Our Hajun really is hopelessly quick, you know ♥ Can't last five minutes even with just a hand... it's honestly adorable. How do you cum this fast?"
Yerin deliberately showed me the semen smeared across her hand, grinning playfully.
"Should I aim for under three minutes next time? ♥"
My face burning, I turned my head slightly away, and Yerin pressed a smacking kiss to my cheek and whispered,
"I love you, my puppy ♥"
At those words, it felt like my whole body was melting.
Day by day, she seemed to grow more skilled at doing it with her hand—or maybe I was just getting more sensitive—because the time it took me to finish kept getting shorter.
Somehow I doubted I'd finish this fast even with penetration.
The warmth of her hand wrapping softly around me, the rhythm of her perfectly calibrated grip moving up and down, even the things she murmured into my ear—
Every bit of it was proof of how well she understood me.
And the moment I started wanting more, Yerin gently pushed herself away from me with a small smile, walked over to the table, picked up a small handkerchief, and came back to me.
Then she knelt down, her face hovering just short of my still half-hard cock, and began diligently wiping me clean with the handkerchief.
As the mixture of her saliva and my cum was softly wiped away, her warm breath brushed against my hypersensitive tip, and a strand of her long hair fell across my thigh, tickling it.
The sight of her looking up at me from below was breathtakingly beautiful.
"I love you too, Yerin."
Yerin set the handkerchief aside, climbed back up to me, and brought her face so close our noses nearly touched.
Her silver hair spilled over my face, filling my nose with her distinctive sweet scent.
"I know. Our Hajun is a good boy, after all."
She smiled playfully and pressed a light kiss to my lips.
She never slept with me.
Four years as lovers—and not once.
Drawing the line was always her prerogative.
Pregnancy, no condoms, the Guild Master's position—the reasons changed every time.
At first I let it slide. We couldn't be certain pregnancy really was impossible in this world, and I understood Yerin being careful.
But it had been four years.
Four years, and not a single time.
It wasn't as if Yerin lacked desire, either. She sought me out constantly and used my body—my mouth—to relieve herself.
And every so often, it left me with a strange feeling.
The feeling that I wasn't holding her—she was handling me.
[You love it best when I do this to you, Hajun.]
Every time I heard those words, I nodded.
Because it felt good. It really did.
But sometimes the line blurred between nodding because it was true, and nodding because I had to.
Of course Yerin loved me. Every time we finished, she'd tenderly wipe me clean, whisper that she loved me, stroke my hair and call me a good boy.
Yes—that should be enough.
Wanting anything more in this rotten world was laughable anyway.
It was quite a while later that I finally left the office.
Afterward, Yerin went on handling the Verdict response and finishing the newcomer placements, while I helped with the rosters beside her.
By the time the work was done, the sun was already setting.
The pair assignments decided in the office had gone over to the administrative team, been sorted and posted, and only now did the long list of squad rosters hang far down the corridor.
Newcomers crowded in front of it, jostling to find their squad and team leader.
For the next three months, these were the squads they'd eat, sleep, and train with—five to a room, living like a single family.
I was no exception.
I'd be bunking with my four newcomers too, crammed into the same room for those three months.
Yerin had initially suggested we just sleep in her room since I didn't strictly have to, but I'd refused.
It was a fairness issue compared to the other squads... and I figured it would be physically exhausting.
I was walking along, lost in those thoughts, when I ran into someone at the corner of the corridor.
"...Teacher."
It was Lee Seoyun.