Blood, Saliva, and the Black Cat
"Darling..."
Sehee's low, icy voice sliced through the night air.
"That was the men's restroom... What the hell were you doing in there?"
Beyond the closed door behind me, a two-meter-tall hunk of a man was holding his breath. In front of me, my ex-girlfriend was coldly interrogating me while scanning my sweat-drenched body from head to toe. Under the streetlight, Sehee's eyes gleamed with suspicion and obsession as she looked up at me, like a predator eyeing its prey.
Kyaaaang-!! Beep-beep-beep-!!!!
Inside my head, the fox guardian spirit was screaming bloody murder, thrashing around like it was about to die. If I slipped up now, Sehee would fling open that restroom door and lock eyes with Taeseok. It would be an irreversible bloodbath of a love triangle.
'Think. I need an excuse...!'
Just as I was sweating bullets and my lips were twitching, it happened.
Vwoooom-!!!
A spine-chilling wave of energy tore through the entire park, cutting through the guardian spirit's screams.
'W-what?!'
It was the same life-or-death instinct I'd honed during my days as a top-ranked hunter. My body screamed warnings. From the dense darkness near the men's restroom, deep within the thick boxwood bushes, an absurd amount of mana was condensing on a massive scale.
My current body was nothing but a paper-thin Guppy with stats at 1, but my reflexes were still those of my prime.
"Sehee, move!!"
I shoved her aside roughly and thrust my hand toward the bushes.
'This much mana means a monster. At least A-rank or higher...!'
No time to hesitate. I opened the skill window in midair and squeezed every last drop of mana from my fragile body, unleashing my attack skill at full power.
BOOOOOOM-!!!!!
A blue shockwave erupted from my fingertips, ripping through the air and slamming into the boxwood bushes. Dirt exploded upward with a deafening roar. Branches snapped and flew in every direction.
'Haa, haa... Did I hit it?!'
Panting heavily, I glared at the settling dust. Something was writhing inside the destroyed bushes. The source of that massive mana was about to emerge...
"Meow~."
"......Huh?"
What crawled out of the dust wasn't a monster.
A small black stray cat with pitch-black fur stretched lazily, its tail flicking as if annoyed by the noise.
'Ah... It was just a cat...?'
The moment that fleeting relief crossed my mind—
Crack, crunch-!
"Kuhk...!"
A sickening tearing sound erupted from my stomach. The backlash from forcing my prime-era full-power skill through a body with stats of 1 was catastrophic. My insides felt like they were being blended.
"Kuhk-! Ugh, gah...!"
My vision flashed red. Burning pain surged up my throat as a torrent of blood burst from my mouth. Crimson streams ran down my chin and soaked the chest of my silk dress, already drenched in sweat.
"D-Darling...?! Darling!!!!"
Just as my legs gave out and I started to collapse, a pale-faced Sehee lunged forward and caught me, wrapping her arms tightly around my waist.
"Haa... haa..."
My vision blurred. All I could hear was Sehee's frantic breathing. But her embrace felt strange. One hand crushed my slender waist to support me while the other gently cupped my pale cheek.
Sehee's gleaming eyes locked onto my blood-smeared lips.
Then—
"Lick-."
"......?!"
A soft, hot tongue touched the corner of my mouth. Sehee's red tongue slowly and deliberately licked up the metallic blood trailing down my jaw.
Her movements were sticky, obsessive, like she was savoring some rare honey.
In that instant, my fading consciousness snapped back into focus. A chill ran down my spine.
The blood on my lips wasn't just mine.
It was mixed with the thick saliva Taeseok had left behind when we'd been tangled together like animals in that restroom stall just moments ago.
"Slurp... chuup..."
Sehee swallowed the horrifying, taboo mixture of my blood, Taeseok's spit, and my own fluids with an ecstatic expression, completely unaware.
"Aah... Your blood... tastes sweet..."
Scorching heat radiated from the hand cupping my cheek. My ex-girlfriend was licking up traces of the man I'd just rolled around with, her face flushed. The grotesque, perverse thrill burned through my fragile 1-stat body far more intensely than the skill backlash.
'S-shit...!'
This was a pattern I knew all too well.
It meant I was completely screwed.
The overwhelming stimulation and taboo of the situation was too much for my hypersensitive female body. Heat flooded my face.
Drip-.
A warm trickle ran from my nose. It wasn't from internal injuries. It was a shameful nosebleed triggered purely by the extreme perversion of the moment.
"Huk, darling! Your nose is bleeding too...!"
Sehee, oblivious to the truth, panicked and leaned in closer, carefully licking the fresh blood from under my nose with her soft tongue.
The ticklish, wet sensation nearly drove me insane.
"Darling... You don't even know the limits of your new body yet... You pushed yourself way too hard today..."
After tenderly cleaning my nosebleed, Sehee whispered in a heartbreakingly affectionate voice. She genuinely believed I'd vomited blood just to protect her. It was a perfect, heartbreaking misunderstanding.
While screaming internally, I forced my voice into the heavy, reassuring tone from my ranker days.
"Haa... It's frustrating that my body can't keep up... but I'm getting used to it."
At my cocky reply, transparent tears welled up in Sehee's large eyes. Just as those sorrowful tears began to fall under the moonlight, my bloodless hand slowly rose. My trembling fingertips gently touched her wet cheek.
Her tears were burning hot. That desperate warmth traveled through my blood-stained fingers straight to my fragile heart.
"Don't cry."
I swallowed the metallic taste rising in my throat and forced the gentle smile I'd once used to reassure her in my prime.
"We went to all this trouble to dress you up nicely... Crying will ruin that pretty face."
"Hic... Darling..."
"If you keep sobbing in my arms like that, all this effort to protect you will have been for nothing. Stop."
Sehee's shoulders trembled violently at my hoarse voice. Instead of pulling away, she pressed her burning cheek deeper into my cold palm and cried like a child. Her wet eyes were filled with nothing but desperate worry and blind affection for me.
For a moment, something in my chest twisted painfully.
She was crying this sincerely for me—the same person who'd just been rolling around like an animal with a two-meter-tall man in a toilet stall. The pathetic guilt and the intense taboo of the situation mixed together, scraping down my spine.
"Hnn... hic..."
"I'm fine, really."
While accepting Sehee's loving gaze, I patted her back.
Right then, a loud notification rang in my mind as the suppressed messages from the constellations poured down like a waterfall.
The gods' blunt, vulgar mockery made my face burn.
But I ignored the noisy chat window and began thinking coldly and carefully.
My thoughts branched in two directions.
One was about the two-meter-tall puppy Taeseok, who was probably trembling inside the locked restroom stall right now, terrified by the explosion and the sound of me vomiting blood.
And the other...
My gaze sharpened toward the boxwood bushes beyond Sehee's shoulder, where the dust had settled.
Even though my body was currently weak with stats of 1, what I'd just unleashed was the full-power skill from my prime as the Rank 1 hunter. Yet that black cat had dodged the devastating attack without a single scratch and casually disappeared while stretching.
'Just what... is that thing's true identity?'
A cool night breeze brushed against my cheek, sticky with cold sweat and blood.