Practical Combat Right After the Tutorial Teaser (4)
...
I really did lift him up with murder on my mind.
If he’d said some goddamn bullshit like, “I’m not healed yet, so you have to do it once more to finish the treatment,” I was fully ready to kill him on the spot.
Maybe he was just good at reading the room.
Or maybe he was insanely lucky.
I had no idea which.
“You’d better know how lucky you are.”
If he’d come back as a human, I couldn’t kill him.
Even if I did kill him, it probably wouldn’t get out. Honestly, who would even care?
I care. I do.
This life had been kept alive at the cost of all that humiliation.
If I let him die here, then everything I’d gone through would have been a complete waste.
I’d used my own hand to touch some guy’s cock, and let the bastard shove irrumatio down my throat just to keep him alive...
If I was going to let him die, I should’ve done it from the start.
Endure it.
After taking a long, steadying breath, I set him down.
The moment he hit the ground, he dropped to his knees and bowed his head again.
“Thank you. Thank you so much!”
“...Enough. Get up.”
I hated arrogant bastards, but I hated groveling ones even more.
Once or twice was enough for thanks. After that, if he listened and behaved himself, that was fine—but I couldn’t stand people who kept trying to milk a single favor for all it was worth, or those who flattened themselves on the floor like worms.
“Yes, ma’am. Understood, ma’am.”
“Enough with the ‘ma’am.’ I’m not planning to talk to you privately, so call me Hunter.”
“Yes. Hunter.”
He was at least quick on the uptake. He got to his feet at once and nodded, correcting himself.
Well, that was good enough.
Wait.
Come to think of it, this idiot had been unconscious.
I hurriedly looked for something reflective so I could check my condition.
It’d be a pain if he got the wrong idea. If he realized I’d been sucking cock, he might start asking for more.
He didn’t seem stupid enough to mistake me for a pushover, but I couldn’t afford to look like some slut. It was disgusting.
My reflection in the metal wall was smeared with beast blood, so thankfully the dried traces of arousal on my pants and the semen I’d wiped off my face didn’t show.
By the end of that last irrumatio, I’d swallowed all the thick stuff myself, so I guess nothing had spilled out.
...Disgusting, but in the end, at least that was a relief.
“First, your identity. You’re one of the stragglers from that B-rank dismantling team that came in before us, right?”
“Ah. Yes. Twenty years old, D-class Hunter Kang Juhyuk.”
“I didn’t ask for your name. Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”
Twenty.
When I was twenty, I was crawling around on the floor like a cockroach too, just a D-class Hunter.
By luck... or maybe, looking back now, by bad luck? I’d managed to make a contract with that thing and become S-class...
Tsk. No, it wasn’t my problem.
Since I’d rescued the straggler too, even Yujeong, who’d scolded me for telling her not to look for survivors first, wouldn’t have anything to say now.
I’d saved a person and dismantled the gate this quickly. She might not fully believe I was Choi Eunho, but she’d at least have to admit I was usable as an S-class Hunter.
Anyway, I needed to get away from this guy as fast as possible and start thinking about how to get my own body back.
“You’re half beastified, but... well, I healed you somehow. You understand that much, I’m sure.”
“...Huh? Ah, ah! Yes. Right. I get it. Yes.”
“...What is it?”
Why was he so startled?
“No, it’s just—I’d only just come to my senses. I didn’t think I’d be healed. That’s all.”
“...I see. So that’s it.”
Something felt off.
I looked him over from the legs up to the line of his waist.
Come to think of it, I’d been practically out of my mind, so there was no way I could’ve put his pants back on.
...He’s wearing them properly again.
Maybe he’d noticed where my gaze had slipped, because he flinched a little.
It looks like it’s getting a little bigger...
He noticed, damn it...
He couldn’t not have noticed, could he? Shit.
“If you go around saying a word about this, I’ll kill you.”
“Yes. I know nothing!”
“Good. Use your head. Taking care of someone like you out there wouldn’t be hard at all.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I was supposed to keep using this body until I got my real one back, but if word got out that this body was a slut, idiots would start crawling all over me from every direction.
That would be the absolute worst-case scenario.
I’d have to muzzle this bastard, at least.
Ha... what a hassle.
“You said your name was Kang Juhyuk.”
“Yes.”
“When we get out, give me your contact information.”
“Yes, but—huh?”
“Don’t get any weird ideas. If strange rumors start spreading about me, I’ll know it was you talking, and I’ll track you down and kill you. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
After one more warning, I stood up.
There was nothing else for me here. I needed to wrap this up fast and get back.
“Stay still here for now.”
“What about you, Hunter?”
“I’m going to dismantle the gate. I’d like to give you a signal device and tell you to find your own way back, but the one we brought got handed over to your people already. I don’t have another one.”
“Could I... go with you?”
“Absolutely not—”
Huh?
That was pitiful.
Was I going to leave him behind?
Again?
I’d been about to say no, absolutely not.
But this motherfucker suddenly clapped a hand over my mouth.
Hey. What the hell are you doing?
What, you want me to take you with me? Him?
What the hell am I supposed to use him for?
No, but still.
He’d been abandoned, then barely rescued—and now I was going to abandon him again?
That was kind of...
Pathetic.
He was also the first man I’d ever sucked off.
Damn it. Don’t put weird meaning into that!
Slut, you don’t exactly discriminate between partners anyway!
...Yeah.
Anyway, all children born from me would be daughters of my blood, so what did the other side’s genes matter?
That kind of thing mattered only to ordinary creatures that cared about whose genes they were carrying, right?
The daughters of the Mother should be fine with anyone, so long as they could take in seed...
...Am I insane?
“Going together wouldn’t be bad, but...”
Wait.
Don’t just answer however you want while spouting insane bullshit.
If I took this guy with me, I couldn’t just run straight for the core of the gate.
There’d be massive beasts in the upper levels, and I’d have to ignore all of them on the way to the castle.
There was no way he could run away.
If I went alone, I could dismantle the gate in less than six hours.
But if I dragged him along, it could take forty hours!
“Could I, like, be used by you once in a while?”
“Huh? N-Nuna?”
Hey.
Hey... damn it, I told you to shut up!
Stop flicking your tongue around in my body and leaning your face toward that bastard’s cock!
Before the bastard could spout any more nonsense, I slapped my own cheek with my hand.
Only then did the instinctive thing finally jolt and sink back beneath the surface of my mind.
At last, my tongue came back under my control.
“Fuck, fuck.”
Anyway.
Don’t leave me behind here.
If you say that one more time, I’m going to fuck him right here ♡
Damn it...
“N-Nuna.”
“I told you to call me Hunter, you asshole.”
“Yes, yes. Hunter.”
“Ha... shit. This is really fucking annoying.”
.
“If you’re coming with me, then listen carefully. Don’t talk back to me. Just do what I say. Understand?”
“Yes, Hunter.”
After leaving the building, the woman kept walking at a relentless pace, hurling curses under her breath as she went, never once looking at Kang Juhyuk when she spoke.
All Kang Juhyuk could do was nod and answer that he understood.
The woman moved with astounding speed. Even while running, Kang Juhyuk struggled to keep up.
Every time she glanced back, she would kick the ground in obvious irritation, then squat down and wait for him to catch up.
If she’d been on her own, she would have reached the upper levels long ago, but Kang Juhyuk, who was only a little stronger than an ordinary person, had his limits.
After telling him to do nothing but follow instructions on the way, she didn’t speak to him again.
It made sense. She had no intention of talking to him privately.
The attitude she’d shown from the start had clearly been her real one.
In other words, she’d never intended to take Kang Juhyuk with her in the first place.
It wasn’t by her own will that she’d ended up bringing him along.
Not by her will.
[Could I, like, be used by you once in a while?]
...Gulp.
Damn. I got hard.
That sharp face, that deeply furrowed expression. Always looking angry.
The moment he opened his mouth, it was all curses.
And then, all of a sudden, that face loosened into a playful smile like a puppy’s as he spoke to her.
The words he’d said with that expression were filthy, lowbrow sex talk, but...
Split personality? Or maybe... a curse?
Could it be some kind of mark?
I’d heard stories like that before. A succubus curse, or something along those lines.
The way he acted did make me think of that... but I didn’t know enough about marks to be certain.
Honestly, anyone would be scared in front of someone whose behavior changed that abruptly.
Human beings were such hypocrites.
Just because she was pretty.
Just because her body was absurdly hot.
Just because she’d sucked his cock.
...Just because she was his lifesaver, he was already growing attached.
No, wait. If she saved his life, shouldn’t that just be normal?
Even as his heart pounded, Kang Juhyuk couldn’t make sense of the confusion knotting inside him.
It wasn’t as if this was some person he’d only just met today, someone he should be obsessing over like this.
He was simply curious.
More precisely, he was intensely curious about that woman.
He wanted to know her.
What kind of person was she?
What kind of life had she lived?
What was she like now, to be acting this way?
Did she need any help?
Could he help her?
What was her name?
Was there someone waiting for her?
Maybe she really was top-tier A-class... or even an S-class Hunter.
Someone like a bottom-rung D-class Hunter wouldn’t even register for her, would he?
Kang Juhyuk imagined that woman lying beside him, whispering love into his ear.
A top-level Hunter who was usually so fierce, so closed off to everyone, so aggressive in the way she fought.
But at the side of the person she loved, she’d smile playfully and offer him her body without hesitation.
Out in public, she’d bark curses at everyone who came near and pick fights like a madwoman, but—
When she came home, she’d laugh shyly, lean into his arms, and press that huge chest against him.
That was just the way men were made.
Man, what a disappointment. I don’t even know her name, so what am I fantasizing about?
Kang Juhyuk tried hurriedly to rein in his wild imaginings.
Fortunately, that much he could do without much trouble.
—Grrrrrrr...
The growl of beasts.
Huge monsters, at least four meters tall and far stronger than anything in the lower levels, charged straight at the woman.
CRACK, THUD-!!
The sound of a flying fist being launched.
Rather than retreat, the woman grinned, charged toward them with confidence, and threw her own punch.
RUMBLE-!!
The head of the giant beast flew off, and its massive body collapsed to the ground.
Wherever her fist passed, hide tore open, muscle shattered, and bones were crushed to powder.
Blood scattered through the air like mist.
The monsters died without even managing a scream.
“Ha... haha.”
They were on completely different levels.
Seeing a beast that had clearly been misclassified on the gate’s danger scale—something a B-class Hunter could only barely stand against—
and watching her tear through several of them with a single punch made it impossible not to understand.
They lived in different worlds.