In this pitch-black space, we crouched side by side, barely a fist’s width apart. Thick black tar seeped around us wherever we looked, creating a disorienting realm where up and down seemed indistinguishable.Even breathing didn’t feel real. I felt like I was dissolving, bit by bit, so it was no wonder.
This black stuff was designed to break down tightly bound information and absorb it. It felt as if my defenses were constantly being chipped away, and I was taking DOT(damage over time).
I had a universal defense in place by layering useless information over my skin. But, what was Pink-Haired Lesbian’s situation?
As a senior of being consumed by this space longer than I had, Pink-Haired Lesbian was like over-fermented kimchi—her data had softened and degraded. When I first saw her, she could barely hold a form and didn’t even have two legs.
So I’d at least reconstructed her appearance. I gathered her data to form legs and optimized it a bit.
In reality, manipulating someone else’s data would have been nearly impossible. But here, in this mental world, with Pink-Haired Lesbian’s data already so degraded, it was doable.
At this point, I could probably even force a TS transformation on her.
Lost in such pointless thoughts, Pink-Haired Lesbian suddenly scoffed.
“Why did you come to save me? Like an idiot?”
“⋯⋯If I came to rescue you, the least you could do is thank me instead of calling me an idiot.”“It would’ve been impressive if you had actually saved me, but you got caught trying. Plus, showing me every embarrassing side of you⋯⋯ you know, until now, I’ve never really known what love was—”
“If you say that one more time, I’ll hit you with a confession attack-!!”
I rolled around and fired a few warning shots, clearly triggered.
I knew. Reacting so strongly would only encourage the teaser. Ideally, ignoring and brushing it off without showing any interest was the only real defense.
But that line in particular⋯⋯ the embarrassment was unbearable. What was I even thinking?
Fortunately, my threat of a confession attack made Pink-Haired Lesbian take a breath and avert her gaze. We were in a momentary ceasefire.
On any other day, she would’ve probably scoffed at something as silly as a confession threat. But right now, it was doing its job as a potent anti-Pink-Haired Lesbian weapon.
Because we were connected.
The emotion Queen had stolen from Pink-Haired Lesbian was still affecting its original owner. She was in a state of loving me. And so was I.
The thought filled me with unexpected joy. The moment I met her gaze, I felt the emotions connecting us like an invisible thread. As my heart pounded, a surge of excitement rose within me──
This can’t be happening.
Slap slap. I slapped my face, trying to silence the inner romantic poet desperate to escape.
Pink-Haired Lesbian chuckled at the sight.
“You look like you’re about to write me a poem, Mr. Crazy Wizard. Or maybe a long love letter.”
“Shit, stop teasing me!”
“But⋯⋯ Mr. ‘Mima’? In this situation, shouldn’t you be asking me to tease you?”
What are you even saying?
I glanced up at her, squirming in embarrassment after her sudden “Mima” attack, only to find myself caught with that expression. How to describe it? Like a pink volcano, bubbling just beneath the surface.
Her expression was wrapped in playfulness, barely contained by her own restraint. Her face was definitely turned on. She groaned.
“I’m a succubus, dazed by you, trapped in a room with no escape until we melt away, waiting for death.”
And, as is often the case with most beings, they tend to experience a surge in primal breeding instincts right before death. I thought for a moment that there might be some benefit to doing it before I died.
Then, reality hit me coldly: wasting time on something like that might actually get us killed here. I gave in at once.
“Please tease me, Miss Pink-Haired Lesbian.”
“Good boy. Keep up the good attitude and⋯⋯ do you have a plan?”
“I think we just need to hold out a little longer. You see this black tar? I might be able to hack it and turn it against itself. These things are designed to consume information, right? So, if I feed it the right data, I could possibly make it form a magic circle or something⋯⋯.”
Driiiip, splat!
“Pffap.”
A large glob of sticky black goo plopped right onto my head.
Refilled with pitch-black tar, even though I hadn’t exactly ordered one, and it was a version that seemed to have patched the very vulnerability I’d just mentioned—as if the Queen had heard every word. I glanced up with a bitter expression on my face.
Queen, you sneaky bastard, you were listening, weren’t you?
“We’re inside the Queen’s stomach. She can probably detect it when her prey starts muttering about plans to escape.”
“Well then, we⋯⋯ can’t even have a strategy meeting here? Hey, if that bitch is watching us, maybe we should just go for a deep, passionate kiss.”
“Pardon?”
Pink-Haired Lesbian looked at me with a confused face..
It wasn’t a look that screamed, ‘Are you insane?’ or even a firm ‘No.’ Rather it was more a look of, ‘You realize you’re risking your life with this, right?’ with a pure face of worry.
But there was something I needed to find out.
When Queen blindsided me earlier, I had caught a glimpse of sadness and pain in her eyes. Wasn’t that strange?
An entire line of thought branched off from that clue── I forced myself to stop. No thinking, no voicing it. We were in the Queen’s stomach, where she’d know if anything slipped out.
I spat out without letting myself think.
“What would it be like for one succubus to watch another having a meal.”
“They’d probably think, ‘Looks delicious⋯⋯ or something?’”
“Exactly. And up until a moment ago, Queen was enjoying a pseudo-romantic play with me. I’ll stir up her appetite and⋯⋯ tempt her to go out for a midnight snack. That should create an opening.”
“Just admit you want a kiss before you die, Mr. Crazy Wizard. Don’t bother with this kind of nonsense.”
I put on my best impression as the Crazy Wizard, desperate and grabbing at any possibility for survival. It was like frantically scratching at wallpaper in an escape room, just ‘throwing anything’ to find a hint.
Did she get it?
Would she be able to tell⋯⋯ that I wasn’t acting out of recklessness? That I was stubbornly pursuing something that I needed to confirm?
“Let me know if you can’t breathe.”
“What are you talking about?”
Pink-Haired Lesbian held my shoulders firmly like a hawk. Her grip was so strong that it hurt a little. Her face was inches away.
You figured it out, right⋯⋯?
She was so close I could feel her breath mixing with mine. My heart hammered like like crazy. Maybe I should have thought of a different approach. But this seemed the best way to find out.
“W-wait, stop⋯⋯ umph!”
.
So.
The sword technique was composed of two primary movements: slashing and thrusting. The way these actions were combined and developed was what set apart techniques like the Three Powers Sword from Namgung Zhao’s Boundless Firmament Sword Technique
Atoms that formed all matter relied on precise combinations of protons, neutrons, and electrons to alter their nature. Just like that, all skills originated from basic techniques.
Who would’ve thought that something as simple as the trio of bite, suck, and lick could bloom into something so intricate?
What had started as a hesitant flutter, like the wings of a butterfly, evolved into a full-blown storm as I grew used to it.
Turns out, the practice she mentioned—tying knots with cherry stems—hadn’t been for nothing after all. Good for her.
And this girl? She never closed her eyes while kissing. Each time I peeked, hers were still open.
She gazed at me like a wildcat, as if daring me not to retreat. I was frozen, like a rabbit staring into Medusa’s eyes⋯⋯.
For the sake of my dignity, let’s end the details here.
What felt like an hour-long kiss was, in reality, only five minutes, and was interrupted with a splash of tar from the jealous Queen. Yes, jealousy. That was clear. This was exactly what I wanted to confirm.
Queen still had Yuri’s feelings of affection.
I had just won a critical piece toward victory, but at the same time⋯⋯ I had also lost something akin to my virginity. I felt completely drained.
===============================================================
Drenched in black tar, Pink-Haired Lesbian dabbed her saliva-stained lips with her sleeve, then looked at me with a bright-eyed, mischievous gaze.
“Thank you for the meal. The ‘rain’ in the middle interrupted my feast, but⋯⋯ it seems the main course is ready, so may I continue?”
“⋯⋯Hey! You can’t just toy with people like that! Go away, you pervert!”
“You did ask for it yourself. So, how was it? Did you enjoy it?”
“You’re not supposed to ask that without any sense of mood!”
Watching me back away, disheveled, she came to her own conclusion.
“Seems like you enjoyed it. Got it. I’ll do it again once we get out of here.”
“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”
I couldn’t deny it. Nor did I want to.
“I’d love to take things to the next level, but it’s about time.”
“Time for what?”
“This stomach. Besides the black tar, it has another digestive system—it calls forth nightmares from the past.”
Her playful mood vanished completely. Nightmares, huh?
When fresh prey full of energy entered the stomach, it required a more aggressive “digestion” than slow dissolution. As I watched Pink-Haired Lesbian prepare for battle, I forced my sluggish, creaky body to stand.
Ever since that 『Key』 struck me, my condition had been deteriorating.
It felt as though my stats had dropped to a quarter of their usual levels. I was lucky to have survived even one surprise attack, but the bitter aftertaste still lingered.
Bubble bubble bubble.
Bubbles rose and swelled in the pitch-black tar, and shadowy figures began to emerge.
Old men, children, a young man holding a rake—they looked like villagers from a rural, mountain town, based on their clothing and tools.
Pink-Haired Lesbian gave a bittersweet smile as she introduced the dark shadows.
“They’re people from my hometown.”
“⋯⋯Hometown, then.”
The place erased by the Queen.
“Yes. The succubi who opposed Queen were often forced into the human world, far from her domain. My mother told me they had to wander a lot at first.”
Even if a group of succubi declared, ‘We want to live peacefully among you,’ they wouldn’t have been welcomed so easily. And even if they were accepted, it wouldn’t have been out of pure goodwill.
Eventually, they found a quiet village.
“It was a small, nameless village. It was a place where we had to be self-sufficient for food and survival, tucked away high in the mountains, where visitors were a rare sight.”
Initially, the villagers were wary of the succubi, and the succubi, in turn, struggled to trust humans due to long persecution.
But then, one of the succubi fell in love at first sight with the village chief’s son, and somehow, they all found a way to live together.
“Was it⋯⋯ Romeo and Juliet? It was just like that. But unlike that tragedy, our story had a different ending. Thanks to their overwhelming love, humans and succubi ended up living together.”
Surprisingly, it actually went well. The succubi stopped seeing humans as mere prey, and the humans no longer saw the succubi as monsters.
“I still remember that place. The man who gave me an apple when I was a child, the friends I played with. In those memories, I was accepted.”
At least⋯⋯ until the Queen arrived.
Gegegek. Splunch. Splunch.
The ominous sounds pulled her out of her reminiscence and back to harsh reality. Figures resembling villagers shuffled toward us, their bodies pitch-black.
They weren’t exactly intent on killing, but they were hostile. Queen had reanimated these figures from Pink-Haired Lesbian’s memories, turning them into puppet soldiers—a kind of informational necromancy.
Pink-Haired Lesbian, hardened by having faced this horror countless times, showed little emotion as she destroyed the figures of her hometown villagers by swinging her fist.
“Hmm, it was popular to play hide-the-branches back then. Nicole, Elliot, Senia—they especially always played together.”
She kicked away what looked like a child no older than ten, obliterating it. Its head separated with a splat.
“That man ran the forge, though he wasn’t very good at sharpening blades. He was insulted by people a lot.”
A bearded middle-aged figure swung a rusty sickle. Pink-Haired Lesbian dodged and destroyed it.
“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”
She pretended to be fine, but that would be impossible. Being forced to kill shadows of her family, friends, and neighbors over and over⋯⋯ it had to be excruciating.
She probably hesitated the first few times.
While I’d been up there, fixated on young Yuri, Pink-Haired Lesbian had been down here, engulfed in darkness, fighting endlessly against her own revived memories.
It was necessary to fight and get rid of them. After all, information shaped in their likeness was attacking us.
However, watching Pink-Haired Lesbian handle this alone felt⋯⋯ far too cruel. I clapped my hands as I stepped forward.
“Step aside.”
“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”
“I’ll take over from here. Leave these invaders to the genius wizard, and take a break for a moment.”
“You don’t look in a good condition. Are you sure I can trust you with this?”
Of course. Who does she think I am? I threw myself into battle without hesitation.
===============================================================
“Huff⋯⋯.”
I barely managed to destroy the last Shadow Human. I almost fucking died⋯⋯!
The drop in my stats was worse than expected. To make things worse, this place put me at a huge disadvantage—there just weren’t enough resources for me to tap into.
Casting magic by using my own data would speed up my digestion, which was a loss I couldn’t afford.
Trying to cast magic with the black tar would only make the Queen patch the bug, which would be another loss.
So this was what I got for trying to avoid losses. A prolonged, hand-to-hand battle against the villagers, fighting them only with martial arts.
Of course, a wizard trying to fight like a warrior was a near-suicidal approach. I muttered, gasping for breath.
“I should, I should have exercised⋯⋯ regularly⋯⋯.”
“I’ll help you with a full-body workout once we’re out of here. In bed.”
“At the training grounds, please. At the training grounds⋯⋯.”
Pink-Haired Lesbian placed her hand gently on my head. It felt like a silent message, as if to say I’d done enough, and she appreciated the effort, but there was no need for more.
“⋯⋯No, it was easy. I’ll keep handling the villagers.”
“Men always act tough in front of women they like. Is this supposed to be the power of love or something?”
“Yeah. I’d rather go through the trouble than see you in pain.”
Puck. Pink-Haired Lesbian gave me a light smack on the back. It seemed like my counterattack worked.
“Now’s not the time to show off. The next wave is coming.”
“No, I can take three⋯⋯ no, two⋯⋯ well, I can handle this wave at least.”
“They’re not villagers, Mr. Crazy Wizard. More than one person has been digested in this『Stomach』”
“⋯⋯⋯⋯.”
Right. If it pulled out villagers from Pink-Haired Lesbian’s memories, then it would eventually use my data to create the next enemy.
Bubble bubble bubble.
The bubbles grew larger and larger until they burst.
A pitch-black, super-awakened, dual-wielding swordsman Bennett at the Metamorphosis level showed himself.
“⋯⋯Why, is that thing holding two swords?”
“Uh. I thought it’d be useful in a session, so I played around with Bennet’s data a little and⋯⋯ customized him to be a version with about ten more years of training.”
Pink-Haired Lesbian raised her voice, veins standing out on her neck.
“Why did you bring that data with you to rescue me?!”
“I was going to fold it up and use it as a magic bullet! Hey, the knives are coming—first attack’s a barrage pattern, duck!!”
My own karma started throwing knives at me.