Lee Sungmin wasn’t exactly unfamiliar with the Red Light District.
Mercenaries and prostitutes were pretty much inseparable, and Lee Sungmin used to stop by the brothels every day when he was a low-ranking mercenary in his previous life. There was a prostitute whom he met quite frequently, and the amount of money he spent at the brothels back then was enough to buy him a mansion.
However, that was just his previous life. In his present life, Lee Sungmin had never been to a brothel, nor had he had any intimate relationships of the sort.
The initial scenery of the City of Endless Night was incomparable to it’s Red Light District. Frankly speaking, Lee Sungmin felt repulsed at the sight.
He didn’t know why Frau, an outstanding sorceress, would live in the Red Light District. Even if he didn’t want to go, Lee Sungmin moved toward the location of the building in his head.
“By the way, shouldn’t all the shops be closed at this time?”, the Crazy Heavenly Demon muttered.
He had a point, as the Red Light District was normally bustling with life in the later hours. But right now, it was early morning, so it didn’t make much sense.
Heoju, who heard the words, smiled.
[Ah, don’t you know this is the City of Endless Night? It’s been 400 years, but the place hasn’t changed much. It feels nostalgic to be back here.], Heoju spoke as he felt enamored by the sight before them.
The City of Endless Night would overwhelm most people just from the entrance as it was always night time in this city. The artificial night was illuminated dimly with the several lanterns glowing across the street. Under the long procession of lanterns hanging from a string, there were bars with their doors wide open with loud noise and rambling drunks.
There were several monsters, humans, and half monster-humans seen at the bar entrances or walking around seducing the opposite sex and adding flirtatious vibes to the Red Light District.
“Heek!”, Rubia let out a yip as she hid behind Lee Sungmin’s back. ( T/N : omg ultimate waifu rubia haha)
A Naga, a lower half of a snake, upper body of a woman, was flickering her tongue seductively at the group. In particular, she was trying to seduce Lee Sungmin.
Lee Sungmin looked around the rows of open bars. There were also human women, and there were women who looked like halflings and monsters.
“Hey, I’m over here. Hihihi…”, the naga flickered her forked tongue as she called out to Lee Sungmin to get his attention.
She had been purposefully trying to seduce and flirt with Lee Sungmin to grab his attention, but Lee Sungmin deliberately ignored her actions.
[Maybe the monsters think you’re a Banyo.], Heoju whispered to Lee Sungmin while he snickered.
‘Uh… is a Banyo a good thing to be?’, Lee Sungmin asked Heoju quietly.
Lee Sungmin recalled the several looks and gazes he had been receiving since entering the Red Light District. It wasn’t just the snake woman who tried to get Lee Sungmin’s attention. Several monsters had given blatant looks and advances at Lee Sungmin.
In fact, one of the rather impatient and impulsive of them came up to him and grabbed him by the wrist to get his attention.
‘What the hell is wrong with you?’, Lee Sungmin asked irritatedly at Heoju who was snickering at the dubious Lee Sungmin.
[Isn’t your face pretty?], Heoju said flatly to Lee Sungmin.
‘No, even if it was… this is still too much attention to receive!’, Lee Sungmin quipped at Heoju.
[That’s because you’re influenced by this old man’s powers. The raw amount of power you hold is second to none, and is heavily influenced by the old man’s yokai powers. So it is incredibly attractive for others! Hahaha!].
Heoju was chuckling but eventually he couldn’t keep quiet and snorted with laughter at Lee Sungmin’s dubiousness.
[The yokai power you inherited is bound to be attractive to those weaklings with pretty faces. They are struggling with their own maintenance of power and balance so you look like a fresh prey that anybody would want,], Heoju chortled.
‘Seriously !?’, Lee Sungmin asked with irritation as it seemed he was basically attracting gold diggers, not anybody genuinely attracted by his looks.
[Hey. I’m asking because I’m really curious, but are you a virgin?], Heoju suddenly stopped laughing and asked seriously.
The tone of his voice was serious, but the contents of the question were not serious at all. Thanks to this, Lee Sungmin had no choice but to stop talking to the annoying old yokai.
“Something like a dog…….”
Unconsciously, words popped out of Lee Sungmin’s voice. Then, Heoju burst into laughter again.
[It’s so strange. Aside from your mental age, your body is very lively. It’s been a while since this old man came to your body, but I’ve never seen this body solve it’s needs! Hahaha!]
‘We’re obviously stuck together, and you just want to have se-!’
[Bah! This can’t be tolerated at all! I mean, you’ve got a lot, of course . Never mind this old man. I won’t care what kind of girl you get mixed up with. Whatever you do, I’ll take care of it with my hands and pretend I don’t know.]
‘Shut up… !’, Lee Sungmin berated Heoju for taking over his body for a moment and making fun of his girth.
[Or, yes. Since you’re here, why don’t you do it once? A monster is different from a human being. Do you know how a Banyo is born? It’s when a man has intercouse with a monster but fails to hold it in and blows his load! HAHAHA!], Heoju bursted into laughter from his own obscene jokes.
Lee Sungmin ignored the rambling of the perverted old yokai.
—-
After a long walk through the noisy streets, Lee Sungmin stopped walking.
If the information that he obtained through Erebrisa was true, then Frau, Aladdur’s teacher, would be at the place he was currently standing in front of.
Lee Sungmin looked up at a building that didn’t look very special. It was an oriental-style building, no different from other nearby buildings surrounding it.
[Uh…… Mmm.], Heoju stopped his rambling and looked at the person in front of them.
At the entrance to the builfing, stood a fine looking girl with a thin veil. Although she looked too young, she must be older than Lee Sungmin because she was actually a monster.
“Are you a guest?”, the young lady asked Lee Sungmin.
The girl approached with a courteous and seductive gaze in her eyes. Before Lee Sungmin said anything, Heoju quickly said, [The color of the lantern is blue.]
‘What does that mean?’, Lee Sungmin asked.
[This is a polymorpher.]
The words made Lee Sungmin break out into a cold sweat that trickled down his neck. Lee Sungmin saw the girl approaching reflexively.
Lee Sungmin knew what ‘polymorpher’ really meant in this situation. The beautiful fair lady in front of them, was in fact, a man, not a woman.
[Crazy. What the hell is that sorcerer doing here leading people into such a trap in the open?], Heoju let out a sigh.
Heoju almost fell for the plot of the polymorpher and the sorcerer Frau who was condoning such a thing.
“……I’m not a guest. I’m here to see Frau.”.
Lee Sungmin said to the polymorpher and brushed the hands that were trying to grope his buttocks from the woman or man, he couldn’t tell.
The polymorpher’s eyes widened at the remark, and inspected the party once more as his eyes turned to Rubia.
“Who’s your escort then?”, the polymorpher asked Lee Sungmin as ‘she’ glanced at the Crazy Heavenly Demon and then back to Rubia.
“……escort?”
“Which one of them is the one warming your bed at night?”, the polymorpher grumbled in dissatisfaction.
‘She’ stuck out ‘her’ tongue as if ‘she’ was a little child spitting out something disgusting.
“The young boy, the old man. You have a good appetite, and you brought everything you like.”, the polymorpher spoke.
“……boy? Are you talking to me now?”, Rubia glared and spat out venomously as her gender was being assumed.
But before Rubia could try to say more, the polymorpher turned around.
“Follow me.”, ‘she’ said.
“Just what makes you think I’m a boy?!”, Rubia cried out as she felt her femininity attacked by the crass remarks.
The party followed the polymorpher who entered into the building. The first thing Lee Sungmin saw was the busy boys half-naked running errands.
Most of their gender were hard to identify between male or female, and most of them were topless. But, that alone didn’t make them look masculine. With thin makeup, long hair, and a skirt, it was hard to tell whether the males were females unless they outright stripped their lower halves.
[Such a taste!], Heoju spat in disgust clicking his tongue.
The workers suddenly stopped their errands and looked at Lee Sungmin’s party expressionlessly.
“The Master’s guests!”
The polymorpher who was leading the group shouted out at the workers staring at the party, making them give up their stares and run back quickly to do their work.
The polymorpher climbed the stairs close by. Lee Sungmin heard a lot of embarrassing noises like moaning and smacking sounds as he went up the stairs.
Rubia lowered her red face as she fumbled with her ears out of nervousness, and the Crazy Heavenly Demon coughed and pretended not to hear anything.
“My master is here.”, the polymorpher stopped on the third floor, the top floor of the building.
At the end of the hall was a well decorated door, and before it, the polymorpher suddenly looked around and took out ‘her’ cosmetics. Then ‘she’ patted some foundation on ‘her’ cheeks and put red lipstick on ‘her’ lips with great familiarity.
( T/N : Foundation is a powder cosmetic/makeup that people use as similar color to their skin but cover their face with it to make it appear smooth/ hides pimples, zits, scars etc.)
“Masterrr~”, the polymorpher called out as ‘she’ entered the room.
‘She’ tapped on the door with a light sound.
The Crazy Heavenly Demon and Rubia did not notice that the polymorpher was actually a man, but they already felt strange because of Lee Sungmin’s expression earlier.
After a moment, the door burst open.
The spacious room was a mess. The bed, which accounted for most of the room, was disheveled with bedding and pillows all over the place, and the floor was disordered with underwear, liquor bottles and leftovers of dishes.
“Oh, master. If your room is dirty, you should tell me in advance!”, the polymorpher said out loud.
“……what is it?”, a voice with a lingering feeling of sleep, spoke.
A woman laid on a spacious bed, raised herself. As if she knew no shame, the woman was naked with no clothes on. The woman saw the polymorpher, and brushed her purple hair lightly, and then turned her gaze over to Lee Sungmin.
“……what a strange fellow.”, Frau, the naked woman muttered.
She slowly raised herself off the bed. Her naked, pale-brown skin was so revealing that it turned the attention of all those who were in the room.
Frau laughed as if their reactions were pleasant. When Frau waved her hand lightly, a large robe lying on the floor wrapped Frau’s body.
“Are you human?”, Frau asked, directing her question at Lee Sungmin.
“I feel like you’re still human, but you don’t feel human. Half of you already is holding the power to……… No, I don’t know if it’s real or some magic trick. Who the hell are you? The law of causality is twisted around you, and the human vessel is half broken and the contents inside are leaking out.”, Frau muttered.
“……what?”, Lee Sungmin asked, his eyes widening a bit.
“What, you don’t even know what you are? You have a mutated eye, but you are not aware of your situation.”, Frau spoke, bursting into laughter.
Unknowingly, Lee Sungmin raised his hand and touched his left eye.
“I feel a variety of quirks in you. It’s not a yokai exactly, it’s the spirit of a yokai, and you have a mysterious fate that I don’t know of.”, Frau spoke to him, her gaze looking him up and down in interest.
“What are you talking about?”, Lee Sungmin asked.
“Fate.”, Frau grinned.
She sat cross-legged and picked up a pipe she had left on her bed.
“More than that. What the hell are you guys? I guess you didn’t come here to buy and eat some humans. I think you came to see me.”, Frau asked putting the pipe to her lips and inhaling a whiff of smoke.
“… … I was introduced by Aladdur.”, Lee Sungmin spoke in a low tone.
“What? Oh, -ahat!”, Frau’s eyes opened wide at Lee Sungmin’s answer.
Paht!
In an instant, the room’s temperature cooled down to a chilling degree, and white demonic spirits appeared around Frau. Frau, who was shrouded by the encircling spirits, shouted at Lee Sungmin in anger.
“Aladdur?! You came here with the introduction from that son of a bitch?!”
“……Um please wait a moment!”, Lee Sungmin noticed hostility in her words and tried to get Frau to listen.
The reaction was much more intense than he had expected. He had been warned in advance by Aladdur, but he never imagined that Frau would react so violently.
Frau, who wielded the demonic spirits around her, expressed an incredibly oppressive aura, more potent than anybody Lee Sungmin had met so far.
It was a queer feeling. It was a domineering feeling telling him that he should not fight at all, whether he would win or lose, it wouldn’t even matter. It’s not that he expected a total defeat if he fought. Just a feeling, that he shouldn’t fight at all.
[It’s quite spectacular…], Heoju mumbled as he admired the mastery of the demonic spirits from Frau.
[I’ve never seen such a brilliant ghost spirit before. If you fight, you’ll have to win if you want to live, but don’t try to fight. It’s tricky as shit. It could be a lifetime curse if you lose.], Heoju warned Lee Sungmin what would happen if he made the wrong move here.
Frau continued to shout at Lee Sungmin.
“Tell me where that son of a bitch Aladdur is right now!”
“…we separated from each other about a week ago.”, Lee Sungmin replied, as a trickle of cold sweat dripped down his forehead.
“Where did you separate from?! What a shitty disciple, sending a guest to meet his teacher without even saying a word, let alone coming here to see her!”, Frau shouted in displeasure.
When Lee Sungmin started to rouse up his internal energy as he felt the situation going south, the polymorpher who guided Lee Sungmin to Frau’s room earlier, suddenly reached out his hand and grabbed Lee Sungmin’s wrist.
“Don’t do anything.”, the polymorpher said in a firm but reassuring tone.
“My master sometimes gets a little rowdy like this. She’ll calm down if you give her about half an hour, so don’t make a move and just stay still.”, the polymorpher whispered to Lee Sungmin carefully.
“That fucking bitch!”
Frau’s cursing and yelling was completely in contrast to the polypmorpher’s serene and calm voice, which made Lee Sungmin a little confused and unsure.
Can he really just let it be like this?
He watched Frau cry out loud half-heartedly as her tantrum started to die down and she eventually regained her calm after a while.
“……hm.”, Frau mumbled to herself, narrowing her eyes.
The demonic spirits that had been seen earlier started to dissipate. Frau looked exhausted and eventually, flung herself back to her cozy bed to relax her body.
“……well, this isn’t the only way for a disciple to return. But it’s annoying and ugly to send someone else to do their job. What should I do, should I go find that boy myself?”, Frau grumbled, as she raised herself back up, letting a whiff of smoke out from her lips from the pipe.
“You were sent here by Aladdur? Okay. Do you have anything to ask me? Or did you come here wondering about your fate?”, Frau asked this time in a calmer tone, to Lee Sungmin.
“……will you answer my questions if I ask?”, Lee Sungmin asked in a wary voice.
“If it’s just about your destiny, I can answer it since it’s not that difficult. But, I’ll have to make sure exactly what it is, after I take a closer look at it.”
Taking in a deep inhale of the smoke, Frau laughed at Lee Sungmin as she exhaled a stream of smoke through her nostrils.
“I’m a very interesting character, boy. I’ll only do it if it’s something interesting for me.”, she continued.
“What is destiny exactly and its relationship with fate?”, Lee Sungmin asked
“It’s literally a force that acts on fate, distorting it, destiny goes against the very nature of fate itself.”, Frau answered immediately.
“If you are living in this world, inevitably everyone will get tangled up with this world’s fate and act accordingly to how the world’s fate flows. Everything that works with fate means the answers and future are already predetermined. That’s what fate does. However, destiny is something that goes against the nature of fate. It’s not something people should have in this world.
But, it’s interesting because it’s force is equivalent to fate itself and allows the person who has a destiny to carve their own path and go against the predetermined outcome. But, this can also mess with other’s fates as I said almost everybody in this world moves according to fate. Hence why people who wield destiny aren’t exactly welcome forces of nature.”, Frau said.
It was a very vague yet detailed explanation. It had a lot to be left unanswered but, also a lot to be taken in for information.
Frau pointed at Lee Sungmin with the pipe, and burst into laughter.
“Men who wield destiny are rare, but they do exist. All such men are destined to do something inevitable to destroy the strings of fate. But…I’ve never met a man who has such a strong and twisted destiny like you.”
“……what do you mean?‘, Lee Sungmin asked
“The lives you’ve been through. The relationships you’ve made. Your actions. It was all fate. But, even so I’m not entirely sure.”,
Maybe even now. Frau added so, putting her hand on her breasts.
“For you to meet Aladdur by chance, and to hear my story from Aladdur, for you to come here and meet me. It looks like a coincidence, but it may not be a coincidence. You’re twisting and intertwining fate and destiny to something incredibly weird”, she said with a twisted grin.