<663 – Irresponsible Pleasure (11)>
Sing sneaked in some male swordsmanship during the chaos, holding onto a glimmer of hope.
Suddenly, the nearby space twisted, and he sensed something rushing toward him at an incredibly fast speed while his own sword moved agonizingly slow.
Sing quickly realized that the origin point started expanding sharply beyond a certain range.
‘Time distortion. The spirit of time has appeared!’
From human transmutation to time distortion, Pasible Yep, the taboo mage who shamelessly broke every taboo, had left him with no energy to even curse anymore.
“No way, this can’t be happening!”
“To think you’d use the most notorious spirit and powers of the time realm among countless dimensions…?!”
“No, this is wrong. I need to run…”
But the soldiers trying to turn and escape were swept away by an attack that came crashing upon them.
The unexpected assailants were the pleasure slaves.
Even those pleasure slaves unleashing attacks from beyond the time distortion suddenly ceased their assaults in unison.
“…?”
Sing felt curious and stopped wielding his sword.
At that moment, the pleasure slaves burst into tears.
Had they collectively lost their minds?
Before he could process his surprise, an elderly man bowed his head before him.
The elder’s voice trembled with emotion.
“Ah, we’ve finally found a way to escape this cursed city!”
“O great benefactor of the Foundation, I beg you, bestow upon us the power of time! Allow us the freedom of the time before we became pleasure slaves!”
““Please grant us this freedom!!””
Only then did Sing realize what delusion they were trapped in.
They believed that the time distortion and the spirit of time were simply products of his minions and spirit contracts.
Letting the enemy’s misunderstanding slide was the best option.
Sing nonchalantly asked,
“You figured it out quite nicely. How did you know?”
“I felt freedom from the flow of time through your swordsmanship that transcends gender and your muscles. A being who can be both man and woman. One who can become an elder or a child if they desire, free from the finite constraints. You must be a contractor of the spirit of time!”
“…You noticed my masculine side?”
Unaware of the atmosphere, the pleasure slaves raised their arms wide and cried out in joyous exultation.
“If you are a great benefactor who can even allow time to shift between genders, surely you can break the soul-binding contract we have become ensnared in! Please save us!!”
At that moment, Sing’s mind accelerated.
What might happen if his identity as a man was discovered?
First of all, if Pasible Yep lost the body of a man, he might never wield male swordsmanship again and might just morph into a woman.
What would happen next?
With those male bits hanging low, it would be inclined to shift back to being a man. He might just convert his male features to female ones completely.
Wouldn’t that be beneficial?
As he almost nodded in agreement, Sing hesitated.
-Brother.
The child who followed him, suppressing her lonely feelings as she called for him.
His younger sister would no longer be able to call him brother.
It wasn’t just a change in title.
This was the loss of identity.
A matter of priority.
‘My revenge is for my younger sister. It is my mission as her brother to fulfill this.’
But why was he so easily willing to abandon his masculinity and wish to transform his body?
The warmth on his skin evaporated like a bucket of cold water was poured over him.
His previously free-flowing mana, instilled into the transformation, dissipated, causing his body, once shifting between male and female forms, to tilt back toward a masculine shape.
“Ohhh! The benefactor is displaying the powers of time that transcend physical limitations; it is a sign of mercy for us!”
The clueless pleasure slaves believed it was an act done for their sake and showered praises, but Sing was different.
He had realized something.
Gravity greater than the pleasure slaves’ devouring realm, some deep-seated dissonance he couldn’t pinpoint since when, had breached both his essence and flesh.
Parasitism beyond simple devouring.
A realm that altered its host in desired ways.
Sing lost the will for resistance and awareness in a cruel, effortlessly human-transforming parasitic domain.
It wasn’t a new experience, but it certainly felt like a new principle.
A force that invaded without allowing for battles or boundary measurements or conflicts of territory.
The Hyeolbiggaek had shown the next level he must reach.
Earthly Stage 4.
A sneak attack that wouldn’t allow for any observation was piercing into his soul, contaminating his mind and body.
-Oh? Have you realized? You are indeed the supreme material for a guardian. I can understand why the Dark Princess has cherished you. It’s hard to neglect such a gem.
“Why? I would’ve willingly collaborated with you without resorting to this nonsense. We could have become allies to achieve our respective goals.”
Sing’s gaze shifted to Pasible Yep, who stood at the battlefield’s edge.
“Yet you crossed the line. Tell me, why?”
Pasible Yep tilted his head slightly.
-Why, this is more economical, isn’t it?
“…What?”
Economical.
It was a profoundly insufficient excuse that was utterly incomprehensible to justify this entire situation.
-If we are going to cooperate anyway, what’s wrong with offering
“You’ve twisted my will without permission.”
-While spending the same time, I can eliminate the suspicions of other executives and establish a strong new guardian. The Dark Princess will also return stronger as her friend. It won’t harm you personally, will it?
Harm?
Given the presence of the transformation realm, dealing with the three pleasure slaves could be overwhelming for the original realm, surpassing the fishing boat Ikaris.
When discussing power enhancements, it leaned towards the strong.
But at what cost?
The reason he wielded the sword.
The memories of his younger sister combined with his thirst for revenge against the enemy.
All those emotions fell to the back burner.
Absent even the existence of Lin—he’d found himself wishing only to become a woman, drunk on the injected signals and pleasures.
[Original Point]
Pasible Yep had independently judged unnecessary memories to be uneconomical and thus transmuted Sing’s value however he saw fit.
As Sing’s sword aligned against the pleasure slaves, it redirected toward Pasible Yep.
The time spirit that had been in the path of his sword was severed, letting out a scream of confusion before escaping into the rift of time.
Sing’s body, attempting yet another transformation, had forgotten the shame of wearing female clothing and had already regained its masculine form.
“Oh! If we take down that man on the hill, will you bestow upon us the power of time?”
The pleasure slaves exuded murderous intent, akin to hunting dogs ready to charge.
“Sure.”
That one word sent the pleasure slaves into a frenzy, sealing their doom.
They brandished weapons towards each other and unleashed their domains.
From the massacre where friend or foe were indistinguishable, the last one to survive clutched his gaping abdomen, laughing hysterically.
“I did it.”
With that futile last words, life drained from the pleasure slave’s eyes, never to regain its spark again.
When alive, they deceived each other into fratricide, and their fallen corpses were meticulously revived by Pasible Yep, the frugal economist born of cold calculations.
-Haha! I regret that things have become troublesome, but you cannot be killed because of your relationship with Undead Queen Sadako and Dark Princess Oknodie. So let us have you experience the joy of growth once again.
Just as the taboo mage who had crushed an entire legion reached out to Sing, he hesitated.
He had clearly exerted power.
Yet the result of that exertion was nonexistent.
After confirming this several times, Pasible Yep finally comprehended.
-Did you just come to realize? Stage 4.
“…Yeah, everyone’s had quite an entertaining time, haven’t they?”
A person with high mana resistance does not get affected by magic.
Nevertheless, certain spells penetrate into others’ bodies and manifest.
People with high domain resistance find it tough for others’ domains to penetrate theirs.
Still, some realms can infiltrate and manifest within another’s domain.
The secret was simple.
To overcome the opponent’s resistance.
Or to not allow a chance for that resistance to manifest.
The former is the pathway of Stage 3, which involves shattering a domain with specialized properties.
The latter is the pathway of Stage 4, applying hits that cannot be resisted immediately to the ‘self,’ projecting the realm centered on ‘self’ into the external space, connecting with the opponent’s domain.
The principle was straightforward.
My will should be engraved in stone as the law of nature.
People breathe even when their domains are engaged.
Because their bodies need oxygen.
That’s the unchanging upper law.
You inscribe your own will into that upper law.
Even if you spread out your domain, you cannot let it spill out.
This is akin to the most elementary form of incantation magic.
Whether projecting the will through language.
Or projecting it as it is.
The only difference is the medium; the roles remain the same.
Human common sense. A country’s law. A dragon’s command.
And the will of the domain wielder.
Everyone possesses will.
The will of the domain wielder is special for one reason.
Because I poured my will into the depths without external discretion.
Specifically, it involves a functionality of 2000 points.
Bimodal.
Or possible approaches through insufficient poles might connect to bimodal in the moment from concurrent functionalities.
This was the condition for manifesting Stage 4.
Sing succeeded when he didn’t lose touch with himself as the Lonely Eastern Swordsman and executed the compounded functionality.
Pakan!
The upper law aimed at him was shattered.
-Oh! So it wasn’t a coincidence. You really were using Stage 4. Quite skillfully, too.
Pasible Yep felt in distress.
This wasn’t economic.
Choosing efficiency led to a rather inefficient battle.
Sing would resist.
It would likely be quite fierce.
He wouldn’t have enough leverage to just ‘nip it’ as a result.
There was a chance he could end up killing him.
If Sing were to die, it would trigger the wrath of the Dark Princess, and the wrath of the Dark Princess would invoke the Undead Queen’s fury.
What then?
It would lead to Pasible Yep’s own death or open the door to an eternity of suffering.
Humanity was really a nuisance.
Why couldn’t they think of economic efficiency?
How could he placate that enraged Sing?
After grappling with these dilemmas for a while, Sing asked him.
“How cruel. The trials of Oknodie are always tough. Even the hostage I rescued is just another examiner for me.”
-Um?
“If I collapse under the convenience of becoming a woman, I may join in revenge but end as nothing more than a comrade. The vow to repay each other’s vengeance as one’s own would become solely hers.”
-Hmmm…??
“Was the result of my trial satisfactory?”
Sing had reason to be confused.
Pasible Yep‘s trick had profited Sing, after all.
Even if he was deceived, he wasn’t harmed.
But that was where it ended.
He couldn’t gain greater power from a small gain.
Sing was all too familiar with the experience.
Those who wished to stay beside Oknodie faced a fate of failing to achieve their desires.
Thus, an unnatural silence continued for a while.
After the silence, Pasible Yep laughed out loud and responded.
-…That’s right! You managed to tap into the trials I presented and overcome them. Congratulations, Sing! With this, you have rooted down into the deep layers of the soul of [Original Point], and your soul won’t waver amidst any temptation.
“…Don’t you ever shake my soul again. There will be no next time.”
No matter how things unfolded, Sing had escaped the path of feminine depravity on his own terms.
His rock-solid mental fortitude and cherished will for his younger sister were astonishing, but Pasible Yep had no choice but to offer the female clothing he was keeping as a contingency.
-Then shall we change clothes now?
“This is what I have come to after all this…!”
-Precisely because of this, I am saying it. Look at your current state.
Sing’s gaze finally shifted to his own body.
Clothes tearing apart along his widely spread shoulders and developed muscles without undergoing any transformation into female form.
The thought of appearing before the meeting in such a near-naked state felt like a haunting echo in Sing’s ears, projecting a future where he might get stabbed.
-AAAAH!! A half-naked pervert!!
-What the heck are you wearing?!
-It’s women’s clothing!! This perverted half-naked gay who’s gone beyond cross-dressing and wearing ill-fitting clothes for his grotesque gay protest! For the peace of the world, just die already!!
“…”
Sing realized something undeniable, even though he had escaped the brainwash of feminine depravity by his strength. He had to shrink his body again and wear female clothing.
Because the pleasure slaves had long vanished without leaving a single piece of clothing behind as a payment for the deferred equivalent exchange.
If he were to appear before the meeting in a ridiculous outfit or completely naked, he wouldn’t have any justification—even if he did get stabbed.
“Which attire should I choose among the bikini maid, school girl, or underboob hamster doll outfit? Note that the area of exposure decreases with each successive option.”
“…I’ll take the underboob hamster doll outfit, please.”
Choosing once more to dress as a female through his own will, Sing felt a profound embarrassment.
Sing shuddered as he received the underboob hamster doll outfit.
To rationalize for himself, he thought,
Even Oknodie would be powerless in this situation.
What could be done against the Foundation executive?
At the same time, the thought arose without knowing that Oknodie was genuinely clashing with an executive.
