Her nose and the breath escaping from her lips touching my neck were filled with emotions that felt ready to explode.
Thump-thump-thump-thump—
The heartbeat and body temperature resonating through me were rising beyond limits, and something round and glowing began to trickle from her eyes, sliding down her cheeks.
I had heard that some women cry when their emotions run high; I wondered if she was one of them.
For a skeleton like me to harbor such feelings was incredibly strange and baffling, but for now, I didn’t care.
With her lips tightly pursed, she slowly opened her tightly shut eyes and struggled to speak.
“P-please… stop…”
I vividly felt how powerful her command was yesterday.
But right now, there was no force behind her request to stop. In fact, I had an instinct that if I didn’t stop here, something else was bound to happen.
I brought my face closer to her neck, where she was crying for her life, inhaling her scent. The intensity of her body fragrance was distinctly different from the one I felt as a skeleton, stimulating my brain profoundly.
‘Sweet… such a nice scent.’
Lost in her fragrance, I leaned in closer, unintentionally brushing my lips against the skin just below her ear.
Startled!
Jerk!
Caught off guard by the unexpected skinship, she jolted and began to resist actively. Arms, body, head—she was struggling to distance herself from me.
The tears that dripped earlier now flowed down in a steady stream to the floor.
Surely… suddenly finding herself in such a situation must make someone inexperienced like her want to escape. I hadn’t intended for this to happen, but it wasn’t my fault; Yeon-hee was just too attractive.
‘Sigh… should I tone it down a bit… Can’t give her a sense of rejection this early.’
As the distance between us began to increase, it actually brought our gazes back to a perfect distance where they could meet.
“Wahh… it’s too much…”
‘… What is?’
I genuinely didn’t get it.
“On the… first day… something like this…”
She couldn’t get out the rest of her sentence, just sniffing. With that expression, if she kept on choking up, I’d seriously want to go further, but it seemed like she didn’t know a thing about a guy’s mentality.
I gently combed through her messy bangs while stealing a glance at her damp eyes.
Then, looking up at me, she struggled to part her trembling lips.
“… You… right now…”
“??”
“Don’t… ever… show this to anyone else… I’m serious! It’s a command…”
“……”
“Why aren’t you answering? Answer me! In front of others—”
How cute of her to command me while completely trapped and helpless.
Plop—
Trying to maintain a firm expression despite crying her eyes out, Yeon-hee was so adorable that I couldn’t help but plant a kiss on her forehead.
“――!!”
Her startled expression reminded me of a bunny. It was dangerously cute.
Her face, which seemed unable to turn redder, flushed bright red like a ripe tomato, and as she flailed her arms, she unexpectedly chanted a spell.
“L-Lizard!!”
“What??”
Bam!
‘Huh?’
Yeon-hee summoned three lizards simultaneously between us. Simultaneously summoned three? Did she suddenly awaken or something? But that wasn’t the issue right now.
The summoned Lizard 1, 2, and 3 stared at me blankly, blowing their noses. Their bulky figures completely obscured Yeon-hee from my view.
‘Oh… So it can be applied this way.’
Ultimately, the summoning increased the distance between us, and Yeon-hee dashed back into her room and slammed the door shut.
Bang—
‘If you keep doing that… we’re going to get complaints.’
Scratching the back of my head, I realized there wasn’t much time left for my disguise.
Yeon-hee had burrowed back under the blanket, twisting and turning. Her breathing was still heavy, and occasionally she would pull at her hair, mumbling things like “I don’t know” or “What to do.” It seemed like she would be like that for a while.
‘Slowly… I need to guide her without causing rejection…’
Thinking this, I shifted my mindset.
‘Can I just step out for a bit? With the Lizard Squad around.’
(Understood. Master.)
(Okay, I’ll be counting on you.)
The three Lizardmen that were suddenly summoned bowed their heads to me before, as always, squabbling in their own language in a corner.
I visualized a mini-map in my head.
‘Let’s see… Wait? They’ve gone that far already?’
The sneaky guy was over 900m away now.
From the way he was moving quickly back and forth on the mini-map, it seemed he was using some form of transportation.
The good news was that the guy, who had briefly stopped moving, was heading in my direction. If it went well, he might even come into the range of my senses.
<00:07:17>
The remaining time was 7 minutes.
I put on my shoes and leaped out of the window. Obviously, I was in a state of stealth, spreading my gliding cloak while soaring high into the sky.
Then, using [High-speed Flight] intermittently, I made my way toward where the target was.
The buildings below appeared densely packed. Utility poles raced swiftly past me to the back.
Each time I used [High-speed Flight], a massive surge of mana burst forth from my toes. Since it was my first time, it wasn’t easy to maintain direction while flying.
Bang—
Bang—
Bang—
It felt like being shot from the air, a bizarre sensation. What was happening to me was indeed real.
As I used the skill to zoom through the air, it felt like a giant wall was pushing me backward.
‘Gah… the pressure is significant…!’
Being human and with my stats significantly dropped, the impact was felt far more intensely.
Resistance: -35(-50)
A minus value, a sensation never experienced before.
I wondered if I could actually reach the target point in this state. Furthermore, using [High-speed Flight] cost me 5 mana each time. After using it continuously, my mana quickly fell below half.
[Forgotten Ancient Empire Water Jug]
Pausing mid-air, I pulled out the jug that had become a hot item these days and doused myself in water. It was still the middle of winter, and the outside weather was bone-chilling.
“Aah— it’s cold.”
For a normal person, pouring water on themselves in this weather would be suicidal, but I felt little more than a cold sensation.
With Irmana’s blessing only partially applied, even that was bearable. My magic recovery speed increased slightly, and thanks to that, I reached my target in less than 2 minutes.
About 433m away from home, it was close to the maximum distance I could reach after separating from Yeon-hee.
I found a spot in the city center that was least likely to attract attention, a perfect place to subdue the target and move them to a less populated area.
Waiting on the second floor, just as the alley was bending, I saw the target quickly approaching on a two-lane road.
‘Must be a delivery job then.’
The guy, dressed in the uniform of the largest delivery company in our country, was riding a motorcycle while making a delivery.
As he got within 30m, he parked his vehicle curbside and rushed into a building carrying a bag of delivery food.
‘Okay. That building is safe.’
I followed him in and adjusted my strength to strike him on the head.
Thud—
Dragging the unconscious guy into the restroom halfway down the second-floor hallway.
‘He’s even weaker than the girl I dealt with yesterday.’
He seemed like a fairly typical guy in his mid-twenties, yet I wondered what he had done to be marked as a bad guy by the system.
I didn’t have the luxury of a relaxed testing situation like last time, but I still had to verify the bare minimum.
I held out a note I had prepared earlier in front of him.
[Tell me everything you know about the Blue-eyed.]
He flinched—!
Seeing him startled, it seemed he was indeed with the Blue-eyed group. I felt a sense of satisfaction with my 50% chances. Today really felt like a lucky day.
I realized I hadn’t put on my shadow cloak.
The guy pinned to the floor would surely die if I spoke. I recited the cliché lines about not doing anything.
Just as I was considering whether to kill him and go home, I noticed something strange. In the bag he had been delivering, the contents seemed odd. Focusing my senses, I peered inside to find that there was no food.
I opened the packaging right away. Inside was a tightly sealed blue powder wrapped in a black bag with dozens of syringes.
Looking at the powder bag, I made a small hole to take a peek inside. Although I couldn’t tell by taste, the messy flow of mana was something I had seen several times in my past life.
“Whoa—”
Surprisingly, it was a drug known as ‘Inbam.’
A new type of drug manufactured by mixing the usual cocaine or crack with new substances obtained in dungeons.
Designed to provide extreme pleasure and lethargy upon inhalation, this drug is literally poison.
Even hunters with strong bodies had a 90% chance of dying within three years after taking a single puff.
However, it was much more effective with only one-fifth the dosage of existing drugs, making it highly profitable.
In no time at all, it spread into the dark underworld, rising to the surface.
‘So that’s where the money was coming from…’
Those many Blue-eyed members couldn’t all be doing their part. Nevertheless, this organization showed no hesitation in expanding its scale, which would have been impossible without financial backing.
Yet, they were making money by doing such dirty deeds from behind.
‘… This is giving me a headache.’
Flick—
“Ugh! Get that away!”
I brought a fireball dangerously close to his face while waving another note.
[If you confess just one of the worst things you’ve done, I’ll let you live.]
“Cough… what! I’m just a delivery guy! I didn’t even know that was in there! Really—”
Swish—!
But as he spoke, he pulled a hand axe from his inventory and swung it towards where I was supposed to be standing.
His stance for swinging at my head showed that he likely had experience dealing with people.
Thwack—
“Wha?”
Yet, his arm suddenly fell to the floor, and I didn’t want to waste any more time here.
“My arm—!”
As he screamed while staring at his detached arm, I pressed the dagger I had just swung into his neck.
“Gaggh— gurgle…”
……
A moment of bubbling noises passed before silence fell over the restroom as if nothing had happened. I pushed the guy’s body and the drugs into my inventory, then swiftly exited.
– [Disguise] has been released.
– You have eliminated a sinister group threatening the safety of this world!
– Your stats have increased randomly!
– Resistance: 16(+1)
As I casually noted the slight increase in my resistance, I returned home.
Tap—
Although I had been gone for a short while, Yeon-hee was still buried deep in her blanket, her feet wiggling anxiously. But she didn’t seem to be in a terribly bad mood.
In fact, the magic surrounding her was more vibrant than ever.
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