Chapter 20
Everyone gets three chances in life.
…The kind of thing people say. I didn't believe it at first.
“Hehe, hihihi…. Heehee….”
「[Deposit] 100,000,000 won XX Bank」
Now I had no choice but to believe it.
Ah, seriously. Who would've thought such luck would come my way?
One hundred million won just for pretending to be friendly with that girl from the Recovery Department a few times and then betraying her. What a windfall, seriously.
But in exchange, I had to give up the Cheonmu Hunter Academy exam, though I didn't particularly care. There was no way I could have properly taken the practical exam with my abilities anyway. What kind of nonsense was a practical exam involving live monster subjugation?
And even if I somehow passed, it wouldn't be worth more than one hundred million won, would it? It wasn't as though Cheonmu was the only Hunter Academy, so I could just do well on another academy's entrance exam.
‘How many zeros are there, seriously? I really can have this much money show up in my bank account.’
With this money, I wouldn't even have to think about four years' worth of tuition. It was more than enough money to make tuition a nonissue in the first place.
Come to think of it, that Kim Isabel girl must have made an enemy in a pretty strange way. One hundred million won just to ruin her exam a little. What kind of psychopath had she crossed?
…Well, it didn't matter to me since I had made money thanks to that psychopath.
‘Live monster subjugation, seriously? If it weren't for this insane request, I would have walked out as soon as I heard it.’
It had been exhausting to persuade that timid woman to go along with it. Well, I probably wouldn't ever see her again anyway.
There was no way a girl from the Recovery Department who had been dropped into the dungeon alone could properly take the exam. Since the academy couldn't allow anyone to get hurt, they would rescue her somehow, wouldn't they?
Well…even if she got injured out of sheer bad luck, it wouldn't exactly be my fault.
‘It does leave a bad taste.’
…Come to think of it, how had that man known that the practical exam would involve live monster subjugation? I distinctly remembered that it had been holographic monster subjugation until last year.
I had asked him all sorts of questions, but he hadn't answered and had only told me to do what I was told, so I had gone along with it for the time being.
Ah, whatever. It was all over anyway. There was nothing I could do now just because it seemed strange.
The money had been deposited properly, too. So I wasn't going to worry about it anymore.
‘Tonight, I'm ordering chicken, pizza, and mala tang!’
I would eat my fill and forget all about it.
I could just think of it as a day when I had worked a well-paying part-time job!
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
“D-Dark Spear!”
-Thwuck!
‘Grrr….’
The orc's corpse fell backward, its neck pierced by Cha Eun-joo's dark magic.
After entering the dungeon and killing a dozen or so monsters over the course of thirty minutes, Cha Eun-joo was beginning to show signs of fatigue.
“Hoo, hoo….”
Unlike Shadow Ball, which could be conjured however one pleased, Dark Spear required compressed mana and a high degree of concentration.
Cha Eun-joo had started by subduing goblins, but she had been fighting orcs continuously for a while now, so it was only natural that she was beginning to tire.
The fact that she had to search for them while making her way through forests and mountain paths, rather than standing still in one place and waiting for monsters like she had in the training grounds, was bound to have taken a toll as well.
“Are you tired? Do you want to rest for a while?”
“I-I'm okay…. We still have to gather more materials….”
“You don't need to push yourself. There's still about an hour left for the exam, so we can take our time.”
“B-but won't we get a better score if we gather them as quickly as possible…?”
“They didn't deduct points just because you turned in your written exam late. The practical exam probably won't be much different.”
“Is that so….”
“I'll harvest the materials for now, so give me your pouch and rest against that tree over there.”
“Ah, okay….”
Apparently deciding that it was fine to rest since she wouldn't need to move while I harvested the materials, Cha Eun-joo handed me her pouch and leaned back against the tree.
I had already started processing my fourth orc, so I dismantled its chest and head, extracted the two most valuable materials, and stored them in the pouches one by one.
[8/10]
[8/10]
I put the orc's most important material, its heart, in Cha Eun-joo's material pouch, and the next most valuable one, its brain, in mine.
To divide them evenly, I could have given us two each, but I was deliberately giving Cha Eun-joo the better share so that she could get a higher score.
I had no need to worry about tuition anyway, so all I had to do was pass. In that sense, it benefited me as well if Cha Eun-joo got a high score on the practical exam and became a scholarship student.
If she started a part-time job because of tuition, our dating time would be reduced. That also meant less time for me to condition her, and a longer period before I could turn her into an obedient slave.
I wasn't doing this solely for Cha Eun-joo's benefit. I was acting entirely according to my own interests. It just happened to help her in the process.
‘There are only enough materials left for two more monsters, and one of them is set aside for ‘that guy’ I'll hunt at the end….’
I only needed to kill roughly one orc or two goblins before Cha Eun-joo's and my hunt would be over.
There would still be some time before the main event began, so perhaps I should focus on helping Cha Eun-joo recover her stamina in the meantime.
“I'm done harvesting, Eun-joo. Rest here a little longer, then we'll move….”
“Mmm, hmmm….”
“……”
She must have been quite tired, because Cha Eun-joo had quietly fallen asleep while I was processing the materials.
Well, she had been doing all the hunting for both of us for thirty minutes straight, so it was only natural that she was tired.
On top of that, she had been walking through the forest while carrying those enormous breasts around. Unlike me, who built up my stamina every morning and evening, she rarely went outside, so this must have felt like a grueling march to her.
-Plop.
Since I had planned to leave a little later anyway, I sat beside Cha Eun-joo and quietly watched her sleeping face.
I often saw the expression Cha Eun-joo wore while ‘pretending to be hypnotized,’ but today was the first time I had seen her sleeping like this.
“Mmph, hoo….”
“……”
Her enormous breasts swelled and shrank in time with her breathing.
Because she really had been born with such a lewd body, all sorts of wicked desires began to stir in me again.
‘There doesn’t seem to be anyone around….’
Since I had deliberately come this far in search of strong monsters, most ordinary students probably wouldn't even have thought of coming this deep.
Perhaps this was the best opportunity I would get to find out how thoroughly the usual Cha Eun-joo had been conditioned by me, rather than Cha Eun-joo while under 「Suggestion: Hypnosis」.
-Poke, poke.
“Mmm, mmm….”
Judging by how she reacted when I poked her soft cheek with my finger, she didn't seem to be in a very deep sleep.
Thinking that I wouldn't get another opportunity easily if I let this one pass, I carefully rubbed the sleeping Cha Eun-joo's breasts with both hands.
-Rub, rub.
“Nngh, n, nngh….”
At first, I was only rubbing them gently over her thick tracksuit, so her reaction was rather subdued.
If I slowly touched her like this and gradually increased the intensity, Cha Eun-joo would naturally wake up, and at the same time, she would slowly realize that I was touching her breasts.
By checking whether she naturally continued to ‘pretend to be asleep’ in that state or instead resisted a little and ‘pretended to wake up,’ I could determine how thoroughly Cha Eun-joo had been conditioned by me.
Of course, an ordinary woman might suddenly sit up and angrily demand to know what I was doing, but I didn't think Cha Eun-joo, whose heart had seemingly almost been won over, would go that far.
With that in mind, I continued slowly rubbing Cha Eun-joo's breasts, then tightened my fingers and gave them a slightly firmer squeeze.
-Squeeze.
“Uh, mmph…?”
…It seemed that this had just woken her up.
I wanted to get a better look at Cha Eun-joo's expression as she woke up from being touched in her sleep, but if our eyes happened to meet, she wouldn't be able to keep pretending to be asleep.
So I deliberately acted as though I wasn't looking at her face, focused my gaze on her breasts, and slowly rubbed them up and down.
-Squish, squish.
“……Nngh.”
-Squish, squish.
“……Hh, nngh….”
…Judging by this reaction, it seemed she intended to keep pretending to be asleep.
When she had been in a light sleep, natural moans had slipped out, but while pretending to be asleep, she was trying to hold them back as much as possible, so her act was obviously transparent.
If she had been less thoroughly conditioned, she probably would have pretended to slowly sit up and act as though nothing had happened.
The fact that she knew I was touching her breasts like this and still didn't resist meant that the conditioning she had undergone over the past few days had definitely taken effect.
Above all, the greatest discovery was that she reacted this way even when she wasn't under 「Suggestion: Hypnosis」. If I used this well, it meant I could condition her body itself without necessarily using Suggestion from now on.
For example, I could pretend to hypnotize Cha Eun-joo without actually doing so, act as though I had hypnotized her, and make her act as if she had no choice but to play along.
If I did that, I would be able to see Cha Eun-joo genuinely ‘pretending to be hypnotized,’ rather than the act I had seen through Suggestion until now.
‘I can't stand it just thinking about it.’
Making her pretend to be hypnotized through Suggestion was a convenient ability, but there was nothing more arousing than having her genuinely act as though she had been hypnotized.
-Squeeze!
“Nngh, mmph…!”
Finally, I gave Cha Eun-joo's breasts one slightly firmer squeeze, then withdrew my hand.
This wasn't the best environment for seriously conditioning her. If I kept touching her for too long, someone else might come along.
I had already confirmed all the information I wanted, so this much touching was enough.
-Tap, tap.
“Cha Eun-joo, wake up.”
“……Huh, whaa?”
…She was really terrible at acting.
Cha Eun-joo was pretending to have woken up in a way that was so awkward anyone could tell. I could only struggle to keep myself from laughing in front of her.
“Let's move. I'm done harvesting the materials.”
“Ah, s-sorry. I-I guess I fell asleep….”
“Yeah, it looked that way.”
“S-Seonho, I really was asleep the whole time until you woke me up.”
“Yeah. You slept really well.”
“……”
Apparently worried that I might suspect something, she had gone out of her way to add an explanation. How endearing.
Cha Eun-joo seemed to have recovered somewhat, so it was time to start looking for either Kim Isabel or Han Sora.
If we missed the event by mistake, Kim Isabel would get through the crisis with only Han Sora and the protagonist's help, which would ultimately turn it into an awakening event for that bastard protagonist.
Considering the principle behind Seo Woojin's awakening ability—the ‘ability to grow stronger the more he is loved by the opposite sex’—I had to block as many of these flags as possible.
‘I can't let my women take a shine to some pathetic loser like that.’
I was going to make Kim Isabel, Han Sora, and Cha Eun-joo all mine.
Anyone who got in the way of my harem plan, protagonist or otherwise, would simply have to be removed.