“Ah! Goshujin-sama! Goshujin-sama! Kimochi ii!”

  The entig melody of a woman’s passionate cries drifted from behind the wooden door of a chamber. Petu’s cheeks flushed crimson as she listened, her gaze fixed on the ground in embarrassment.

  In trast, Daisuke’s mind was ed by the image of the lifeless woman lying on the pedestal. As he sidered the fact that it could have been April, Mia, or his own mother, airred with him like a storm.

  BOOOM!

  With little restraint, he kicked the door in, sending it flying violently across the room. Inside, sprawled on a sofa and wearing a lewd expression, was a hefty young man with small facial features and a rge head.

  In a panic, he snapped his head to the side, ripping his attention away from the holographic s dispying adult tent, to the source of the disturbance. When he spied the vile tortions of Daisuke’s face, he released his unimpressive noodle and pushed to his feet with a squeal, lifting his greasy hands in surrender.

  “Kyaaa~” Petu turned away from the shameful sight with a cry.

  In the same beat, Daisuke flung a kunai he had salvaged from the earlier skirmish. It zipped between the bastard’s legs, narrowly missing his danglials. Startled, he let out another frightened squeal, his wiener shriveling up like a crumpled piece of paper.

  “B-Bro, what the hell?! Wh-Who the hell are you people?” He stammered ungracefully, his body slick with sweat.

  “First,” Daisuke began sternly, even as the Eye of Verity sed the pervert’s stats. “Why don’t you re-equip the lower half of yarment.”

  “R-Right,” he mumbled, quickly accessing his equipment menu.

  Petu slowly lowered her hands from her eyes, though a lingering flush still colored her cheeks.

  The young man cleared his throat, his fideurning now that he was fully garbed. “Um, yeah, sorry about the whole, you know, undignified se earlier,” he muttered, casting a quice at Petu to gauge if she was impressed by the glorious sight of his magnifit pole. Theuro Daisuke again with a frown. “But seriously,” his tone suddenly ged, nh and irritated. “Why’d you have to break my door? And who are you guys anyway?”

  Internally, the hentai-fapping-h was sweating bullets; he wasn’t at all as fident as he made himself seem. His chibi persona paced bad forth in a panic, hoping he didn’t get fttened like a pancake for his assertivehat was in fact bravado.

  Truth be told, he was a mage—a css known for their powerful offensive magic. But the fact that the silver-haired boy just used a kunai likely meant his build was of the assassin css, so despite all the firepower a mage possessed, it ointless if none of those attacks could find their mark. And, even before that, his throat would likely be cut open before he could weave together the intation for a spell.

  Instead of fighting, he would opt to resolve this flict with diplomacy. But he had to dispy some level of assertiveo ensure he wasn’t taken likely—hence his stern tone earlier.

  “Y-You’re a pyer, aren’t you?” he ventured, pig up on the gaming jargon Daisuke had used earlier—’reequip’ instead of ‘get dressed’. “I’m surprised to see a fellow Fallen in a pce like this. Name’s Ben… Ben Dova,” he chuckled, clearly amused by his own py on words. “Get it? Bendova?!”

  DING!

  [Pyer | Bendova | Lvl 72 | Mage]

  “I was told you’re the one I o talk to about the experiments being ducted here,” Daisuke stated matter-of-factly, his expression indecipherable.

  Ben’s eyes went wide, as if he had finally solved a difficult question he had been struggling with all this time. “Ah, so that expins how you be here right now,” he grinned with a nudgiure. “You must be ied in iing in our little operation, too, huh?”

  Daisuke’s gaze narrowed. “Then you’re the one calling the shots?”

  Ben shrugged nontly, a grin pying on his lips as he adjusted his hair with a casual flick. “Nah, ly,” he replied in a id-back tone. “I pitched the idea for the experiments and chipped in with most of the cash, but the Mhaledictus are the ones running the show. They’ll be raking in most of the profits when all’s said and done.”

  Daisuke’s anger finally boiled over, his golden eyes bzing with iy as the name of the anizati in his ears. “So you’ve thrown in your lot with that filth,” he spat out, each word dripping with venom.

  Ben recoiled, a cold shiver running down his spine. Why’s he so angry? Did he fail a quest or something?

  Before he could jure up another possible theory, his vision suddenly dimmed, engulfed by the shadow of Daisuke’s approag palm. Steel-like fingers enclosed around his fa a vice-like grip. He let out a pained cry as the silver-haired assaint zipped across the chamber with him, smming the back of his head into the wall. The force left a deep crater, cracks spider-webbing outward like the gnarled branches of a petrified tree.

  Ben groaned weakly, warm blood trig down the side of his head from the wound. W-What the hell? I lost… ohird of my health from that siack?

  Daisuke seized the fbby bastard by the ned lifted him effortlessly off the ground, his rage lending him a strength beyond his usual. “Spill everything you know,” he growled, his grip being tighter with each passing moment.

  Ben gasped for air, his face turning blue. He desperately tried to break free, but he couldn’t escape Daisuke’s monstrous grip. What’s with this ridiculous strength? He thought incredulously. Isn’t this guy supposed to be an assassin?

  “Speak!” Daisuke hissed menagly, his eyes burning.

  “D-Don’t be an idiot!” Ben wheezed, his voice strained. “I don’t know what kind of quest you’ve got, but it’s seriously about to destroy your life. You’re pying a game you ’t win. The Mhaledictus isn’t a group you want to mess with—they’re ruthless. If you go after them, you’ll be signing your owh warrant.”

  “Now where have I heard that line before,” Daisuke said mogly, his grip still tightening.

  “Dude, just hear me out,” Ben persisted pleadingly. “You’re an otaku, right? Most gamers are. Then have you never sidered it?” He took a breath. “There are hundreds of different species of girls in the game… just ripe for the pig. Don’t tell me you’ve never… fantasized about spending a hot night with even half of them?”

  Daisuke’s jaw ched, his gaze sharpening like a honed bde as his fingers kept tightening around the despicable bastard. Despite his gasps for air, Ben tio babble, insistent on f Daisuke to ply.

  He expihat when a pyer reached maximum affinity with an NPC, the intimacy gauge became avaible. The opportunity to engage in sexual retions with NPCs hinged entirely on the level of intimacy achieved. If these two attributes were the only requirements to do the steamy deed, then it wouldn’t have been so bad.

  But in addition to the intimacy level, there was an additional hurdle: pyers must first attain atus, which, of course, was no easy feat. Zenith justified this demanding requirement as a means to distinguish dedicated pyers and reward their itment to the game.

  Adding insult to injury, even after surmounting these challenging requirements, the sex feature is restricted to once per week. This limitation served as a deterrent, encing pyers to prioritize buildiionships with real-world partners. Moreover, it preserves the game’s core focus on exploration and personal development.

  Despite Zenith’s well-iioned motives, the sex-crazed Ben was visibly frustrated. Reizing the impossibility of hag the game from the outside to get what he wanted, he attempted an in-game approach. The solution he found was to reduce all female NPCs to submissive sex sves, and neurolchemy was the method to achieve that goal.

  Daisuke’s voice dropped to a dangerous uone. “And what about the NPCs’ feelings? They don’t get a say iher they’re exploited and vioted just for your pleasure?”

  Ben regarded Daisuke as though he had lost his mind. “Huh? Feelings? …What the hell are you talking about, man?” Ben shot back, his voice strained. “They’re just NPCs! Their emotions are puter simutions; it’s not real!”

  Daisuke’s lip curled in disdain at the bastard’s response. However, there was one more question burning in his mind. “Why NPCs? Wouldn’t it be simpler to have a retionship with another pyer?”

  “…It’s… not that simple,” Ben expined with a cough, his face growing pale. “Being… an otaku es with its ow of challenges, you know? I’ve got zero fidend social skills to i with real people. If it was… eveely possible for me to get a real girlfriend, then I wouldn’t have spent the st few years grinding and saving gold to fund this research.”

  In reition of their itment to the game, rankers earhe privilege to form intimate bonds with other pyers of the same caliber. To plement this asped enhance pyer expression, the character creation s provided options to align one’s sex with their gender identity and to personalize appearah piergs and tattoos. This feature, as you would imagine, sparked troversy in many social circles.

  Unfortunately, character personalization had its limitations: fual aspects like height, weight, eye color, hair color, and facial structure remained ungeable. Of course, if an individual ged their geheir boructure would have to be altered by extension, but not enough that they would look like airely different person.

  Ben’s voice trembled with urgency as he fought to stay scious. “So, I’ll ask again,” he wheezed, his voice barely audible. “Don’t you want… to enjoy the bes of this research? Just think about… all the vag… and the millions of gold we’d make before the developers mao release a patch. You haven’t… goo the Primal Gde yet, have you? If you had, you’d see things from my perspective.”

  Daisuke regarded Ben with a blend of s and pity, reizing the depravity behind his desire to turn female NPto submissive pythings. It was a testament to the twisted mi of someone who was both sex-deprived and narcissistic.

  In moments like this, the game’s ambition for absolute realism could be seen as a double-edged sword. In a typical MM, the notion of using sce to brainwash and manipute NPCs would be absurd.

  As Daisuke mulled over this, memories of unlog 50% intimacy with Viviehout even a single pert in affinity flooded his mind. He briefly pohe extent of his privileges being part NPC, but amidst the raging fmes of his anger, all other thoughts faded into insignifice.

  “I see… what this is,” Ben persisted. “Bro, if vag isn’t your thing… and you’re more into guys, then it’s a simple matter of—”

  Without batting an eyesh, Daisuke summoned another kunai from his iory and, without a hint of hesitation, mercilessly thrust it into the bastard’s mouth, extinguishing the st flicker of his remainih.

  Ben vulsed, choking on the bde as a mixture of disbelief and agony twisted his expression. In stark trast, Daisuke stood stoically, lost in thought as a radiant n of golden light ed the megalomaniac’s vanishing form.

  Arade-off to the game’s hyperrealism and scope of freedom was that its tent could oftentimes get incredibly dark. In the real world, nature was beautiful, but that was only on the surface; the animal kingdom was a brutal and savage pce.

  And, as much as human beings were at the apex of the species, blessed with unrivaled intelligend iy, at their core, their behavior was even more callous than the ws of the jungle.

  Every single individual had to live with their own demons—hate, greed, lust, selfishhe only thing keeping these primal urges in check were societal criticism, the justice system, and the loyal souls who enforced it. But in Sehrei, even though the same measures for w and order existed, there was still more leeway for the pursuit of one’s dark and heinous desires sidering the nature of this world.

  You would think the reality that people teically wore their real faces in the game would be enough of a deterrent to prevent them from falling into degeneracy, but, as, it wasn’t enough to suppress the fact that this world was, without a shadow of a doubt, a—

  Daisuke couldn’t bring himself to admit it. If the game wasn’t real, then wasn’t he iently devaluing his owence?

  DING!

  [The quest ?Liberation of the Florians? has been received.]

  [Liberation of the Florians]

  [Quest Difficulty: A

  The Florians, a small and peaceful race, face challenges far greater than their size would suggest. Ented by their diminutive form, Florian females have fallen victim to the clutches of an evil anization, o ruthless exploitation as sve borers and unwilling partits of prostitution.

  Yet, even graver atrocities await some among them, as they bee unwilling subjects of cruel stific experiments.

  Clear ditions: Liberate the imprisoned Florians and vanquish those responsible for their plight before their nefarious ambitions e to fruition.

  Rewards:

  ?? EXP +115,000

  ?? Title: The Liberator of Sves

  ?? Ruablet ×2

  ?? Reinfort Tablet x3

  ?? 280 Gold

  Quest Failure:

  ?? pletion of the brothel

  ?? Prolonged suffering of the captives

  ?? Tragic loss of Petu and her husband

  ?? Untimely demise of Reeza]

  Daisuke dismissed the holographidow with a simple mental and. My first A-rank quest, he thought as he slowly turned around. Iing… even the quest description didn’t divulge muformation about the Mhaledictus, which is pretty ominous.

  Petu stood like a frightened mb in the distance, her head hung low. She pressed her lips into a tight line as Daisuke strode past her without a word. Her sole responsibility had been to guide him safely past the traps, yet even in this simple task, she had failed miserably.

  A…

  “Why? Why are you keeping me alive?!” she shouted in a blend of dread and frustration. She kept her head down, fingers balled into fists, and her eyes remaiightly shut, repying the brutal se of the man’s demise just moments ago.

  Daisuke halted.

  Au’s heart skipped a beat.

  There was a deafening moment of silence.

  “…I’ve seen firsthand how poverty, starvation, and especially torture twist a person’s mind and pel them to do things they wouldn’t normally do,” Daisuke said in a soft tone, his words ced with empathy amidst his own inner flict. “While I was furious when I first saw you, I’ve had time to reflect, and I realize that your as were likely driven by circumstances beyond your trol.”

  Petu raised her head at his thoughtful words, hot tears pooling in her eyes.

  “The bme lies with those who willingly embrace such a malicious lifestyle without remorse. Like that bastard we saw earlier,” he spat sfully before resuming his stride. “Thanks f to protect me earlier. Let’s go and free your husband.”

  Petu sank to her knees, her tears dist the image of Daisuke as he moved farther away. His passionate words enveloped her like a warm co, thawing the icy grip of self-loathing around her heart. Uo resist any longer, she surreo the overwhelming tide of sorrow and relief washing over her.