After finishing tutoring and returning home, I noticed a smell in my room, similar to the grilled octopus skewers sold at the Hanok Village night market.
“Hm? Sniff sniff. What’s that savory smell? Hey, CatMan! You know how to use delivery apps?”
[Slurp. Hiss, hiss.]
I asked, and he’s hissing at me.
Not the typical cat hiss, mind you.
It’s like something out of a comic book with hiss hiss sound effects, which kinda pisses me off.
“Hey, why are you hissing like that?”
It’s giving me the creeps, this crazy cat.
[Raaargh, this cat guy keeps trying to open my lid!]
“Hey, you lunatic, why are you messing with RiceCookerMan? It’s not a ball!”
CatMan is harassing RiceCookerMan, treating it like some lifeless object.
I haven’t even flipped it over once myself.
Sure, it looks like it’d roll if you pushed it, but that doesn’t mean a cat can mess with it.
[Let go. This, this is that smell!]
I couldn’t stand watching him cling to it anymore, so I grabbed his tail and pulled.
And in that moment.
<Level increased.> <Reached LV180.>
“Hold on. I didn’t do anything?”
What, does pulling his tail level me up?
[Let go.]
No, that’s not it.
If my level’s going up without me doing anything, it means something died in RiceCookerMan’s pot.
And if my level’s jumping this much, it must be a level 180 monster that barged in.
“No way, what did they send that smells this good? Hey, I’m opening the lid.”
[Yes, sir. My level went up a lot too! Please check my skill!]
Ego Spirit – RiceCookerMan.
<Adsorption LV10> Sticks to things or makes things stick.
“That’s a pretty simple skill. I mean, if it’s rice, it’s already sticky, right?”
[If everything turns into sticky rice, wouldn’t it dry out and die easier?]
“Well, I guess that’s true.”
If it gets stuck in the pot, it’d dry out and die faster.
So, I opened the lid.
“What the?”
There’s something dried up inside, like a baby squid that got mixed into shrimp paste.
CatMan rudely sticks his paw in first.
[Once you open it, you can’t stop!]
Smack.
I swatted CatMan’s paw with my hand.
He’s trying to crawl into RiceCookerMan’s open pot on his own, but there’s no way I’m not stopping him.
“Hey, you didn’t eat the salamander, did you?”
[It’s webfoot octopus, isn’t it? Spring special!]
Must be a cat thing, knowing all about seafood.
“I don’t think it’s webfoot octopus.”
It doesn’t look like webfoot octopus in RiceCookerMan. Maybe short-arm octopus?
“What does it look like?”
Do short-arm octopuses look like this? That Prince of the Short-arm Octopus or whatever, doesn’t it just look like a squid?
The only cephalopods I can distinguish are squid, octopus, webfoot octopus, and short-arm octopus.
Anything else, you’d have to go fishing to know.
It feels a bit small for a webfoot octopus, but it’s definitely some kind of cephalopod.
And since it’s been perfectly smoked in RiceCookerMan, it smells just like steamed octopus.
To be precise, it’s <~~King>, but my intelligence is too low to decipher it.
If it was a monster from the memorials, I’d know, but it’s not one of those either.
“What kind of cockle shop serves webfoot octopus as a spring special?”
[In winter, it was oyster special. Anyway, hand it over.]
Feeding a male cat something to boost its stamina just sounds like trouble.
CatMan earns good money and is smart enough to use the toilet, thankfully.
Otherwise, I’d have banished him to that box-only subspace from time to time.
“My level’s over 180 now, though.”
Unless it’s a clone of the White Dragon, a level jump this big means it’s a high-level monster.
Since CatMan wants to eat it, should I let him?
“The aura of the Octopus King is gone. Nice.”
The Succubus Queen’s strategy, even betting marriage, was sequential deployment.
The first to go was the Octopus King, volunteered by the maritime clan, followed by an Incubus.
The King Slime and the separated Triad Cerberus were pushed back in the draw.
Monsters with one or two-digit levels could be deployed sequentially right away, and damaged monsters like Zombies or Skeleton Soldiers could be dropped by the thousands.
But high-level demonic creatures with mana, capable of passing through gates, face some resistance at the gate, so it’s rare for multiple to pass through simultaneously.
That’s why they couldn’t cross the gate at the same time and were deployed sequentially.
“Ugh!?”
As an Incubus descended through the dimensional rift near the gate, wrapping its body with its wings and slowly landing.
It got its foot pierced by a giant skewer and, startled, transformed into a bat-like form, flying into the air.
But its foot was pierced too deeply, leaving everything below the knee numb.
Still, it was fine.
For an Incubus, feet were auxiliary tools, meant to mimic human-like anatomy to lower human guard.
In this otherworld with humans, they might be useless now.
And then, in an instant.
Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiir.
“Ugh, arghhh!”
Something was pulling it with tremendous force.
It tried to protect itself with mana, holding on, but its large, sturdy wings were torn and sucked in.
As its wings were ripped away, the Incubus crashed to the ground.
Now, it couldn’t use the wings it had relied on so heavily.
“Damn it.”
The dungeon’s environment was a minefield of traps.
Just two traps had left the Incubus limping and unable to fly.
At that moment.
“What the hell is this?! Urk!”
Its remaining leg got stuck to something and wouldn’t come off.
[Mouse Love No. 3]
Near the unreadable text, the area was filled with the pained groans of flying creatures similar in size to itself.
Could insects from their world, or even flies evolved into magical beasts, grow this big?
The Incubus could hear their agony.
It couldn’t give up its leg now.
With its wings gone, it tore its clothes, struggling to walk.
“Ah.”
But charging toward it was a massive iron ball, impossible to dodge.
It felt like getting hit would send it to another world.
Rumble rumble rumble…!
Thud!
I wiped the windshield of the truck-shaped toy car with a wet tissue.
It looks dead, like some kind of fly.
“I’ve never seen such an unlucky monster.”
Since I’d just come back from being out, my room was full of traps I’d set up just in case, and this guy managed to hit every single one.
Talk about bad luck.
Well, this is a human’s house, after all.
The areas where I step or my bed are safe zones.
If it had landed on the bed, it might’ve survived.
Of course, I was the one who brought out the vacuum cleaner.
It looked so pathetic dying that I stopped short of finishing it off with the vacuum.
And I even gave it a proper send-off.
“May you be reborn as a good monster in your next life.”
Sounds a bit weird to say “good monster,” but whatever.
<Level increased to 203!>
I hit level 203, and at this point, it feels like the Succubus Queen is raising me.
What’s she trying to do by leveling me up?
I wonder if it’d have been peaceful without all this.
Negotiations ended with the imp’s schemes, the dragon’s invasion, and the imp’s execution, but maybe, as the imp said, she’s now sending hundreds of monsters, using marriage as bait to mobilize them.
“Thanks for the 203 levels. The queen’s been generous with the levels lately, huh?”
I don’t think the queen’s watching, but you know.
I’ve been reading some webtoons lately, and it’s like a constellation or something, so I thanked the queen.
This time, I even sang the British anthem passionately to show my gratitude.
‘God save the queen.’
Then, to figure out the monster’s identity, I squinted at it.
“Ugh, my eyes hurt.”
Even though its name is visible above its head, it’s so small. Zooming in is easier.
Zooming in on the monster’s corpse with my smartphone, it’s <LV203 Incubus>.
I thought it was a fly.
Its wings weren’t exactly fly wings, but being stuck with flies on the sticky trap made it look like one.
Kinda dark, too.
If it’s an Incubus, it’s supposed to be a charm-related monster, right…?
<With just 0.5 points, you can increase your Charm stat by 1 point!>
It’s luring me with Charm.
I can’t skip a double-point event like this.
Charm became tangible after I got the bewitch skill from the imp, and it’s literally the ability to make others follow you.
When I checked the details with my intelligence buff, it said the bewitch skill’s success rate increases, and even cats listen better.
[What’re you looking at?]
“…”
Is the cat getting more aggressive due to wildness and male hormones?
Well, there’s not much use for Charm, I guess.
Still, it’s probably more useful than agility for pure combat speed, and as always, I can’t resist a 0.5x stat event.
With a weird short-arm octopus and an Incubus dying, my level jumped nearly 50 for the first time in a while.
Why not invest in stats now?
“If I take down the Succubus Queen, it’ll be 40,000, right? All in.”
I dumped 130 into Charm.
<Charm has surpassed 100, improving your appearance.>
As expected, hitting 100 in a stat brought some changes to Charm.
I’d anticipated this and invested accordingly.
Honestly.
‘Ugh, if only he was a handsome male tutor.’
It’s not like I wasn’t bothered by that comment.
The appearance improvement kicked in, so I looked in the mirror, but honestly, I can’t tell.
It feels like my muscles lost some bulk instead.
“I don’t get it? Hey, do I look better?”
[Meow.]
[I’m a rice cooker, so…!]
Ugh.
I’m the one who asked a rice cooker.
“Hey, Sprout Fairy. Do I look better?”
I asked the Sprout Fairy, who’s finally starting to talk.
She sleeps almost 20 hours a day, but she’s awake now.
She rubs her eyes and raises a tiny hand.
“Pretty!”
The compliment’s a bit vague, but it feels nice.
“Second semester, huh.”
It’s still hot, but at least the term “tropical night” isn’t on the news anymore.
Some nights even dip below 20 degrees now.
Summer’s finally over, it seems.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
[Raaargh, ugh, I don’t wanna go to school. Wahhh, Mom.]
With the second semester starting, Room 202’s having a full-on meltdown.
I get not wanting to go to school, but why’s she banging her head on the wall?
“Tch tch, is she gonna break the wall like that?”
At that rate, isn’t it a suicide signal, banging her head to death?
You don’t need a knife to die, but I haven’t found the right timing to return her knife.
Universities will start their second semester next week.
Middle and high schools probably already have.
The convenience store’s 2+1 deals are probably switching out for new items since the season’s changing.
During summer, I often grabbed the 1+1 coffee deal, so I headed out.
“Gonna hit the convenience store. Guard the house.”
I left the house to CatMan and went to the convenience store.
Usually, there’s a 1+1 deal with macchiato and cold brew Americano, which is why I went.
But today, it’s all sweet stuff.
Should I pick another coffee or just pour it into an ice cup? I ended up buying everything and heading back.
BOOM!
“Hm?”
I heard something smashing from the first floor, and it gave me a bad feeling.
Another monster?
I rushed back home.
“Hey, what’s going—!”
I was speechless.
What the hell is this?
Covered in white plaster dust, wearing the torn remains of a Dean Bromide from Sultan Boyz.
The girl from Room 202, her upper body sticking out, sprawled on my bed with her arms stretched out, stuck in the wall.
And CatMan, trying to pull her outstretched hand.
[Hey, help out.]
Of course, CatMan’s using telepathy, so Room 202 can’t hear him.
And pulling her arm with those cat paws? No way that’s working.
“…”
They say when you’re too shocked, your thoughts stop.
That’s exactly what’s happening now.
Room 202, with plaster and plywood debris and bromide bits stuck to her head, slowly looks up, her pale, dust-covered face staring at me.
She speaks, choking back tears.
Sob, sob, sob. “Ughhh, I, I must be such an idiot. Waaah, I’m so sorry.”
Waaaah.
She actually broke through with her head?
Even if I went beyond filleting to cotton candy construction, this can’t be explained by just being an idiot.
This is titanium, adamantium-level headbutting.
Room 202 buries her face in my bed again, sobbing.
“Please save me. Wahhh, ughhh, waaaah…”