Chapter 311: Date of Han Min-ah (1)

“Ah, it’s fine. Just take that with you, Unnie.”

“……What?”

In that moment, I almost made a fool of myself blurting out words like ‘Can I really take this?!’, but no matter how I thought about it, receiving an item like this without any compensation just didn’t make sense.

Suppressing the greed that momentarily flared up, I handed the rectangular shield back to Areum without hesitation.

“No, I can’t accept it.”

“Huh?”

“I’m really happy that you trust me so much, Areum, but still, I can’t accept such an expensive gift without any compensation. So, thank you, but I must decline.”

“Huh? Wha-?”

“And Areum, you shouldn’t get attached so easily like this either. Humans are inherently fickle, so if you do them even a little good, they tend to take advantage.”

Although she’s older than me, most of her life was spent training in the workshop, so the actual years she’s experienced society were likely relatively fewer than mine.

For Areum’s sake too, I shouldn’t dare be greedy in this situation. I didn’t really want to see her easily give her affection to just anyone and get taken advantage of.

Therefore, along with my sincere advice, just as I was about to quietly return the shield, a hearty laugh suddenly burst out from the blacksmith lady.

“Ahahahaha! What, I wondered why you were talking so seriously about not being able to accept it. Was it just for such a trivial reason?”

“…Areum?”

“Ah, haha, I forgot to explain again. That’s not a free gift, so you can relax. No, it is a gift, but I’m entrusting it because I have a favor to ask of you, Unnie…”

…A favor?

“Even if it wasn’t something like this, I could grant a simple request anytime. …So, what favor did you want to ask?”

“It’s nothing much. It’s about that thing; I want you to try using it in real combat and tell me how it feels. That way, in the future, I can decide whether to make more of it or not.”

“That thing, you mean this?”

Nod, nod.

As I said, pointing at the scutum Areum had handed me, her head quickly nodded up and down.

I somehow felt it was strange that she’d just give it to me, so was she lending it to me to try out as a performance test?

If she entrusted it to me with that intention, it was a perfectly understandable situation.

If it were weapons like swords or spears, it would be plausible for her to test their performance herself, as I mentioned before, but a shield is closer to defensive gear than a weapon.

Without an awakened ability related to shield techniques, testing it firsthand in actual combat would likely present various difficulties.

So, it meant entrusting me, someone she could reasonably trust and who could handle shield techniques, with testing this scutum’s performance.

“Ahaha, my explanation was lacking, but I never expected you, Unnie, to make such a mistake.”

“…Well, mistakes happen.”

“Still, I understood your feelings well, Unnie. I never knew you thought of me so dearly. I’m quite touched, aren’t I?”

“…I’m glad you see it that way.”

Although it stemmed from a misunderstanding, it left Areum with positive feelings anyway, so it was actually a gain.

“Anyway, when you come next time, try using the shield and tell me how it felt. I’ll give it to you as payment for the performance test. Deal?”

“Yeah, got it.”

“Then, Unnie, go home safely!”

I nodded and answered Areum, and accepting her farewell, I walked out of the workshop.

In a completely unexpected way, I had gained another piece of equipment in my possession.

⁎ ⁎ ⁎

Leaving Areum’s workshop, I first put the shield and spear into my spatial pouch, then immediately turned on my smartphone and sent a KakaoTalk message to a familiar contact.

“Busy? If you have time, call me back.”

Unless something unusual was going on, since going to work was practically routine for that guy, he was probably at the company today too.

Since today was a day off for both Hye-eun and me, she was probably not with the Sky Blue Shield guild but tackling a dungeon with other people.

Or perhaps, she might be grouped up with Cheon Jihee Sunbae or Cha Yuri-ssi.

How on earth could someone live so addicted to work was astonishing. If I were told to live a demanding life like Han Min-ah’s, I think I would have gotten exhausted and given up after about half a year.

Even during the time I was putting in every effort possible to awaken, what always accompanied it was sufficient rest for a certain period.

A human body isn’t a perpetual motion machine, so if you push it relentlessly without rest, it’s bound to break down at some point.

Yet, Han Min-ah herself tended to push herself to exhaustion without proper rest, whipping herself until she collapsed.

While she hadn’t experienced burnout from it yet, if she were to collapse from exhaustion mid-dungeon raid, it would be dangerous in many ways.

Especially when meeting like this to help her resolve her heat cycle, I should be considerate in various ways to ensure she gets enough rest.

…Of course, separate from that, I’ll be fucking Min-ah’s back door again this time.

It’s not like I have a deadly disease requiring me to periodically stick my dick in that hole.

All these actions are purely to maximize Han Min-ah’s sexual satisfaction and nothing more.

As I mentioned before, Awakened individuals of the beast type can experience pleasure in a slightly different way than ordinary women through a special erogenous zone inside the anus.

Although occasionally 5% of beast-type Awakened individuals dislike it because the sensation feels awkward, at least Han Min-ah is an Awakened individual who enjoys stimulation in that particular hole.

For her sake, tomorrow too, I’ll have to conquer both of Han Min-ah’s holes.

More importantly, my abilities perform more efficiently the more I satisfy my partner in bed, so there was no reason not to.

Well, it would be a lie to say I don’t want to see her face every time I put it in that hole, even while she pretends to hate it and curses, unable to help but feel it.

Regardless, this act itself benefits both of us, so my hidden secret desires beneath it are irrelevant.

In the first place, meeting tomorrow and confirming her sexual fetish for it with the lust chart will probably make it certain.

I’ll be able to determine whether Han Min-ah truly has a sexual preference for anal sex or not.

“Ah, she’s here.”

As I was thinking that, while heading back the way I came, Han Min-ah, who had checked the KakaoTalk message, called me via VoiceTalk.

After organizing the conversation points about tomorrow’s schedule in my head, I pressed the call button and answered her call.

“Oh, Min-ah.”

“What’s up? Why the sudden contact?”

“I have something quick to discuss. Is it lunchtime now?”

“Yeah. The support mission I went on with another party just ended, and after lunch, I’m planning to run a B-rank dungeon or something casually with Yuri Unnie, who’s coming in this afternoon.”

“You’re working hard again today.”

“I’m used to it, so it’s fine. So, why did you ask me to call?”

Not wanting to disturb Han Min-ah, who was still having a busy day, I summarized the main points to get straight to the point and relayed them to her.

“Tomorrow is the day I help you resolve your heat cycle. I’m calling to ask you where would be good to have sex.”

“Sex…! You, don’t you have any shame, you boy?! To suddenly ask about sex the moment you get a call! What is this ‘sex’, ‘sex’!”

“Huh? Aren’t you going to have sex?”

“No, I, I am going to, but! Just don’t say it so directly!”

“Even up until middle school, you used to play around saying ‘sex, sex, dick hair’ first.”

“Aaaargh! Th-that was when I was in middle school, you fucking idiot! Is your brain still stuck in middle school?!”

“No, well, it’s not.”

Still, between friends, this level of conversation should be possible without much awkwardness, shouldn’t it?

Of course, the relationship between Min-ah and me has become more than just friends, but I firmly believe that a relationship where friendship and love coexist is possible.

It seems the heat suppressants she took during the two years since graduation have made her personality sensitive.

“So what are you going to do? We are meeting tomorrow, right?”

“Well, yeah… I guess so… I do need to resolve my heat cycle…”

“That’s a good decision. It’s better to resolve it naturally than taking expensive heat suppressants for no reason.”

“Besides, I don’t even have any suppressants left to take now. Jin-ah and Seon-ah took all my heat suppressants away.”

“Huh? Why did they?”

“You stirred up Jin-ah and Seon-ah back then for no reason, shortening their heat cycles. Because you got them all worked up, even the suppressants I bought as spares are now all gone.”

“Huh? What did I stir them up about?”

“What you did to them back then… Ugh, never mind. When the time comes, you’ll figure it out.”

After that, she started saying things I couldn’t understand, like not to make plans around January 1st, to get enough sleep the day before, or to prepare some energy tonics.

Cutting her off mid-sentence, I steered the conversation back to what we needed to discuss first.

“Enough about that, let’s finish what we were talking about. We need to decide on a place to meet first, don’t we?”

“A place? …Ah, ah, that place.”

“I’m asking just in case, you’re not suggesting we meet at your place again like last time, are you?”

“Are, are you crazy?! Do you really want to see Jin-ah and Seon-ah go nuts?! If you come over to my place now, it’s obvious my sisters won’t be able to stand it because of your scent!”

“Is my scent really that strong? Last time too, as soon as I entered the house, they told me to wash up.”

“Th-that was just me… Ah, anyway, there’s just… something like that. Don’t worry about it.”

I make sure to shower once a day, of course, and even after sex, right after or the next morning, I’ve never skipped washing myself.

It seems Min-ah and her sisters, being beast-type hunters, react quite sensitively even to faint sweat.

“If your place doesn’t work, how about you come to my place?”

“…To your place, Sung Taekyung?”

“Yeah. Hye-eun recently replaced the bed, so it’s probably not cramped.”

“Hmm… Then let’s put that on hold for now.”

“Why?”

“The thought of me rolling around with you on the bed Hye-eun replaced feels kind of strange… I feel like she might get angry.”

“Oh come on, Hye-eun wouldn’t get angry over something like this.”

“…That’s because you haven’t seen her when she’s actually angry. …Ah, that’s not it.”

Han Min-ah, muttering the meaningful words softly, as if trying to quickly cover up what she just said, added a suggestion about where to meet right after.

“W-we could just meet at a motel, couldn’t we? Or maybe a room cafe that allows overnight stays…”

“A room cafe? What are you talking about… Isn’t your brain stuck at a middle school level?”

“…So what? Hotels and motels are expensive.”

“If you look carefully, there are plenty of cheap places. Are you going to be stingy even here?”

“…….”

Come to think of it, there’s no need to decide on the place to be intimate with her first.

Besides, taking her to a hotel or motel would just be a matter of getting into the mood towards the end of the date and heading there.

Moreover, I never intended to make Min-ah pay for the accommodation from the start.

As for the place to have sex, I decided to figure it out based on the situation during the date, and this time, I immediately switched the topic to our date course for tomorrow.

“You’re not working tomorrow, right?”

“…Yeah. You told me to take the day off on the day you resolve your heat cycle.”

“Then you’ll be free from the morning? How about meeting a little earlier?”

“Do you have somewhere to be in the evening? Well, it doesn’t really matter to me.”

“Then how about the cinema? I’ll find something worth watching.”

“What movies are playing now…. Wait, hold on?! Did you just say the cinema?!”