Explicit Content Warning: Adult content ahead (I will provide the summary of this Chapter in the author’s note if you want to avoid it, you can skip this Chapter)
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Sung-Il slept badly.
The guest room was dark except for a thin strip of moonlight through the window. Outside, the farm had gone silent. No pigs. No wind. No footsteps. For once, even his thoughts had stopped screaming.
Then the floorboard beside the door creaked.
His eyes snapped open. He didn’t move.
A figure stood just inside the doorway. Tall. Still. Watching him.
His heart nearly escaped through his throat. "...Brina?"
Moonlight touched a familiar face. She stood there in loose sleeping clothes, her hair down, her expression more uncertain than he had ever seen it. One hand was behind her back, moving slightly, as if she were trying not to touch something.
Sung-Il pushed himself upright. "What happened?"
"Nothing."
"Then why are you standing over me like a murderer?"
"I wasn’t."
"You absolutely were."
She looked away. For several seconds, neither of them spoke.
"I need your help," she said quietly.
His sleepiness vanished. "Is something wrong?"
"I think so." She hesitated. "It’s... embarrassing."
He had been in Asterra for less than two days. Already, "embarrassing" covered an alarming range of possibilities.
"What kind of embarrassing?"
She stepped closer and lowered her voice. "I’ve been having an itch."
"...An itch where?"
She told him.
The room became painfully quiet.
Sung-Il rubbed his face. "You’re waking me up in the middle of the night for this?"
"I didn’t know who else to ask. And I can’t examine it myself." She wouldn’t meet his eyes. "I think it’s that your ability might help. Something to do with my ability. And I think you’re the only one who could tell."
That changed his expression. She wasn’t joking. She was genuinely uncomfortable, and she had come to him anyway.
Sung-Il stood at once. "Should I fetch the healer?"
"She examined me this morning and gave me this ointment. Told me to rest the gift and ask for help applying it if I couldn’t reach comfortably."
"And it hasn’t helped?"
"A little. The pressure keeps coming back. I’ve never had this problem before."
"Then we keep your follow-up appointment. I can tell you what I see. I can’t promise I know what it means."
"I know. That’s why I’m asking you to look, not declare me cured."
"Brina. Listen. If you want me to look, I will. If you’d rather I stay out of it, I’ll stay out of it. The gate’s open. You told me so yourself. I’m not here because I owe you anything."
She finally looked at him.
"I know," she said. "That’s why I asked."
A window opened.
[TARGET: BRINA]
[REQUEST: PERSONAL EXAMINATION]
[OPPORTUNITY FOR RESONANCE & DRAW FEATURE]
"This system has no shame!" he thought.
He took a slow breath. "All right."
She nodded and reached for the door. At the threshold, she paused.
"Not here. The barn. It’s more private."
The farm was dark and silver under the moon. Brina walked ahead of him. Sung-Il followed with his heart pounding, a little embarrassed, a little curious, and, if he was honest, a little something else.
At the barn, she pushed the door open and left it that way.
"You’re leaving it open?"
"Just in case."
"In case of what?"
"I don’t know." She almost smiled. "In case you want to leave."
The night air drifted through, carrying hay and wet earth. Neither of them joked. For once, that felt like the right thing.
Six-Ears squeezed past his ankle and peered into the washroom.
"No," Sung-Il told it.
It sat down in the doorway.
"You have six ears. Listen to something else."
Brina closed the door before the argument could develop.
The jar had a paper label. He read it twice. Then he washed his hands again, because the first time had mostly involved thinking about the situation.
"I can follow instructions."
"Since when?"
She laughed, softly, and handed him a clean cloth.
He gave her time to arrange her clothes and the towel. The little room smelled of soap, dry hay, and the sharp green ointment. He kept his attention on the label until she told him she was ready.
Brina slowly pulled her sleeping pants and underwear down past her hips. She leaned forward over a low wooden stool, elbows braced, bare ass presented under the dim lantern light.
The soft curves of her cheeks were parted just enough that the tight, pink pucker of her anus was visible, slightly flushed, with a faint sheen of residual moisture from earlier washing. She glanced back once, cheeks pink, then looked away again.
"I have to look with my gift again. May I do it? I am a beginner with this ability."
"Yes."
He stood slightly behind her and focused.
Two seconds. New chapters come out on g.com first.
[LOCAL IRRITATION.]
[PELVIC STRAIN: ELEVATED.]
The same reading he had seen in the market. He almost closed it.
Then Brina shifted, and a dim line appeared beside the strained area.
It was purple, thin as a loose thread. It moved when she breathed, but more slowly than the rest of the reading. The line was concentrated right at the rim of her anus, pulsing faintly with every small clench of the muscle.
"Hold on," he said.
She went still.
"Bad hold on?"
"I don’t know yet."
He changed his position, stepping closer so that the heat of her body reached him. The line remained. He looked away, counted to three, and acquired the reading again.
Still there. Right on the irritated ring of muscle.
Brina looked over her shoulder. "You’re making the face."
"What face?"
"The one people make when something is serious."
"There’s something left around the sore area. It looks like energy."
"Iron Gut runs very aggresive when I push something."
"How hard did you push it?"
"A water cart lost its brake yesterday."
He stared at her.
"You stopped a cart?"
"It was heading toward the pigs."
"Of course. The citizens who pay no rent."
"I’d also eaten too much preserved monster meat. The healer told me to rest the gift."
"Did you?"
"I lifted one barrel."
"I saw you lift four."
"One at a time."
There it was. An entire philosophy of bad decisions, delivered without shame.
He scooped a little of the cool green ointment onto two fingers. The clinical reading remained open. When his hand passed near the purple line, the line bent toward it, as if drawn to his skin.
Sung-Il stopped, fingertips hovering a breath away from the soft cleft between her cheeks.
Brina looked back again.
"What?"
"It moved toward my hand."
"The ointment?"
"The energy."
He withdrew his hand. The line settled back against her skin.
He brought it close again without touching. Nothing happened. Gentle contact—just the pad of one finger resting lightly against the outer edge of her anus—and the end of the purple thread lifted, seeking him.
A small window opened beside the first.
[SPENT GIFT ENERGY DETECTED.]
[DRAW AVAILABLE.]
Sung-Il read it twice.
His first useful new function had appeared in a barn washroom.
He had imagined a mountain. Lightning. Perhaps a respectful dragon.
"Does it say what happens?" Brina asked, voice a little tighter now.
"It says I can draw the used energy away. Not your gift. This loose bit."
"Can you stop?"
He lifted his hand. The line fell back immediately.
"Yes."
Brina considered the jar, then him. Her breathing had changed. The small muscles around her entrance flexed once, involuntary.
"A little. Stop if it hurts."
He nodded. He was suddenly much more interested in doing this properly than looking impressive.
He touched the same place again, circling the ointment-slick pad of his finger over the tight ring. The tissue was warmer than the rest of her skin, slightly swollen, and when he pressed just enough to feel the give of the muscle, Brina’s breath hitched.
"There," she murmured. "That’s... where it itches."
Sung-Il swallowed & said hesitantly "I can feel it. The energy is strongest right at the rim." He hesitated, then asked the question that had been sitting heavy on his tongue. "Can I use my finger? Inside. Just to spread the ointment properly and... reach the residue better."
Silence stretched for three heartbeats.
"Yes," Brina said, quiet but clear. "You can."
He exhaled slowly. One finger, coated thickly with the cool ointment, pressed against the center of her anus. The muscle resisted for a second, then yielded.
He sank in to the first knuckle, then the second, feeling the hot, silky clench of her walls close around him. Brina’s back arched a fraction; a soft, involuntary sound left her throat.
He worked the finger in slow circles, spreading the ointment deeper, coating every fold. The purple thread brightened, clinging to his skin as if the energy itself wanted to leave her body. When he curled the finger gently, pressing upward against the sensitive front wall, Brina’s hips twitched and a low, needy breath escaped her.
"Fuck... that’s—" She cut herself off, then tried again. "It’s helping."
He added a second finger after a moment, scissoring them carefully to open her further. The stretch made her moan, quiet and broken. Ointment and her own natural slickness mixed, making the glide filthy and wet. Every time he withdrew almost all the way and pushed back in, the residual energy flared brighter against his skin.
A new notification pulsed.
[DRAW FEATURE AVAILABLE]
[Magical residue remaining is causing the irritation.]
[Sung-Il can DRAW it.]
[Method: Take the residue into your body.]
Sung-Il’s pulse hammered in his ears. He looked at the tight, glistening ring stretched around his fingers, the pale purple energy still clinging there like living thread.
Sung Il stopped and pulled back. He withdrew his fingers slowly, watching the way her hole fluttered and tried to close around nothing. A thin string of ointment and her own wetness stretched between his skin and hers.
Brina asked Sung-Il, "What happened? Is anything wrong?"
"Brina," he said, voice rough. "The system says the fastest way to draw the rest is... to take it in me. Direct contact. I can pull the residue in that way."
She was quiet for a long second.
Brina thought for a while, then she turned around again. Then she pushed her hips back, presenting herself more openly, the motion making his fingers sink deeper.
"Do it," she whispered. "Take it."
He leaned in, breath hot against the soft skin of her ass, and dragged his tongue in a long, deliberate stripe up the cleft, ending right at the rim.
Brina gasped.
He sealed his mouth over her anus and sucked gently at first, then harder, tongue working the tight muscle open again. The taste was green ointment and clean skin and something deeper—warm, metallic, faintly electric. The purple energy surged toward the contact. He felt it leave her body in a slow, pulsing rush, sliding over his tongue and down his throat like liquid heat.
He licked deeper, pointed tongue pushing inside the softened ring, fucking her shallowly with it while he drew the residue. Brina’s thighs trembled. Soft, desperate sounds spilled out of her with every wet thrust of his tongue. One of her hands reached back, fingers threading into his hair, not to pull him away but to hold him closer.
"Sung-Il—ah—fuck, your tongue—"
He groaned against her, the vibration making her clench. He kept drawing, kept licking, kept sucking the last threads of spent gift energy into himself. Warmth flooded his chest, settled low in his gut, coiling there like a second heartbeat.
His cock was rock-hard and aching inside his pants, but he ignored it, focused entirely on the filthy, intimate work of cleaning every last trace of irritation from her body with his mouth.
When the purple line finally vanished, the window updated.
[ENERGY STORED: 14.]
[RESONANCE: UNSTABLE.]
[SOURCE PATTERN: IRON GUT.]
He pulled back just enough to breathe, lips still brushing her slick, thoroughly rimmed hole. Brina was panting, legs shaking, the small of her back shiny with sweat.
"Did that hurt?" he asked, voice wrecked.
"No." She sounded wrecked too. "It felt... warm. Everywhere." She looked back at him, eyes dark. "Here too." She pressed a hand to her lower belly.
He pointed at his own stomach, still feeling the foreign energy settle.
She looked him over. "You’re not glowing."
"I’m trying not to take that personally."
[LOCAL IRRITATION: ZERO.]
[PELVIC STRAIN: SLIGHTLY ELEVATED.]
The reading showed the irritation gone. The strain remained, but lighter.
They waited. Brina moved carefully, sat on the stool, then stood again.
"Less pressure," she said. "Still sore, but... different. Better."
"That seems worth keeping separate."
"It certainly feels separate."
He blinked.
"Fourteen what?" Brina asked, still a little breathless.
"Energy. Apparently."
"Is that good?"
"I’ve never owned fourteen of this before."
"Then don’t spend it until you know."
Sensible advice. Deeply disappointing.
He finished applying the last of the ointment, taking his time, fingers lingering inside her longer than strictly necessary. When he finally stepped back, Brina straightened and pulled her clothes up with careful movements.
He stepped outside while she finished dressing. Six-Ears waited on the overturned feed bucket, looking as though it had been kept from a very important meeting.
"Medical work," Sung-Il told it.
It looked at his red ears—and lower, at the obvious tent in his pants.
"Complicated medical work."
Brina came out carrying the closed jar. She walked more easily, although she still lowered herself onto the crate with care. There was a new awareness in the way she looked at him, a heat that hadn’t been there before.
"I’m keeping the healer’s appointment," she said.
"Good. Tell her about the energy."
"You can tell her. You’re coming."
His stomach sank.
"Will there be another test?"
"Probably."
"With an audience?"
"Not if you stop announcing your profession to rabbits."
Six-Ears objected to the classification.
They sat for a while, listening to the pigs settle. The farm seemed different after midnight. No carts, no shouting, no one dropping buckets. Sung-Il could hear water moving in the aqueduct overhead.
Brina put her hand beside his on the crate.
"Thank you."
He nearly made a joke. Something about professional rates or his magnificent new career.
Then he looked at her face—flushed, lips parted, eyes still a little glassy from what his mouth and fingers had done to her—and let himself have the thanks.
"You’re welcome."
Her fingers touched his. She did not hurry to move them.
Neither did he.
The private window flickered once.
[RESONANCE: STABLE.]
[COMPATIBLE PATTERN AVAILABLE.]
Sung-Il stared at it.
He had just been told not to spend anything.
Unfortunately, the universe had discovered his weakness.
It had shown him a button.