It all started on that day, three months ago, inside the sterile, fluorescent-lit halls of the National Hunter Association.
Ren remembered the smell of antiseptic and the nervous sweat of a hundred other hopefuls waiting for their turn at the Awakening Stone. He had prayed to every deity he could name. He didn't need to be an S-rank savior or a guild master. He just needed C-rank. Even a solid D-rank would have been enough to secure a guild contract, enough to start chipping away at the mountain of medical debt his father was drowning under, enough to pay for the machines keeping his mother breathing in her hospital bed.
When his name was called, he stepped up to the massive, ancient artifact resting on a velvet pedestal. He placed his trembling hand against the cold stone. For a heartbeat, the room seemed to hold its breath. A spark ignited deep within the crystal. Ren’s heart soared.
Then, the spark sputtered, coughed, and died into a muddy, dull brown glow.
The evaluator hadn't even looked him in the eye. "E-rank. Minimal mana capacity. Next."
Ren had stumbled out of the testing center in a daze, clutching a cheap plastic license that practically branded him as monster fodder. He had sat on a concrete bench in the rain, burying his face in his hands, wondering how he was going to tell his family that he was completely, utterly useless.
That was when the first blue box had appeared.
[CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE AWAKENED THE SUCCUBUS SYSTEM]
At the time, he thought he was losing his mind. He assumed the crushing disappointment had caused a psychological break, a stress-induced hallucination. He swiped it away, ignored the flashing prompts, and refused to acknowledge the floating text for weeks. He forced himself into the grueling, miserable life of an E-rank scavenger, hoping the hallucination would fade.
It hadn't faded. It had waited. And today, in the depths of a D-rank dungeon, it had forced his hand.
Ren blinked, the memory dissolving into the harsh, dimly lit reality of the cavern corridor. The phantom sensation of Carmine’s dark, intoxicating power still tingled beneath his skin, making his current body feel incredibly heavy and fragile. He rubbed his arms, shivering as the cold dungeon air bit through his sweat-soaked shirt. He was flat-chested, narrow-hipped, and pathetically weak again.
The dungeon around him was trembling. Dust rained from the ceiling, and the glowing moss on the walls flickered erratically. When a dungeon boss died, the spatial pocket began to destabilize, merging back with normal reality. He didn't have much time.
He broke into a jog, following the winding tunnels back toward the upper levels. His lungs burned, a stark reminder of his E-rank stamina. After ten minutes of frantic running, he heard voices shouting over the rumble of collapsing stone.
"Over here! The portal is manifesting!"
Ren turned a corner and nearly collided with Marcus. The burly B-rank leader had his greatsword drawn, his armor scored with fresh claw marks from lower-level mobs. Jenna was right behind him, her healing staff glowing with a frantic, pale light.
"Ren?!" Jenna gasped, her eyes widening in disbelief. "How are you alive? We saw you fall into the spatial trap!"
"I... I don't know," Ren lied smoothly, leaning heavily against the cavern wall and forcing himself to pant harder than necessary. "I dropped into a lower tunnel. I hid in a crevice for I don't know how long. Then the whole dungeon started shaking."
"The boss is dead," Marcus grunted, his eyes narrowing as he scanned the darkness behind Ren. "We didn't even breach the antechamber. Must have been a territorial dispute between monsters, or maybe a high-ranker slipped into the gate before us and cleared it. Doesn't matter. The core is destroyed, and this place is collapsing. Move!"
They didn't question him further. Who would suspect an E-rank teenager of slaughtering an armored Minotaur Lord?
The party sprinted toward the shimmering blue exit portal that had materialized at the dungeon's entrance. They burst through the threshold, stumbling out into the cool evening air of the city just as the gate behind them collapsed into a shower of harmless, dissipating sparks.
Because they hadn't officially cleared the boss themselves, the guild payout was abysmal. Ren received a meager handful of credits for the low-level mana stones he had managed to mine before the trap sprang. It wasn't even enough to cover half the electric bill.
Ren walked home through the neon-lit streets of the lower district, the weight of his reality pressing down on his shoulders. He lived in a cramped, two-bedroom apartment that constantly smelled of old cooking oil and damp concrete.
When he unlocked the door, the television was murmuring in the background. His younger sister, Sierra, was hunched over the tiny kitchen table, chewing on the end of a pencil as she stared at a battered, second-hand physics textbook. She looked up, brushing a lock of brown hair out of her eyes.
"You're back late," she noted, her gaze quickly darting over him to check for injuries. Seeing no missing limbs, she relaxed. "Dad took the night shift at the warehouse again. "
"I got delayed," Ren said softly, walking over and placing a hand on her shoulder. "Did you eat?"
"Instant ramen. Left some on the stove for you." Sierra sighed, closing her textbook. "The school says if I don't get the updated curriculum books by next week, I can't take the midterms. I told them we're waiting on a guild payout, but they don't care."
Ren’s chest tightened. "I'll get the money, Sierra. Don't worry about it. Just focus on studying."
He retreated to his small, partitioned corner of the room he shared with Kyle. He collapsed onto his lumpy mattress, staring up at the water-stained ceiling. He was utterly exhausted, but sleep wouldn't come.
"I'll get the money," he had told her. But how? E-rankers didn't make money. They died.
With a hesitant thought, Ren called up his status screen. He had to know if it was real.
[USER: REN / CARMINE] [BASE RANK: E] [SUCCUBUS RANK: B] [SYSTEM LEVEL: 1] [EXP: 0/1000] [LIFE FORCE: 1870] [SYSTEM GOLD: 500]
Ren stared at the glowing numbers. Five hundred system gold. During his walk home, he had discovered a sub-menu that allowed him to convert System Gold into Hunter Credits at a one-to-ten ratio. That was five thousand credits. More than he had made in the last three months combined. It was enough for Sierra's books. It was enough for the electricity. It was enough to buy a few more days for his mother's life support.
But as he scrolled through his stats, a sickening realization washed over him. His base male form had zero experience points. Slaying the Minotaur Lord, absorbing its life force—none of it had improved his E-rank body. The system was completely segregated. If he wanted to grow stronger, if he wanted to keep earning this kind of money, he could only do it by feeding the Succubus form.
Ren clenched his fists, squeezing his eyes shut. I won't do it, he told himself. I survived today. That's enough. I'm not turning into... that... ever again.
He finally drifted into a restless, nightmare-filled sleep.
The next morning, Ren woke to a shrill, digital chiming ringing directly inside his skull.
He groaned, swatting at the empty air, but his hand hit a solid, glowing blue panel hovering inches from his nose.
[GOOD MORNING, HOST!]
[DAILY QUEST AVAILABLE: MORNING SKINCARE ROUTINE]
[A true succubus must maintain flawless, captivating skin to lower the defenses of her prey. The host’s current dermal texture is unacceptably rough and entirely unappealing.]
[TASK: Cleanse, exfoliate, and moisturize your face using dedicated cosmetic products for a minimum of five minutes.]
[REWARD: 100 EXP, +1 Charm, 50 Gold.]
[FAILURE PENALTY: -10% Physical Strength for 24 Hours.]
Ren stared at the screen, his brain struggling to process the text through his morning haze.
"Are you kidding me?" he whispered hoarsely.
He tried to swipe the box away, but it immediately snapped back into place, pulsing with an angry red warning light.
[WARNING: 45 MINUTES REMAINING TO COMPLETE DAILY QUEST. STAT DEGRADATION IS IMMINENT.]
Ren’s blood ran cold. Minus ten percent physical strength? He was already at the absolute bottom of the barrel. If he lost ten percent of his strength, he wouldn't even be able to carry his dented shield, let alone swing a sword. He would be completely useless on his raid this afternoon. He would be a liability. He could die.
The system wasn't just offering him power. It was holding his survival hostage.
"Fine," Ren hissed through gritted teeth, throwing off his thin blanket. "Fine. You want skincare? I'll give you skincare."
He slipped out of his room, ensuring Sierra was still asleep, and crept into the cramped, mildew-scented bathroom. He locked the door behind him and stared at his reflection in the cracked mirror. Dark circles framed his tired eyes, and his skin was dull from stress and a terrible diet.
He reached into the shower caddy and grabbed the cheap, generic bar of soap he used for everything from his hair to his boots. He went to lather it up, but the system immediately intervened with a loud, buzzing error sound.
[ERROR. INDUSTRIAL-GRADE CLEANSING BARS ARE UNACCEPTABLE. USE DEDICATED COSMETIC PRODUCTS.]
"It's soap!" Ren whisper-shouted at the hovering screen. "It cleans things!"
The screen simply flashed the failure penalty at him again.
Ren swallowed his pride. His hands shaking with a mix of anger and profound embarrassment, he opened the small medicine cabinet. He pushed aside his father's shaving cream and found a small, pink bottle of foaming facial cleanser and a tube of daily moisturizer that Sierra had bought with her meager allowance months ago.
He felt like a criminal as he pumped a small dollop of the pink foam into his palm. It smelled strongly of strawberries and vanilla.
[PROCEED. APPLY IN GENTLE, UPWARD CIRCULAR MOTIONS. DO NOT SCRUB AGGRESSIVELY.]
Ren’s face burned hot with humiliation. He was a hunter. He fought monsters for a living. And here he was, standing in a cramped bathroom at six in the morning, gently massaging strawberry-scented foam into his cheeks while a holographic box critiqued his technique.
He rinsed his face, patted it dry with a towel—[DO NOT RUB, HOST. PAT DRY GENTLY.] the system scolded—and then applied a thin layer of the moisturizer.
A golden light flashed in the bathroom.
[QUEST COMPLETE!]
[REWARD CLAIMED: 100 EXP, +1 Charm, 50 Gold.]
Ren gripped the edges of the sink, his knuckles turning white. It was over. He had humored the stupid system, protected his stats, and earned enough gold for a decent meal.
But as he looked up into the cracked mirror, his breath caught in his throat.
It was a subtle change. Someone who didn't look at his face every day might not have noticed it at all. But his skin looked noticeably clearer. The rough patches along his jawline were entirely gone, replaced by a smooth, almost unnaturally soft texture. His eyelashes seemed just a fraction longer, casting softer shadows over his eyes.
He touched his cheek. It didn't feel like his own skin. It felt like hers.
The system wasn't just controlling him through quests. The "Charm" stat wasn't an invisible number. It was actively, physically changing his male body, slowly molding him into something else.
Ren stared at his reflection, the scent of strawberries lingering in the air, and for the first time since the dungeon, he felt a genuine spike of terror.