The trip back to the lower district was a blur of mounting anxiety. Ren clutched the matte-black shopping bag against his chest like it contained a live explosive. He had less than an hour before his scheduled afternoon scavenging raid, and the system's penalty timer was ticking down in the corner of his vision like a digital death sentence.
When he finally reached his apartment building, he practically kicked the door open. The cramped living space was empty; his father was already asleep before his night shift, and Sierra was still at school. Ren locked the front door, bolted the lock to his tiny partitioned corner of the room, and dumped the bag onto his lumpy mattress.
He stared at the burgundy 'Nightshade' set. The fabric caught the dim, flickering light of his single bulb, the delicate black lace trimming mocking his rough, calloused hands.
I can't believe I'm doing this, he thought, feeling a profound wave of nausea. I'm an E-rank hunter. I kill monsters.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[WARNING: 32 MINUTES REMAINING UNTIL STAT DEGRADATION AND FUND LOCKOUT. HOST IS ADVISED TO EQUIP THE FOUNDATION GARMENTS IMMEDIATELY.]
"Shut up," Ren hissed at the glowing blue text.
With trembling hands, he stripped off his heavy canvas jacket, his sweat-soaked t-shirt, and his worn trousers. He stood there in the chilly, damp air of his room, his unnaturally smooth, strawberry-scented skin prickling with goosebumps. Gritting his teeth, he picked up the garments.
Putting them on was a psychological ordeal. The fabric was engineered for a female anatomy he currently didn't possess, yet it clung to his frame with a terrifying, magical elasticity. The seamless bands snapped against his ribs, and the subtle lace trimmed against his waist, soft and utterly foreign. It didn't pinch or hurt—in fact, it was the most comfortable material he had ever worn—but the mental weight of it was suffocating. Every time he shifted his weight, the smooth slide of poly-silk against his skin sent a jolt of pure, paralyzing embarrassment straight to his brain.
He hurriedly pulled his rough, scratchy cotton shirt back on, followed by his padded leather armor and sturdy combat trousers. He strapped on his dented chest piece and tightened his belt.
He looked in his cracked mirror. Outwardly, he looked exactly the same: a nineteen-year-old, heavily burdened E-rank hunter. But underneath the boiled leather and cheap iron plates, he felt entirely exposed.
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
[EQUIPMENT VERIFIED: NIGHTSHADE POLY-SILK SET (BURGUNDY) IS CURRENTLY ACTIVE.]
[NOTE: REWARDS WILL BE DISTRIBUTED UPON SUCCESSFUL COMPLETION OF THE DUNGEON RAID IN THIS ATTIRE. DO NOT REMOVE.]
Ren let out a shaky breath, grabbing his rusty dagger and dented shield. "Let's just get this over with."
The D-rank dungeon gate, a swirling vortex of murky green energy, was located in an abandoned subway terminal two districts over. Ren had joined a randomized party of four other low-ranking scavengers. They were a rough, unsociable bunch, which suited Ren perfectly. He didn't want to talk. He just wanted to survive and go home.
The dungeon interior was a sprawling, subterranean cavern system dripping with acidic slime. Every step Ren took was a masterclass in paranoia. His heavy leather armor chafed against his neck and arms, but beneath it, the frictionless glide of the silk undergarments was a constant, terrifying sensory reminder of his secret.
Don't get hit, he chanted internally, his eyes darting frantically across the gloom. If a crawler tears my armor, they'll see it. They'll see the lace. I'll be exiled from the guild before sunset.
"Incoming! Cave Crawlers!" shouted the party's vanguard, a burly man wielding a heavy mace.
From the shadows of the cavern ceiling, three massive, multi-legged arachnid beasts dropped to the floor, their mandibles clicking viciously.
Ren raised his dented shield, bracing himself. A crawler lunged at him, its front legs striking the metal surface with the force of a speeding truck. The impact sent a agonizing shockwave up Ren's arm. He grunted, his boots sliding back in the slick mud.
He thrust his dagger forward, aiming for the beast's underbelly, but his arm felt like it was moving through molasses. He was too slow. The crawler deflected the blade with a chitinous leg and snapped its mandibles inches from Ren's face, splashing foul-smelling venom across his visor.
Ren scrambled backward, his lungs burning, his E-rank stamina already depleting after just one exchange. He swung wildly, desperately trying to keep the monster at bay while the rest of the party focused on the other two.
As he fought for his life, a bitter, humiliating realization washed over him.
Just yesterday, he had been Carmine. As the B-rank succubus, power had flowed through his veins like liquid fire. He had effortlessly danced around a Minotaur Lord, bending shadows, tearing through thick iron plating with nothing but manicured claws. Carmine's agility had been godlike; her strength, absolute.
But right now? In his male body? He was pathetic.
He parried another strike, his wrist screaming in protest as the crawler nearly disarmed him. His male form had gained absolutely nothing from slaughtering that boss. He was just as weak, just as slow, and just as fragile as he had been the day he awakened. The power disparity was a chasm, and it made him feel utterly hollow. He was a passenger in his own life, completely reliant on a parasitic, humiliating system to achieve anything resembling strength.
With a guttural yell, Ren threw his entire body weight behind his shield, bashing the crawler's face. The beast stumbled back just long enough for one of the party's mages to blast it with a fireball, turning it into a screeching pile of ash.
Ren collapsed against the cavern wall, sliding down to the muddy floor. He was gasping for air, covered in monster grime, but his hands instinctively flew to his chest and waist, checking for tears in his armor.
Intact. The leather held. His secret was safe.
The rest of the raid passed in a tense, exhausted blur. They cleared the lower tunnels, mined a few dozen low-grade mana stones, and exited the portal before the boss chamber even materialized. It was an incredibly mundane, unremarkable run.
But for Ren, stepping back out into the cool evening air of the city felt like waking up from a year-long nightmare.
By the time he trudged back up the stairs to his apartment, his body was aching, bruised, and thoroughly exhausted. The apartment was quiet; the TV was off, and a faint strip of light seeped from under his sister's bedroom door.
As soon as Ren crossed the threshold and locked the door behind him, the familiar chime rang in his skull.
[QUEST COMPLETE: A LADY'S FOUNDATION]
[REQUIREMENTS MET: THE HOST SUCCESSFULLY ENDURED A COMBAT SCENARIO WHILE PROPERLY FOUNDATIONED.]
[REWARD CLAIMED: 250 EXP, +2 AGILITY, 100 GOLD.]
Ren paused, waiting for the familiar rush of energy that usually accompanied a stat increase in VR games or high-rank awakenings. He flexed his fingers. He rolled his shoulders.
Nothing.
He still felt heavy, sore, and entirely sluggish.
"System," he whispered, "show status."
[USER: REN / CARMINE]
[BASE RANK: E]
[SUCCUBUS RANK: B]
[SYSTEM LEVEL: 1]
[EXP: 350/1000]
[LIFE FORCE: 1870]
[SYSTEM GOLD: 150 (Total Available for Withdrawal)]
[SUCCUBUS STATS: STR 45 | AGI 62 (+2) | INT 30 | CHRM 51]
[MALE STATS: STR 8 | AGI 9 | INT 12 | CHRM 14]
Ren stared at the glowing blue interface, a bitter smile tugging at his lips. The system didn't even bother hiding the segregation anymore. The +2 Agility had gone straight to Carmine. The only thing his male body had gained was a fractionally higher Charm stat from his morning skincare routine.
He sighed, dismissing the window. At least he had the gold. He quickly converted the 150 system gold into 1,500 hunter credits, adding it to the 5,000 he had transferred earlier that morning.
He walked into the tiny kitchen. On the table, Sierra's physics textbook lay open, heavily annotated with pencil marks. He found a scrap of paper and a pen near the fruit bowl.
Sierra, he wrote, his handwriting a messy scrawl from his exhausted hands. Transferred enough to the family shared account for your books and the electric bill. Take it out tomorrow morning before school. Don't worry about where it came from; I found a good scavenging route. Focus on your midterms.
He stuck the note directly to the cover of her textbook where she couldn't miss it.
After a quick, freezing cold shower—where he practically scrubbed his skin raw to get the scent of the dungeon and the phantom feeling of the silk off him—Ren retreated to his partitioned corner. He threw himself onto his lumpy mattress, staring up at the water-stained ceiling.
The apartment was dead silent, save for the distant wail of a police siren in the lower district.
Ren closed his eyes, his mind racing. The events of the last two days played on a loop. The Minotaur Lord. The transformation. The B-rank power. The skincare routine. The department store. The agonizing paranoia in the dungeon.
He had tried to ignore the system when he first awakened it. He had treated it like a hallucination. But it had forced his hand, saved his life, and just paid for his sister's education.
It wasn't going away. He couldn't just bury his head in the sand anymore. If he was going to survive the escalating humiliation of these quests, if he was going to wield the terrifying power of Carmine without being dissected by the Hunter Association, he needed to stop reacting and start understanding.
Ren opened his eyes, the violet hue of the system interface reflecting faintly in his pupils.
"Since I've become so entangled with this system anyway," Ren whispered into the dark room, his voice steadying with a newfound, reluctant resolve, "let's see what it's all about."
He took a deep breath.
"System... open."
I got a bit excited today. Here are two chapters, my dear people!