Farmboy becomes King with the Lust System

Byun's fingers brushed the smooth, cold surface of the obelisk. The stone wasn't just stone, it felt wrong, as though something inside it was moving. It gave off a faint vibration, a heartbeat that didn't belong to the living.

The moment his palm settled on its base, a deep, dull pulse rippled outward. For an instant, the world seemed to hold its breath. Then, without warning, a violent shockwave tore free from the obelisk.

It wasn't sound in the normal sense. It was a pressure, an invisible scream that made the air twist as it rushed past them. Byun's ears rang with the strange weight of it, and his vision blurred.

The pulse rolled outward into the distance, vanishing into the black cliffs beyond. Even when the ground steadied, the feeling lingered, as if the obelisk had just announced itself to something far away.

xxx

Elsewhere, deep in the winding underbelly of the dungeon, Jae and his team of girls were in the thick of combat. The tunnel ahead was a haze of motion, flashes of claws, the hiss of flame bats swooping low, the chitter of spiders echoing off wet stone.

Jae was a storm in motion. He flowed between enemies with practiced ease, every strike measured, every dodge precise. A spider lunged; his blade cut through its front legs before it even landed.

A flame bat shrieked overhead; he sidestepped, thrusting upward in a clean, lethal arc. The floor was already littered with twitching bodies, their ichor soaking into the uneven rock.

The girls were keeping pace well enough, each covering the others in bursts of coordinated movement. Tirel's flame spear flashed as she skewered a spider before it could leap onto Yuna. Yun fired off a series of wind slashes that cut down a pair of bats mid-flight. Together, they carved a path forward, adding more beast crystals to the growing collection Jae carried in his pouch.

But danger never struck only where expected.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jae saw Tirel hesitate, her weight shifting back just as a spider dropped from the ceiling. Its stinger shot toward her throat in a deadly arc.

Jae moved before thought, a single fluid motion of blade and step, slicing the stinger clean away. The spider collapsed with a wet thud, and Tirel spun toward him, eyes wide, cheeks flushing in the dim light.

"Thanks," she breathed, her voice almost swallowed by the cavern's hum.

Before he could answer, Yuna appeared at his side, slipping through the fray as if she'd been there all along. Her hand clamped onto his shoulder, her grip firm enough to get his full attention.

She leaned in, her breath warm against his ear, her tone low and deliberate.

"I heard something," she murmured, her gaze flicking toward Tirel for the briefest second. "Some girls are planning to get close to you. Not for romance. They want to figure out your secret, how you're this strong, and use it for themselves."

Jae's brows drew together, though his hands never stopped moving, his blade still catching the neck of a charging sasquatch. "That's… an actual plan someone came up with?"

Yuna didn't smile. "I'm not saying Tirel is one of them. Just… be careful."

The warning sat heavy in the back of his mind. He wondered if he should take it seriously since he knew Yuna was someone who would do whatever to achieve a goal, including lie.

The tunnel's walls widened, spilling them into another cave. It was darker than the last, shadows clinging to the jagged edges of the ceiling.

The air smelled of damp stone and something else, a metallic tang, faint but sharp enough to taste on the tongue.

Eyes glimmered in the black ahead, low to the ground and high in the air both.

"Same plan as before," Jae called, stepping forward to meet the first wave.

The monsters swarmed, spiders skittering over rock, flame bats dive-bombing with trails of ember, hulking sasquatches pounding the ground with their fists.

Steel rang against chitin, claws raked against shields, and the air filled with the wet smack of blades tearing through flesh.

When the last creature crumpled to the stone, Jae found himself beside Tirel again. They stood close enough for their armor to graze with each breath.

The contact was brief, almost nothing, but Tirel felt it. She stepped back with a quick, amused glance, her mouth curling upward.

"Do you always flirt while you're on missions?"

Jae's smirk came without effort. "That wasn't flirting. Just an accident."

Her grin widened.

He tilted his head slightly, voice casual. "Wouldn't know, though. I don't go on many missions."

Tirel shook her head, still smiling, and moved to finish off a wounded spider twitching on the ground. They worked in comfortable silence after that, side by side in the glow of their conjured lights, the sound of their breathing syncing with the rhythm of their steps.

xxx

Far away, in the oppressive dark of the rift, Byun stopped mid-stride. Something slid into his mind, uninvited and unstoppable.

The voice was deep and resonant, heavy enough to seem like it carried its own gravity. It didn't speak through the air, it bypassed sound entirely, pressing directly into thought, intimate and cold.

"You are wasted as a servant," it said. "Be a king."

The shadow-tendrils along Byun's arms stirred as if alive. They uncoiled, slow at first, then with restless eagerness, curling upward toward the source of the voice only he could hear. His chest tightened, his breathing faltered, and the world narrowed to the weight of that command

It was not an offer. It was a summons.

The principal's voice cut sharply across the moment. "Byun!"

Before the tendrils could act, a blinding surge of light erupted from the principal's hand. It struck Byun like a physical blow, searing through the shadows clinging to him.

The tendrils writhed, twisting in silent agony before dissolving into smoke that faded in the windless air.

Byun staggered back, gasping as though he had been held underwater. The connection was gone, but the words lingered, heavy, poisonous, and impossible to ignore.