Chapter 128: The Surprisingly Ordinary Spirit Realm with a 1:39 Gender Ratio (4)
Hell looked like this. For starters, the sky was clear and pristine—
Just like an autumn sky.
The earth was slowly being painted with the colors of fall.
Beneath the crimson foliage stood a village built of tiled rooftops, like something straight out of a historical drama.
In front of that village, girls dressed in hanbok squealed as they looked at me.
“Lady Rieon has returned!!!”
“She’s alive, she’s really alive…”
“Then, then that means the others will return too, right?”
This place… Hell…?
If hell looked like this, I’d gladly fall here a dozen times.
“Unnie, but… are we sure that’s really Lady Rieon?”
“I-I think so? I mean, no one but Rieon could enter Spirit Realm.”
The girls chattered nonstop.
Was it okay to approach them?
No matter how I looked at it, they were clearly mistaking me for Kirieon.
“But she’s so tall.”
“Her chest is… flat.”
“She looks kinda different from us. That—that’s like a characteristic of the ‘male’ creatures we read about in books.”
The sharp-eyed girl with glasses stared daggers at me.
But more than that, what was up with her outfit?
I didn’t get to focus too long—
Because the atmosphere suddenly shifted.
“A man? A male?”
“No way. A man entering the Spirit Realm? That’s impossible.”
“If he’s a man, we need to call the guards immediately! Males are dangerous creatures who violate women!”
The moment someone mentioned “man,” the girls’ voices turned cold and wary.
What the hell… Should I run?
But I couldn’t back down.
Jobaek had said: if I can survive a single day in Hell, I get one point.
So no matter what, I had to live through today—whether it ended in disaster or not.
I forced the Heavenly Demon’s Business Smile™ onto my face and slowly approached them.
I’m not a bad person.
Please just let me stay the night!!!
Screams erupted from among the girls.
“Kyaaah!”
“W-Why did you suddenly scream like that?”
“Why are you blushing?”
I didn’t know what just happened, but…
I had clearly failed.
The same girls who had cheered a moment ago were now staring blankly at me after seeing my smile.
Did they realize I’m a man?
“Hey! How dare you comment on a senior’s body?! Where are your manners?!”
Suddenly, the girl who looked the oldest stepped forward.
Though to be fair, she couldn’t be more than in her early twenties.
Still, what stood out was that she was half-naked.
She wasn’t completely naked like Kirieon, but she had some artistically placed cloth that only covered the essentials.
Artistically…?
Why did that word even pop into my head?
In some ways, she was even more provocative than Kirieon.
A look straight out of a gentleman’s forbidden sketchbook???
M-MANIACAL!!!
Dammit. This really might be Hell.
These girls might be succubi trying to lure me in.
I needed to snap out of it. Now.
But the girl only bowed politely, seemingly unaware of the chaos in my brain.
“Lady Rieon. You’ve finally returned home.”
As she bowed, her pale back and boing-boings were completely exposed.
I instinctively looked away,
This must be Spirit Realm.
Let’s take a guess: This is the place that exiles all men into Hell.
But the barrier must’ve malfunctioned, and I somehow walked straight into Kirieon’s hometown—Spirit Realm.
Kirieon did say this place was strictly off-limits to men…
And this “Lady Rieon” they’re calling me—
Must be referring to Kirieon, right?
Which means… I had no choice.
I’d have to pretend to be her.
From the sound of things, if they figured out I was male, things would get very ugly.
“I-It’s good to be back after so long.”
“But… your appearance has changed quite a bit.”
Crap.
This girl knew the real Kirieon.
“Ahaha, well, I’ve been cursed and wounded in battle a few times…”
The girl muttered shyly.
“Senior, do you… remember me, by any chance?”
“Uh, well… I once took a blow to the head, you know? Lost some of my memories. The outside world is full of really bad people.”
Of course, I had no idea who she was.
As I hesitated and fumbled for an answer, she gave a faint, slightly sad smile.
“I understand. I know how cruel the outside world can be.”
But her smile didn’t last long.
She quickly returned to her stern unnie expression.
“Senior, my name is Yeonri. Kim Yeonri.”
Yeonri bowed her head politely.
“I look forward to serving you.”
“Y-Yeah…”
Then Kim Yeonri turned to the other girls and gave a command.
“Come on, escort our senior to her room. There will be a banquet tonight.”
* * *
Kim Yeonri silently stared at the back of the so-called “Senior.”
It was… a very broad back.
A human with a back like that?
As she imagined it, her cheeks flushed, and she tilted her head in confusion, unsure why she was reacting this way.
“Yeonri-sunbae, that’s a man.”
The bespectacled beauty, Rahyun’s, whispered urgently.
“First of all, there’s no way Senior Rieon would show up without wearing a Spirit robe. That just doesn’t happen.”
“I know. I know that person isn’t really Senior Rieon.”
Kim Yeonri continued with a firm voice.
“But they walked in through the main gate. The barrier around Spirit Realm is absolute. Any man is sent straight to Hell, and any unauthorized woman is trapped in an endless illusion.”
Which meant… this person had been granted access.
With a conflicted expression, Yeonri added,
“So that person must be a woman who’s been granted permission to enter the Spirit Realm. Most likely, Senior Rieon gave her that permission from the outside.”
“L-Logically speaking… that makes sense, but…”
Rahyun’s mumbled, unconvinced.
“But they match exactly the description of a man from the books I’ve read.”
“But, it’s not like you’ve ever seen a real man. What makes you so sure?”
At that, Rahyun’s pulled out a book she had tucked under her arm.
It contained illustrations and notes describing male anatomy.
“Look here! It says men have flat chests and broad shoulders. And that person—has the flattest chest and the broadest shoulders I’ve ever seen!”
“Anyone who trains their body would develop broad shoulders. And there are plenty of girls who are flat-chested. Why are you acting like that’s rare?”
That… was a fair point.
Then Rahyun’s flipped to the next page in the book.
It displayed a very detailed sketch of male lower anatomy.
“Then it’s simple! We just need to check what’s down there!”
At the blatant suggestion, Kim Yeonri quickly turned her head away.
“How rude. How could you even think of doing that to Senior Rieon’s guest?”
“But don’t you want to see for yourself?”
“Absolutely not.”
Unfazed, Rahyun’s, the bespectacled beauty, shamelessly shoved the page depicting male genitalia in Yeonri’s direction.
Yeonri turned even redder and jerked her head away.
“Kyaaah! What the hell are you doing?”
“Smell it. Just smell it. The other girls borrowed this book and... did things with it.”
“Smell it?”
Sure enough, there was a distinct scent clinging to the page.
A scent that was… a little indecent.
Yeonri wrinkled her nose. What was that smell?
Just then, Rahyun’s continued her lecture with scholarly seriousness.
“They say the soul is made up of information, qi, and fundamental essence.”
Qi, information, and fundamental origin.
The three essential components of the soul.
“And our Spirit Realm cultivates the purest form of qi—unlike the tainted information of the mundane world or the untraceable fundamental essence from who-knows-where. We are a family of immortals.”
“Why are you bringing all this up now?”
“Yeonri-sunbae, qi—especially yang-qi—is directly tied to life force. The more you cultivate it, the more your appetite grows, your stamina increases, and also, also…”
“Also what?”
The bespectacled beauty, Rahyun, fell silent for a moment.
Her cheeks flushed red, and she lowered her gaze, muttering quietly.
“Libido increases too. A lot, actually. And, honestly, that’s the important part. The purpose of life is reproduction, right? So increasing vitality means… that.”
“W-Wait, are you saying we’re more perverted than the girls outside?”
“It’s not perversion—it just means we’re full of life…”
Rahyun adjusted her glasses matter-of-factly.
“Either way, if that person really is a man, something’s going to happen.”
“T-There’s no way. A man? There’s no way a man could enter.”
Kim Yeonri murmured to herself as she closed the book.
Right. This book is what stirred everyone up.
She pressed a hand against her chest, trying to calm her nerves, and asked again.
“But… what do you mean something will ‘happen’?”
“I mean… assault or… violation. You know what I’m talking about.”
“So what exactly is assault and violation?”
At Yeonri’s question, the bespectacled girl could only blink in confusion.
Come to think of it—what was assault? Or violation, really?
All she knew was that they were things violent men supposedly did to women.
Rahyun had been dying to know what exactly it was, to the point of losing sleep.
But no matter how much she researched, there was no clear information on it anywhere.
“I’m so freaking curious!!!”
Then again… what about the reverse?
What if a woman did something to a man—did that not count?
What were they even supposed to do? Force him into some kind of game?
Kim Yeonri was quickly becoming overwhelmed by a flurry of strange and unfamiliar feelings.
“Calm down. Deep breaths. I’m the senior-most member of Spirit Realm right now.”
Taking in a long breath, Yeonri forced herself to regain composure.
She looked firmly at the bespectacled girl and declared,
“What matters most right now is that person is a guest of Senior Rieon. That person likely holds important information about Senior Rieon. That’s all we need to focus on.”
Kim Yeonri nodded to herself.
“Got it?”
“Got it.”
As Kim Yeonri turned to leave, Rahyun’s spoke quietly to the girl next to her.
“Before anything happens, we need to expose that person as a man. Are you ready?”
“Of course. I’ve been ready from the start.”
“You’re unusually quick today.”
Rahyun’s glasses glinted in the sunset.
The girl beside her seemed slightly guilty and rushed to explain.
“I-It’s all for the greater good, you know that, right?”
“O-Of course!”
And so, the two girls—shrouded in a dubious sense of duty—headed for the banquet hall.
Lanterns had already begun to light up in the center of the village.
---The End Of The Chapter---
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