Dawn. A university hospital counseling room.
The last client was sunk into the chair. A married woman in her thirties. Insomnia. In the middle of a divorce suit. The progressive relaxation I had guided her through had worked. Her eyelids trembled faintly, her breathing was slow, and her lips were slightly parted.
At that moment, I “saw” her emotions.
To be precise, I felt them. What she wanted wasn’t treatment, but contact. A thirst for another person’s body warmth after five years. Anxiety, deprivation. Those things rang directly inside my head, like voices.
Why can I see this? How do I know this?
Her hand reflexively rose and gripped my wrist. It was a weak touch, but its direction was clear. It was a motion meant to pull me not toward her wrist, but deeper in.
I carefully pulled my hand free. I maintained a businesslike tone.
“That will be all for today’s session. Please come again next week at the same time.”
She opened her eyes. Her expression was dazed at first, then shame quickly spread across her face. She herself didn’t fully remember what she had just done. I closed the chart and opened the door for her. The door shut. The automatic light timer in the hallway clicked.
Left alone in the counseling room, I flipped up the fluorescent light switch. Bzzzt.
“What the hell was that just now?”
It was a fifteen-minute walk to the lab. The late-night shuttle had stopped running. As I walked, I couldn’t organize a single thought. The way I had “read” that emotion wasn’t normal. It was something beyond the observations of a counselor with ten years of training.
I opened the lab door. Turned on the light. The fluorescent lamp flickered with a bzzzt.
Two in the morning. Alone.
On the laptop screen was the paper I had been in the middle of writing. The mini fridge let out a low hum, and outside, a taxi horn blared. Sitting alone under the fluorescent light.
Damn, this is pathetic.
Me, Kang Dohyeon. Twenty-seven years old. Psychology graduate student. My looks aren’t bad. I’m fairly tall for a Korean man, and the voice I’ve trained through counseling practice works pretty damn well on women. Every time I go out for practical training, I can feel the way female clients’ gazes change.
But my real weapon isn’t my looks. It’s this head of mine.
“A man who can read women’s hearts is the scariest thing in the world.”
With my fingers stopped above the keyboard, I muttered to myself. Three empty coffee cups sat on the table. My eyes felt gritty. For half a year, I’d been living through three days a week of counseling practice on top of my degree program.
My advisor told me to change my topic because hypnosis was treated like pseudoscience. I didn’t back down. I still remembered clearly the day three years ago when I first saw a hypnosis demonstration. The moment the subject closed their eyes, I watched the tension melt away from their shoulders. The fact that a single word, a single tone of voice, could reach deep into a person’s consciousness.
I was completely turned on by it.
I was organizing the data. Graphs showing changes in galvanic skin response before and after hypnotic induction. The numbers showed a clear difference.
“Hypnosis is not pseudoscience.”
That conviction was the force that kept me tied down until dawn.
The fluorescent light flickered again. This time, for longer. Bzzzt. Bzzzzzzzt. The fridge shuddered with a loud hummm, abruptly stopped, then rumbled back to life.
“Is the power going out again?”
I pressed the save button. Click. At that exact moment.
Light surged up from the floor.
Wooooooong. The entire room resonated. A deafening low frequency burrowed all the way into my bones. The laptop flew off with a clatter, the chair toppled over with a crash, and my body floated up into the air.
“What…?!”
My entire field of vision burned white. It felt as if my body was being disassembled, or as if I were being sucked into the light.
The next moment, I was slammed down hard onto a cold stone floor.
“Ghk…!”
My back hit first. Air rushed out of my lungs and I broke into a coughing fit. The taste of blood filled my mouth. I must have bitten my tongue.
Damn, that hurts.
The sensation of cold stone spread across my back. An acrid smell of smoke reached my nose. The sound of people murmuring. It wasn’t Korean, but strangely, I understood the meaning. As if I had an interpreter in my ear.
“It’s a success! The summoning circle has activated!”
“As many as five have arrived!”
“Confirm the mana residue! Maintain the stability of the circle!”
Swallowing a groan, I lifted myself up. I felt like I’d been through a washing machine.
It was a huge circular hall. Vast enough to take my breath away. The ceiling was impossibly high, embroidered with golden mosaics patterned after constellations. Blue-white magical flames crackled atop each pillar. Complex geometric patterns covered the floor. Between those lines, residual light fizzled and died with a crackle. A smell like ozone lingered in the air with a sharp hiss.
On top of that pattern, five people, including me, lay collapsed.
“Where… are we?”
Beside me, a woman stood up while holding her lower back. Short bobbed hair and large eyes. She looked frightened, but the gaze trying to grasp the situation was sharp.
Oh. Not bad.
The way she pressed her lips together and quickly scanned her surroundings. The type who didn’t fall into panic.
“Are you Korean too?”
“Yes. I’m Kang Dohyeon.”
“I’m Ha Eunseo. What on earth is going on?”
“Who knows. A stone room. Torches. People in robes.”
“The Middle Ages?”
“I think it’s stranger than that.”
“I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“If this is a dream, then I’m having the same one.”
Eunseo gave a faint laugh. A small laugh leaking from tense lips. Damn, this woman is pretty.
The other three got up as well. All Koreans. A well-built man roughly spat out, “Where the hell are we?” A thin man adjusted his glasses; his hands were shaking, but his mouth was tightly shut. The last woman clutched her head and staggered, muttering, “Ah, my head…”
Everyone was in their late twenties to early thirties. Everyone was Korean. This wasn’t a coincidence. There was a standard to the summoning conditions.
From one side of the circular hall, a group approached with echoing footsteps. At the front was an old man with white hair, holding a long staff. Behind him, knights in armor clanked as they moved.
And a woman.
Blonde. Abundant curls flowed past her shoulders and down her back. A tight crimson dress did not hide the curves of her mature body.
I knew at first glance. This wasn’t just a pretty woman.
The composure unique to an older woman. Mature beauty. An overwhelming sensuality that could never come from women my age. The crimson dress was stretched taut as if it might tear, and the valley of her cleavage was clear even beneath the fabric. Her waist was narrow, and the line of her hips continuing below it—
Fuck, that’s hot.
Her gait was impressive. Click. Click. Click. Each sound of her heels rang with confidence. Her back was straight, her chin slightly raised, her angle one of looking down upon everything. It was the walk of someone who had stood at the pinnacle of power for decades.
Violet eyes. Strange eyes, cold yet languid. Eyes that seemed to already know everything about the world and be bored by it.
I wonder what kind of expression a woman with eyes like that makes at night.
“Archmage. Is this the result of the hero summoning?”
A low, cool voice. A timbre refined by time, like aged wine.
The white-haired old man bowed at the waist.
“It is, Your Majesty. In response to the crisis on the continent of Velcross, we have summoned five heroes from another world.”
A queen, huh.
That word lodged itself in my mind. A dignity befitting the title of queen. And an unmistakable sensuality that did not suit the title, impossible to look away from. Those full tits, that narrow waist, those abundant hips. Even over the dress, the distinct curves flaunted the majesty of an otherworldly MILF.
Where’s the king?
I read the expressions of the people around us. The knights wore faces filled with expectation, and the mages couldn’t hide their excitement. But on the queen’s face, there was only cold evaluation. The eyes of a merchant inspecting a horse’s teeth in the market. Whether it was useful or not. That was all they saw.
The archmage and the knight commander alike were watching the queen’s mood. There was no king in sight. The one making the final decisions was that woman.
Good. If I can conquer that woman, I can survive in this world.
The well-built man suddenly shouted.
“Hey! Where the hell is this! Why are we here!”
A knight stepped forward, hand going to his sword, but the queen raised her hand slightly to stop him. At that tiny gesture, the knight halted immediately. Perfect command.
The moment a woman like this loses control in bed is always the hottest.
“Rise, heroes.”
It was a command, yet elegant, in a tone impossible to refuse.
“Wherever you came from, from this moment on, this is your world. Tomorrow morning, your skills will be bestowed upon you.”
Eunseo asked softly, “Skills?”
The queen was already turning away. Her blonde hair fluttered gently, and her dress swayed like rippling water. Even from behind, the side line of her tits was visible.
The knights moved in perfect order. They guided us into a corridor as if surrounding us.
As we walked down the corridor, I observed our surroundings. Tapestries of battle scenes hung on the stone walls. Outside the windows, a garden shone in the moonlight. The leaves of the trees glimmered silver, and the scent of flowers drifted in. The air itself was different. Clear, cool, and somehow sweet.
Eunseo edged closer. In a whisper, she said,
“I think this is real.”
“Why?”
“The air is different. And look at that moon.”
Beyond the corridor window, there were two moons in the sky. One was large and blue, the other small and red.
“There are two moons.”
“Aren’t you scared?”
“Only on the outside. Inside, I can barely breathe.”
Eunseo laughed quietly.
The queen’s back as she walked ahead of us. Her blonde hair swayed in time with her steps, and beneath her dress, her mature curves were clear. Her ass shifted subtly left and right with every step. Her back as she strode confidently among the knights was more imposing than any knight there.
And hotter than any knight there.
⁎ ⁎ ⁎
The guest room was spacious. Torches crackled on the stone walls, and the wooden furniture was crude but sturdy. A fur blanket lay on the bed. Fruit and water sat on the table.
Outside the window, two moons hung in the sky. Blue moonlight dyed the room in a dreamlike hue.
Standing by the window, I looked up.
This isn’t Earth.
It was difficult to accept rationally, but my senses had already acknowledged reality. The texture of the air, the slight difference in gravity, the temperature of the wind against my skin. Everything was subtly different. And above all, the queen’s sensuality from earlier. It was on a level I had never felt on Earth.
I organized the facts. First, a civilization similar to medieval Europe, with magic. Second, it was a monarchy, but the real power lay with the queen. Third, the reason for summoning heroes was a crisis. Fourth, tomorrow’s skill bestowal would determine survival.
“Skill bestowal tomorrow, huh. I wonder what I’ll get.”
From the room next door, voices came through the wall.
“I hope it’s swordsmanship. No, maybe magic would be better?”
“Shut up and sleep.”
“How can you sleep? Do you even know where we are right now?”
“What can we do by staying awake? We’ll find out tomorrow anyway.”
The thin walls carried every sound.
What if I get a useless skill?
Is there no otherworld summoning manual somewhere?
Cold sweat ran down my back. The queen’s gaze came to mind. Eyes that saw heroes as tools. It wasn’t hard to imagine how a useless tool would be treated. The best case would be abandonment; the worst, execution.
I sat down on the chair. Creak. So chairs in another world creak too.
A deep breath. Hoo.
No matter what skill I get, I’ll survive. There’s a way. There has to be.
My powers of observation, my hypnotic induction techniques, and this dick. With those three, I can manage to make even another world work somehow.
Adaptation finished in half a day. Efficient, at least.
The sound of a patrol passed through the hallway. Clank, clank. The sound of armor faded away.
The two moons slowly began to sink. The blue moon touched the horizon first, and the red moon followed after it. Outside the window, a bird of this world cried, clear and long. Piiiiiiiii. A long, bright cry different from the birds of Earth opened the dawn of another world.
Far away, from a spire of the royal palace, a bell rang. Dong.
Eunseo’s face came to mind. Her calm eyes. The corners of her mouth when she had laughed softly. The number five, the condition that we were all Koreans. It wasn’t a coincidence. There was definitely some criterion.
Leaning against the window frame, I breathed in the air of this world. Air mixed with the scent of unfamiliar flowers and old stone.
I’ll pin that queen beneath me. No matter what.
My first night in another world. A night when I gained a goal in life.