Is It Strange For A Succubus To Be Wearing Clothes?

Chapter 42

—–CROW—– 

—Ah, how beautiful…

*No, what’s beautiful about that?*

—Snap!

I snapped my fingers.

The life force dwelling within me pierced the jellyfish like an invisible blade.

Like a deflated balloon, the human-faced jellyfish fell limply to the floor.

The process was far from beautiful.

Like an insect.

Like a squashed cockroach, it landed on the floor, dirty and pathetic, its life extinguished.

“Not beautiful at all.”

I glanced at the jellyfish and continued walking.

The inside was much larger than it appeared from the outside.

Perhaps because it was a combination of a mill, auditorium, city hall, library, and all sorts of other buildings, the interior was a maze-like structure with human-like figures scattered throughout.

One approached me.

Reaching out a hand.

As if begging to be saved… or begging for its head back.

Extending a greedy hand like a beggar.

I took its hand.

And twisted.

The arm broke with a snap, bone protruding out.

Jellyfish tentacles undulated from the broken bone.

Ah, how disgusting.

I let go of the broken hand and clenched my fist.

In the direction I willed, as I desired.

Life force, essence, crushed and pressed the jellyfish before me.

—Squish!

A small amount of blood splattered, trickling between the wooden floorboards.

“Hmm, hmm, not too difficult.”

This place was full of things that had human forms but weren’t human.

This couldn’t be the real Massachusetts.

Perhaps the Rift mimicked Earth’s environment, or perhaps it created a mirror image of a world.

And these human-like beings might have been the real “inhabitants” of this place.

But now, having surrendered their heads to the jellyfish, they were no longer inhabitants but mere hosts.

Ah, you poor things.

*Plunk, plunk, plonk.*

I waved my hand.

—Thwack!

The life force within me became blades, extending in all directions.

Jellyfish died, and before they could be born, carrying heads and spines, they were sliced and diced along with their hosts.

This wasn’t a difficult dungeon.

Of course, with its grotesque and horrifying atmosphere, it might have seemed like a Rift that ordinary Hunters couldn’t easily enter.

—Beautiful.

—Beautiful.

—Beautiful.

Beautiful?

How?

What’s beautiful about these disgusting things?

My succubus instincts weren’t strong enough to completely override my reason, but they did leave a distinct mark and influence.

Especially since I held the Succubus Empress within me.

She was a part of me, one with me, but there were aspects of her aesthetic sense I didn’t quite understand.

‘What’s so beautiful about that…?  Sigh, fine. I’ll just leave it alone for a while.’

Since the Succubus Empress within me was throwing a fit about how beautiful it was, I couldn’t just kill the monsters.

So, I sat down and observed it for a moment.

The Succubus Empress said,

The dormant instinct within me whispered… *It is a nightmare rising from the abyss, an ecstasy swirling in a dreamscape.*

The human-headed jellyfish, covered in ghost-like skin,

absorbed light instead of reflecting it, scattering a dark, shimmering silver and flesh-tone,

like a chaotic feast of colors painted on a canvas by an Impressionist painter.

Its tentacles resembled human hair, yet also looked like a spine,

swaying gently in the air, following the jellyfish’s graceful movements.

As they drifted, stretching infinitely thin and long, wandering through the air like exploring the depths of the ocean, their swaying forms seemed inexplicably fragile, like a child hanging by a thread.

The tentacles were cruelly soft.

They looked soft even without touching them, and they seemed filled with deadly poison and parasites that would rot flesh.

Even a casual brush against the spine-like tentacles would leave pain and fear, yet their curves seemed to possess a delicate elegance.

Why did they seem elegant?

Were they elegant because they resembled humans?

Or did they appear elegant because they parasitized humans?

Swaying.

Glittering.

I made eye contact with a human-faced jellyfish floating in the air.

The observer instinctively felt fear, yet was drawn to a strange allure, unable to look away.

The subtle tremors emanating from the tips of the tentacles created an illusion of unfading petals dancing, but the deadly poison and the aura of decaying life within were utterly repulsive.

I clenched my fist.

My life force volatilized, becoming invisible telekinetic power.

—Squish!

The floating thing burst.

The burst remnants fell before my eyes.

From within the dying jellyfish’s transparent body, a human eye clearly emerged, its gaze cold and empty.

The chill of death emanating from the eyes, which seemed to see everything yet nothing, paradoxically highlighted the beauty of its existence.

The human-faced jellyfish floated elegantly like a star in the infinite universe, yet its elegant flesh was undoubtedly filled with decay and stench… Ah, the subtle yet contrasting sensations somehow seemed beautiful…

—Be, come, one, with, us!

Another jellyfish, newly appeared, cried out.

No, I wasn’t sure if the jellyfish cried out, but an unidentified voice from that head burrowed into my mind.

The deeper I went into the building,

the more I entered a space where old wooden planks were geometrically assembled, like a swirling maze.

Jellyfish floated above.

Humans.

Or something resembling humans, their heads serving as hosts, floating in the air…

Their eyes, nose, and mouth were sealed with flesh, devoid of any expression, yet somehow, those heads all seemed to be smiling.

Suddenly, realization dawned upon me.

Ah, those hosts willingly… joyfully offered their bodies to the jellyfish.

‘Ah, I understand.’

Now I understood why the Succubus Empress within me insisted it was beautiful.

Disgusting, filthy, and… creepy, yet simultaneously fluid and elegant like a human touch.

The repulsive aesthetics of the gap.

The beauty shining through ugliness.

That was the nature of the jellyfish.

They mesmerized humans and sentient beings, turning them into hosts, and extended their repulsive yet mystical tentacles like lovers, parasitizing them.

By the standards of the non-human, the Succubus Empress’s aesthetics, it was a valid form of beauty.

But only to that extent.

The swaying tentacles of the human-faced jellyfish were impressive, but they still looked repulsive…

‘What if it were me…?’

Ah, I couldn’t help but imagine.

What if I became one with it?

If I, beautiful me, became one with that repulsive thing, would it be beautiful?

What would happen if I, unlike those humans parasitized by the jellyfish, became one with it?

Curiosity was the first thing I felt.

What if I wore it like a hat, like a crown?

If I became its head.

If I became its face.

If I.

If I.

Ah…

‘It would definitely be beautiful…’

It would definitely be beautiful.

If I were embraced by those transparent, deep flesh-colored tentacles, if it perched on my head like a hat, and the tentacles descended, burrowing into my ears, controlling my mind…

If I were captured by it.

If I.

Beautiful me.

If I, the Succubus Empress, were captured by it…

Like a captured princess.

Like a knight bound by a monster.

Like a pitiful noblewoman, entangled and gracefully swaying in the monster’s tentacles and grasp…

‘Ah, this is dangerous…’

I empathized.

I sympathized.

I understood.

Ordinary succubi were slaves to lust, lovers of lust.

But the Succubus Empress was different.

What she pursued was… all forms of beauty.

And among them, the most stimulating and deadly beauty was the [Aesthetics of Ruin].

I felt beauty in ruin…

In my own ruin.

In my own collapse.

I wanted… to see the pitiful yet beautiful sight of beautiful me being tainted by that repulsive aesthetic.

I wanted to see it.

I wanted to feel it.

How… how beautiful would my ruin be?

How much sadistic beauty would the sight of pitiful, beautiful me being ruined exude?

Aha, hahaha…

—Squish, squelch…

The tentacles descended.

I think I understood what it was.

Emitting light that mesmerized sentient beings, the spine-like tentacles hypnotized and brainwashed people.

*I am harmless.*

*I am alright.*

*I am fine.*

*So, let’s become one.*

It whispered.

Even though it didn’t speak human language, I could hear the jellyfish’s will, its words.

And it gently landed on the heads of defenseless, mesmerized humans.

“Ah… Come here…”

Gently… like a hat, like a crown, snugly on my head.

It descended voraciously, and aha, ha, hahaha.

—Thud!

—Squelch!

It entered my head.

Tentacles, tentacles, tentacles, in my head, on my beautiful hair, on my face, in my ears, ears, aha, heehee, hehehehe.

Burrowing into my ear canals!

Ah!

Aha, ha, it hurts.

It hurts.

It doesn’t hurt.

Aha, ha, feels, good.

It feels good.

To me?

To such an insignificant, lower life form?

To a pathetic, pitiful jellyfish that can’t survive without a human host…?

I’m willingly offering myself?

Me?

Beautiful me, to this insect?

Hee, hee. Hehehe.

Hehehe. Ehe.

Hehehehe…

Kyaha, haa, haaa.

Haaaang…

How do I look right now?

Me, right now.

How pitiful and lovely am I?

I should… take a selfie.

I have to capture this.

—Squirm, squirm.

The tentacles burrowed into my head.

Hee, heek. It’s not rough.

It’s burrowing gently.

Without hurting me.  Without causing pain.

Only pleasure.

A smile naturally formed on my face from the pleasure of my brain cells bursting.

Okay, I’ll take a picture.

Kimchi, cheese, smile…

“Ah, heh. Hee… Beau, tiful…”

I’m truly…

Beautiful.

Pitiful.

Pretty.

The tentacles settled gently on my head like a crown… aha, hahaha.

They crawled down my arms, intertwining between my fingers like clasped hands.

—Click!

“Hee, hee, hehehe, did the picture… turn out okay?”

The tentacles covered my eyes.

But they’re translucent… I can see.

Let’s see…

Ah, the picture is beautiful.

So pitiful.

Me, entangled in tentacles.

Me, lying in a mystical coffin.

Like a single, fragile flower sinking into the sea.

The cold sensation seeping into my skin was strangely comforting, and in that flow, I felt ecstasy…

Me, right now.

Completely pitiful.

So beautiful.

Aha, haha, hahaha.

My senses are collapsing.

This is too beautiful to keep to myself!

Ah, right.

—Beep, beep.

[Yes, this is Civil Servant Dan Ah-yeon… Huh, Jae-hee-nim? What is it?]

“Dan, Un, nie, am I pretty?”

[What? No, Jae-hee-nim! I told you! Don’t contact me until you renew your Hunter license! This time, I’m serious…]

“This is, a, video, call…?”

[What? What do you…]

And then, silence.

Ahaha, haha, I’m buried in tentacles.

Ahahaha.

How do I look?

Am I pitiful?

Unnie.

Dan Unnie.

Am I pretty?

Beautiful?

“Am I, pret, ty?”

[…]

I can see Dan Unnie’s face.

Can you see me, Unnie?

[Ah…]

Ahaha, you can see me.

What kind of expression is that?

Like she’s about to scream, or surprised, or… an interesting expression.

Ah, maybe it’s because I’m so beautiful right now that you can’t take your eyes off me?

Aha, haha.

Heehee, hehehe!

“Ah, right now, Dan, Unnie. Your expression… is so, deli, cious.”

[I’m coming right now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

The call ended with a scream.

‘Ah, not bad…’

Actually, even though this jellyfish burrowed into my head,

it can’t control me at all…

*Huh? It’s dangerous because it burrowed into your brain?*

As if the Succubus Empress would die or get hurt from having her head blown off or burst a few times?

—–CROW—– 

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