I had never been so proud of my coding skills until now. I relaxed into the chair, headphones still over my ears as I waited for the next screen to load. "Why does it load so slowly? Did I skip a code?" I sighed, and before I touched the exit button, the next screen came on with a bit of a glitch.
Choose Your Succubus, Master Kaito.
Below the red flashing icon were rows of exquisitely demon figures, each one a busty, smirking MILF with eyes that depicted lust, and a sweet innocent face sculpted for only sin. Beneath each character's portrait were three stats:
Libido % — The higher it is, the hungrier for sex she'll be.
Climax: Her lust peak point. Maximize it to earn crazy.
Special Skill — Every seductress has her own gift to make you succumb to her.
My finger hovered over the joystick, scrolling slowly through the lineup. Each demoness winked, licked her lips, or tilted her head just enough to make the choice harder. Every one of them looked like she could drain me to the marrow and still be thirsty just like what any hentai addict would love.
Each succubus bore an uncanny resemblance to the infamous temptresses of Japanese lore, creatures who defiled the ten laws and was sent to hell to writhe in pain but rather they own their own hell. They were all naked, boobs fluffy and huge, perfectly shaved cunt and that inviting stares in their eyes.
My throat felt dry, my palms slick on the joystick. I scrolled past one succubus with crimson horns curling like a crown, her tongue dragging lazily across her lips as the stat bar for Libido was at 98%.
"Damn shit." I curled my hand against my mouse, clicking for the temptress demoness but before she could be selected in-game, my laptop went into red mode.
Alert: Battery percent is 4%. Please charge.
"Are you kidding me?" I rose my buried head from the screen to the dark office only realizing the blackout in the company's building. "How didn't I notice I didn't plug my laptop? Fuck!"
I exhaled hard through my nose, resting my back on the chair. I glanced at the clock, 2am the next day meaning that I had been on this game for about two hours without even noticing it.
"Great," I muttered, rubbing the back of my neck. I yanked open the top drawer of my desk, digging past cables, old instant noodle wrappers, and a box of chocolate Pocky until my fingers closed around my black flash drive.
I opened it up and plugged it in a hole on the side of my laptop. The laptop's screen glitched from the battery low mode to another alerting mode:
[ VIRUS DETECTED — DEBUG YOUR FLASH DRIVE]
"Oh, for fuck's sake," I groaned, shoving the joystick aside that it almost fell at the edge of the table. "There's no virus, you paranoid piece of junk. I literally just debugged you some days ago. Damn, I was scammed out of my fucking money and time."
My voice sprung loud with regrets, barely audible enough. I tugged at my hair in frustration, my scalp aching beneath my fingers as I yanked the flash drive out, smacked it with my palms and shoved it back in again into the dying system.
This time around, there was no virus alert. No glitch. Just the familiar ding noise of the device connecting. "Good," I released the air I never knew I had in my lungs all along, my chest rising and falling fast. "Good, good…"
I pushed myself forward to the desk and clicked [open the drive] and began copying the game files into a new folder on the flashdrive. The progress bar slid across slowly and every second it took felt like infinity.
0%, 10%, 20%… 50%… 70%… 82%… 95%.
[Copying characters 2.00.02.exe in progress]
My eyes followed the blinking bar, locked on it as if staring hard enough could push it to 100. My palms was already damp with sweat.
'Just five more percent and it would be safe. Just five—'
And the worst happened: The bar froze.
"Come on, come on…"
And then—
Screen Black.
The progress bar vanished from the screen, leaving only my own disheveled reflection staring back at me from the dead monitor.The whirr of the fan died. My breath hitched. "Fuck. No. No, no, no, no!" I smacked the keys, pressed the power button again and again.
Nothing.
The game didn't copy. Not even a fragment. My sweet succubus was trapped inside a dead machine. I shoved the chair back and stood. "I have to get that laptop on!" I held the power button again. Five seconds gone and no screen came on. The little LED on the side didn't even come on. Frustratedly, I pulled the flash drive out and jammed it back in, as if that would fix anything.
The screen stayed black.
My head drifted to the window. It was too late to take it to the electronics guy down the street, even though he stayed 24/7 in his khaki shop. I ran a hand down my face, trying to breathe, but every thought slammed against the same predicament that the game didn't copy.
I paused midair with my breathing, my mind scrambling for solutions. "Should I wait until morning? Risk losing everything? Or head out now, into the cursed hour, to the khaki shop where at least there was light, a generator, and maybe a chance to salvage her?"
But hold up…
My chest tightened as a memory clawed its way back. My grandmother, now long gone, was a demoness spirit hunter. At least, that was what she called herself. She never told stories like the other old women. Hers were warnings.
She told me the streets after midnight didn't belong to people. She said spirits walked then. Not just any spirits, but ones starving for flesh. Sex-deprived things that hunted men and women, lured them into the dark, and used their bodies until the soul slipped free. They didn't want love. They wanted to collect souls for their own enrichment in their world.
She swore men had gone out whole and come back ruined. One neighbor, she said, was dragged off and defiled by a stranger no one ever saw again. By morning, the man's eyes were hollow and his soul gone.
But standing there at 2AM with my laptop dead in my bag and sweat chilling down my spine, I wasn't laughing. I squeezed my eyes shut, gripping the straps tight.
It was either I wait here and lose everything I built, or I gamble against the stories and step into the kind of night my grandmother said could swallow me whole.
And right now…
I was leaning toward the gamble.
"It's just stories you know! Sex demons don't exist in real life, they are just characters in fanfics."