By Zephyria 
First, guided by the servant entities, they entered the room. Once they were alone, Jeil Heon attempted to examine him thoroughly to see if he was injured, so Yoo Jiha held up the bead of the necklace.
“I almost had my brain ripped out, but they treated me well after seeing this necklace.”
“……Your brain?”
Jeil Heon looked as if he had a great deal to say, but he remained silent. While the energy contained within belonged to Gong Ran-sa, the bead itself had been crafted by Mae-gu, so the creatures must have recognized it quickly. Although it was a huge relief, he couldn’t stop his heart from sinking. If Jiha had entered a different Aberrant Realm, it could have ended in disaster.
Sensing his mood, Yoo Jiha fidgeted with his fingers.
“I’ll make sure not to enter an Aberrant Realm alone from now on. So, please tell me where you’re going. I know I probably don’t seem reliable because I’m like a child…”
Before he could finish his slightly crestfallen sentence, Jeil Heon leaned in and sucked on his upper lip. The moment Yoo Jiha’s eyes widened, a soft, supple tongue entered his mouth, providing a gentle stimulation.
“……!”
Startled, Jiha couldn’t react, and in that brief moment, Jeil Heon pulled away. Then, a whisper drifted in through wet breaths.
“If I truly saw you as a child, would I have been able to kiss you?”
Lost in the fluttering afterglow of the sudden kiss, Yoo Jiha touched his lips for a moment. He could feel his fingertips damp.
“……You said you wouldn’t do it with me because I’m young.”
“I was afraid.”
“I was?”
“Afraid that you might leave.”
The more he heard, the less it made sense. Stroking the back of the tilting Yoo Jiha’s head, Jeil Heon buried his face in the crown of his head.
“This is your first time dating, your first kiss, and your first time with physical intimacy. Since everything is a first for you, I should go slowly and match your pace, but I am too vulgar a human for that.”
What had it been like when their lips first met? To a clumsy and pure kiss that had been stiff with tension just from the touching of lips, what had he given in return? Whenever he recalled those eyes, bewildered and lost, swept away by an uncontrollable, rough desire, Jeil Heon felt afraid.
Afraid that he might lose control and pour out his desire again, engraving fear into the boy. Afraid that such engraved fear would eventually lead the boy to withdraw his heart and distance himself.
A future without Yoo Jiha did not exist for him, but the reverse was not true. Yoo Jiha could leave him at any time. Jeil Heon feared that a single spark of desire he left in the boy might become the starting point of a distortion. Rather than lose him, it was better to castrate his own desires.
Though, because he couldn’t do so, things had ended up like this.
“……I really am a pathetic human.”
Speaking it aloud, there was no one more miserable than he. A foolish sense of self-loathing mixed with his sigh.
Listening with his head bowed low, Yoo Jiha managed to squeeze out a stuttering voice.
“Mister, when you do that… do you, like, want to choke me or hit me, or… like that?”
“……Who told you such things exist?”
“From you. You’re the one who brought up BDSM the first time we met.”
“…….”
Jeil Heon seemed dazed for a moment before letting out a hollow laugh.
“No. I don’t.”
“Then I’m… I’m okay with it… You can do whatever you want… I think I might not be able to handle BDSM, but other things would be… I think they’d be good. No, I like them.”
He wanted to say it nonchalantly, as if sex were nothing, but he was so embarrassed that his voice kept trembling. Since he struggled so much just to say one sentence, he had no right to complain if Jeil Heon viewed him as young.
Too ashamed to even dare look him in the face, Yoo Jiha kept his head bowed. Jeil Heon ruffled the hair at the back of his head somewhat roughly and pulled him into an embrace.
“……I suppose I was the one who wasn’t acting like an adult. Honestly, talking should have come first, but I was afraid of even that. I won’t hide anything from you again.”
Through their touching faces, he could feel Jeil Heon’s heartbeat, which was racing faster than usual. Listening to that sound, feeling that this fluttering wasn’t his alone, made him feel a little better.
Suddenly, he felt a warm breath against his ear, and a wet tongue licked the rim of his ear. Startled, Yoo Jiha almost let out a strange moan and quickly bit his lower lip. Every time his earlobe was caught between his teeth, a thrill like an electric shock surged through his waist. Just as he had felt that night, he didn’t hate it. In fact, he loved it.
The hand resting on his twitching back caressed his spine, slowly sliding down to lightly squeeze his buttocks. With just a slight pull, their lower bodies pressed together. Recalling the firm thighs he had felt clearly that night and the crystallization of lust that lay beyond, his throat went dry.
Jeil Heon whispered, pressing his lips close to his ear.
“I want to get out of here quickly. Is that okay?”
Immediately understanding the reason why they had to leave quickly, Yoo Jiha nodded fervently.
“Ah, right. But Mister.”
“Yes?”
“You’re not my first relationship.”
“……Hm?”
He wasn’t sure if it was his imagination, but Jeil Heon’s heartbeat quickened further.
For some reason, Jeil Heon’s expression became extremely complex, as if he had a thousand things to say, but deciding that finishing the business in the Aberrant Realm was the priority, he swallowed his words and explained the circumstances.
After hearing the story, Yoo Jiha’s eyes widened.
“There was an Aberration you were chasing personally without notifying the Management Bureau? And the person—no, the Aberration—who was supposed to deliver the Divine Tool to deal with it was the one in the black hanbok we just saw? You had an Aberration acquaintance?”
“A fox demon called Mae-gu. He’s not hostile toward the Management Bureau, so he helps humans occasionally if he feels like it. With your Security Level, you probably can’t access the records. It would be best not to let others know you’ve met him.”
As he listened to the cool explanation, a thought occurred to him. Jeil Heon, who had lost a close acquaintance to an Aberration. And the Aberration he was personally chasing.
“Um, is the Aberration you’re chasing by any chance the Smiling Man?”
“……Who told you that name?”
“I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to dig into your past on purpose, but I heard it while talking to Teacher Yeo-song. That… your school Hubae passed away…”
Jeil Heon roughly ruffled the hair of the slightly cowed Yoo Jiha, his voice sinking low.
“I’m not scolding you. It’s not a secret that Hyun-woo died. But from now on, try not to even think of that name. If you perceive it too strongly, it could attract anomalies. It’s fine here since Pilgyeongdang cannot be infiltrated from the outside, but still.”
As if to end the conversation there, Jeil Heon changed the subject.
“There’s nothing good about staying in an Aberrant Realm for too long, so shall we go solve the task?”
“’The most noble person’ seems too vague.”
“Hmm, it probably won’t be that hard. This Aberrant Realm operates according to the rules Mae-gu created.”
It was exactly as he said. When he asked who the most noble person was, the butler entity answered immediately.
「If you seek the most noble, it must be the eldest young lady of the household of the Munhasijung.」
It even kindly gave them directions. A Munhasijung was the highest official position in Goryeo, similar to the Chief State Councilor of Joseon. It was now certain that the background of this Aberrant Realm was Goryeo, though he wasn’t sure if that would help with the task.
Following the directions from the butler entity, they saw a woman just coming out on horseback from a pavilion that was several times more magnificent than Mae-gu’s house. Since she was accompanied by soldier entities as guards, there was a high probability she was a member of the Munhasijung’s family. Before Jiha could finish worrying about how to approach her, Jeil Heon strode forward.
“Are you the eldest daughter of the Lord Munhasijung?”
……He always thought this, but this man truly had no filter when facing anomalies.
The entity on the horse stopped the soldier entities who had abruptly leveled their spears and lifted her veil.
“What an insolent person. For what reason have you come to seek me?”
Yoo Jiha flinched and gripped Jeil Heon’s hand tightly, and Jeil Heon’s eyes also widened. The youthful face revealed beneath the veil looked to be only in her mid-to-late teens, and moreover, she was a pure Spirit, not an anomaly, completely untouched by Contamination.
It is impossible for a soul that has drifted into a place with such a high concentration of contamination as an Aberrant Realm to remain uncontaminated. Furthermore, this soul was following the rules as if she were bound to the Aberrant Realm.
……She could not possibly be an ordinary soul. His nervous Adam’s apple bobbed slightly. Who is she, this soul?